by Sam Clark
Cobalt set the smiling boy—who smiled no more—down gently in the crook of his mother’s arm. He turned his attention to the father. He watched to see if the father’s chest would rise and fall, but there was nothing. He then looked to the boy, but there was no need to check. His head was facing the wrong way. He bent down and twisted it back to a more natural position. He then walked over to the dining room windows and opened them to help the fire spread. Convinced the job was done, Cobalt strode from the room. The total elapsed time couldn’t have been more than a minute. A clean operation.
On his way out, he grabbed a hunk of chocolate cake from the table, and then with his free hand he upset the lanterns he passed to make sure the house burned to the ground. It had to look like an accident.
Outside, the sun had set, and only the faintest hint of pink remained on the horizon of the twilight sky. The cool evening air prickled his naked skin. It was nothing, though. A slight inconvenience. Not something an agent of the Lord concerned himself with. The streets were still empty. Even if they hadn’t been, he doubted anyone would have noticed the piece of chocolate cake floating down the sidewalk. Once he was a block away, he stopped to enjoy the show.
Smoke was pouring from the windows now. A moment later an older woman burst from the front door hollering, “Fire!” In her arms, she carried the happy daughter, only she wasn’t happy anymore. She was screaming, even louder than before. It sounded more like a noise a wounded animal would make than a little girl. He felt bad about it, but he was doing the Lord’s work, and it had to be done. God would provide for the little girl. Maybe she would go to live in the orphanarium at Ismar now and be trained to join the Church.
Cobalt watched as the lacy white curtains on one of the open windows caught. They went from white to black to gone in the blink of an eye. From the curtains, the fire spread to the window casing, and flames were now visible from the outside of the house. The old woman, probably a maid, continued to shout “Fire!” and the unhappy girl continued her animal wail. He took a bite of the cake. It was delicious, rich and creamy, like velvet across his tongue. He wondered if the old lady had made it, and if he could somehow get her to make more for him. He would have killed for some milk.
People were coming out of the neighboring houses now, some just to gawk, others to help. A man who looked to be in his mid-fifties took control of the situation, sending people for buckets and water. He kicked one bystander, a young man about thirty years his junior and some thirty pounds heavier, right in the backside. The younger man looked at the older for just a moment, as if trying to decide how he should react. In the end, he ran off in the direction the others had gone. Presumably toward water.
Cobalt, warmed by the raging inferno he’d started, licked the residual icing off his fingers one at a time, savoring the sweet taste. A block up the street, the bucket brigade was in full swing, a line of giant ants. But their effort was all for naught, at least as far as the unhappy family and the house where they used to live were concerned. It was like trying to extinguish the sun one bucket at a time.
The man in charge seemed to sense it was a lost cause. He began distributing shovels that had been collected, sending the men who received them off to dig a trench around the perimeter of the house, in an effort to stop the fire from spreading. Water was diverted from the house to the landscape surrounding it, in an attempt at a preventive soaking.
It was good for the community to come together in the face of tragedy like this. He was sure they would manage to get by until they got help from their new lord. The Lord of them all would provide.
As he sat there, staring at the bright glow of the fire that lit the nighttime street like the noonday sun, feeling its warmth on his face, he said a silent prayer, thanking God for allowing him to complete his mission. When he was finished praying, he turned his thoughts from this sleepy little town and the unhappy family to his own family. To his sisters. He wondered if they fared as well as he, doing the Lord’s work.
END OF VOLUME I
Thank you so much for reading volume I of the Book of Tribulation! I hope you enjoyed it. Would you please consider leaving a review? It would be greatly appreciated. Even just a few words would help others decide if this book is right for them.
I’ve made it easy, just click—this link—and you’ll be taken to the Amazon review page for this book.
If you would like to be notified of exclusive 24-hour launch day discounts for future volumes, then click here.
Warmest regards and thanks again for reading,
Sam
Table of Contents
TITLE
EPIGRAPH
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE