His eyes caught the glint of streetlight that flashed against the dangerous white fangs, and quickly he started to make sense of what the priest had meant when he said God had a larger bone to pick with him. Despite his usual desire to remain indifferent, he found himself wondering about the priest, about what being a vampire meant for him. He wondered: what is the limitation on forgiveness? He also wondered if the priest, in all his probable many years, had already answered it.
There was a long, pregnant silence that followed the priest’s words that Mag wasn’t eager to fill. That’s what God would want you to think, he thought to himself. Pride. Like fuck. If Pride was God’s sin and vice, it was a flattery to us, his supposed creations. He sees us fumbling and takes pride in it anyway, which makes us feel necessary and loved.
His lips stuck to the filter on the cigarette when he pulled it away, but he didn’t notice it to think he should stick out his tongue and wet the tender skin, as his gaze had drifted off away from the alley and across the street to the restaurant window, where his father’s head was thrown back in laughter; he clutched Marge’s hand across the table.
No, if God exists, which he doesn’t, but for argument’s sake — if God exists and can forgive and has vices and sins it isn’t pride but envy. We create what we desire. We make what we notice lacking. God, first being, creator makes peers, makes romance, makes knowledge, makes everything he wants and then can take part in none of it.
It was a pretty good point, if not obtusely self-centered, but he forgot to say it out loud. At some point, without realizing it, he’d stopped bothering to express his ideas. He asked questions of himself and answered them, and when he spoke it was usually as if by pull-string. No thoughts required. The only person who had ever really wanted to hear his thoughts was gone now, but he couldn’t think about that without grinding his jaw.
The scene played out next to him without any supporting acts, but each change in monologue was written clearly on the man’s face. The turning of a head. The movement of his jaw. Being extraordinarily perceptive should have been a gift, especially for a priest who quite literally built his livelihood on understanding what people needed the most from him. A confidante. A father figure. The guiding hand throughout this dark, deep life, where few lights seem to shone for anyone that weren’t merely skyscrapers in the distant city center.
Dorian placed a gentle, featherlight touch to the man’s shoulder, always doing what he could to lessen the blow that he could inflict on others without even meaning to. His strength now was something he had gotten used to when surrounded by other vampires, but he understood God more now than he had before as a human. Sometimes this much power was best kept separate from the rest of the world. Sometimes it was simply too dangerous to use without thought or care. So Dorian cared more.
“We suffer in this life. There’s no avoiding it, nor should we even bother trying.” They might have seemed hollow coming from most, but Dorian felt the words deep in his chest. Between his ribs. In the spaces of his body that used to be full, and now he felt unbearably empty. God couldn’t fill it. An entire congregation couldn’t. “But we suffer, and then we look up to the sky, and we wonder, why us? Why have we been given this burden, and if there was a God, why couldn’t he be a merciful one?”
His grip on the shoulder grew harder, testing the limits, ignoring the sudden rush of what might happen if her forsook his vows and morals and ripped into the throat next to him instead. Vices. Vices, indeed. “Despite the fact that I believe we were all placed here with purpose, I don’t believe God to be a puppeteer. He’s an artist. Half-mad. Genius. We’re all simply staring at the painting in front of us, interpreting what we have to work with.”
