Five Lessons in Blood: Lesson Two
Renee comes back the next Thursday.
And the Thursday after that. And after that. Regular. She meets Elicia, they sit in a room, and they talk. And then the Question slips out and investigates, waiting for the opportune moment to stop the initiation of Casucci.
Meanwhile, Renee can spend more and more time with the captivating, sweet, and constantly witty Elicia. As the weeks go by, she's thinking more of Elicia from week to week than of the mission; of the Cult. Elicia and Renee; Renee and Elicia.
On the eighth week, Elicia is not immediately available, so Renee waits, thinking only of the girl rather than the job, what they'll talk about, how Elicia will look and smell and laugh. She's marginally disappointed that another client gets to spend time Renee doesn't, but she can wait.
When Renee is shown up to the room, Elicia practically jumps on her, immediately sweeping her into a sudden kiss that Renee has to back out of.
"Elicia, slow down."
"Make love to me."
"Elicia..."
She has a bruise on her face, Elicia. Someone hit her, hard and recently. And Renee vows silently to make that person suffer for touching her in that way.
"She did," Elicia says reluctantly, voice lowering to a whisper. "You don't understand, they've been watching..."
They know. They know that Renee knows, what they're doing here. And Elicia has been threatened with further violence to keep her occupied here, because tonight is an initiation. Casucci's.
"That's why you keep coming back, isn't it?" Elicia asks. "You don't want me, you never did."
It cuts just as deep as anything Kate or Dee ever said. Renee flinches. "You're wrong,"
And she shows her just how wrong.
Afterwards, the regret hurts. Renee doesn't love Elicia, she knows that. She was just... infatuated, and she abused that infatuation, letting herself get distracted from the job in the process. The conversation is short, terse, and it's the Question who leaves the room, to find Casucci's initiation, catching him in ritual, just about to kill a woman at the alter of Cain.
They're all outmatched, and the Question makes short work of them all, reminding Casucci that "nothing they threaten you with could be worse than what they want you to become."
There's no satisfaction in making her way through the acolytes, but there is something in facing down the Mother Superior. The woman who hit Elicia, who used her to get to Renee, who orchestrated the whole thing and pushed her into doing what she hates herself for doing.
For a second, she sees and feels nothing except that hatred for herself, which gives way at anger at the whole sorry cult and what they did to her, and to Elicia. Out of disgust, she snatches a lit torch from the wall and throws it to the tapestries.
All traces of her sin must be erased.
Lesson Two: Lust