by Jory Strong
When it ended, the women and girls went directly to the picnic tables—all except for the drummer. She moved to the preacher’s side.
Wicker picnic baskets were pulled from underneath the tables. Plates and silverware, tablecloths and finally dishes of food were laid out.
Movement at the end of the clearing drew Aisling’s eye. Zurael murmured, “There’s the child.”
The little girl was subdued where the children not being carried by young teens were already tumbling toward the adults and the food like eager puppies. And as if the children’s appearance was the sign to begin the meal, the men still at the altar picked up the snake boxes and went to the picnic tables.
The boxes were set on the ground, on benches, on the tables, as if they were hymn books set aside after the worship service. The rattle of the snakes slowly faded, giving way to the sound of conversation and laughter as people took their seats and began to eat.
Aisling’s stomach clenched painfully. Her mouth watered.
She turned to look at Zurael, her eyes catching on the serpent tattoo coiling around his forearm before lifting to meet his eyes. Hunger or insightful observation, the words came from nowhere. “If I go alone, with you in a snake’s form, they might welcome us with less suspicion and talk more freely in front of us.”
Denial flashed in Zurael’s eyes. His features tightened.
Aisling touched her fingertips to his lips with a confidence that once would have been foreign to her. “Don’t say no. This is the best way. Let them think I’m one of them, someone whose faith is marked by a sign they believe in.”
His hand lifted to become a fiery shackle around her wrist. A violent storm raged in his eyes, only yielding to the calm of deadly promise. He pulled her fingers from where they touched his mouth. “We’ll approach the gathering as you suggest. My ability to protect you is limited by the serpent’s form. Be warned, Aisling. Anyone who threatens you will be dead before they strike the ground. I won’t risk your being harmed.”
The fingers around her wrist tightened, then disappeared as he pulled away and became the serpent he’d been the day Elena visited, the day he and Aisling were taken unwilling into the spiritlands by a Ghost touch. She picked him up and draped him over her neck as she’d seen the worshippers do, as she’d once done with Aziel when he wore the body of a king snake.
Worry for Aziel distracted her. She stumbled, sending a covey of quail flying from cover with the noise she made.
Aisling forced herself to concentrate on the moment, on the task at hand. It was easy enough to rejoin the trail. Far harder to leave the shelter and protection of the forest.
Her heart raced in her chest. She knew that in the serpent’s form, Zurael would taste her fear.
Whether it was the eruption of the quail or simply a testament to how alert they were to their surroundings, despite the ease in which they were gathered around the picnic tables, all eyes seemed to be on her the moment she stepped into the clearing.
The preacher rose from the table, as did the woman drummer. Both came forward to greet her with smooth confidence, the force of their personalities reaching her before they did.
“Welcome. I’m Brother Edom and this is my wife, Sister Elisheba.”
The preacher’s voice was the warmth of home, the promise of family and safety. His eyes were a father’s, a brother’s, seeing past the sin to the good that lay beneath and offering forgiveness, understanding.
“Come, join us for the meal,” his wife said in lyrical tones, her eyes soft, offering a mother’s love, a sister’s friendship. “What should we call you?”
Their charisma was nearly overwhelming. It pressed against Aisling’s psyche as if seeking hollow places to fill and gain anchorage in.
Her fingers curled unconsciously around the hidden fetish pouch. And with a suddenness that left her swaying slightly, she was free of Edom and Elisheba’s subtle influence.
Aisling looked down at the ground, hoping they saw success in her unsteadiness, instead of failure. “Call me Aisling,” she said in a whisper.
“You look tired and hungry, worn from your trials,” Elisheba said. “Let us wash your feet and welcome you properly.”
“No,” Aisling said, deciding it was best not to let them pull her too deeply into their world. “I can’t stay.”
She dared to lift her face and meet their eyes again. In them she saw pity and regret, gentle understanding and infinite patience. But unlike before, she didn’t feel buffeted by emotions.
“We understand,” Edom said. “For some it takes time to believe and accept that God offers a taste of paradise on Earth for those who do His work. Come share a meal and fellowship with us.”
Aisling followed them to the picnic tables and was introduced. A place to the left of Elisheba was rapidly cleared for her, though when the others retook their seats, they noted Zurael’s presence and didn’t sit within striking distance.
A plate loaded with sliced pork was set near Aisling. Her stomach growled so loudly that heat flashed to her cheeks. But the people around her laughed with good humor and pushed other food in her direction.
She ate, though after the first few bites Zurael’s weight draped over her neck grew heavier and her conscience made the food lose some of its taste. She hated the thought of him being hungry in the midst of such a feast, but consoled herself with the knowledge he could hunt later or find the Fellowship kitchen and slip into it unseen.
When the meal was finished, young girls collected the plates while older ones served dessert. Boys of all ages stood, drifting closer to the table where she sat, apparently drawn by Zurael.
“He looks poisonous,” one of them said, his gaze riveted on Zurael.
“I think he might be,” Aisling said and there were appreciative murmurs from the boys when Zurael opened his mouth to reveal deadly fangs. “He was at the edge of the clearing. I picked him up after witnessing the worship service.”
Several of the boys nodded.
Edom said, “The Spirit came on you, Aisling. It pulled you through a doorway and into fellowship—not just for your sake, but for ours!”
“Amen!” the people within hearing range said.
“It sent you as testament to The Word,” Edom said.
“Tell us more,” came the refrain.
“God is a living god,” Edom said. “He’s a spirit. He doesn’t have a body. Except us. We’re his body.”
“Amen!”
“We’re his hands and his mouth. We’re his way into this world!”
“Amen!”
“Amen!” Edom said, leaving a pulsing, energy-filled silence that Aisling filled by asking, “Is that why you make and sell Ghost? So people will be open to The Spirit?”
She thought they’d be defensive, frightened that she knew about Ghost. But her question was greeted by smiles of understanding and nods of encouragement, by murmurs of “Welcome, Sister.”
Their reaction confused her. It made the knot in her stomach grow heavy and cold. Her conscience shuddered and her soul recoiled at the thought of overseeing the slaughter of people who seemed strangely innocent, unaware of the devastation that would one day be unleashed because of their beliefs.
Edom leaned forward, eyes shining with the fervor of his faith. “Today isn’t the first time The Spirit has come on you, is it? It came knocking when you were in one of those places of sin in the city—places with names advertising their wickedness.
“Lust! Greed! Envy! Those are just a few of the clubs people flock to, trying to fill an emptiness that can only be filled by Him!
“Don’t worry, Sister, we’re all sinners. We’ve all got things in our pasts, deeds and thoughts we’re ashamed of.
“You’re not the first person to seek pleasure using the stuff people have taken to calling Ghost. You’re not the only one to end up confronting the ugliness, the evil that’s slipped into your life while you weren’t watching. You’re not the first person to make a pilgrimage from the city looking
for redemption, answering the call.
“Well, you’ve found Him and you’ve found us. Amen!”
“Amen!” came the refrain, thundering through Aisling like a death knell.
“So you make Ghost?” she asked again, needing to be sure but dreading hearing them admit it.
Edom’s frown told her the question was unexpected, unwelcome after the passion of his words.
Elisheba covered his hand with hers and gave Aisling a small, knowing smile. “I’ve heard some become addicted to Ghost because it leads to unparalleled physical ecstasy. But once you’ve known true spiritual rapture, Aisling, you won’t crave Ghost anymore.
“None of the Fellowship members use drugs. They’re high on God and the life he’s brought them to. We don’t make drugs here. We take a small amount of money in exchange for distributing Ghost. And we sell it only in the red zone, where those who buy it might find salvation instead of damnation.”
“Do you really see it as only a drug?” Aisling asked, her voice edged with both horror and disbelief.
Faces closed. Friendliness disappeared. Eyes darted back and forth between her and the preacher and his wife.
A toddler wobbled over and stood between him and Elisheba. “Up, Mommy!” the little girl said, and some of the smiles around the table reappeared briefly.
Edom measured his congregation. His expression grew somber and pensive, the charisma folding in on him, making him seem thoughtful, a man not afraid of searching for and confronting the truth.
“What do you mean?” he asked and Aisling wondered if some of the Fellowship members were opposed to selling Ghost, if maybe they weren’t only sheep after all.
She gathered her thoughts. Chose the words and arguments that would ultimately lead them to tell her who they distributed Ghost for.
“You spoke about The Spirit coming on a person, knocking and opening a doorway to redemption and salvation.”
Aisling paused and from somewhere behind her the space was filled by a soft “Amen.”
“Well, Ghost can serve that purpose. I’m taking it on your faith. It can bring the light.”
Brother Edom nodded. “Amen. It can bring the light.”
“But I know for certain it can bring the darkness. It can open the door and let evil in. I’ve seen it myself.”
“Tell us about it!”
Aisling held back a smile. She felt a rhythm settling in, understood the addictive power of the word.
“What Brother Edom said was right. I was in a place of sin. A place that boasted of it in the name it goes by.”
“We’ve been there, Sister.”
“Brother Edom was wrong when he said I was using Ghost. I wasn’t. But there were men who were.
“Men who bought it from one of you. Who rubbed it on themselves and ate it. Who found the pleasure Sister Elisheba spoke of and became an obscene show for others in that place.”
“Tell us more!”
“I was there when an evil presence swept into the room like an icy wind. I witnessed as it called others to join it and they moved on the men, slid into them like a hand goes into a glove.”
“What happened then?” came a chorus of voices.
“Evil recognized evil!” a strident male voice answered, and Aisling turned her head to see the Ghost seller who’d been present that night approaching the tables, his finger pointing accusingly at her.
He was dirty, his clothing torn and his eyes burning with zeal. The shoulder-length brown hair was tangled and matted, wild—and for an instant his image was overlaid onto one she’d seen in an art book—of the Christians’ savior raging as he cast moneylenders from the temple.
“Evil recognized evil,” the man repeated. “They attacked her and were thrown out of the club. The men were torn apart and eaten by wolves and dogs while the shamaness and her lover ran and the sinners inside cheered for the beasts. And now evil has come into our home, like some of us said it would when we argued against taking money for distributing Ghost.
“You were wrong, Edom, to deal with the wicked, to send us out to their places of evil. And now we’ll all pay for it unless He sees that we can abide by his word and are worthy of protecting.”
The man opened two of the boxes and, without looking, reached in and pulled out snakes. They rattled furiously, struggled and writhed in his grasp, mouths open.
“You shall not allow among you anyone who is an enchanter, or a witch, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a necromancer. You shall not allow them to live!” he screamed, hurling the snakes at Aisling and reaching for more of them.
People surged upward from their benches. They scrambled to get away from the snakes that coiled and struck and slid across the wooden table.
A child screamed repeatedly, shrill and terrified.
Zurael lunged. He deflected a snake before it could reach Aisling, then raced forward.
A man yelled as a snake swung around and bit his cheek while he tried to subdue the Ghost seller.
Zurael struck and retreated. Returned to coil at Aisling’s feet, mouth open, his upper body raised and swaying.
The Ghost seller fell, dead before he reached the ground—just as Zurael had promised would happen to anyone who threatened her.
The air vibrated with the rattle of snakes, then was pierced by the screams of a child abruptly silenced.
Men closed in on the freed snakes, recaptured the ones that held their ground, hunted the ones that slipped into the forest.
Only slowly did chaos give way to calm.
Aisling heard the sobs then, the pleading, impassioned prayers. She turned to find Elisheba and Edom kneeling on the ground next to the chubby toddler.
The child was unconscious, shivering. Puncture marks marred her throat and arms where she’d been bitten.
They’d used a knife from the table to slice open her skin. Now they feverishly tried to draw the venom out with their mouths. But the toddler’s condition was testament to how quickly it had already spread.
Aisling took off the necklace with the witch’s healing amulet on it and knelt next to Elisheba. “Will you accept my help?”
Edom looked up and spat blood. His eyes bored into hers, not with the charismatic charm that seemed to offer forgiveness and understanding, but with a diviner’s intensity, as if he was looking for the black stain of evil on her soul.
He glanced at his child. For a horrifying second Aisling thought they’d deny her help.
Elisheba reached across the tiny body and placed her hand on his arm. “Edom, please,” she said and he nodded.
Aisling hoped the amulet was as powerful as Tamara claimed. She pressed it to the wound on the girl’s neck.
The effect was immediate. The little girl stopped shivering. Her eyelashes fluttered, fast at first, then slower, as if she were being drawn back to awareness at the same rate the venom was being absorbed by the amulet.
Underneath Aisling’s fingers, the woven strands of the amulet softened and took on the texture of wet yarn before hardening again, turning from pale gray to black, and finally crumbling from the outer edges inward.
The angry streaks on the child’s arms and neck, left by the spreading venom, receded. Disappeared.
A whimper heralded the little girl’s return to consciousness. Elisheba stroked the damp, silver-blond curls and whispered prayers of thanks. She cried in joyous relief when her daughter’s eyes opened and chubby arms reached upward.
All that remained of the amulet was a large coin-sized circle. It had stopped changing against Aisling’s fingers so she lifted it away from the child’s skin.
Edom said, “Will you give what aid you can to Brother Samuel?”
“Yes,” Aisling said, looking for the man who’d been bitten on the cheek as he tried to subdue the Ghost seller.
Brother Samuel was lying on a picnic table, moaning in pain. His face was already grotesquely distorted by the swelling, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Aisling wasn’t sure there wa
s enough of the amulet left to save him. But she hurried to him.
Someone had cut across the puncture wounds left by the fangs, but little blood seeped from the opening. “Hold him down,” Aisling said.
Guided by instinct, by her experiences with the fetishes she carried and the entities they represented, she pulled her athame from its sheath at her back and cut across the man’s cheek, deepening the wound already there until it bled freely.
He screamed and thrashed. Lifted from the table.
Out of the corner of her eye, Aisling saw Zurael prepare to strike.
“No!” she said and quickly pressed the amulet to the man’s skin.
He shuddered. Continued to struggle until what remained of the amulet grew soggy, then hardened and finally fell away.
“I’ll be okay now,” the man croaked, rolling to his side and vomiting when the others released him. His skin was clammy, but the swelling was gone from his face.
On another table lay the body of the Ghost seller. Guilt hovered over Aisling for bringing death with her. But she didn’t allow it to settle on her. In her mind’s eye she saw the vision of the future captured in a pool of her own blood in the spiritlands—the gleeful images of a world where malevolent spirits easily found pathways back to the place they once called home.
Aisling glanced around her and was met by somber expressions. She turned to find Edom and Elisheba standing, the little girl in her mother’s arms.
Tension mounted in the silence. And into that silence came the slightest rustle of leaves as a breeze rose from her feet, swirled around her, lifting her hair and making her think Zurael had shed the snake’s skin and now waited to take on a far more deadly form than the serpent’s.
“If you were guilty of creating Ghost, more of you would be dead, perhaps most of you,” she said, deciding to tell them the truth. “I came here looking for the person responsible for it.”
Edom met her eyes for a long moment. A slight tremor went through him before he seemed to gather his natural charisma. He glanced around, pausing on some of the older members of his church, and said, “God is a living god. He’s a spirit. He doesn’t have a body, except us.”
“Amen.”