Author's Note: Hello and welcome to part twelve of "Cross". Finally, we get a little bit of romance in this installment, along with a few hints from Priest that his past history may be less than stellar, so please feel free to guess if you pick up on the clues. I always love to hear readers' interpretations of where they think the story is going.

As usual, I would like to thank all my fantastic readers and reviewers, saichick, FireChildSlytherin5, Beautiful Liar Please Save Me, Genius-626, R-Bizzle, MissWeatherwax, Inwe[z]247 and shadowcat012. In addition, I would like to thank everyone who has added this story to their favorites/authors alerts list. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. I do hope you enjoy this installment.

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Priest

Part XII Focus

An hour later they left the decaying shack, setting out over the Wastelands with the sun already high and promising noon. Although they had initially set a course for an old rendezvous point out past Augustine, their journey was postponed when they doubled back to find Priest's abandoned motorcycle. It was, unfortunately, a necessary delay. Priestess couldn't help but feel some increased sense of urgency as they inched their way back along the trail they had followed the night before. Seeing the traces of her old tire tracks winding through the sand, her body tensed and she counted the passing miles with fitful regret. Time was being wasted. And if Seth had spoken truthfully and the rest of the clergy were already in the wind, then it would be a challenge, if not impossible, to find them.

It didn't take them long to locate Priest's abandoned transport, though, and that was indeed a blessing. A sandstorm had blown in during the early morning hours, covering the great bulk of the motorcycle, but leaving its chrome side exposed, sticking out like a beacon of silver when the sun hit it. As Priest dug his vehicle out, using only his bare hands and the hilt of his knife, Priestess and Seth watched him, the sound of spraying sand coloring the awkward silence between them.

Priestess knew the quiet moment would be one of her only opportunities to speak with Seth. Her mind created fanciful questions and she wanted to ask him what he had ended up doing after the war, where he'd been and if it had been as difficult for him, as it was for her, to let go of the past.

But looking at Seth's face, seeing the strong line of his jaw, she knew that he hadn't forgotten. Memories of cruelty ran deep, hidden in the small creases around his mouth and in his eyes, which were still soft. There had always been something of gentleness about Seth, a quality that had offended the other Priestess, had enraged her enough that she had tried to take it away from him.

Priestess was pleased now to see that she had failed.

"You know," Seth said, his voice a cautious whisper as he watched Priest brush the dust from the long, low seat of his motorcycle, "I heard what happened to Shannon."

There was sympathy in his tone, along with the slight curiosity that Priestess herself felt. But she repressed her concerns and her questions, leaving only the emptiness inside her, the wondering that she had tried to dismiss, but lingered still.

"I know," she replied at length, offering Seth her own impassivity. "Me too."

Priest switched on his motorcycle. A high electronic whine signaled the start-up as the engine warmed. "It's at least a day's ride to the rendezvous point," he said, sliding back onto the vehicle with only a slight hitch in his posture, his muscles obviously sore. "And we're already late."

They all glanced up at the sun and saw how it had inched closer to the horizon, the softened light almost like a threat, a woeful herald of the night, which always came. It always came.

"We'll ride fast," Seth said, though his confidence was weak.

Priest dropped his goggles over his eyes. "Not fast enough."

Six hours later they blew right past Augustine. The town was the last truly civilized outpost in the Wastelands, the rest of the region belonging to the Fringes and to the towering Hives, which had long since been emptied.

Or so they had thought. Or so they had been told.

Twenty miles outside of Augustine, the sun started to set in earnest. As Priestess watched the shadows lengthen, a perverse shiver brushed cold fingers along her back. Priest was intent on riding straight on through the night. It was, in her opinion, a risk that was more reckless than calculated. And he had been reckless of late. He had loosened his hold on restraint and given into the wild abandon that she secretly feared, that she had come to believe was the root of all sin, of all evil.

Had Priest sinned?

Brining up the rear of their rather small convoy, Priestess had a good view of him, even though his back was to her and the wind whipped sand viciously over her goggles. Beyond the ringing chaos of her motorcycle's engine and the sound of the hard-packed desert soil grinding beneath her tires, her mind was plagued with doubt. Doubt in him. In him. It was that same uncertainty she had experienced so many years ago, when she had spotted him with the other Priestess in the corridor outside the women's dormitories. When she had been so sure that they would kiss. She knew they were going to kiss…

Had they ever kissed?

The memory seeped into her mind. It was like smoke, thick and choking. Pervasive. Unavoidable. It filled the crevices between her thoughts and reminded her that there was much she didn't know about Priest. Too much…

"I'm sorry…but I've kept secrets from you."

Secrets. And with secrets, she knew, came lies. Lies about what?

"Not Shannon."

Her grip tightened over the handlebars, her knuckles nearly rubbed raw from the flying grit, which stung her flesh like sharp hail. Priestess looked at Priest. She watched him swerve to avoid a rocky outcropping. She saw his hunched shoulders and thought of his eyes, which had been sad, but were now, they were now…

Oh God, had he lied to her?

She was distracted, distracted enough not to hear the sloping gait of a creature on all fours as it galloped up beside her. In an instant, Priestess felt all the breath knocked out of her body and she was flung from her motorcycle, the vehicle fishtailing wildly as it skittered off into a stony embankment. The world became a blur of early stars and blackened sky and sickening dizziness as she tumbled. At the last minute, before she hit the ground, she remembered to tuck her legs underneath her so that she could come up fighting. But the creature slammed into her again as soon as she was on her feet. It was a mass of grey flesh. A carrion figure that stank of rot. Slippery skin glided beneath her palms as she reached out, trying to grapple with the vampire. But the beast howled and like a spooked horse, shied to the side, its neck twisted as it tried to reach back and bite her.

The fangs were the last thing she saw. They were white at the tips, brown by the gums and blood had dried on the serpent's tongue. She reached for her knife only to find her hand pinned by thick claws. The vampire breathed on her, the full weight of its bloated, leech body forcing her to the ground.

Infection, she thought in the final blind moment between life and oblivious eternity. Priest will kill me if I'm infected.

And it was a horrible way to die, really. She would have a death tainted by irony and not honor, a life forgotten and not remembered because she wasn't worthy.

How unfair. How terribly unfair-

It was then that they came for her, Priest and Seth, two blotchy shadows against the starry canvas above. They were both shouting, both pulling and Priestess felt the great weight of the vampire's body lifted off her, the creature flailing, screaming.

"Hold it!" Seth called out. "Hold it, Priest, I need to get my knife!"

A wretched squeal rent the air, along with a snarl, the ripping of skin. Priestess blinked, dragging herself up onto her side. She saw a pool of red inching towards her.

"Throat's cut," Priest muttered, his satisfaction grim. He slid his own knife back into his sheath.

Seth was straddled across the vampire's body, his estimable strength keeping the creature on the ground as it succumbed to jerking death throes.

"Surprising," he said, climbing off the corpse and straightening his coat, "how much I've missed this."

"Are you all right?" Priest strode towards Priestess. He had his hand outstretched, but she was already on her feet.

"Embarrassed," she grunted. A subtle tremor made her knees weak.

"Don't be," he reassured her. "I didn't even hear it until it was on top of you."

"Came out of nowhere," Seth muttered. He kicked the body with his boot, sending the vampire rolling onto its side, the lacerated flesh dribbling gore onto the ground. "This one's still an adolescent. Must've gotten separated from its pack."

"Or fell behind," Priest replied. He placed his heel on the vampire's head, holding the dead beast at bay as he leaned closer, inspecting the folds of skin that hung from its spindly bones. "A male. Very undernourished for its age. Look, there's a sore. See it?"

He pointed to a patch of oozing red under the vampire's right arm. Priestess took a slow step forward, her shame still burning in her cheeks although the moonlight was gracious enough to disguise her blush.

"Diseased," she noted as she glanced at the festering wound. There was some whitish discharge near the sore, a hint of the parasites that sometimes struck down young vampires who were born weak.

Her embarrassment doubled then, when she realized she had been bested by a sickly beast. It was nearly unforgivable.

Focus, she told herself, standing between Priest and Seth, who both easily towered over her. No more distractions.

Her heart was thumping in her throat and her stomach churned when a breeze blew the full stench of the creature in her direction. Covering her hand with her mouth, she gagged.

Oh God, what's become of me?

Seth shifted, his muscular arms folded over his broad chest. An unusually harsh smile made his face look dangerous in the silver shadows of the night. "It's like something of divine justice," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the vampire, "a parasite on a parasite."

Priest exhaled sharply. He rolled his stiff shoulder, his knuckles pressed against his still tender wound. "Doesn't matter what it is," he said, "but I'd be willing to bet anything there's a pack somewhere around these parts. This one just got left behind."

"A whole pack?" Seth asked. His mirth suddenly ceded to worry. "How'd a whole pack escape one of the reservations?"

"Easy," Priest mumbled. "I saw it happen at Nightshade. So did Priestess."

The sound of her name snagged her attention, but she purposefully ignored the chatter. Discreetly, Priestess moved away from her companions and their conversation, her unsteady footsteps bringing her over to her motorcycle which now lay on its side in the belly of a rocky ditch.

It took a good deal of her strength to right it and when she did, she crouched by the tires, displeased when she noticed that the front one had a dent. It wouldn't run smoothly now, unless she stopped some place to have it fixed. She folded her hands over the seat, clenching her fingers around the lip until the bones in her wrists ached and she could taste her anger, her disappointment.

She was searching for shadows where there were none. She was grasping at a reality, a reality she had made up, for her, for Priest, that would never exist. She had been wrong in the past and she was wrong now.

Why, she asked herself, have I let myself become a fool?

There were no lies, after all. There were no secrets. Only the falsehoods she had told herself. Only the dream that she relied on for comfort. But it was just a dream, just a…

He does not love you.

Priestess pressed her forehead against the side of her motorcycle. This was shameful. This was indeed unforgivable. It would be best if she quitted her infantile game while she was ahead, if she let go of all the insinuations her mind had created to fulfill a longing she shouldn't even have. She saw now how lethal it could become, how utterly destructive.

I'm not jealous, she told herself harshly, because there is nothing to be jealous of. I'm not jealous. I'm not-

"Were you bitten?" His voice was close by, closer than she had expected.

Priestess jumped, her neck snapping around so quickly she felt it crack.

Priest knelt beside her and she noticed he had his knife in his hand.

That made her smile. "No, I wasn't bitten," she replied.

She was surprised when he emitted a shuddering sigh and she realized how tight his eyes were, blurred by a bit of unexpected moisture that could have been sweat. Or maybe tears.

"Thank God," he said.

There was a pause. And then he kissed her. Quickly, but not chastely, on the lips. They were mouth to mouth, breath to breath and he was sweating. Or crying maybe, because there was salt on his lips.

Priest drew away, breaking the precious contact. He immediately dropped his hand over his eyes, his fingers forming a mask that even she couldn't see through.

Priestess sat back, breathless. She slouched against her motorcycle.

"Listen to me," he said. There was a warning in his voice although Priestess didn't believe it. "Listen to me." His hands were shaking.

"I am listening," she insisted, wanting to appease him in that moment, to give him everything, because he had been everything to her. He still was, he still was everything.

Priest finally lifted his hand from his eyes and she saw that he was crying. Oh God, crying. And she did not want to see him cry.

"The Church," he said, drawing out the words, letting them linger on his tongue, "they kill those who break their vow of celibacy."

Author' Note: Thanks for reading! The next chapter is in the works and should be posted soon. Until then, take care and be well!