Genesis's footfalls whispered against the mansion's floor, each step carrying him deeper into the mansion's lightless arteries.
The thud of his oxfords seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, creeping tendrils of sound that were similar to a repetitive echo in the abyss.
Three figures materialized from the gloom ahead, pale blotches coalescing into forms as he neared. A woman's voice sliced through the pregnant silence, high and shaking.
"Father, thank Christ you're here!" She rushed forward, the click of her heels like gunshots. "We heard the wailing, like souls being tortured in Hell's depths."
Genesis's gaze raked over her as she approached.
Her raven hair tumbled in an oily sheet to her waist. A slash of crimson scored her cupid's bow lips - a woman who savored the taste of sin on her tongue.
Her green eyes bored into his, a hollowed fennel stare daring him to glimpse the abyss lurking behind those emerald pits.
"I am Genesis, my child.
Son of The Monsignore."
His words carried a sublayer of compassion. "A humble servant called to offer help amidst this..." A flourish of one hand as he gestured to the somber corridor. "...unpleasant odyssey."
His attention shifted to her companions. The man stood perfectly straight - graying hair trimmed to military precision, the hazel eyes of an inquisitor scanning Genesis's vestments. His gaze held neither fear nor piety, only a tactical assessment. An inherent mistrust binding his expressions.
Genesis allowed his eyes to settle on the third figure.
A slip of a woman-child cloaked in crushed velvet, burnished hair the shade of arterial spray. She regarded him with naked curiosity, worrying her full lower lip between even teeth as she drank in his appearance with unashamed appraisal.
A perfume's hint, the state of cuticles, each microexpression - to him these granular tells volumes about desires and aims kept shadowed.
A flicker of playful lewdness in the tilt of those kohl-smudged eyes - a girl scampering headlong toward womanhood's carnal awakenings.
Genesis catalogued every detail with an involuntary hunger, his gaze flensing away artifice to glimpse the barest truth.
His eyes razored over them, peeling away layers with each glance until only viscera remained exposed for his pitiless examination.
The subtle scents clinging to their skin, the rake of nail against palm, the unconscious play of lips or lashes - such microscopic tics were Genesis's footprints into their deepest psyches, bread crumbs leading to the dank hollows where their authentic selves reside.
In his phenotype scrutiny, no shred of their beings could escape dissection.
He then allowed a weighted pause before continuing, his hooded eyes probing for the slightest micro-tremor of reaction.
"A man named Ezequiel remains sequestered, no longer a danger to himself or...others." He let the silent ellipsis linger, probing for any upwelling of recognition in their stillwater masks. "I fear some antediluvian malady has addled his senses.
A sickness of the soul you might call it - brought on by what I suspect is an ... 'Abyssal Gift.'"
The raven-haired woman's eyelids fluttered almost imperceptibly, a minute tic Genesis didn't miss.
The man beside her remained impassive, but his throat bobbed in a dry swallow.
Only the girl met Genesis's stare with unwavering directness, teeth worrying her lower lip.
"For now, the lost lamb's been shepherded to safe confines until I can further..." A serpentine curl of his tongue over the word. "...assess his malady's root cause."
He pivoted away, each footfall like a death knell as he gestured for them to follow. They trailed in his wake.
As they entered the main hall, they were met by haunted faces that turned in unison, as they watched Genesis stand in front of them.
Genesis's voice cut through the expectant hush like a scythe, each syllable cleaving the stale air.
"No doubt the whispers have slithered into your ears, my lambs." His gaze swept over them, a branding iron. "This mansion bears the tarnished pedigree of the utterly profane."
He allowed a pregnant pause, tonguing the inside of his mouth as their fear soured the air with its cloying perfume.
Genesis drank that fear like a vintage Bordeaux wine.
"Satanic rites held sway here once upon a time, unholy covens working their horrors amid these cobwebbed chambers." His tone sculpted the words into lashings that raised gooseflesh. "You can damn well scent the reek of sacrilege and dread sin, can't you?"
The huddled masses shuddered in unison, like a field of wheat buffeted by a phantom's exhalation.
Genesis's smile was a laceration, pitiless and devoid of mercy.
"Yet even the Valley of the Shadow harbors Divine Radiance for those heavy of heart and pure of spirit!" He flung out his arms in a parody of Christly embrace, voice swelling to fill the vaulted space with its deep, honey-rich resonance.
"As the Prophet David scribed - 'though I trod nightmare's blackest dell, I shall fear no evil. God's staff and rod...'" His fingers claw at the air, "...they comfort and protect the flock from the ravenous wolves stalking our path."
Genesis drank in their upturned faces, the naked longing for solace written in every furrow and crease.
He was the lantern's warm glow calling the moths of their faith from the chill earth's lightless crevices.
"Open your eyes, dear ones!" he commanded in a thundering voice. "Look past the dire histories woven like Penelope's shroud into this accursed mansion.
Isaiah spoke truly - 'unto those who dwell in Death's valley, a great light has at last dawned!'"
He bored into them, as the upturned faces dissolved into a single, yearning blur.
Genesis became the cobra's unblinking stare, hypnotizing the flock into idle euphoria.
"Even if this tree of depravity lies dismembered..."
A beat. Two.
"There is always hope for it to rise anew, tender green shoots growing from the ancient, blackened stump.
So spoke the voice of Job unto the wandering Israelites."
His arms subsumed them in an encompassing arch as he drank in their adoration with every rattling inhalation.
"Faith, my children. Let it be your balm in this night's desolation.
Now, let us direct our pleas skyward, that the Heavenly Host might part the gloom shrouding our mortal frailties."
Genesis lifted his arms in supplication, each word a watercourse of molten emotion pouring forth.
"Oh merciful Father, we huddle at the very mouth of Hell, this mansion ossuary's unholy histories clawing like famished jackals to rend our immortal souls..."
A single bead of sweat traced the sharp curve of his brow as Genesis allowed the dramatics to crest.
He scanned their upturned devotions, deciphering each flicker of doubt, each tell-tale smirk of disbelief with a hunger bordering on rapacious greed.
There - a faint sneer twisting one woman's lips in a wry face of mockery.
Just behind her, a man's expression remained blank, but his chest failed to rise and fall with the liturgical cadences.
Interesting...
"...but we will not be cowed, Great Shepherd!"
Genesis bellowed, his voice shaking dust from the coffered ceiling. "We turn our faces towards Your blazing Empyrean and beg deliverance from the fog!
Illumine our path with the pitiless light of Your grace!"
A chorus of fervid "amens" accompanied his descent into silence, though several voices remained suspiciously muted.
Genesis's gaze lingered on the scattered pockets of dissenters even as he pressed the heels of his palms together in a facade of pious peace.
"Do not fear for the safety of your brother Ezequiel." His tone had modulated to a lower, more soothing tone, the gentling basso carrying a subtext of placid menace. "He remains sequestered... contained until I can administer the rites to help his fevered psyche."
Genesis allowed his regard to linger on the skeptics, his lips quirking in a thin, pitiless smile.
"Have faith, dear ones. For even as the wolves mass at the gate, I shall be your stalwart shepherd - none shall stray from the flock while my crook still cracks the air..."