by Sara King
They are running out of places to hide, Imelda thought, with a mixture of satisfaction and regret. Soon, the Realm would belong to God’s true agents once more, and the monsters she fought, generations from now, would be a distant memory. When that happened, Imelda and her Order would become obsolete. That was why she fought. She wanted that peace of God to reign, that surrender to truth to ease the hearts and minds of the people. She wanted the fear of demons and dragons and vamp-kin to fade with the last vestiges of her Order, once the final beasts had been hunted and dispatched.
She hated that Zenaida made it a production. Each Inquisition… She took great pride in it, carving their profanation from their flesh. It was an art, to her. One she had been developing for several decades.
Sometimes, Imelda wondered if that was why the Order suffered a magus in their midst. While cruel and unnecessarily brutal, Zenaida was unparalleled at her ability to get even the most repugnant entities to repent, and in doing so, wrenched more of their magics from their bodies than any other Inquisitor before they were put to rest.
Still ruminating on that, Imelda met Jacquot in the garage early and, while he still wore a black T-Shirt, she was satisfied to see he at least wore a baseball cap and dirtied blue-jeans. “You know where we’re going?” she asked, climbing into the back seat.
Looking at her through the rearview mirror, Jacquot said, “Herr Drescher said you wish to consult your Padre, ma mie.”
Imelda nodded. “And you know where he lives?”
“Les montagnes,” Jacquot replied, making an impatient gesture. “Highland Road. At the edge of Eagle River.”
She motioned for him to start the car. Usually, she landed at the large mountain meadow outside Padre Vega’s retirement home up in the winding South Fork area off of Highland Road, but with the winds being as they were, she would have to settle with a drive.
As soon as they backed out of the garage, Imelda understood why Herr Drescher had refused to fly. Rain whipped sideways across their windshield, buffeting the car in bursts as they pulled up the long driveway to the winding, narrow road leading back to the highway. On other days, Imelda would have had Jacquot take a right, rather than a left, and would have spent a few hours praying by the serene, glacial blue waters of Eklutna Lake.
Today, however, she needed an answer to the words that had hounded her ever since she’d seen one of God’s messengers in all of her glory. Our sister of vengeance. What did it mean? Surely a symbol that she was on the right path. But vengeance…against whom? Against the Lord’s enemies? Were there others the angel wanted her to vanquish?
The trip down the Glenn Highway had the tinted-windowed SUV weaving with every gust of the wind, and several times, Imelda saw Jacquot’s face harden with concentration as he fought to keep the vehicle on the road. Small dead leaves blew across the highway in sodden gusts, all the same bland orange and yellow color, for this wretchedly cold land could support none of the maple or oak that gave the rest of the United States its fiery glow in the last months of fall.
The drive up Highland Road and to the home of Padre Vega was even more frightening. In the mountains, the winds were stronger and more violent, and more than once, the car was buffeted at a steep dropoff, where nothing stood between the car and the hillside below but air. When Jacquot finally brought the SUV to a halt in the unassuming driveway of the small, one-story, tin-roofed home—more a cabin than a house—Imelda was happy to get out of the car. As soon as she opened the door, however, she almost lost it to the wind. She had to hold her breath and duck out into the rain unprotected, for an umbrella, at that point, was simply useless.
Padre Vega stood on the wooden porch of his small home, shielded by the eaves and the wall of his house, giving her a sympathetic look as she held an old magazine over her head and raced to the door, fighting the strange impulse to stop breathing as the wind sucked her breath away.
“You look tired, Sister,” her Padre said, ushering her inside and hastily shutting the door against the gale behind them.
“Long night,” Imelda admitted, reverting to Spanish. “How has retirement treated you, Father?”
Father Vega gave that humble grin she so loved and said, “Well, up until the frost killed them, I was enjoying my pea garden. Alaska can grow some wonderful peas.”
Imelda allowed herself to share his smile. Somehow, her Padre was the only person she’d ever known who could make her relax just by his very presence. “Gardening has treated you well, then?”
“Oh, very much so,” Father Vega said, smiling. “As has fishing, and golf.”
Imelda frowned. “Alaska has a golf course?” Somehow, she had never considered this land of wilderness, grizzly bears, and demons to maintain a decent green.
“Several of them,” he agreed. “I use the one up near Arctic Valley. Less hassle than driving to Wasilla.” He gestured to the two couches occupying the front room as he moved to the kitchen. “Sit, sit. What will you have? Tea? Coffee? Soda?”
She sighed and slumped into her favorite chair. “Coffee, Father. I’m running on three hours of sleep and my head is killing me.”
Father Vega hesitated at the counter, giving her an anxious look. “They work you too hard,” he ventured. “Has your new medicine helped?” As he spoke, he retrieved one of his Thomas Jefferson mugs from a cabinet and poured her a cup.
Imelda scoffed, even then seeing the fuzzy shards of glass at the edges of her vision, almost like a trillion tiny wormy strings, forever eating at the corners of her mind. “No more than the last. This doctor insisted I change my diet. Says they’re probably being caused by a reaction to something I’m eating, hence why no one has caught it yet. I have an appointment next week to test for food allergies.”
Her Padre gave her a hopeful look. “That sounds promising.”
Imelda snorted. “I’ve heard enough doctors assure me of so many ‘cures’ now that I’m not about to get my hopes up. Whatever their diagnosis, I must keep moving on with my life, or it would cripple me.”
Her father gave her a sympathetic look. Gently, he offered, “I pray you unravel the cause of your pain, Sister. No one should be made to suffer so.”
Imelda waved his statement off dismissively and took the mug of coffee he offered her. “After three decades, I’ve grown used to it. Nowadays, with the medicine, it’s an inconvenience, nothing more.” She twisted the mug in her hand to peer at the writing on its back. Her Padre was famous for his Jefferson mugs. He’d collected them since he’d taken his robes. Imelda examined the quote, out of habit.
“…a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” she repeated, turning the cup to read the words.
Father Vega, a stalwart lover of Jefferson, smiled. “Quite the rabble-rouser, that one.”
Imelda grunted and glanced at his cup. Father Vega held it out for her. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” she read, when he twisted it so she could see. Meeting his soft brown eyes, she said, “You know, Father, there are those of the Order who might frown upon your fascination with the man, genius that he was.”
Father Vega chuckled. “Then it’s good you’re not one of them.”
The fact that her Padre collected the sayings of Jefferson was a quirk of Father Vega’s that left her inwardly anxious it might be taken as idolation by those who didn’t know him, but Imelda held her tongue. They’d had this argument too many times, and she was too tired to press matters today.
Finishing her coffee with a sigh, she slumped into her chair and looked up at the spackled ceiling. Father Vega, having known her since she was a child, having moved to Alaska to continue to act as her priest and confidant when he had no duty to do so, waited in silence, allowing her to collect her thoughts. Imelda listened to the wail of the wind outside, then finally, just shook her head. “Perhaps it’s simply the lack of sleep, but I’m at a loss, Father.”
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p; Father Vega watched her over his cup. “How so, Sister?”
Imelda tried to think of a gentle way to tell him that she had been at the epicenter of the Chinook that had mysteriously touched down outside Skwentna before spreading to the rest of the Mat-Su Valley, but finally just blurted out, “I saw an angel, Father. She came to me as I was putting a bullet to a demon’s head. She called me her ‘sister of vengeance,’ and she ignited the winds that even now thrash the Valley.”
Father Vega cocked his head slightly. “A demon, you say? It was a particularly loathsome creature, then? A murderer of innocents?”
Imelda grimaced. Her head was still pounding over that particular enigma. “This one was quiet. There were no reports of deaths by her hands. In fact, aside from the fact that she was there when we came for the phoenix, there were no reports of her at all. She seems to carry a djinni with her, though I’ve never gotten close enough to get more than a few seconds’ look. It is a mountain of a thing, with skin the blackest ebony and command of the fires of Hell itself.” Then, remembering the pendant, she tugged it from her breast pocket and handed it to him. “The wolf had this on her body. It grew hot enough to burn, while the visage of our Lord’s messenger was before me.”
Father Vega took the symbol gingerly, frowning at it. “I’ve seen this symbol before.”
“So have I,” Imelda muttered. “We thought that it was the talisman that she was using to control the djinni, but when I tried to summon it, nothing happened.
Her Padre frowned up at her, his soft brown eyes anxious in his weathered face. “You say it burned in the presence of an angel, Sister?”
“Possibly a reaction of the evil within?” Imelda suggested, then shrugged. “I have no idea what it is. I’ve studied every book on symbology I could find in the library and nothing matches.”
“Whatever it is, it’s old.” Her Padre flipped it several times in his hands, examining the object front to back. “Do you mind if I hold onto it for awhile? I do have a knack for research.”
Imelda made a dismissive gesture. “Do as you will. I’ve already had it tested. It carries no link to a djinni, and seems to have no magic emanating from it, so it is safe.”
Father Vega nodded and laid it aside upon the coffee-table near his elbow. “Now this angel you saw. It spoke to you?”
“It said, ‘Our sister of vengeance,’” Imelda told him. “And before you ask, I can find no saint known by that title. The phrase itself had not a single result in Google.”
Father Vega frowned, looking down at his coffee mug in contemplation. “Have you done anything out of the ordinary lately, Sister?”
Imelda laughed. “You mean aside from capture a phoenix and chase a djinni through the woods on infrared? Two creatures that are supposedly long-extinct?”
Her Padre turned to give her a considering look. “Did you catch the djinni?”
She made a disgusted sound. “His kind can slip Realms like Zenaida changes clothes.”
Father Vega tisked and made a commiserating sound. “She is still bothering you, isn’t she?”
“She’s a bitch,” Imelda cried. “She tortures those beasts we catch, instead of simply killing them, as our mission dictates.” Even now, Zenaida was probably in the basement of the compound, working her ‘talents’ on the latest of their acquisitions. Imelda hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the woman since returning to Eklutna. Then, gaining control of herself, she bowed her head and rubbed her finger around the lip of her coffee mug. “Forgive me, Father. The woman…vexes…me.”
“As she should,” Father Vega said gently. “It is not our Lord’s wish that our Order torture innocents in His name.”
Imelda gave him a sharp look, having felt the same way for many years, but never having heard another say it aloud. “Yet the Order allows it.”
Father Vega lowered his head in obvious pain. “It has the…precedent…of history, my dear.”
“A precedent that I’m supposed to change,” Imelda said blatantly, the first time she had so outwardly spoken of his visions.
Father Vega glanced at her, his eyes sad. “My dear, not even the Holy Matron can rescind an order of the Pope.”
Imelda made a face, but looked out the window, watching the trees bow and sway in the mountain valley below. “It is wrong. Their screaming keeps me up at night. The walls are supposed to be soundproof, but I swear I hear it anyway.”
Father Vega listened in silence.
“Half the time,” Imelda confessed, “as I’m lying in my bed, listening to the sounds from below, I have an urge to go down there and kill them all. Put them out of their misery. That is what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it? Removing the evil from the lands? Before I took my Vows, I never dreamed the depth of what we do. Certain aspects of it, I find repulsive.”
“Which is why,” Father Vega said softly, “you take the field in the service of our Lord, while Inquisitor Zenaida sits in her dungeon surrounded by her toys, happily reaping magic from the doomed in the name of God.”
It was one of the closest things to blasphemy that Imelda had heard from her Padre’s lips, but she did not care. Instead, she swiveled on him, slamming her cup against the coffee table. “Why does the Order allow it? A witch in our midst. It’s obscene!”
Too late, she realized that Father Vega himself could be labeled a witch, if the truth were known. In his humble way, he said softly, “Sometimes, Imelda, a soul must be judged by its actions, and not its nature.”
“I’m sorry,” Imelda said quickly. “I never meant…”
“And I wasn’t talking of myself,” Father Vega said, lifting his hand. “It is a code to live by, not a statement of my own innocence. Just consider that, when you look at Zenaida and her position in the Order. There are those who would say she’s necessary, that her ‘endowments’ allow the Order to better complete its mission, that her cause is just and therefore pardons her spirit of its ‘poor birth.’ There are others, like you and I, who look at her ‘endowments’ and then see the depraved creature beneath. It is not her nature that you should find repulsive, Imelda. It is her actions.”
Imelda frowned at her Padre, wondering if all the time alone to reminisce had treated him poorly. “Father,” she said softly, “surely you realize the blasphemy of what you just said.”
Father Vega shrugged. “It is what it is. It took me many years, but I learned it is best not to judge a soul by its skin.”
Imelda cocked her head at him, half unsure she understood what he meant. “Half of what I hunt is based off of its skin, Padre.”
He gave her an amused look. “So it is.”
Imelda stared at him. Father Vega had spent fifty successful years doing as she now did, hunting those beasts and demons that had invaded the sanctity of their Lord’s realm. That he would question the directives of the Order left her stunned. That he would say as much to an Inquisitor left her utterly staggered…and with the humbling realization he trusted her implicitly.
After all, with a single word, she could have him join the beasts on the rack. Even without her knowledge of his ability to See.
“I trust you, Imelda,” her Padre said, confirming her assumption with a warm smile. “There are no secrets between us. And yes, I believe that the Order has been rotting from the inside.”
Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she turned to once again face the window. “Dare I ask how long it has been deteriorating thus?”
“Since its conception.”
Imelda flinched and gave him another hard look. “And I am to enact changes? You’ve Seen it?”
“Oh yes,” Father Vega chuckled. “Yes you will, my dear.”
Imelda thought of her stardancer flashlight, of the feylord-powered helicopters, of the faestone goblets and elemental-fueled campstoves… Immediately, the glassy tendrils creeping through her brain started to lance her vision again, and she winced. It would not be easy. To remove the demon-powered artifacts from the Order would draw great opposition, but those of the
truly faithful, like Jacquot, would drop to their knees in relief. “One of the first things I’ll do,” she said softly, still looking out the window, “is stop the torture. Zenaida and her like can find other things to do than ‘interrogate’ those who have nothing left to say.” She had seen the hopelessness on their faces, the utter defeat. It was why she no longer visited the basement, aside to deliver a new detainee—she couldn’t stand the misery.
“You walk a dangerous path, Sister,” Father Vega told her. “There are those who would not see you enact those changes.”
Imelda snorted. “Once I am the Holy Matron, they will not be able to argue.”
He gave her a wan smile. “Perhaps.” He sighed and set his coffee mug aside. “It is certainly not a task I would choose for myself.” Then his easy, peaceful grin was once more in place and he said, “However we poor humans stumble in our attempts to serve our Lord, the Fates will right it in the end.”
“The Fates.” Imelda snorted and shook her head. “You spent too much time studying your history and not your Bible, Father.”
Her Padre only smiled at her. “Ah, but in the annals of history lie the keys to the future.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Then that is the source of your Sight? You read the past to guess the future?”
“Not guess,” Father Vega said gently. Then, before she could pry deeper, he changed the subject by taking her mug. “More coffee?”
“Please,” she said, watching him get up to refill her glass. Then, as he poured, “Would it be a mark against my soul if I were to go into the basement tonight and kill them all, before Zenaida has a chance at them?”
Father Vega hesitated at the pot, the carafe hovering over the mug. Instead of finishing to pour the coffee, he set the carafe down and looked up at her, his soft eyes troubled. “If I were given the choice, Imelda, I would never kill again.”
“And you won’t,” Imelda said, “that’s why you retired.”
He stared down at the carafe on the counter. “I retired for many reasons,” he said softly. “Most of which have already come up this evening.” Seeming to shake himself, he once again picked up the carafe and continued pouring. “So tell me of this angel that visited you. Do you think it was a Sign?”