Renegade

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  The eye of the moon stared down.

  He heard the chains and the noise as they brought the woman to the pyre. There was a stake there, a shorter one, and they would chain her to it and burn her alive.

  He gathered his wits and turned.

  But the woman he saw was not April.

  It was Teresa.

  For a moment the breath was gone from his lungs.

  She looked like she had six hundred years ago—hair long and dark, skin like cream, eyes dark. Her whole bearing holiness.

  And her eyes full of compassion.

  They were still full of compassion.

  He had not thought he would ever see her again.

  “You were wrong,” she said.

  “No,” he tried to say, but his mouth was dry as the kindling, and he could not speak.

  He kept hoping she would disappear, but every time he blinked, he opened his eyes again and she was still there. Standing in front of the pyre. His men were working behind her; April was there, but Teresa stood in his line of vision.

  * * *

  April could not tear her eyes away from Bertoller.

  He seemed to have aged, even in the time since she entered the cemetery. Looking at him, she saw a man ancient and withered, hardly alive. But his eyes were tormented, and it was that that riveted her attention.

  He was not dead.

  He was not beyond reach.

  Even this man had a soul.

  She had always known that. The Oneness taught it—she’d heard it from Mary a thousand times. Every human being is a soul. Every human being needs saving, and is worth saving. Every one.

  But she wouldn’t have believed it was true of this one, if she couldn’t see it with her own eyes.

  She wasn’t afraid. She didn’t really know why. She stood in the midst of kindling with her hands chained to a stake, and she knew perfectly well what these men were planning to do with her. She was going to be sacrificed to the darkness to feed their lust for power.

  But it was all going as she had warned Bertoller it would—even now, before they had finished the work. It was backfiring on them. On him. Something was waking his soul.

  Miranda was crying, and that one detail tugged at her heart and broke through the strange, almost emotionless detachment she felt toward their circumstances. That, and David. Still tied to the first stake a small distance away, he was a pillar of rage and fear.

  She wanted to give them what she had: the fearlessness that came of knowledge. Of knowing the Spirit.

  But she couldn’t just give that.

  They had to find it for themselves.

  So she said the most natural thing she could say.

  “Spirit,” she said, aloud. “Come.” She paused, and felt that the next words came from beyond her somewhere.

  “I offer myself to you.”

  * * *

  The cloaked acolyte handed Bertoller a burning torch, his eyes questioning the change in liturgy but his actions still obedient. After all, Bertoller was the master. The one showing them the way.

  The only one who could invite the Power itself into their presence and give them all to drink of its cup.

  Bertoller took the torch, and as he did, Teresa faded from his vision.

  Deep inside him, something cried out with grief at the loss. Reached out . . .

  He cut it off, fixing his eyes on April, setting his mind to the task and the reward to come.

  Power. Life. The drunkenness of the demonic. All he needed to do was honour the Power as he ended the life of this enemy in torment.

  He began the slow, ceremonious walk forward.

  And nearly dropped the torch.

  Before his eyes—

  —before all their eyes—

  smoke was already rising from the pyre.

  Smoke, and then flame.

  Before Bertoller had taken another step, the sacrifice burst into flames. He watched as fire licked up the kindling and swallowed April in a blaze of heat. The roar of it filled the cemetery, filled the night, reached the moon.

  * * *

  “No!” Reese cried, even as Jacob cried “Now!” and shoved her forward. Her legs were already going. She vaulted the fence and ran toward the fire, the light, the place where she knew Bertoller was standing. The knife in her hand seemed welded to her.

  The demon voices in her ears were shouting.

  ONE TASK.

  FOCUS.

  STAY FOCUSED.

  Bertoller saw her coming, and his eyes widened.

  There were tears in his eyes.

  And David was there behind him.

  Her momentum might have carried her right to him, and the knife right through his heart, if the pyre had not exploded, a ball of flame surging out in every direction, the heat knocking her off her feet. Off course. Off focus.

  Fire everywhere.

  Everything was on fire.

  In the midst, on the pyre, April was standing with her hands held high. Glowing like gold in a furnace.

  Oh Reese, Reese, Reese, where have you gone?

  The voice was the fire and the fire was the voice, and it burned—it burned to the depths of her soul and spirit, and she screamed at the heat and released it all in the scream.

  One thing.

  One task.

  She saw Jacob running into the flames, looking wildly around. She heard Miranda scream his name, scream for help.

  There was another explosion coming—she could see it. It was building up around April, the fire growing hotter and whiter, April herself transformed into something that was not human—at least, that was not human in any way Reese understood the word.

  She dropped the knife and ran for David and threw herself around him, and when the explosion came, she took it.

  * * *

  “NO!”

  The word came from Chris and Andrew at the same moment, and as one they broke into a run, pounding the dirt toward the cemetery, calling out the names on their hearts—

  “Miranda!”

  “Reese!”

  “STOP!” Tyler tackled Chris from behind and managed to trip Andrew in the same moment. “Stop,” he panted, “you can’t go in there!”

  Andrew turned frantic eyes on him even as he scrambled back to his feet. “That’s my kid in there!”

  “You can’t help her! Listen to me. That’s not an ordinary fire. I can see it. It’s not just fire, it’s . . . please, stay here.”

  Andrew shook his head and went to run again, but this time Chris stopped him, wrapping strong arms around him and wrestling him back.

  “Listen to Tyler. He knows.”

  They stood ten feet from the cemetery gates and stared into the inferno. Its roar had covered every other sound.

  “Tyler . . .” Chris said. “What . . .”

  “It’s the Spirit,” Tyler said. His voice shook. “The fire. It’s the Spirit.”

  From the inferno, figures were taking shape. Golden, shining, outlined in the flames.

  Three women.

  They were coming, and Chris found himself slowly dropping to his knees. Andrew followed suit. Only Tyler remained on his feet, but seconds before the figures stepped out of the flames, he smiled suddenly and knelt beside the others. And bowed his head.

  Chris looked up.

  April stood there, every inch herself—and every inch transformed. She was glowing. She was holding Miranda’s hand.

  On her other side stood a woman Chris didn’t know. Her hair was long and dark; she wore white, a simple dress that looked as though it came from another era.

  Andrew choked up and reached his hands forward, self-conscious. “My girl,” he said, his eyes fixed on Miranda. “Miranda.”

  Miranda just stared at him, but April nudged her forward. “You can go to him,” she said. “He’s safe.”

  She exchanged glances with the woman beside her, and the dark-haired woman nodded and smiled.

  And faded from sight.

  The fire still raged behind the
m.

  And Chris’s heart broke.

  Reese had not emerged from the fire.

  * * *

  In the hours that the fire raged, Andrew took Miranda away. He had introduced himself, and she seemed strangely open to him—or just relieved to be able to escape. They were going to find some food, Andrew told Chris, to find some twenty-four-hour diner somewhere.

  Chris just nodded.

  Still staring into the fire.

  Tyler and April disappeared somewhere. He didn’t know where.

  He didn’t care.

  How a fire could burn so strong, so long, he didn’t know. He couldn’t go closer. The heat was too great. Sparks rose and flames danced and the air filled with smoke until the moon and the stars disappeared.

  And Chris sat in the grass and waited.

  “I’m sorry, Reese,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more to find you. I’m sorry I didn’t try to bring you home—that I didn’t become One with you. If I had, maybe you would have reconnected. Maybe . . .”

  He stopped.

  He couldn’t go on.

  When he thought about it now, he didn’t know why he hadn’t opened himself to the Spirit and become One.

  Maybe he’d thought that if he did, and Reese came to love him, it wouldn’t be because of him. That he would lose himself in the Oneness. Lose his will, his strength, his personhood.

  He wasn’t afraid of that now.

  Because staring into this fire that was Spirit, he knew it wasn’t true.

  That this fire refined. It did not muddy down.

  Hours passed. Hours of heat and light until he wondered if his vision would be forever burned away.

  “I don’t care anymore,” he said. “If you’re still watching me, you know that . . . you can have me. I need you.”

  He paused.

  “I’ve always needed you.”

  When the sun rose, the fire died away. It left the cemetery a smoking, barren field, the headstones unreadable from soot, every last bit of grass and foliage burned away.

  Chris wondered what it had found to feed on so long.

  Tyler stood—Chris wasn’t sure when he had come back—but Chris didn’t acknowledge him. He walked through the gate into the smoking ground. He looked back just long enough to see April stop Tyler at the gate, and the two of them waiting—watching.

  He turned away, wished he could steel himself with a deep breath but hardly able to breathe at all in the ash and smoke, and pressed further into the cemetery.

  He knew there had been human beings here last night, but there was no trace of them. They had been consumed in the flame.

  Bertoller, gone forever.

  Jacob too.

  The thoughts passed through his mind but hardly registered.

  Reese . . .

  He could not even form that thought.

  He licked his lips. They were cracked and blistered. His whole face was cracked and blistered—he’d sat closer to the fire than he’d realized.

  Smoke wafted in pillars and plumes, and yet, somehow, the air felt purified.

  He looked to the side and saw the child, watching.

  He raised his hand in greeting and dropped it again, setting his eyes forward once more.

  And then he saw it.

  An ashy mound on the slab headstone in the middle of the cemetery—

  A mound that looked like bodies.

  Clenching his jaw, he forced one foot after the other until he was looking down, unbelieving.

  It was Reese. Covered in ash. Lying over top of someone else.

  His hand was shaking as he reached out and touched her shoulder.

  She moved. Rolled over. Looked up at him with her eyes open.

  “Reese,” he said.

  The man beside her groaned, and involuntarily, Chris’s eyes went to him. He took a step back as if he’d been shot.

  David.

  The man was David.

  Reese sat up, slowly, starting to brush herself off and then giving up in futility. She rubbed her hands together to clean off as much ash as she could and then tried to clean her face. And she looked up at Chris and smiled.

  Really smiled.

  Not the broken, halfhearted, trying-to-believe-again smile that was all he knew from her.

  He wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but she was in his arms a moment later, and he was holding her as tightly as he could, his arms sure they would never let go.

  Chapter 16

  The windows were all thrown open, letting in a warm late summer breeze, and Melissa’s music—celebratory, triumphant music—played out so all the neighbourhood could hear. Ordinary mortals might not understand what the cell was celebrating so heartily, but they could not miss the party.

  In the common room, in front of the fireplace, Chris’s arms were wrapped around Reese. She sat with her head resting on his chest, her favourite place to be.

  They were One. And openly in love.

  Chris was still trying to get used to the idea that Reese was alive.

  Richard smiled down at them and escorted April from the room, leaving them alone except for Melissa at the piano—and as she was in her own world there, they hardly felt the company.

  Chris leaned his head on Reese’s, and they simply sat together.

  Replaying her memories, as much as she had shared them with him.

  Andrew and Miranda were in the kitchen, talking happily with Mary and Diane. Nick and Alicia ran through the common room, throwing curious glances at Reese and Chris, who ignored them completely.

  The day before, they had gone together to return David to the police.

  “And where is Jacob?” Lieutenant Jackson asked, accepting David’s return almost with bewilderment. He had been missing only a few hours.

  “I’m afraid he’s not coming back,” Chris said.

  “The devil he isn’t!”

  “He’s dead,” Reese said. “I’m sorry. He ran into a fire to—to save someone. He didn’t make it.”

  “You expect me to put that on my paperwork?”

  “It’s the truth,” Chris said.

  “Like that has anything to do with it.”

  When they left, Chris said, “Are you going to tell me what really happened to Jacob?”

  Reese was quiet for a moment, then she took Chris’s arm and said, “He tried to kill Bertoller. It almost seemed like he might make it—like the flames might not destroy him, the way they didn’t hurt April. But Miranda called for him, and instead of helping her, he went after Bertoller to murder him. The fire consumed them both.”

  “I’m not sure I understand how Miranda made it out. She’s not One.”

  “But she’s innocent. And April protected her.”

  “Like you did David.”

  “A little differently.”

  “Why did you do it? Throw yourself over David? Keep him safe from the flames all that time?”

  “Because I knew they would destroy him. Like they did Jacob. And . . .”

  She stopped and clung a little more tightly. “Chris, I don’t expect you to understand. But I loved David. He was my brother—more like a father. Like Richard is to Tyler and April and the others. I had forgotten that, almost. Let bitterness choke it out. And listened to lies. The demons told me David was there when Patrick was killed. Maybe he was. But maybe he wasn’t. They ‘showed’ me a lot of things that weren’t true.”

  “It’s okay, Reese,” Chris said. “Anyone who went through what you did . . .”

  “It’s not okay. Not really. I almost forgot what Oneness is. I almost killed a man. I thought I had the right to judge him. But judgment is easy. Killing is sudden, and final. Redemption is a far longer work. It is that work we are here to do. I should never have lost sight of that.”

  “I still don’t understand what changed your heart in the last minute. From what you told me, you went into the cemetery ready to kill them both.”

  “I did.” Reese stopped and sat on a park bench, still
clinging to Chris’s hand. She had gone from independent to desperate to hang on to him, almost as though she was afraid to be left alone.

  He didn’t mind. He didn’t want to leave her anyway.

  “I don’t know what changed me. Don’t credit me with that much understanding of my own heart. It may have been the flames themselves. The refiner’s fire . . . they may have simply burned the bitterness away. But there was something else.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Bertoller. I saw something in his eyes. He had a soul . . . and I think, somehow, he had just rediscovered it.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I know he earned his death a million times over. But I wish he could have made it—could have been allowed to rediscover his soul completely.”

  “Hush,” Chris said. “That was never for you to decide.”

  He pulled her close.

  Happy, at last.

  One, at last.

  The renegade had finally come home.

  The story of the Oneness continues in Book 5: Rise

  # # #

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  A Note from the Author:

  Thanks for reading! I’m honoured that you took the time to delve into my world with me. I’d love to connect with you‒you can find me at Facebook.com/RachelStarrThomsonWriter or on Twitter @writerstarr.

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  Stan Lee always said it best: Higher!