Below The Cathedral

PART I

Table of Contents: Part I | Part II | Part III

A lonely young priest on night watch in an abandoned Texas abbey follows a hymn beneath the altar…and finds a chained vampire who calls him “angel.” One act of mercy could save him—or damn them both.

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Religious themes, imprisonment/restraint, blood/vampiric feeding, brief mind influence/compulsion, erotic tension, consensual explicit M/M sex.

⚠️ Indented for mature readers 18+

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BELOW THE CATHEDRAL

Josiah B Vale

Part I

My first day as a real priest is not supposed to go like this. I spend years in seminary, pray endless prayers, read thousands of pages, draft countless dissertations, curate a life and body honed by restraint, only to be assigned night watch over the Abbey of Saint Caedmon. Why does an abandoned cathedral need an ordained priest after dark? I couldn’t begin to understand the reasoning. Hearing about the past priests who held the post, and knowing myself, it feels like a way to get rid of the ones who were always a little too different to handle.

Here, far from any real town, basically in the middle of the Texas desert, hardly anyone sees these walls. It is not the place to build a community, spread the word of God, or do much of anything besides sit, sulk, walk, and sulk some more. The caretakers vanish before dusk, leaving nothing but the bones of an ancient cathedral and my thoughts. Lovely.

Maybe I am meant to be alone. Maybe that’s what was being said about me, whispered in the halls of seminary when the bishop avoided my eyes. Maybe they could sense the questions that won’t stop burning under my skin. They say the Abbey is preserved for its historical value. I think it’s a place to hide inconvenient truths.

Maybe I’m one of them.

Every night I light the candles in the sanctuary. A ritual for an audience of one. The place, though falling apart, is tended as well as the day staff can manage. The sanctuary is still awe-inspiring in its opulence. It makes me feel like I am doing something of worth. Smoke curls toward the stained-glass windows where the saints don’t look down. Only away. My vestments feel heavy, stifling in the Texas summer heat. Even at night, sweat pools beneath my collar and slips down my spine.

Disgusting heat. I miss the Colorado mountains where I’m from. The cool, thin, cleansing air.

I could shed my robes. No one is here to care. But the weight makes me feel legitimate, despite my insulting little exile. I am still a man of God. When I wear the clothes of a priest, I almost believe it.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” The words stumble off my tongue, hollow and soft. I bow before the altar. My lips move in prayer for strength, for purity, for wisdom. For some voice to say I’m on the right path. All I hear is the slow drip of wax and the hollow ache of an unnamed hunger in my soul.

Wow. Being alone in this place is making me melodramatic.

I feel more than see movement behind me. A flicker. Probably a candle guttering out.

My sweaty hands grip the rosary at my belt.

I turn. Heart pounding.

Nothing.

I center myself with a breath. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Of course I’m starting to go a little crazy. Who wouldn’t, in a place like this? Get it together.

Then I hear it.

Music. Singing. From below the altar, deep and layered, like a choir submerged beneath water. Vibrations crawl up through my shoes, into my shins, my marrow. It asks—no, begs—me to come closer. One step. Then another.

Suddenly I’m kneeling at the altar.

I press my ear to the carpet covering the floorboards. A baritone quartet sings, deep and masculine, perfectly in tune and matching as if it were all one man. Something brushes my thoughts. An awareness.

The music stops. Followed by the drag of metal. Chains on stone.

I freeze. My mind says run. Something deeper refuses.

“Hello?” I call. Silence answers.

I slide back the rug and find the wooden boards glowing with faint veins of light. Soft. Wrong. I place my palms on the surface. Warm. A circular fissure runs deeper than the others. I trace it, catch a thumbnail on a crack, and work it loose until a clean panel lifts free.

Beneath: an iron ring. A hatch. Latches on either side. A handle in the middle.

I should leave it. Pretend it isn’t there.

Instead—I undo the latches, curl my fingers through the ring, and pull the hatch open.

Curiosity is the oldest sin, but it fits me better than faith ever did.

Warm, sweet air washes over my face, thick with the scent of dessert wine left too long in the sun and old iron. The candles in the sanctuary bow toward it. Below, a spiral stair descends into darkness within stone that looks grown rather than carved. I hesitate, but the air strokes my face, I like the way it feels, and the singing returns. I smile despite myself. The voices are soft and sweet as honeyed butter.

“Lord, if someone is trapped down there, give me the strength to save them.” This prayer feels less hollow than earlier.

I start down.

The corridor opens from living bedrock, trailing into alcoves lined with ancient candles, wax frozen in time. I take one for light. How is a candle still burning down here without melting into nothing?

So many turns later, I reach a level opening. I lean my palm against wet stone and catch my breath. At the other end stands a gate of wrought iron, and behind it a vast chamber. In the half-light, a cross, and—maybe—someone bound to it.

The singing vanishes. A chill runs through the heat.

I have come too far. If someone were to shut me in here, even by accident, it could mean death.

I’m at the gate. When did I cross the room?

My candle throws a narrow circle. Beyond the bars the cross rises, iron and brutal, jutting from the ground like the hilt of a sword thrown perfectly true. Stone has cracked and sealed around its base.

He is bound to it.

Arms spread. Wrists cuffed in silver chains that bite deep. Legs crossed and chained below. A crucifixion art piece but wrong. I would think him a statue if not for the detail—and the voice from earlier. He is thick-muscled, a strip of cloth at his hips his only covering. I force myself not to linger.

He must be the source of the song. Right?

But he looks dead.

What if—oh God—what if the voice belonged to the one who killed him.

His chest gleams with a slick sheen, dark hair curling at its center and trailing down. But there is no heave. No movement. No breath.

I am at the foot of the cross. When did I cross the gate? I stumble back, nearly falling. The candle shakes.

The body breathes. A cracked, dry sound that hurts to hear. His head lifts. Eyes open. Irises glow the red of wine held to candlelight. My blood runs cold. My body locks. I want to run or look away, but I can’t. I don’t even blink. I stare into those shimmering red eyes. Hunger lives there. Hunger I recognize. Hunger I shove down daily.

“Angel,” he murmurs, voice frayed at the edges and beautiful anyway. “You’ve come to save me.”

Something in me unlocks. Adrenaline snaps through my limbs. I shuffle back. The gate hits my spine.

“Who are you?” My voice shakes. “Did someone hurt you—leave you here? Are they still down here?”

“Yes, I was hurt. Yes, I was left. Trapped.” He pauses. “No. They aren’t here. Not anymore.”

The answers sink slowly. “How long ago?”

His cracked lips form a faint smile. “That—along with who I am—will be a lot to take in.”

I don’t like that answer. “I’m here to help,” I say, because it’s safer than I don’t know what I’m doing or how fast can I run.

“Good,” he says. “I need help, Angel.”

“I’m not an angel. My name is Cameron. I’m a priest.”

“Cameron,” he repeats, tasting it. “I am trapped. And if you save me—you are my angel, beautiful little saint.”

Even from a crusted, red-eyed muscle god, being called beautiful makes me blush. He is just a man. With unfortunately strange eyes. And he is bound. I am a priest. I will help. I shake my head to clear it and step closer. Two steps. Three. The candle climbs him, painting the long rope of his abdomen. Bite marks ring his wrists. A deep silver scar glimmers. The bites look human. A word finally surfaces in my jumbled thoughts.

“How long have you been here?” I ask again.

He exhales, the sound rasping. “What year is it?”

“2026,” I whisper.

“Over a century.”

I nearly lose the candle.

“You should be dead.”

“I really am barely holding on to my compulsion, aren’t I?”

Compulsion. My knees threaten to give.

“You’re a—”

“Go on. Say it.”

“Vampire.”

He smiles. Red eyes gleam. Impossibly white teeth catch the light.

Every vampire movie I’ve seen floods back. He is messing with my memory.

Do you still believe, Cameron.

The question isn’t sound. The world blurs.

“Get out of my head,” I say.

You left the door open, he answers.

“Stop!”

“You smell like a confession,” he says. “Like the part you never say. I can hear it loud and clear.”

“Shut up!” I step toward him, finger raised, and realize I’m too close.

“Temptation is only the truth you dislike, saint.”

“That is not Scripture.”

“It should be.”

His voice threads under my skin. Warmth presses the back of my neck, calming, pulling me nearer.

“Who are you?”

“Hungry,” he says, looking away. “My name is Sergio.”

The name finds a place in me and sits. “Sergio,” I say aloud.

“Help me, Cameron. Be my angel.”

“This is wrong,” I whisper, almost to convince myself.

“Look at me,” he says.

I do. Red eyes like rubies lit from within. The innocent line of his throat. The raw red at his wrists where iron dug too long. I am dizzy.

If I drink, I will not kill you. The sentence glides through me. One act of mercy, angel. One mouthful, and you could save me.

I believe him. My body gives a hungry lurch that feels borrowed and perfectly mine at once. The shame that usually follows does not arrive in time.

I am hard.

An ache pressed tight by vestments never made for this. I hate that he feels it. I hate that he feels everything.

“You were inside me,” I say.

He huffs a laugh. “No. Not yet.”

A promise and a curse.

“Stop,” I say, but I do not move away.

“You want to be so good,” he whispers. “Be good to me.”

Something low in me answers yes. It is not a word. He hears it anyway. His eyes soften. He closes the distance not with his body—the chains forbid it—but with the weight of his attention.

My knees loosen. I brace a hand on the iron cross. It is warm under my palm.

He leans toward me as if toward a kiss. “Only a little,” he says. “Just one bite.” His gaze drops to my throat. A ghost of pressure touches the spot and I gasp.

“No,” I say, surprising us both. “No.”

My breath saws in and out. Shame arrives at last, frantic and late.

His face empties, then fills with something older than disappointment. Not anger. Sorrow.

“If you want help,” I manage, “I will find a way that is not this.”

“The only way is this,” he says, not cruel, just true.

“Then I cannot.” I force my legs steady. “I don’t even know what kind of monster I’d be letting out into the world.”

Though, I realize, I am close enough for him to take what he wants. He does not. He hasn’t tried. He only watches.

He looks at me a long time, and the look is unreadable until it isn’t. It is mercy. It is patience sharpened by centuries until it shines.

“Then let me show you,” he says.

The candle gutters. The chamber rushes away. Light pours in from nowhere and everywhere. I am not in my body. I am falling through someone else’s memory, and it is cold, and it is terrible, and it is all-consuming.

It tastes like fire …

and blood.

and love.

Next: Part II

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Table of Contents: Part I | Part II | Part III