The Faith Eaters, Chapter 9: Guerin

Inquisitor Guerin leaned forward across his desk and withdrew a quill from the inkwell. As he did so the jagged ends of several broken ribs grated against one another and a stab of pain lanced through his left side. He winced, closed his eyes, then whispered a silent prayer for forgiveness and drew several slow, shallow breaths until the pain eased.

His eyes opened on the still-blank pages of his report to the Curia and his brow furrowed. With a thoughtful sigh, Guerin played his gaze across the expanse of his desk until it came to rest upon the sealed glass specimen jar which sat on a small ceramic pedestal before him. The tiny creature within floated in murky yellow suspension fluid, its gaping mouth opening and closing slowly, rhythmically. Otherwise the creature remained motionless. Guerin had touched it once, with complete disregard for the warnings offered by the young sergeant who had delivered it. The experience had been unpleasant, a discomfiting sense of physical illness and emotional tumult. Worse yet, the creature had apparently gained some form of sustenance from the contact. Its tubular body, once crushed and broken, was nearly whole again.

As Guerin observed the worm-like animal pulsing in its jar, he replayed the information gained from the prisoner in his mind. Gathering information from Hallow had been a tedious process, requiring the Inquisitor to piece together disjointed bits of information during the young man�s infrequent moments of lucidity. His attempt to classify the creature was pure conjecture at this point, theory postulated upon the convoluted ramblings of a man still tainted by evil.

The creature was a parasite of some kind, a leach which stimulated violence and aggression within its host and fed off the bio-chemical responses to the emotions. How it first manifested remained a mystery. Hallow�s description had been muddled both by the poisons coursing through his body and the medicines being used to counter them. He had muttered repeatedly of being �overcome by a dark mood,� but Guerin was unable to make any sense of it.

Regardless of its origins, once the Glare attached itself to a host it began a malignant sort of life-cycle by depositing its waste matter into the person. This stimulated greater and greater levels of violence, and therefore responses on which to feed. At some point the Glare would develop into the worm-like body contained in the jar on Guerin�s desk.

Hallow�s horrified mutterings gave every indication that the host of a Glare was completely aware of the madness being generated within him and of the horrific acts he would be driven to commit.

For perhaps the hundredth time in the past hour Guerin attempted to reconcile this information with events as they had unfolded during his chance engagement with Jargon the night before. That the creature was evil seemed obvious enough. That Jargon was possessed by one did not.

Everyone who encountered Guerin -- seniors, peers, students, particularly enemies -- quickly realized that the man saw the world in starkly contrasted tones of black and white, truth and lies, faith and heresy. There was no room in his mind for shades of gray. No allowance for uncertainty or doubt. Where these things were found, Guerin moved quickly and relentlessly to eliminate them. He handled every situation with a faith-driven singleness of purpose for which his allies held the greatest respect and his enemies a deep and abiding fear.

Now it seemed that the Inquisitor had been sent to Judge a man accused of crimes he did not commit.

Clearly the Curia had withheld information when sending him on this mission. Still, Guerin saw the events unfolding in Kinsborough not as a challenge to his faith, but as an ill-tainted puzzle which could eventually be solved and made right. In his mind it was obvious that he was being tested by his Church. Any information newly revealed to him had either been unavailable to the Curia prior to his dispatch, or had been concealed by them for purposes which were simply above and beyond an Inquisitor�s role and station.

Guerin�s hesitation in starting his report was in no way a result of doubt or suspicion. He knew the report was expected, that he must accurately explain what he had seen so far, and so he took his time to organize his thoughts. It never occurred to him to withhold any of his observations.

When the Inquisitor finally dipped his pen in ink and put it to parchment his report was exhaustively thorough. He summarized his progress, identified inconsistencies and questions he saw as yet unanswered. He shared his opinions and outlined his intended course of action. So it was that in the candid, confident, pious manner which was his nature, Inquisitor Johannes Guerin unknowingly drafted the words which would become his death sentence.