The Werewolf Priest

The vampire comes to my office for absolution, for the Rite of Reconciliation. I can’t tell if he is mocking me or if he is sincere.

“My name is Aaben, and I have a thousand demons in my head. Can you help me?”

If he thinks I can help him it is because, unlike my parishioners, he knows what I am. A werewolf, a creature of the night in some ways like him, in many ways not. He can smell it, just as I can smell the faint odor of death on him like cigarette smoke in his hair.

He leans across my desk, his profane elbows resting on my prayer book. “Is there absolution for monstrous creatures like us?”

“There is absolution for anyone,” I hear myself saying. “Even you and I. That’s what’s so deeply offensive, so horrific about this Gospel to which I am bound.”

“Which is more horrific?” he asks. “When you pray, or when you prey?”

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