Ziggy's Corner: 25th Chapter! And still going strong. There is going to be more action in this chapter than in the last one, but this too is going to be a short chapter. The next chapter the 26th will be a long one, possibly around eight or nine pages. So that being said, on with the show folks!
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned," came the voice from behind the screen. Ivan Peter Fox waited for the continuation, but it never came.
"Are you still there, child?" there was some shuffling of knees as the male behind the screen shifted uncomfortably.
"I can't think of any sin I have committed, father, my mother insisted that I come here."
Ivan had to chuckle. How many times had he heard this type of confession? "I had no idea I was in the presence of my Lord and Savior."
"Excuse me?" the boy asked, taken back a little.
"No sins? You must be Jesus then." There was an uncomfortable silence coming from the boy and the priest laughed again. "Let me ask you a few things, before you leave, my son. When was the last time you said a simple prayer to our Lord when you had a chance instead of playing video games, or watching television?"
"I dunno," the boy said. "I just pray at church and that's it."
"So you have no free time of your own?" The boy admitted he did, and yes he would play basketball, or play video games, or watch television. "Then you have broken the very first commandment, you have put other things before God."
The boy was taken back, and the priest could hear him gasp. Ivan chuckled, "Don't despair in that my son, most of us, in fact all of us are guilty of breaking that commandment at one point or time. In fact, if you brake any of the other nine, you've automatically broken the first."
"I'm not sure I understand father, isn't it, 'Thou shalt not have any strange gods before me?" the boy asked. Ivan smiled at this.
"Very good, you know your commandments. Yes that's what it said, but when you put anything before God, when you could just give him a few minutes you make these new things a god in your life."
Ivan then began to go through each and every other commandment. He had acknowledged that from time to time, he swore and said Jesus' name in vein, as well as wished someone to hell; there went the second commandment. The boy hadn't prayed nor read the Bible, nor watched spiritual uplifting programming during Sunday, down went the third commandment. He snuck out during the night, and would argue with his parents, bang fourth commandment broke. His room was a mess and had been for a long time. That was bad for his health, and thus, he had broken the fifth commandment. While he didn't watch any negative shows, and had stayed clear of filthy sites and magazines, he had glared and thought what it would be like to have relations with bikini clad models and women on the beach.
"There's nothing wrong with looking at a beautiful woman, and admiring God's work, my son, but its when you decide to take it to the next level, even in your mind when it becomes sinful." Ivan explained.
The boy had indeed stolen a pack of gum, he had spread gossip to get back at someone in his school he didn't like, the seventh and eight commandments broken. After fifteen minutes, the boy was breathing like he had run a marathoon, and Ivan could only feel sorry for him. Many priests these days would have chased anyone claiming not to have sinned out, to make extra time for anyone else, and so they could leave when the thirty minutes were up. Ivan despised those types of men, unless of course they were the only priest in the parish, and had schedules they had to keep. Still he didn't like the idea of chasing people out because they couldn't think of anything to confess, or simply confessed less serious, venial type sins instead of mortal ones. To Ivan, they might be venial and thus less significant, but they were still sins, and thus very serious indeed.
"Take heart," he conseled the boy. "When I was your age, I had broken all ten commandments at one time!" He chuckled, he had remembered his confessor's near heart attack about hearing all these transgressions. He had been lucky to find a good, kind hearted man, who looked at the person instead of the sinner. "Are you sorry for all these sins?"
"Yes father," the boy said, at the edge of tears finding out what kind of person he had been.
"Then for your penance, say two Rosaries …," he paused, "you know what they are?" The boy admitted he knew them, but didn't know how to use them. Ivan reached into his pocket, and slipped out a piece of paper, detailing the Rosary. "Read this, and then pray two of them, not all in one setting, perhaps one tonight, the other tomorrow, and make a good Act of Contrition." The boy said the words of the Act of Contrition, and the priest forgave him his sins.
Twenty minutes later, Ivan opened the door and entered into the church, his eyes scanning the area for his younger sister, and brothers. He found them a ways off, and walked up to him, quietly as his sister seemed to be deep in prayer. As he got closer, Ivan could see better. Gracia was peering down at her PSP, watching an episode of America's Top Model. He edged into the pew behind them, and put a finger, to silence his giggling brothers, Gabriel and Christian. For a few minutes he watched her watch the program, resting his hand on his chin as he leaned his elbow on the pew.
A few minutes later, the program ended, and Gracia turned the machine off, looking at her brothers, who were desperately trying not to giggle. "What's the matter with the two of your, this is a church, you should be quite."
"If that's not a kettle calling the pot black," Ivan whispered in her left ear. The teenager leapt from the pew, bonking her twenty six year old brother on his chin, and screamed as if an axe murderer was right behind her, her arms flapping as if she wanted to fly away, her head shaking back and forth as her lungs pushed out any remaining air.
Christian and Gabriel couldn't stand it anymore, bursting into hysterics at the actions of their older sister. Gracia turned a dark gaze toward the boys, and then glared at her older brother. "What is the matter with you?" she hissed. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
Ivan smirked. "Would it keep you from bringing video game machines into the church, and help you concentrate on your meditations?"
"Very funny, Ivan," she snapped sarcastically. "Anyway I said all of my prayers."
"No you didn't, you plopped right into the pew and started watching the video gamie thing," Christian said.
Gracia turned an evil eye to her brother and lowly hissed. Ivan caught that and smiled, "If you don't care about spending time in Purgatory, then I suppose I shouldn't either." He then turned and looked into her face. "Of course I'd be a pretty lowly brother and bad at my job if that was true." He chuckled. "So you can just finish your prayers now, and then we can go to the movies."
The boys didn't like that idea. "It'll take forever!" they cried in unison.
"I don't give Rosaries to everyone," the priest said with a laugh. "She starts now, we'll only miss a few of the previews."
"I would suggest that she start in the car, on the way to our employer," a harsh, heavy voice said.
They turned to look at a heavily armed jackal who smirked at them, waving a large black gun at their chests. "It would be wise not to resist, this is a house of God after all, I'd hate to spill innocent blood here."
"Then I suggest you leave, such dead words are not suitable for a house of God either." Ivan knew these types of individuals. Their whole family did. This jackal would love to spill blood all over these floors.
"Sorry, padre, but I have a job to do, and I do not intend to leave empty handed." He looked at the priest's sister, and then at the boys, and then at an admiring glare at his sister again, one that lasted far too long for Ivan's taste.
"You will not be going with anything. Unless you might be happy to confess your sins," he added.
"I would very much rather take my pay, it lasts a little bit longer than in the long run."
"Then you have no interest in eternity," the priest said, trying to secretly edge his siblings to the edge of the church. The jackal chuckled.
"Your God has had a most blissfully long run, but as in everything, all good things come to an end. There's time for a new deity now."
"As has been said for nearly five thousand years," Ivan snapped, pushing his siblings near the alter, feeling his sister's dread.
"Get out now," Gabriel said in a very brave face.
"You're not welcome here," Christian added.
The jackal chuckled. "Well now … I was under the impression that all were welcomed in Christ's house."
"Not when they're trying to create chaos and sin," Ivan finished. "Now leave."
The jackal looked as if he would consider it, and then fired the gun with a shrug, gritting his teeth in pain, as Ivan surged forward and grabbed his arm, bending it back behind him, and twisting it up almost over his head. "I will not tell you again," Ivan said, kicking the semi automatic weapon as it landed on the floor. "Leave."
The jackal ground his teeth, and pulled his other hand free, jabbing a knife into the priest's side, making Ivan yelp in pain, and his siblings gasping in concern. He smiled and forced the blade in thicker, Ivan releasing his grip and dropping to a knee, feeling blood slip between his fingers, and splash against the floor of the church.
"You know, I was told you were quite the fighter, padre," the jackal said. "I should have listened." He turned and glared at the children. "The boys, have grown. And the girl is very pretty too… I'm going to have a lot of fun with her before handing her over to my employer."
Ivan was a man of peace, graceful and quick to forgive, but now his Fox blood was boiling and he could feel the power of hate surging forward. "You leave her alone, you basta…,"
The jackal turned and kicked him in his lower jaw. "You really should watch your mouth, padre, being a man of God and all." He chuckled as the boys tried to defend their brother, and Ivan's reactions to the pain, fear, and rage. "Don't worry, my employer would kill me if I shed a drop of her blood, or defiled her in some way, but there are other … games we could play." He turned back to the girl again, and hissed in agony as she slammed her PSP at his face. Glass and plastic shattered all over the place, more blood dropping to the floor.
Ivan took his siblings and rushed to the back of the church, pushing them out the door. "Head to the car, and lock the door. Call the police."
"But Ivan, what about…," Gracia began.
"No, you just do what you need to do," Ivan snapped. He locked the back door, and turned back to see the jackal inching forward toward him, holding the gun again.
"You know, your family has been more than a pain in the neck for Lord Emmanuel," the fiend snapped, stopping short as if he realized he had done something he should not have. "At any rate, this should end this now."
"I could not agree with you more," Ivan said. He arched into a defensive position, and waited for the attack. A few shots were fired, and he began arching and dodging, wishing this was one of those Matrix movies he'd heard about, but never watched where the hero could slow down time and dodge the deadly missiles. But it wasn't, and Ivan could feel the small pieces of metal dig into his flesh. He managed to avoid some of them, and those that hit him weren't all that serious, but he was hurt. Still he pushed on further, dodging and weaving until he was nearly breath to breath to him. Ivan's arm tensed, and he pulled it back, jamming it with his whole might to bring the jackal down.
The fiend managed to dodge it, and then enter an attack of his own, which Ivan blocked. Back and forth the two men traded and blocked blows, the jackal managing to drop his weapon to concentrate on the further battering of his opponent. For a priest he was surprisingly strong, much stronger than the stories about him said.
Ivan Peter Fox was going no where in life, he hadn't been since he had been nine. Con artistry, thieving, destruction of public property, he had even joined a gang, and ran off from home for two in a half years. The only thing Ivan didn't do was drugs, and that was the one time he'd tried them, they had made him so physically sick, he nearly thought he was going to die.
It was that epiphany, lying on the ground, nearly dying on his vomit, when he realized that what he had perceived as overbearing control by his mother and father, was simply their way of protecting him from the anarchy of the world. He had managed to survive that night, and make his way home. His father was pissed at him, but relieved to see him alive. After a lot of counseling, there was a time when he thought he might re-enter that dark world, when he conceded into going to confession at his mother's begging. The priest had been a nearly seventy five year old owl, and was a decent man, and very kind hearted. He counseled the boy that night, and the following night, and every night for nearly eight years.
Then Ivan learned his mentor was dying, and he rushed from the police academy which he had only just entered, to be with the old man. They spoke for many hours. Finally, he promised Fr. Hans, that he would follow in his footsteps. He arrived that day, ready to begin his career as a police officer, and left that day, ready to enter a vocation of helping others as a priest of God.
Needless to say, his father was outraged. Ivan hadn't been one to stay with one thing for very long. His desertion of the police academy not only seemed to prove this to him, but it also stung. "Are you out of your damned mind again young man!" he roared. "Now you wish to be a priest?"
His wife snapped back at him. "So what, what better place for such a child?"
"And if he get's bored with this? Police work has been in the family for a long time."
"So has being part of the Church," she had howled. "You have four younger siblings who have the same vocation as our son wishes to enter. You're brother Alano, has just been appointed a bishop of all things, can you really be this angry at the boy?"
Peter Ivan had not been sure. True his side of the family had given the world a large enlistment of the priesthood, and nuns, but Ivan was just so flighty, what if he decided to leave this too?" Ultimately he relented.
Schooling to be a priest, was a thousand times harder than being in the police, or military. He was grueling, it forced him to swallow a lot of pride, taking into confidence, Therese the Little Flower as his patron saint. She too had it rough, she too had been looked down on, and many times thought to speak back, but swallowed her own pride.
It was not easy, but Ivan was determined to keep his promise he had made to Fr. Hans. He became a priest just a year in a half ago. And for a while served other priests, before word got out to the local bishop, probably in thanks to his uncle, of his devotion.
Now he was hand to hand with a thug. His hatred which he had thought he had buried so long ago, resurfaced, and his determination to protect the building and his siblings forced him to push on, fist for fist, pound for pound, step for step. Finally the jackal made a wrong step, and Ivan took full advantage of it. He swiveled on his heels, delivered a powerful round house, and knocked the fiend backwards, where he slipped and fell, breaking his neck.
Ivan turned and blinked, not believing what hand happened. His lips quivered, and he dropped to his knees. "Dear, merciful God, forgive me," he wept. He'd never meant to kill the jackal. To shed blood in his Father's house. Silently he said a prayer for the man's soul, and went to cheek on his brothers and sister, only to see more jackals finally breaking into his car, the engine roaring, and taking off with them. His lips pulled back, and he rushed forward, the one word coming out of his throat, was a loud, glutteral no.
The car disappeared, around the corner, and Ivan dropped to his knees yet again. Yet again he'd let down a father, his Heavenly Father in there, his biological father out here. His mind snapped and his hand seemed to reach into his pocket out of its own movements. It dialed the number, and he waited for someone to pick up. "I… I…," he seemed to lose his voice with each second.
"Sir, I'm hanging up now," the woman on the other side snapped.
"Wait," Ivan forced the word out. "My name is Fr. Ivan Fox, I'm Detective Peter Fox's son. Please… please I need to speak with him now. It's an emergency."
Boy the Fox family doesn't have good luck when it comes to being NOT kidnapped do they? Poor Ivan, I hope he can find peace in all of this. Anyway, the next chapter! Both Heiduska's and the Divine One's character's will be fully seen! I hope you girls like them! Yes I know that Heidi's character was in a previous chapter but that was really a flash back. You get to know more about her in the next one. Okay onward Ho!