"WHO?!" Genesis's roar shattered the fetid silence like a thunderclap.
Wild-eyed, he wheeled on the cowering group of spectators, spittle flying from his contorted lips. "Which one of you sinners did this? Which profane soul dared mock the Lord's sacrifice with such an unholy fucking abomination?!"
The tourists shrank back, rabbits paralyzed in the snake's unmerciful stare.
Not a whisper answered the father's brimstone attack.
Genesis's chest heaved with each ragged inhalation, fury rendering his face into a grim mask of purging righteousness. "I swear upon the Almighty's grace," he rasped at last, "none of you gutless cravens will set foot outside these walls until the perpetrator is named and punished."
He jabbed an accusatory finger towards the crucified cadaver, his whole arm trembling with apoplectic rage. "That poor, defiled SOUL cries out for recompense! For judgment!"
Somewhere, a woman began sobbing in choked, hitching gulps. But the sound barely registered amid Genesis's thundering imprecations.
"So speak now, you depraved hounds!
Naming your fellow defiler could yet spare you from the full Wrath of God's unbridled--"
"E-Enough of this!"
The reedy protest came from the back of the crowd.
A frail, birdlike man in a garish tourist's shirt squirmed his way forward, pasty face slick with sweat.
As Genesis's furious glare found him, he flinched, but rallied with visible effort.
"I...I won't be detained here," Pierre stammered in a wavering accent. "Not with such...such d-devilry afoot! You're all mad!"
"Pierre, no!" someone hissed, but the man was already turning towards the entrance with wild, rolling eyes.
"Let me out! I want no part of this unholiness! Let me--"
His fingernails scrabbled frantically at the iron handle, pulling and twisting to no use.
The door held fast, as immovable as the walls themselves.
"What the fuck...?" Pierre's mutterings pitched towards hysteria as he shambled backwards, shooting furtive glances over each bony shoulder.
Genesis watched the display with impassive disdain, arms folded across his barrel chest.
As the increasingly frantic Pierre snatched up a heavy wooden chair, the priest's brow furrowed in grim realization.
The chair's carved legs hammered against the stained glass in a fruitless effort, shards of colorful reinforcement exploding with each impact.
But the windows, like the door, remained inviolate despite Pierre's mindless frenzy.
Finally, the man sank to his knees with a keening wail, surrounded by the wreckage of his failed attempt at escape. Outside, the sky burned a merciless crimson, offering no solace or deliverance.
Only then did Genesis permit himself a thin, utterly devoid smile.
He opened his mouth to address the others, but his next words were drowned beneath a deafening clap of thunder that shook the very foundations.
The storm had arrived.
And they were all trapped within its grasp.
"SILENCE!" Genesis's voice cracked like a whipsaw, slicing through the escalating panic. "All of you worm-bellied sinners be SILENT and listen to me!"
The huddled mass shrank back as one, terrified eyes swiveled towards the priest.
Genesis stood colossal in their midst, hands clenched into granite fists, jaw etched in harsh planes of fury.
"We stand upon the cliff, my children," he growled in a voice made low and lethal by scarcely-leashed rage. "Teetering between the abyss of eternal damnation and the hallowed embrace of the Lord's salvation.
But take heart..."
He stabbed a finger towards the vaulted ceiling, jaw clenching until the tendons strained against the skin.
"For it is written - 'Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.'
We need only cling to the pure truth of His word in these darkest hours!"
The words tumbled from his lips in a rhythm that bordered on frenzied fanatism.
As Genesis worked himself into an impassioned state of agitation, spittle flew from his incisors to speckle those nearest him.
With an abruptness that startled, he turned on his oxfords and began stalking towards the slaughterhouse's open mouth.
Within the desecrated chamber, the crucified Ezequiel swayed almost imperceptibly, rags whispering in the draft from Genesis's passage.
The stench of decay and taunted divinity hung like a reek, clawing at his nostrils until his throat rose in protest.
There, scrawled across the left wall in drying crimson - a macabre proclamation leered from the bloodied masonry:
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome...THE JOKER.
Riddle me this, Father -
'I'm the symbol of salvation, betrayed and crucified,
My blood a crimson river, my sacrifice the ultimate guide.
In three days I rose from death's icy abyss,
Who am I, the embodiment of divine grace, you cannot dismiss?'"
Genesis's eyes narrowed to slits as he consumed the mocking blasphemy.
So the games had begun, the mad revels of some unholy jester determined to profane all they held sacred.
The answer lay bare before him in its blasphemous simplicity - Jesus Of Nazareth.
This so-called Joker mocks The Messiah?
With a measured exhalation, Genesis turned to face the expectant silence.
When he spoke again, his words sliced through the air with an almost palpable chill.
"Our Lord and Messiah, Jesus Christ...tarnished.
This 'Joker' would make a wretched burlesque of the Lamb's unblemished offering for our sins."
This was no game, no fun riddle to delight and entertain.
It was the opening gambit of a sacrilegious war, one that would test the very fabric of their faith and convictions.
Genesis met each wide, terrified gaze in turn, his own eyes blazing with inextinguishable resolve burning through the anguish.
"But have no fear, lost lambs. For this depraved jester has sounded his own death knell with this heretical display.
Before the Light of the Lord, all darkness must scatter and be undone."
His jaw carved itself into a hardened line of consecrated fury as he turned once more towards the gruesome crime scene.
"So welcome to the mansion, 'Joker'...and pray your black soul finds the fortitude to withstand the scouring fire of righteous judgment that awaits."
Genesis swept an imperious gaze over the terrified assembly, his face a mask of raptor-like intensity.
"Make no mistake, brothers and sisters...
We shall face this tribulation together or be consumed by the pit -- united under the Lord's uncompromising light, or torn asunder by darkness."
A few feeble nods answered him, but the quavering agreement only seemed to stoke the banked fires of his fervor higher.
Muscles coiled along the priest's jaw as he worked it in restless passes.
"So bear witness, all of you!" he bellowed, whipping around to confront the heretic crucifixion display once more. "Join your voices with mine in supplication before the Almighty! For only through His sacred covenant can we hope to wash the stain of this blasphemy from our midst!"
As if compelled by some unseen force, heads began to bend in reflexive obedience. Genesis's shadow fell in an elongated slash across the bloodied floor as he raised his arms skyward in the opening throes of invocation.
"Oh merciful and bountiful Lord!" The words burst from his lips in a ragged baritone torrent. "We humble servants gather this night in the hands of unholy darkness! Our souls imperiled, our faith made mock by the machinations of the Adversary himself!"
Spittle flecked his lips now, glazed eyes boring deep into some indiscernible point beyond the vaulted ceiling.
Those not yet cowed by the show leaned away in shaken deference.
"But we will NOT be moved!" Genesis's proclaimed, seizing upon a fever pitch of righteous fervor.
"We will NOT surrender our hallowed place at the side of YOUR divine grace, our Lord and Savior!
For it is written -- no, it is SWORN in the covenant of your eternal blood sacrifice!"
His fists clenched so tightly the knuckles blanched to bone.
"So fortify our souls with the armor of your blinding luminance, oh Heavenly Host!
Let our faltering spirits drink deep of your baptismal glory as we march forth in judgement against the howling storms of sacrilege!"
A profound stillness fell over the chamber as Genesis's cry reached its crescendo.
Only the hushed whisper of penitent sobs answered the echoing finale, faces slick with the sheening of contrition and resolve.
One by one, they sank to their knees, a rippling wave of submission to the towering figure still brandishing his arms in consecrated benediction.
And for that endless, hallowed moment, a single, unified congregation knelt before the bloodstained altar of faith's harshest test yet.
''Amen!''