by Sabra Kay
I spun around, and there was the second eldest son of Blaine, Jaren. Fucking weasel. He stood, ashen, eyes glowing and tendrils of viscous black aura projecting from him like a dark halo. The ground rumbled again, and I thought of Mina. Had she closed the gate? Where was she? Was I sure Blaine was dead?
A mob gathered behind Jaren, and a frothing, fervent semi-circle of Blaine minions zeroed in on me. Jaren smiled at me and pulled the trigger again, this time aiming at my chest. The gun jammed, though. His smile faded as I raised my pistol.
“Wait!” A flickering glow caught my eye, and from the darkness, another hooded follower and a wounded guard dragged Mina behind him, torch in hand.
He smiled and lit the pyre closest to him. Harry looked around wildly, then at me. He offered me a smile, then closed his eyes.
I screamed and pulled the trigger. The guard went down, and I spun around to face the mob, firing again, this time hitting my target, Jaren Blaine. More guards pushed through the crowd, and two fired, both missing. I panicked. If I turned my back to free Harry, I was done for. If I held off the crowd, Harry was dead.
Fuck it. I turned my back on the guards and the crowd and ran toward Harry. They came after me, and I heard shots fired. I flinched and kept going. The flames were just feet away from Harry. I jumped on the bales and frantically began untying him.
More shots rang out. I looked behind and saw gunmen looking confused as members of the congregation were scattered on the ground. The encroaching mob had turned on them and had somehow lined up, putting themselves between us and the guards.
Harry was free, and we went to work on Darah, Miles, and Chuck. Ethan was still, eyes closed. For a moment, I feared he was dead, but his chest heaved. Light poured from his body, and in an instant, I realized it was him that had subdued the angry mob and turned them on Blaine's guards.
The binds were tight, but Harry produced a knife from his sock and was able to cut through them easily. The fire whipped into a frenzy with the latest gust of wind, and even one minute more would have spelled death for Harry and the rest.
As we ran from the now raging fire, I saw the crowd part to let Gregory through, with Sera in tow. When she caught sight of her father, she shrieked and ran toward us. Gregory's eyes met mine, and I mouthed thank you. I looked behind me to make sure there were no more hooded figures or pissed off cambions coming behind us but only saw Mina, crumpled on the ground and covered in blood.
For a moment in time, I stood and watched what was unfolding around me. Ethan embraced his daughter. Miles worked on the crowd, ever the leader. Without their precious reverend to guide them, they fell back like the sheep they were. Gregory stared down at the body of his brother, and Chuck shouted something at me, although I couldn't hear a word of it. Everything slowed down, and my only thought was that Luz was right, there had been no way to plan for what had happened tonight.
***
A row of black SUV's pulled into the compound. The cavalry. It would have been nice to have seen them a little earlier. Chuck sat me down on a chair in the Pavilion and applied pressure to my wound. My head was foggy, and I was shivering.
“Grazed. No big deal, but you should probably still get to a hospital tonight.” He rested his cheek on the top of my head and gave my good shoulder a squeeze.
“You did good, kid. I knew you would.”
Tears sprang to my eyes at this, and I struggled to blink them away. Surveying the grim scene replaced my warm fuzzies with sickness and dread. I was surrounded by carnage. Chaos. Desecration.
They loaded Ethan into an ambulance. Turned out he'd been hit by one of the many stray shots fired during the fight.
“Take care of Sera for me, till I'm out?” He asked.
“Of course.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and watched the ambulance pull away.
Within minutes, the place was swimming with suits and badges. Most of the crowd had dispersed in a hurry after the shoot out, but dozens still wandered around in shock.
CDT officers flashed fake FBI badges and questioned as many as they could, taking photos, getting names and addresses, taking identification info and eyewitness accounts. They loaded bodies into vans and sent a group of investigators over to question us.
Sera stuck by my side throughout the process until a CDT suit came up to take her away.
I jumped to my feet, stopping the woman in her tracks. “Sera is not leaving my side. End of story, no discussion.”
“She has to come with me,” the woman protested.
“I said, no.”
“What’s the issue here?” Miles appeared, arms crossed, looking as stern as ever.
“I need to take the child with me, as per protocol.”
“And what did Grace have to say about that?” Miles pointed towards me with his thumb.
I stared at the woman intently.
“Well, she said no, sir.”
“Then I guess you have your answer.”
The woman left with a grumble, and I pulled Sera into my lap.
“Thank you, Miles,” I said.
“That was for her sake, not yours,” he laughed as he walked away.
Gregory had disappeared, no surprise there. The Good Reverend Billy Blaine's body was loaded up along with Jaren’s and Mina’s. She had been so young. She wasn’t the first witch to have been held and forced to open doors against her will.
An officer a few feet away commented on our luck. It's good the massacre happened in this remote location. Had this taken place in the middle of San Francisco or Los Angeles, things would have been trickier.
Blaine and his people had unleashed demons into a crowd of vulnerable hosts. There was no way to tell how many were infected. The havoc that so many possessed could wreak was disturbing. My days and nights were about to get busy.
For now, though, I could breathe a sigh of relief. Sera was alive and unharmed, and once Ethan recovered; they would be reunited. She leaned against my good arm, with her face buried in Rex Bunny.
Darah flitted back and forth between talking to suits and checking on us. She didn't look like someone who had been mere inches away from being burned alive. She in charge and in her element. As I watched the goings-on, I thought of my father, the father that raised me. William Gamble. Where was he tonight? Did he even know what happened? Was he wondering if I was okay?
“You ready to go home?” Harry asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I rubbed my growling belly. And I'm hungry.”
Chapter Eighteen
I went straight to the hospital from the site of the Redemption Massacre, as the news was now calling it. They had burned two women alive. Billy and Jaren Blaine were dead, but Billy Jr and Blaine's wife were missing. Twelve staff and security members were dead, and at least two dozen members of the congregation. Some had been killed by gunfire during the fight.
Most deaths had come from them turning on each other. A small group of the most fanatical Blaine groupies had attacked other members of the congregation who hadn’t been on board with the burnings or who had expressed fear over the clash and refused to attack us. They’d strangled some, and stoned others to death. It was a grisly scene, and our people had to work some serious shit to make it look like something other than what it was.
The final report would conclude that Blaine was, in fact, a cult leader, and that he and members of his cult following had planned to capture and burn detractors as witches, which was true, and that at the end, the congregation had turned on father and son and each other, fueled by drugs and madness.
I spent the next several hours in the emergency room getting my wound looked after. Council member Jedediah showed up on my way out, pulling me aside as I was getting ready to leave. Miles was with him but was silent and solemn.
“This must be a difficult time for you, Ms. Gamble. We will hold a formal hearing to get an accurate picture of what happened last night, and a more complete picture of what your Father, William Gamble, has been doing over the years.”
“Yes, of course.” I swallowed nervously. When was it coming?
“Your father is missing, along with his personal belongings, hard drives, files, and at least one staff member.”
“Really?” I pressed my lips together and fought back tears.
He had abandoned me. He hadn’t even said goodbye. Why did I care? Why was I surprised?
Jed thumbed through some notes. “He can't stay hidden for long, but we have concerns about the damage he may cause before we catch up with him.”
“I understand.”
“We doubt he'll come back to his home or make contact, but if he does, please inform us immediately.”
“Of course.”
One of the other members spoke next. “We will need you to come into the office in the next forty-eight hours to make a formal statement and sign some paperwork. You are on leave starting immediately, at least until after the hearing. Go home, relax, take care of yourself, and please call us if you think of anything that might help us track down your Father. Here's my card.”
I accepted the card. “I don't need to take any time off. We're short-staffed.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Gamble. But until we have time to do a full evaluation of the...” he looked at his colleagues, then at Miles. “...situation, we'll need you to remain on leave.”
I was being sidelined again. This time because they thought I was an unhinged monster. Great. Guess I wouldn't be exorcising any demons, after all.
Harry put his arm around me and kissed my temple, the only spot on my face that currently didn't hurt. “Hey, that gives us plenty of time to hang out. Shit, let's take a vacation. Someplace warm and tropical, what do you say?”
“Right now, I'll settle for someplace with warm food.”
He put his hands up. “Okay, okay. We'll feed you.”
***
I spent two days at the Grove with Sera. We played the old board games Claire had dug out of a closet for us. We stopped at Luz's shop and visited Chuck's dog. We ate pizza and watched movies. We slept and told stories. Then I drove her to her father. He knew the truth. I knew the truth. Sera knew it, too, on some childlike level. I would never replace Sian, and I didn't want to. I was Auntie Grace, and that was the way it would stay.
I finally arrived home, just after noon. It was Saturday, and the sun was shining, providing a little warmth to the chilly February afternoon. I entered my dim apartment and turned on the lights.
The apartment was stuffy, and the mess I had left out was still waiting for me. My arm was still bandaged and sore, but I cleared out the trash lying around, emptied the ashtrays, and tossed the empty bottles in the recycling. My eye caught a half-full bottle of whiskey on the bottom shelf of the nightstand. I stared at the bottle for a full minute before I dumped the liquid down the sink. More for the recycling.
I spent a few minutes sitting on my couch, flipped the television on, and immediately turned it off, before heading upstairs. The living room was dark, and the place smelled of dust and stagnation. I opened the curtains, letting the sunlight stream into the room.
It was the first time the curtains had been open in years.
I pulled the sheets off the dining room table and couch, wiped down the kitchen counters, and opened the window that looked out onto the backyard. A few birds foraged for bugs, and a neighborhood cat was stretched out along the fence. I made my way upstairs, first going to my Mother's room to open the window and let in some air. The room desperately needed dusting.
Finally, I made my way to my old room. It had been months since I'd set foot in there. The bedding was faded and worn, and I chuckled at the posters on the wall. The pink had to go, too. It was gross. Not a dainty ballerina pink, but a bubble gum nightmare pink. It occurred to me this room would be perfect for Sera if she ever wanted to come over for a sleepover.
Then I remembered it was me who was responsible for the death of Billy Blaine and the expulsion of the demon that possessed him. No doubt Sera would always be in some danger, but the last thing I would do was put her in any more.
I wandered outside, waiting for Mama Squirrel to come out. After a few minutes, she did. The daffodils were just poking up out of the ground. Mama chattered at me as I walked the perimeter of the yard, breathing deep and reveling in the sunlight and crisp air.
Back in the kitchen, I started opening drawers and cupboards. A trip to the grocery store was past due. My arm ached, and I winced and headed for the ibuprofen. A text from Harry popped up.
Hey Grace. How about I come by tonight with some Chinese food?
What do you say?
I texted back. Yes, absolutely.
Moments later, I got another text. It was from Chuck.
Sorry I'm late with your morning inspiration. Here it is.
“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
I smiled. For the first time in a long time, it felt good to be home.
The End.
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Thank you for reading Redemption:
The Evolution of Grace
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