((Written in a close, neat hand on both sides of a piece of paper.))

Dear Reverend Mother:

I write this in the sincere hope that my letter reaches the mainland, but the post from Midian is rather unreliable. I would attempt a call instead, but the phone lines in the church are down, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. I could have asked the father for permission to use his personal line, but he has been terribly distracted of late, for reasons you'll soon understand, and I could not find it in my heart to trouble the poor man further.

There is so much to tell you, but in this letter I will keep myself to the news of greatest importance.

I am writing this letter from Zoe's Cafe, a small eatery on Midian's main street, little more than a block from the church. I feel safer there, especially during the daytime, than I do anywhere else in the city--and yes, I know you read this with surprise, but you will understand when I tell you what happened in the church on Palm Sunday. The church no longer feels like a sanctuary, and even the stalwart presence of the father comforts me only a little. I am, in truth, more terrified than I have ever been. A week ago last Sunday, a young cat of the church--one of the nekos, you'll remember--was murdered horribly, and in her will she asked Fr. Eamon to give her a Christian funeral. She was well on her way to the catechumenate, and Fr. Eamon agreed. Many in our parish mourned the young woman deeply.

The father received word from the deceased's daughter that one of the woman's suspected murderers was planning an appearance at the funeral. The city's police were notified by the family of the deceased; many of her fellow cats made plans to stand watch as well. I could not attend due to parish duties in another part of the city, but from all accounts, the service started well, and the father and the attending mourners were able to make it through most of the requiem mass itself. Unfortunately, it was not long before the aforementioned suspect made an appearance, accompanied by other allies, and the funeral service spun rapidly into madness.

Oh, Reverend Mother. You cannot imagine. The woman's body was desecrated with violence. Her daughter was terribly injured, along with many others who fought hard to stop the intruders. Gas of some nature was released, and the father tried to save some of those in attendance, but a subsequent explosion and some sort of tranquilizers used by the monsters invading the church put the father out of the action. And... oh heavens, it is too terrible. The father and at least one other parishioner--there may have been more, but the father has not yet discovered the details--were kidnapped by the intruders and carried off into the night. And tortured. Yes. I do not know the fate of the young woman kidnapped with the father--Fr. Eamon would not speak of it, except to say that she survived--but the father himself has been grievously hurt. His face is battered--bruised and badly cut, his nose broken. His arm was broken as well. And when he asked for my help in changing his bandages, I found multiple lacerations to his back and a deep stab wound to his shoulder.

You may well ask who treated him initially. There are angels in Midian still--he was rescued by Guin, another catwalker, and two unnamed friends of the latter, and treated with expert medical attention as far as I can see. I was impressed with the care taken in his bandages and the setting of his arm, and you know how exacting a nurse I can be. Still, when I took my nurses' training, I did not expect to be tending to a priest. Perhaps God knew when he led me to that vocation how much it would be needed here in Midian, where the monsters are.

Everything has changed, Reverend Mother. The church has been badly damaged. I spent today cleaning the char marks from the stonework--which despite the explosion, still stands, as sturdy as ever, thank heavens--and cleaning up the shattered remains of the pews, the lectern, the broken glass from the windows (oh, that lovely stained glass!), the remnants of the burnt aisle runner... and the huge old Bible the father used at Mass. I found it, torn into pieces and stained with blood, buried beneath the ruins of the lectern. Until that moment, I had not cried, but I confess I did so then, kneeling in the midst of the chapel's destruction, the Bible's tattered pages pressed to my chest.

Praise God, the front of the church before the altar, the beautiful organ, the confessional and the holy water font--all of these are intact, so I thank God for the small favors we have. And we have not been idle with our sorrow--the church is slowly being cleaned, and the father is already making plans for repairing and replacing what we have lost. I attempted to contact one of the city's "suppliers" this afternoon, in fact, but no one was in--I shall try again tomorrow. So yes, we are working to fix what was broken, to replace what was stolen from us, but I fear there are some things that can never be truly healed. I pray and know that we must be strong, that we will come through this trial tempered by fire and greater for it in the end--as the father says, triumph is born of adversity. But I am so terribly afraid, Reverend Mother. The shadows seem longer inside the church, and despite my hard work at cleaning, I still see the ghosts of bloodstains on the floor, and the spaces were the pews once stood, where the beautiful Bible rested... they seem to mock me with their emptiness.

And the father... he has cloaked himself in darkness. He speaks little now--and he spoke little enough to begin with--but I find him now standing in silence in the middle of the night-dark church, his arm in a sling, his eyes seeming to burn in his battered face. Depression I could understand--this is a terrible thing that has happened to him--but it is not sadness I feel. It is anger I sense in his unreadable expressions, in the clench of his one good hand, and I cannot help wondering what will become of us all.

Pray for us, Reverend Mother.

Yours in Christ,
Sr. Lisbeth Dollinger

"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual Light shine upon them.
May their souls
And the souls of all the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God
Rest in peace. Amen."

I am full of such sadness and horror, I cannot speak. It is only here, in the quiet pages of this diary I keep, that I can bring myself to give voice to the terrible things I have seen today, and the nightmare that has been visited upon another. My hands shake as I write this, my vision blurs, and I would give much to be able to go to sleep, in the hope that when I awakened, this would all prove some dream, but I cannot close my eyes without seeing blood and darkness, and I fear my dreams will be haunted now, for many nights to come.

My day began badly enough (although it is nothing to what happened later). Luci was sleeping in the cloister, as has been her habit since the affair of the sylphs--and I'll admit, I feel safer myself having her there. But she woke in the wee hours this morning from a screaming nightmare, and it took some time to soothe her and coax out what had frightened her so. The story she told both frightened and shocked me. It seems that a few days before, she had been wandering the sewers (although why the child insists on doing that, I haven't a clue).

Down in the tunnels beneath the city, she found a strange pair of doors, and on the other side... well, to be perfectly honest, I almost didn't believe her, but Luci claimed to have found a morgue of sorts, but one splattered in blood and other, fouler things. She described it in eerie detail, her voice soft and still thick with tears--how its walls were tiled in clinical white, with bags of bloody viscera in one corner, a blood-smeared table in another, and a wall of drawers such as those used for storing cadavers. There was also a ladder leading up, and she ventured up there as well, only to find a dark place filled with cells and other things I will not name. She had told Guin something of this, she said, and promised not to go back, but I have no idea if the father knows or not.

Be that as it may, I thought about it long and hard after Luci had gone back to sleep, and I decided to find out for myself what was to be found beneath the city. I honestly do not know what possessed me--I have never been so brave, or for that matter, so afraid--but the father was not in, and I have been so determined lately not to cower within the church. So as soon as my duties permitted, I slipped quietly away from the chapel, Luci's descriptions of the tunnels in mind, and ventured down into the shadows of the subway to find this slaughterhouse for myself.

I hope I never have need to enter those tunnels again. To say they were horrible would be grossly understating the truth. The smell was atrocious, and everywhere green filth covered the walls and floors. Thank heavens, the tunnels I walked were mostly dry, and I saw no one but the occasional rat, but my heart was in my throat for every step I took. Unfortunately, it did not take me long to find the room that Luci had described. And it was every bit as terrible as she'd said. I was not brave enough to actually climb the ladder, as she had done, but I opened the door a tiny crack and peeked inside. And the blood... oh heavens...

What atrocities have been committed in this place?! The smell alone was enough to make me sick and faint, and I could only imagine what horrors might hide behind those labeled doors. Or what in the name of all that's holy lay lumped and smeared on the table! I forced myself to see everything, so if no one else had told the father, I could be sure to do so, then I fled as quickly as I could back the way I had come. There are no words to describe my relief at stumbling through the subway tunnel once more, and never has that scrap of graffitti-covered concrete looked more welcoming. This in itself would have been bad enough, but it was nothing compared to what followed, after I had returned to the church to calm my jangling nerves. Strangers entered the church--acquaintances of the father, I believe--and the news they had...

*takes a deep breath and forces herself to write*

A dear friend of our parish was murdered this night. Chisaki, a regular attendee at Mass, and from all accounts, one who might have soon been won back to the fold, was tortured, mutilated, and crucified to death. Her body had been found at the Pool Hall, and her friends had come to the church, hoping to inform the father, I believe, in addition to asking for prayers and candles lit in Saki's memory. (I must go find the father, in fact, as soon as I finish writing this, so he can look into Saki's last rites. Father Eamon considered Saki a friend--I do not want to think what his reaction will be when the poor man hears this news.) It twists my heart to think of it, but the nature of her death leaves me no other choice: Was this some sort of mockery of Saki's renewed faith? Or a message to the parish itself?

Her friends could not tell me with any certainty what had become of her body, only that they suspected it was still at the Pool Hall. I did not know what to make of this, and after they left and I said my first prayers for Saki, I decided to do what I could to see that her body was being cared for. Perhaps my foray into the tunnels today was God's way of preparing me for what happened tonight, for I swallowed past my fear of the waterfront (and tried to forget Fr. Eamon's stern injunction never to go there alone--God forgive me my disobedience for a just cause!) and left the church to find the Pool Hall and what had become of poor Saki's remains.

Oddly enough, I found the Pool Hall empty. I hesitated outside for a moment or two, jostled rudely by various drunks wandering to and fro on the waterfront, but no one answered my nervous calls when I stood at the pool hall door. So I ventured inside, but there was no one to be found, and no sign at all of Saki's body. I didn't know whether to be worried or relieved, but I can only hope that Saki's fiance claimed her body and took her to be properly cared for. I can do no more myself, except to ask Fr. Eamon to let me know what he can as soon as he finds out more. But oh, that poor child. My heart breaks, and I mourn her, and the horrors she must have endured before the end. I pray God it was quick, but my heart tells me it was not.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.