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His face streae that had been offered to his suffering savior
"I believe I believe in the mercy of Christ Yes, I believe I believe in the ht flared in his eyes
Flared
Father Tom came at me first, perhaps because I was between him and the doorway, perhaps because ave us such ojerrie, her life’s work alsoat the end of the priest’s left arh the human side of him surely did believe in the immortal soul and the sweet mercy of Christ, it was understandable if soeance
No matter what else he was, Father Tom was still a priest, and my folks had not raised me to take punches at priests, or at people insane with despair, for that ht years of parental instruction overcame my survival instinct--which ressively countering Father Tom’s assault, I crossed my arms over my face and tried to turn away frorade-school boy in a playground brawl, he threw hi his entire body as a weapon, ra into me with a lot more force than you would expect from an ordinary priest, even more than you’d expect from a Jesuit
Driven backward, I slaed into my back, just belowat ht fist, but I was e I didn’t kno sharp the serrated edges on those little pincers ht be, but , which looked unclean Not unclean in a sanitary sense Unclean in the sense that the cloven hoof or the hairless pink corkscrew tail of a deently repeated his stateious commitment: "I believe in the mercy of Christ, the mercy of Christ, the mercy, I believe in the mercy of Christ!"
His spittle sprayed ly sith the fragrance of pepper wasn’t meant to persuade me or anyone else--not even God--of the priest’s unshaken faith Rather, he was trying to convince himself of his belief, to remind himself that he had hope, and to use that hope to seize control of hiht in his eyes, in spite of the urge to kill that puth into his undisciplined body, I could see the earnest and vulnerable e within and to find his way back toward grace
Shouting, cursing, Bobby and Roosevelt clutched at the priest, trying to tear hi fast to me, Father Tom kicked at them, drove his elbows backward into their stohter when he launched hi fast Or perhaps he was losing the struggle to subdue his new beco and killing
I felt so at my sweater and was sure that it was the hateful claw The pincer serrations were snagged in the cotton fabric
With revulsion thick in rabbed the priest’s wrist to restrain hireasy, and as vile to the touch as ht be a corpse in an advanced state of decay In places, the h in other places, his skin had hardened into what ht have been patches of a sle had been desperate yet at least darkly ah at now but at which you knew you would laugh later, over a beer, on the beach: this roundhouse fight with a chubby clergyman in a chintz-choked bedroom, a Looney Tunes collaboration between Chuck Jones and H P Lovecraft But suddenly a positive outcoo, and it wasn’t ahtly, not even darkly
His wrist joint was no longer like the wrist joint you study on a skeleton chart in a general-biology class,advanced deliriue The entire hand turned backward on the wrist, as no human hand could do, as if it operated on a ball joint, and the pincers snapped at o before he had a chance to cutwith the priest long enough to justify having his na frenzy for no more than half a entle animal communicator co hi him as if he were no heavier than the real Death, who is, after all, nothing but bones in a robe
Cassock skirt flaring, Father To the pair of suicides to bounce as though with post under the to his feet with inhurunting like a boar, spitting, e, he seized a walnut chair that featured tie-on cushions in a daffodil print and slip-on daffodil arm protectors, and for an instant it see around him, but then he pitched it at Roosevelt
Roosevelt spun away just in time to take the chair across his broad back rather than in the face
From the television came the mellifluous and emotional voice of Elton John, with full orchestral and choral accoht?"
Even as the chair was cracking against Roosevelt’s back, Father Toe quickly enough The bench clipped her shoulder and knocked her over an ottoman