Between Two Fires

by Christopher Buehlman

“The plague doesn’t care about nice. Stay away from there.” “I can’t remember her name.” “She doesn’t have one anymore.”

“Something lies to you, but it’s not your heart.” “Stop that weird shit. I don’t want to hear it.”

Woody harellson in true detective

He rubbed his eyes and looked away, but when he looked back it was still there. He noticed a second comet now, close to it and very faint.

A plump, black-haired young woman with a high forehead

Same

But the Lord made no answer.

One had lost a daughter, the other a mother. Each saw a flicker of the dead one. It was bitter but very sweet and good.

“I’m old. I can’t climb a tree.” “If you don’t, I think he will find you.” “Who?” “The fallen angel. The bad one. It’s coming.” Père Matthieu Hanicotte climbed the tree.

age suddenly stopped mattering lol

We will turn their understanding so they make their Christ a god of war, and we will cause them to set navies to the seas and armies under the moon with generals whose eyes glow like brands, and we will stir Turk and Christian alike to madness by our own deeds, and by our own hands will we hasten the death of men.”

“Don’t be funny. Think.” “I’m too drunk to think.”

God should be your comfort, but you have made comfort your god.

“He’s in Hell.” “Oh,” the priest said. “Or he was.” The girl blinked a couple of times, still looking at the priest.

His translation of news from home gave them a taste of Florentine dark humor; the mass graves, with their layers of bodies, lime, and dirt, had inspired less reverential Tuscans to say the dead had “gone to the lasagna.”

Thomas kicked the priest, who sat up quickly with fish scales on his cheek, so startled he broke wind.

“She was tempted by something stronger than her. Adam was tempted by a weaker creature. Or so we are told. If Eve was his inferior, his sin was greater. You can’t have it both ways.”

He wanted to turn his gaze away at this talk of love between men, but couldn’t; he knew it was the last he would see of this flawed priest who had become so dear to him so quickly. This was harder than the comte’s death.

Bad luck spoiled two near-matches. One knight of Abbeville died from a bee sting.

“I’m going to die,” he managed. “You already did die, remember? You’re the dead one.”

But Hanicotte was at the center. A stone devil had him by the hair. A stone saint had him by the hand.

Little Moon.