live, even before you factored in all the supernatural creatures, but this was something else entirely. A man stood in a shop doorway, eyeing us aggressively like he was just itching to start a fight. We passed him swiftly, and I slid the blade Finn gave me out of its box and into my coat pocket. It was always good to be ready.
When we reached the entrance to St. Peter’s, I smelled the familiar churchy scent of incense and old wooden furniture. Finn walked up to the font of holy water, dipped his fingers in, and blessed himself. Rita and I hurried to the little shop on the left.
It was quiet and dark inside the main building with only a handful of people kneeling in the pews, their heads bent in prayer. Candlelight flickered up by the alter.
In the shop, a nun was sitting behind a glass window serving customers. On the shelves and display stands were cards, rosary beads, and various kinds of religious memorabilia. I even spotted some thimbles with the Pope’s face on them. Over in the corner, there were stacked bottles of holy water. The nun was currently serving an old man in a grey shirt and about three other customers were standing behind him.
“How are ya, Sister Frances?” Finn called out, saluting the nun.
I almost laughed at how casually he greeted her. She glanced up and gave him a warm smile, muttering a quiet, “Hello, Finn, good to see you.”
“Is Father McGuire around by any chance?” he asked, going up to stand by the glass window. Seeing Finn among ordinary people opened my eyes to just how intimidating his appearance was. Intimidating and sexy. Even Sister Frances seemed to be blushing at his focused attention. There was a faint pinkness to her cheeks, and the phrase he could charm the knickers off a nun sprang to mind. If anyone could do it, Finn could.
The waiting customers eyed him warily.
“I think he might be in the rectory,” Sister Frances managed to squeak out, blushing more profusely now.
“Grand job, I’d like to have a word with him. My friends here want to purchase some holy water.” He paused and nodded to me and Rita. “They’ve a very sick aunt who’s requesting to be bathed in it. They’ll probably want to buy up your whole stock. Would that be okay?”
What a weird explanation. Then again, perhaps being bathed in holy water wouldn’t sound so strange to a nun. She might be used to carrying out such requests for the sick and dying.
“Oh yes, of course. I’ll just finish up with these people here, and I’ll be right with you.”
“Lovely.” Finn gave her a warm smile, and the nun turned back to her line of customers.
He strode back to me and Rita, rubbing his hands together. “That’s that taken care of. We’ll have our chaos killing juice put together in no time.”
He rested his arm along my shoulders, all casual. Then his thumb began rubbing absently back and forth across the material of my coat, and I wondered at the affectionate gesture.
Rita started looking through a selection of rosary beads. “These could make for a fun accessory. Though I’m pretty sure they don’t work on vamps like they do in the movies.”
“God forbid we have it that easy,” Finn muttered under his breath.
“They’d still look cool though. I can wear them ironically or something.”
“Where does the irony come in?” Finn asked.
“I’m the offspring of evil wearing a representation of godliness and prayer, get it?”
Finn was just about to say something in reply when a scream filtered through from the main area of the church. We all looked at each other in alarm. Sister Frances paled behind her glass window. She’d clearly been keeping abreast of the news and feared the increasing violence had found its way to St. Peter’s.
Finn’s arm dropped from my shoulders, and we hurried out to see where the scream came from. At first, the place seemed empty, but then my eyes reached the alter and my heart stopped. A priest was pummelling a man who’d been praying in the pews when we’d entered. The sight was wrong on so many levels. Finn rushed toward the priest and pulled him away from the man by wrapping his strong arms around the priest’s middle.
The priest struggled and fought against Finn’s hold. “Let go of me, you bastard. Let me fucking go,” he spat.
“Now, now, Father McGuire, is that any way for a man of the cloth to