Father Malachai prepared for everything. The victim, selected to atone for his sins and yet redeemable, lay strapped to a table in the basement of the rectory. One candle was left burning, casting long shadows on stone walls. Scalpels, bone saws, clamps laid out properly, all shone in the dim light.
With a whispered prayer, Malachai made the first incision. The blade pierced the skin at the base of the throat, slid down along the sternum, parting the flesh cleanly in two. Blood pooled beneath the body, its warmth dissipating into the cool air. He paused to admire his workâa perfect line that divided the human shell.
The opening of the rib cage followed. Malachai grasped the bone saw in his hands, the teeth of which were jagged to rip through the bone with heartless efficiency. He laid the blade just beneath the clavicle and began sawing through the ribs in sure, rhythmic strokes. The sound was that of a nauseating crunch-a harmony of steel and bone. The ribs on both sides were cut, after which he took a pair of rib spreaders and pried the chest open to show the cavity.
The lungs, soft and glistening, rose and fell with the shallow breaths-if the victim still lived-or lay still, that bright color dulling to gray in death. Malachai was always in awe at such a sight and muttered praises to his God for the fragile beauty of it all. Gently, he pulled the ribs outward and upward, splaying them wide like so many wings unfolding.
Satisfied with his work, Malachai placed it in readiness to be shown. He lifted the lifeless form; blood smeared his cassock as he carried the body to its last resting place, which was always somewhere public and where the presence would appall and amaze. The victim was then hung from his arms, the wrists tightly bound with coarse rope; the head lolled forward, and the chest cavity was agape like a flower that had burst into bloom. The blood, not having been drained, oozed down their torso in rivulets to collect at their feet.
The ribs, spread wide and shining like ivory, framed the lungs, which sometimes sagged just a little, partially visible against the dark of the body cavity. To Malachai, it was a masterpiece-a message of divine transformation. To the people who found the body at dawn, it was an abomination.
Each display was left deliberately for the city to find, positioned to evoke the image of crucifixionâa reminder of sacrifice, or so Malachai believed. The victimsâ arms stretched upward, their bodies slack yet horrifyingly serene. The macabre tableau spoke of pain, yet in Malachaiâs warped mind, it whispered of grace.
And so, with each break of dawn, with each light creeping into the city, another angel was hanging in the square. The people came, silent in their stunned assembly, whispers of the latest work of the Angelmaker rioting in a tide of fear laced with curiosity. Each of the bodies held a story; the message was well out of reach.
