Yoel Rosen, Sin-Eater

The Tzimisce researcher Dr. de Sancha sought to test mortal piety. He abducted a dozen kine who seemed more than usually religious, and tortured them. One by one his test subjects cursed God, and Dr. de Sanchagave them the release of death. At last only Father Yoel Rosen remained alive. This elderly priest’s faith seemed to grow as the torment continued. One night he forgave his torturer, and his forgiveneSS scalded Dr. de Sancha like fire. Fascinating! One experiment remained: To pit Rosen’s faith against the Curse of Caine directly. Dr. de Sancha Embraced Father Rosen. The priest knew he was damned the first time he fed, and saw the child he had slain in his hunger. He prayed that God might strike him dead. His prayer was not answered. Father Rosen tried to starve himself, but his hunger always overpowered his will in the end. In the long nights, he prayed unceasingly for forgiveness or destruction. At last, miserable and near torpor, Father Rosen received avision of Christ on the cross, suffering to take sin from humanity. The priest’s dead flesh rippled as wounds appeared on his hands. As Rosen stared at his stigmata, his sire tossed a kidnapped beggar into his cell. Rosen reflexively fell on the poor girl like a starving dog and his mind broke. Dr. de Sancha eventually decided that he could learn nothing more from his mad childe. He found Father Rosen a place in a pack that shared the priest’s religious devotion.. . or something like it, anyway. After a few years, the pack‘s priest fell into Wassail and had to be destroyed. Father Rosen took over as the new pack priest. So far the Machete Cross pack seems satisfied with their eccentric spiritual leader. Father Rosen now believes that when he feeds, he takes his victim’s sins along with their blood. Anyone slain by him dies in a state of grace. Greater love hath no Muico BY Nimr 62 man than to give up his life for another, the Gospel says, and sacrificing one’s life for faith is holy martyrdom. When he hunts, Father Rosen makes himself look like a conventional portrait of a saint. One night he might look like St. Jerome, an old, balding man. Another night he takes the guise of St. Roche, a young man with a sore on his leg. Since people occasionally see Father Rosen and live, the Mexican police receive some highly peculiar crime reports which they ignore as too ridiculous to investigate. Somebody saw St. Francis of Assisi bite a guy’s neck? Obviously they were drunk, on drugs or playing a sick prank.

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