Killer of Prophets - Chapter II

The women of the stables spoke of a man lurking on the edge of town. They called him a shadow betwixt the trees. I knew of this man of black drapes, who passed through without so much as a polite word. He drags his feet but leaves no tracks. He spends the night but leaves no snore. He comes from afar but carries no pack. He stays his welcome, and never a moment more. Often, his presence is but a whisper. But on his third stay in our modest town, he fallowed betwixt dusk and dawn, conferring no departing word to the hostel lord. Hours later, when the roosters chorused a morning song, a wail pierced the carol and dimmed the dawning sunlight. A boy of eleven had been slain, gutted sternum to chest, and left to bleed a pond of viscera in the pig pen just outside his family’s home. His sister had found him, and there the early waking farmers found her, kneeling beside her poor brother’s body and weeping into his tunic.

The family’s hound whimpered, sniffing at pig waste and droplets of drying blood about the pen. I laid my eyes, heavy and dry, upon the bloody painting. The overwhelming scent of copper stuck on my tongue.
“I reckon only a monster could have done something like this. The devil himself must have crawled through this ground,” said Amit at my side, looking green in the face. My father died only three months ago, leaving me in the position of priest, judge, and lord over this town. I had soothed squabbles between husband and wife, kept up my sermon for hours every day without trouble, handled my poor father’s funeral. But I had met what Father Berik did not prepare me for in all my years of divine discipline.
“Sapir, do you really think it could have been the devil?” asked Amit, who looked of deep fear and sickness with the corners of his eyes wrinkled and his hands shaking within the sleeves of his simlah.
I know who it was. The man in black drapes. The outsider who passes through without a trace. Our town was free of sin until his dark presence. He does not make a stop in our church. He does not meet one’s eyes. Because they are glassy with shame? or because they are red and split, like the devils? I do not know if this man is only a wayward sinner, or if he really is the beast of hell walking among our flesh.
Tucking the fabric of my robe beneath my knees, I knelt on a bed of straw, soft and wet with blood. The boy lies stiff and unnatural as if he is still in pain. A gash, made by something sharp, tore his tunic open and left his flesh flayed and weeping. He had bled every ounce of himself, and when I peered closer I could see red, yellow, pink flesh and fat within his abdomen. I could see the ends of ribs poking out of chest. His mouth remained wide. A cry that never got the chance to leave his throat.
He had been such a promising soul. A bright, intelligent boy. A tad rebellious, but his faith had been so strong. I had always seen him doing remarkable things in his future.
Now, he is but another slaughter among animals.
I laid my hand atop his chest, cold blood wetting my palm. Something tickled my nose, and for a reason I can't explain, I smelt amaranth. 
I muttered a prayer, wishing him- only an innocent soul- a kind and easy journey into heaven. I heard Amit kneel behind me, his breath was heavy and uneven with grief. I heard the boy’s mother, her muffled sobbing from inside the house. I head the pigs squeal from where they had been herded away from the pen. Pigs, as soft creatures as they can be, will still eat anything that lies down in front of them. I had always liked to believe man was above pig. I had always wanted to believe it. 

The old dog sniffed the boy's face, and he whined lowly and licked his blood-splattered cheek. 

This man in black drapes, I will wait for him. He will return to our town, and when he does, I will chain him in silver, I will brandish him in crosses, I will make him confess to his crimes, and I will make him repent for them. Man or demon, demon or man, pig, I will catch him all the same.