Jo Robertson - The Avenger

Olivia realized now that the maniacal glint of his eyes, the twisted leer of his lips had always been there, but gone unnoticed. He believed he was a holy avenger punishing sinners for their evil deeds and using ancient modes of execution.

What had Jack said? For a serial killer, it was all about sex. Howard wanted to have sexual power over her, not mete out punishment for her sins. She saw the dichotomy that he wrestled with. Needing to rape her and wanting to offer her as a religious sacrifice. Coveting both, but realizing he'd have to choose one or the other.

Howard's lips moved minimally in a face set in carved stone. "Feeling the effects of my little drug concoction, are you, my dear?"

His eyes ran up and down her body, and she felt the arrows of a thousand stings against her flesh, the humiliation of every one of his victims. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat muscles remained locked.

"Never mind," he chortled, "the effect is short-lived. You'll be chattering like a jaybird in a few moments."

Indeed, a moment later she felt the numbness receding, the particular tingling that meant the return of feeling. But how to handle him now that he seemed practically giddy with anticipation?

When her speech returned, Olivia wet her parched lips. "Would you please cover me up?" She forced herself to remain civil, and mildly subservient. Her anger would only make matters worse as it had before.

He hesitated, brows lifted. "Of course, my dear." He reached behind him for a pristine white cloth – a surplice, she thought – unfolded it, and draped it across her body. The brief surge of gratitude she felt for the man who'd kidnapped and drugged her annoyed the hell out of her.

Howard loomed over her. If all her muscles had been working properly she could've clawed his face. Spat at him. As it was, she could only muster up a frown. "What are you… " Her voice cracked like a rusty pipe and she tried again. "What are you going to do?"

"Something holy." He swept one hand around the spacious room. Then he dipped his fingers in a small stainless bowl she hadn't noticed resting beside the platform on which she lay.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," he intoned, his solemn voice echoing in the vast room.

"What's happening?" The oily moistness of his fingers touched her forehead, her chest, and her shoulders. Anointed oil. Was he baptizing her? She gazed into the face hovering over her and knew she was looking into the face of moral and psychic aberration.

"I'm giving you a new name. Henceforth and forever, you will be known by this name. When God calls you up into his sacred presence, this is the name He will use." He closed his eyes and tilted his head backwards, raising both hands and uttering the phrase. "Deo volente. Deo volente. Deo volente."

God willing. God willing. God willing. Repeated three times representing the Holy Trinity, she realized.

"Introib ad altare Dei." He uttered what sounded like random words cobbled together as gibberish until she recognized disconnected words from the opening phrase of a Catholic mass.

I shall go to the altar of God.

Her head and neck now mobile, Olivia glanced around her to confirm that she indeed lay on an altar, its faux marble hard beneath her hips and shoulders.

"Magnificat anima meas Dominum," he intoned.

Her best hope for survival lay in pretending to accommodate Howard's religious fervor. She repeated his last words in English, "My soul does magnify the Lord."

A look of surprise crossed his face. "Deus vobiscum." God be with you. His lack of proficiency in Latin was clear now. Howard used only common Latin phrases, apparently all that he knew, with only vague understanding of their applications.

Trance-like, he pulled the white cloth down to her waist and placed the flat of his hand on her chest, nestled between her breasts. As she felt the return of sensation to the rest of her body, she twisted her head. At some point he'd unbuttoned the bottom of the thirty-three fastenings of the cassock. The robe fell open to show his nakedness and the undeniable evidence of his arousal.

And the unmistakable point of the knife in his other hand. A bulge in the left full pocket that could mean another weapon.

"Ave Maria," he whispered . "Beata Virgo Maria." Hail, Mary, blessed Virgin Mary. Did he mistake her for another vestal virgin? Or did he think she was Mary, the Mother of God?

"Mater Dei," she spoke softly, letting the words trail from her tongue in what she hoped imitated religious rapture. Mother of God.

"Amen," he answered. So be it. He reached both hands toward her, pulling her up from her prone position on the altar. As she sat up, the cloth clung to her loins. Putting modesty aside, running only on the instinct of survival, she stood and allowed Howard to take her left hand and escort her naked down the two steps from the altar podium to the carpeted runner that divided the congregational aisles.

"From now on, you will be called Mary – Maria – and to this name you will answer for the rest of eternity." He looked slantwise at her, a hard look that brooked no disobedience. "Do you understand this great honor, Maria?"

She inclined her head in proper servitude. "Fiat voluntas tua." She caught the fleeting look of confusion on Howard's face. As she'd thought, he was incapable of interpreting Latin constructions.

Hoping he wouldn't notice the cover up, she hurriedly repeated, "Thy will be done."

"Deus vult," he answered. God wills it.

As they began the interminable march down the center aisle, Howard continued, "You are with child, Maria. Gloria Deo."

Olivia jerked back, nearly pulling her hand from his light grip. Why did he suspect that? She'd just gotten her period. There was no way she was pregnant. There was no child.

She opened her mouth to say as much and clamped it shut again. If Howard thought she was pregnant, she wouldn't disillusion him. She'd play into whatever bizarre religious scenario he was acting out. Modestly she placed her right hand on her belly. Howard smiled in approbation as they continued down the aisle to the imitation statute of Pietà, the Mother of God holding her son's broken body.

Howard smiled beatifically, while she wondered what dark desires lay beneath the hallowed duplicity. She knew he desired her. No, he wanted to inflict pain on her, and struggled between hurting her and sacrificing her on the altar of his monstrously deluded ego.

A moment later, if he hadn't been so intently focused on her, he would've seen what Olivia glimpsed from the corner of her eye. Beside the pillared Doric column, the faint shade of something animate.

A shadow that might mean rescue.

When Olivia glanced again a few moments later, the shadow was gone, but she knew it was Jack. Suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness, she turned toward Howard.

"I should be clothed," she commanded, indicating her bare body with a sweep of her hand from head to foot. "Agnus Dei, Mater Dei ." The Lamb of God, the Mother of God. She hoped he'd understand her use of the simple Latin phrases.

A flicker of hope at the possibility of rescue made her knees weak and her hands tremble. Please, God, she thought, give Jack and me another chance.

The gas station attendant knew the property and its exact location. While Warren shifted impatiently, the pimply-faced kid whose nametag said Wayne, seemed intent on explaining the entire history of the church and its surrounding land.

"Look," the Judge snapped, "just give us the goddamn directions."

The attendant pouted for a moment as if he'd lost a big tip and then shrugged and pointed out the road that led to the unused church.