What had been a quiet stroll, erupted into commotion as Rose and Leonard turned the final corner onto 16th street. St. Francis Xavier church towered over its surroundings, its spires casting shadows that draped you from half a block away. Intricate stone carvings butted up against vibrant stained-glass images. Hundreds of people milled about the steps; some catching up, their heads thrown back in laughter, others navigating the traffic up the cobbled steps to find their usual seats.

Leonard led her through clusters of men dressed in suits and women strung with pearls. Somebody squeezed behind her and jammed their shoulder against her back sending a rush of heat through her roots. Rose winced and tried to shake it off, but her roots were burning again, still sensitive from Leonard’s gentle butchering the night before.

“You alright pup?”

“Yah, just sensitive still.” 

She did a performative tap of her shoulder and Leonard nodded.

“Let’s get inside.”

They darted around a group of elderly women and walked through one of the two sets of towering wooden double doors.

Inside, three rows of pews were bracketed by stone columns connected by arches. Rose wrinkled her nose at the onslaught of cologne and floral perfumes that pervaded the atmosphere.  A choir had filed into the risers behind the pulpit and were quietly warming up, their voices casting an ethereal tone over the room. Leonard tugged her hand, and they found a seat at the halfway mark.

Strangers nodded their heads at them and a few finely dressed women smiled warmly at Rose before moving on to find their own seats. Between the choir and the endless Sunday pleasantries, a great murmur rose and fell in a fight for dominance, all of which came to a sputtering halt as a priest appeared and made his way up to the pulpit. The last few conversations faded away when he spoke into the microphone.

“Good morning,” he said in a warm tone.

The cavernous acoustics of the room carried his voice to each and every member, and they responded back to him in kind. Rose shot Leonard a furtive glance. Clearly there were some idiosyncrasies she had not been made aware of and standing out was the last thing she wanted to be doing. It would be important to keep an eye on him, so she knew how to act.

“Please join me in our morning prayer.”

The congregation moved in unison; the women hiking their dresses ever so slightly, the men tugging at their hems as the church as a whole knelt down on thinly cushioned racks that flipped down from the seats in front of them.

“We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection until you come again.”

Leonard nudged her and nodded his head at an off-white postcard with the words written on them fixed to the back of the pew. She mouthed the words to keep up decorum but couldn’t help but feel like an imposter. None of this made any sense to her. The urge to stand up and scream you’re all wrong! twisted a knot in her stomach but for Leonard’s sake she stayed quiet. Despite her best efforts, she found her eyes wandering from the page in front of her and surveying the crowd. Frank was supposed to be here, or so Leonard had said. Maybe he’d told her that just to shut her up, though in the brief time she’d known him, that didn’t seem like something he would do.

She’d scanned what felt like the entire room before feeling the heat on her back. She craned her neck and met the piercing brown eyes of Frank, six chairs back and a full row over. How long had he been watching her? His expression offered nothing, but he looked as good as she remembered. Maybe even better in the midnight blue suit he was wearing. 

“Told you,” Leonard whispered. 

She ignored him.

Frank held her gaze, unwavering until the prayer came to an end and people retook their seats. When Rose looked back at him, he was watching the priest like everybody else. A few times throughout the sermon she felt the heat again, but whenever she looked back, he was ignoring her. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She craned her neck further back and saw Al stationed at one of the church doors. They looked normal next to him despite being at least fifteen feet tall. He was watching her, although he looked anything but interested. Dead eyes and just vacant awareness of her every move. Like they were in some sort of sedated staring contest.

Rose eventually gave up and rolled her eyes back to the pulpit where the priest talked for another hour before the choir filed back on stage, a few of them shaking the blood back into their legs along the way. Rose chose to not participate in the singing portion of things and glanced around at the architecture instead.

Giant canvases framed in gold dotted every ten feet of wall. Endless paintings depicted a white Jesus and his servants performing theoretic miracles. Acts of God. By all accounts, almost none of it was true. At least according to the archives. What would happen if they all knew? Rose lingered on a particular painting full of ivory-skinned angels spreading fluffy white wings and smirked. Pretty much the only thing they had gotten right were the angels. Well, almost. 

The columns of the building stretched up to a second balcony illuminated by arched windows that punctuated every fifteen feet of stone, dust fluttering amongst their rays. The ceilings stretched up to a stained-glass dome that coloured the air below. A vivid depiction of a floral wreath encircling four crosses pointing in different directions. The crosses weren’t much to look at, but the wreath was beautiful; dazzling yellows and blues intertwined with an emerald-green vine. One of the blue petals in particular stood out from the rest. Rose gazed at it. It was darker than the others, more sapphire than summer sky. And then the darkness moved. Rose flinched and searched the painting, eyes flitting back and forth. Could someone have been watching her from up there? One of the night hunters? It seemed crazy to think but it was Rose who had lost her wings, not them. She felt Leonard squeeze her hand, then, when she didn’t respond, he leaned onto her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“Everything alright pup?”

“Thought I saw someone up there.”

“Up where? The dome?”

“Yah.”

Rose hadn’t taken her eyes off the dome.

“Did you see a face?”

“Just a shadow.”

“It’s th’ fuckin’ pigeons I bet. There are more pigeons up there than there are people down here. Believe me, I should know.”

Rose gave the dome one last scan, but it was clear that whatever had been up there before had moved on and staring any longer would only serve to give her a neck ache. The final hymn came to an end and as Rose turned to leave a hand clasped her shoulder. Rose spun around to an all-too happy face, white teeth pulled back into a smile, and eyelashes that extended past the bridge of her nose. She could smell the mouth wash on her breath when she nodded at her and said:

“Lord be with you.”

She gripped Rose’s hand in hers and shook it up and down.

“God knows you folks need it.” 

“Uhh, thank you,” Rose said, retracting her hand.

The woman’s face did a poor job of hiding the sting of Rose’s rejection. She dusted her dress off before turning with a ‘humph’ and going the long way around the pew. Rose turned back to Leonard.

“‘Fraid there’s no shortage of women like her around here. That wasn’t so bad though, was it?”

“When you see Sikh’s praying to their version of God, what thought crosses your mind?”

“That it’s a shame.”

Rose smiled at him.

“I think that’s a great way to put it.”  

She ducked around him, eager to clear the crowd and hopefully catch Frank before he left too. Leonard and his justifications stumbled after her, his voice peeking through the after-service chaos.

“Easy for you to say, love. You–”

His voice continued to bob in and out like a buoy in choppy waters. Frank was outside posted up beside one of the columns; hands in his pockets and one leg kicked back against the column. If Rose knew any better, she’d say he was waiting for her. Al was with him too, cigarette dangling from his mammoth mouth. He pulled on it before looking to the sky and exhaling above everyone else.

“Lovely sermon, wasn’t it?” Frank asked with a disarming smile.        

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t listen.”

Frank pulled a pack of Camels from his jacket pocket and lit it up. He spoke to her through wisps of smoke.

“That’s right. You were too busy lookin’ at everybody else. Worried about something?” He leaned in closer to her. “Or somebody?”

“You can never be too careful in my line of work.”

“Mm,” he took a drag then shook the cigarette in her direction. “And what exactly is that sweetheart? Cause I’ll give you this. Those prints…”

His eyebrows lifted. 

Was he impressed?

“They came back clean.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Well there we go. Look at that Al. Simple, ain’t it?”

Al looked down at them but didn’t respond. Leonard jogged up and came to a halt beside her.

“Listen flower-”

“It’s Rose.”

Frank hid his umbrage at being corrected with an ashing of his cigarette. 

“Flower. Petal. Whatever. This isn’t the place to discuss business.”

“So when can we talk?”

“Tonight. I’ll send Al to pick you up shortly after midnight.”

“Okay. How will you know where I’ll be?” Rose turned to Leonard. “What’s the–”

“I don’t need the address Tulip.”

He took one last pull before dropping it to the ground and smothering it with a shiny black Oxford.

“And whatever you do, don’t keep Al waiting. He doesn’t like to wait.”

Rose looked up at Al and he grunted in her direction.

“Trust me.”

And with that, he set off, his trusty elephant ambling after him. 

“What have you gotten yourself into, pup?”

Rose turned to him.

“I guess we’ll find out tonight.” 

Leonard couldn’t hide the shock in his face.

“You don’t even know what he’s peggin’ you for?”

Rose shrugged at him then started down the steps.

“What if he asks you to steal something? Or even worse, kill someone? That’s what these people do, Rose.”

“If you knew that, why did you let me go see him yesterday? Hm?”

Leonard’s mouth searched for the words his brain hadn’t come up with yet.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you think I was going to fuck him?”

His face turned red.

“Did you?”

“What? No!”

Rose whirled around and stuck a finger in his chest.

“Don’t lie to me.”

She stared at him until he broke and looked down at his feet. Rose shook her head.

“You’re all the fuckin’ same.”

“I am nothing like him.”

“Then start acting like it,” she huffed and spun on her heels. 

“Rose, where are you going?”

She ignored him and his protests continued.

“Rose, that’s not even the way home. Rose!”

Stupid fucking men and their one track minds.

Her feet pounded the pavement with each marching step. Up there. Down here. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t the same as Frank but sometimes the similarities just felt so big, so unmanageably maddening, she could just scream. It took three blocks until her cheeks cooled and she couldn’t hear her own heartbeat in her eardrums anymore. She was just starting to regain her composure when a voice boomed out from behind her.

“‘Scuse me gorgeous.”

SERIOUSLY?

She spun around, fists balled up and ready to dress the man down when a thick ham of a hand clocked her square in the nose. She teetered back on her heels, tears flooding her eyes, and grasped around for something to steady herself on. A black hood was pulled down over her face and a pair of wiry fingers pulled her wrists behind her and wrangled them with a pair of zip ties.

“Hey!” She strained against them, but another first connected with her mouth this time and the taste of copper poured onto her tongue.

Oh fuck.

She could feel her consciousness waning. The man holding her arms behind her let her crumple to the ground and the brute straddled her and went to work. Blow after blow rained down on her, her own protests warbled behind a wave of blood pooling in the back of her throat. The sound of her own jaw cracking was the last thing she felt before her body took mercy and let her black out.