The Church

by Celia Aaron

  I lean forward. “Keep speaking to Noah like that and you won’t live to see this glorious Sunday you’ve outlined.”

  Castro turns his attention back to me. “All you have to do is be there. I’ve been by your father’s side long enough that I can stick the knife in and twist it before he even realizes I have a blade.”

  “You going to execute him in front of the congregation?” I raise an eyebrow. “Seems like bad form. That would definitely start a panic.”

  “You don’t need to know the particulars. Just be there. The Father of Fire has promised Rachel that this will work out perfectly.” He glances at his watch. “Fuck, I’m late.” Turning, he brushes past Noah. “Be there and be ready. The Father of Fire will make sure everything falls into place.” His steps thump away down the stairs and the front door slams.

  “I fucking hate that guy.” Noah closes the bedroom door and sits at the foot of the bed.

  “He’s an idiot to believe Mom.” I rub my eyes and second-guess myself. Should I have told Castro about the dynamite plot? Then again, maybe I just need to let things play out. Confusion and chaos are both to my advantage. “Any word on where Jez and the gals hid the dynamite?”

  “No.” He pulls the blanket away from my foot and peers at the bandage. “I can’t go to the Chapel now. Jez has the girls on high alert. But I’ve searched all along the road in between the storage shed and the main compound. If they’ve hidden it out there, they’ve done a damn good job. I didn’t see anything out of place.”

  “They wouldn’t be dumb enough to store it in the Chapel. At least I don’t think they would.” I wince as he unwraps my toes. Even though I expect the pain, it’s still a shock to my system, just like seeing my mangled foot. “We may not find it in time.”

  He reaches across the bed for the gauze, and when his sleeve rides up, I see an ugly red circle of burned flesh on his inner wrist.

  “Hey.” I point. “What the fuck?”

  He pulls his hand back quickly. “Nothing.”

  “Noah.” I lean forward and stare him down. “Tell me.”

  He gives a half-hearted shrug. “Dad called me in first thing this morning. Saw the video from last night.”

  My hands dampen. “And?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to fuck her in the ass. Senator’s rules. So, I got a little reminder. That’s all.” He grabs the gauze. “It’ll heal.”

  Fuck, I’m a dick. “I didn’t even think—”

  “God, if he knew what really happened in that room.” He snorts. “Don’t worry. It’s just a little burn. You’ve had a lot worse.” He kneels and gets to work on my toes.

  “You should put something on it.” I inspect my stitches. They’re holding up, the raw skin melding together without any care for the fact that pieces of me are missing.

  “Sure.” He sighs. “Dad was off this morning.”

  I give him a wry look.

  “More than usual, I mean. He kept talking about the fire. He said the fire was talking to him and telling him his downfall. And he was worried. Like to the point that he couldn’t sit down. He just paced and mumbled until he yelled at me to get out. I don’t think he’s slept for days.”

  “Batshit.” I still don’t believe my father has any divine intuition, but maybe his regular human warning signals are twitching at the shit storm forming around him.

  “He was coming unglued. I just left. Castro was there, but he stayed out of the way. It’s all a clusterfuck. Speaking of that, what are we going to do about tomorrow?”

  “We’ll do what Mom wants. I’ll show up, melt into the crowd, and wait for my moment. We’ll both have to keep an eye out for Jez. If she, or Chastity, or Ruth shows up with a backpack full of dynamite, things are going to get dicey real quick. We just need to get them the fuck out of there before they do anything stupid.”

  “I’ll see if I can meet with Chastity today. Talk some sense into her. She’s the ringleader, seems like.”

  “She’s harder than I thought. Smarter, too. But she’s got a soft spot for Emily. Use that, if you can. Tell her that Emily will be at the service this Sunday. She has no choice but to show up.” My jaw clenches at the thought of why she has to be there. It’s her goddamn wedding day. My guts clench. I’ll kill that piece of shit senator with my bare hands if I get the chance. I’ll gladly reopen the wounds in my palms if I do it while I’m snapping his neck.

  “Adam.” Noah peers up at me. “Evan won’t get her. Relax.”

  “I’m relaxed,” I reply, a little too loudly. Felix jumps on me, as if my raised voice is an invitation. “Great,” I groan.

  He settles on my chest, his head tucked beneath my chin.

  Noah smiles at him indulgently. “Let Felix work his kitty magic. You’ll feel better.”

  “Better?” I pet him against my better judgment. “He makes my eyes itchy as hell, that’s about all.”

  “He’ll keep you sane. He does that for me.” Noah shrugs.

  I keep stroking the purring fur ball. “There are too many moving pieces, and I can’t see the whole board.” The lack of control eats at me. I want to know what happens next. More than that, I want it to happen because I make it happen. But that luxury is long gone. There are too many factions, and far too many variables. I have to concentrate on what’s important—keeping Emily and Noah safe and thwarting the dynamite attempt.

  Noah stands. “I’m going to see if I can accidentally bump into Chastity and get her in a choke hold.”

  “Good plan.” I loathe lying in this bed instead of doing something. But I can’t move around without suspicion, especially not during the day.

  He opens the terrarium and drops a couple of live crickets inside. “Just relax here. Keep that brain firing to find us a way out of this. I’ll go do the footwork.” Closing the lid, he bends down and watches as Gregory ignores his lunch. “Asshole.” He points at Felix and says, “Be good,” then does the same to me. I flip him off as best I can.

  When the front door shuts, I turn the TV back on and watch Emily. She’s lying down now, her face resting on her folded hands. An angel. No, a firefly. I smile at the reference, because her sister was right. Emily does shine in the darkness, bringing light into the grimmest parts of my soul.

  She jumps and sits up. I push Felix off and lean forward. “What the—”

  My father walks into view and offers her his hand. What is he doing there? After a moment of hesitation, she looks up, her eyes wide, and takes it.

  He yanks her from the bed. Rage pools inside me like molten steel, and I squeeze the remote in my aching palm.

  When he drags her from the room, I can’t hear her scream, but I can feel it in my bones.

  Chapter 22

  Delilah

  The Prophet drags me from my room, his grip painful and his gait fast yet unsteady. Chastity plasters her back to the wall as we pass, her eyes questioning but her mouth silent. I keep up, my bare feet slapping the wood floor.

  “The Father of Fire tried to speak to me this morning.” His words are half-mumbled, and I can barely make them out. “He told me that you are my downfall. You.” He stops so quickly I almost bump into him. Turning his dark eyes on me, he glares. “But if I kill you, my downfall will be even swifter. Why is that? Why you?” He shoves me against the wall, his usual calm façade gone and the astounded face of a madman in its place. “Why? Who are you?”

  I shake my head. How can I respond? There’s nothing to say.

  “You.” He jabs a finger into my chest. “You are nothing.” Spittle flies from his lips. “No one. Just another whore. That’s all.”

  Did he talk this way to Georgia before he had her killed? The thought erupts and burns. He can threaten and blame me all he wants, but his downfall—whatever that means—is all of his own making. His sins will come back to him tenfold, and I will be the one watching him as he’s crushed under their weight.

  “Come with me.” He yanks my arm again.

  Grace stands at the back door, hold
ing it open as we barrel past and into the sunny, cold morning. I can’t read anything other than her usual smugness as we pass.

  He shoves me into a waiting car. I scramble away as he sits next to me and slams the door.

  “Go!” He slaps the headrest of his driver, and the car rockets up the hill from the Cloister, then turns right. Away from the Prophet’s house and deeper into the compound.

  The Prophet grabs my throat. I press my back to the door, but there’s no escape from him. A thin coating of white powder outlines his nostrils, and there’s whiskey on his breath.

  “You know where he is, don’t you?” He squeezes, but not hard enough to stop my breath.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Adam!” he yells in my face. “You took him. It had to be you. You spirited him away somewhere. Witch!”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “‘I will destroy your witchcraft, and you will no longer cast spells.’” He shakes me, the back of my head beating against the glass. “‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

  My heart spasms in my chest, and I can’t catch my breath. He’s lost what little bit of self-control he had. If it weren’t for his pronouncements about his swifter downfall, I have no doubt he would kill me.

  “I’m not.” I can barely get the words out. “Not a witch.”

  He grimaces. “You are what I say you are, what the Father of Fire tells me you are. You disobey your Prophet with your heathen ways. I will make you suffer.” His voice lowers, all the softness from his usual tone gone. “Tell me what you’ve done with my son.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Tell me, you whore of Babylon!” My ears ring as he screams in my face.

  I close my eyes, trying to hide from him, to disappear into myself where he can’t follow.

  “Sir.” Another voice invades my self-imposed darkness. “We’re here.”

  The Prophet’s hand disappears, and a waft of cold air enters the car as the driver steps out.

  I open my eyes and scrabble at my door handle. It doesn’t catch. My need to escape is primal, beating in my soul like a drum. Out, out, out. When my door opens, I heave myself from the car and stumble on the gravel path leading into the short, dark building—squat and silent like a tomb. The place where I broke. The place where my mother suffers.

  The Prophet is on me, his rough grip on my arm dragging me forward.

  A scream rips from me, my cowardice given sound. But he doesn’t stop, even as my feet skitter along the rocks and I try to yank free of his grip. There is no ‘free’. Not from him. Not from this place.

  The guard at the door abandons his post and grabs my other arm, the two of them dragging me into the gloom and turning down the long, narrow hallway. I know this place too well, and a single phantom drop of water trickles onto my forehead.

  “Which one?” The Prophet asks.

  “Here.” The guard stops at a door in the middle of the hall and swings it open.

  Inside is nothing. The black hole at the center of the galaxy, the inky water of a fetid well that has no bottom.

  A click, and then harsh light from a bare bulb overhead blooms across the cinderblock walls and the woman tied to the table. Her bleach blonde hair matted, her eyes closed against the light’s assault. Stripped, her body is marred with bruises and cuts, and she shivers as the drop of water falls from above and taps her in the same spot where I can feel it even now.

  I can’t stop the sob in my lungs, the despair that spreads across my body like a million spiders, their tiny legs invading every nook, caressing every nerve until I’m tormented. “Let her go,” I choke out.

  “She’s staying here.” The Prophet shoves me into the guard’s steely arms and stands next to her.

  She opens her eyes slowly. When she sees him, she tries to pull back, but there’s nowhere to go. Strapped to a cross, flat on her back, she’s at the Prophet’s mercy. I can feel the wood pressing into the back of my skull, taste the rubber and leather of the gag.

  “Mom.” I try to reach for her, but the guard gives me no room.

  Her gaze flickers to me, her eyes wide.

  “Your mother belongs to me, witch. She will never leave this compound. As long as you are alive, I will keep her here.” He turns to me, his eyes black pools of hate. “Not in the Rectory the entire time. I’m not a monster.” He grins, as if he’s fully aware he’s the worst sort of monster and revels in it. “She’ll serve as a Spinner. Make herself useful instead of continuing down her path of ruination.” He jabs at the needle tracks on her inner arm. “We found her in an abandoned house. High, barely conscious. They told me that from the look of her, she’d just whored herself out for a hit. Come still crusting on her worn-out cunt.”

  I can’t stop the tears coursing down my cheeks. Like so much else, I have no control. There’s nothing I can do for her. The guard’s grip and the Prophet’s insanity will keep running wild, and I have no power to stop it. Not yet.

  “The reason I brought you here.” He turns to me. “Is so you know that if you disobey me, if you do anything to jeopardize your placement with the senator—” He walks farther into the room and pulls a scalpel from a table in the corner.

  “Don’t.” I strain against the guard’s grip. “Please.”

  “You need to learn, witch.” The Prophet returns to Mom’s side, knife in hand.

  She makes a high-pitched sound in her throat.

  “Please!” I yell, but the guard slaps a palm over my mouth.

  He cuts her. Slow, shallow, tracing the knife down her chest.

  “Stop!” I scream against the guard’s hand. Mom closes her eyes, the high-pitched noise dying in her throat as he finishes his stroke. Blood pools along the line, spilling down her sides in thin rivulets. A tremor passes through her, and she can’t seem to get enough air in through her nose.

  My knees go weak, and I can barely stand. I have to help her, to comfort her, to do something to stop this.

  The guard releases his hold on my mouth and wraps his arm around my waist, keeping me upright.

  “Please, I’ll do anything. Please don’t hurt her anymore.”

  He drops the bloody scalpel onto the table and returns to me, his demeanor smoother now, as if drawing blood soothed him like a lullaby. “You will do everything I ask, and you will do as the senator says. If you comply, your mother won’t be harmed. If you don’t, I’ll cut her life away bit by bit.”

  He motions toward the door. The guard drags me out. I reach for my mother, but don’t get close enough to touch her, to tell her I’m going to fix it, to tell her this is all a temporary nightmare and that I’ll save her from it. The Prophet slams her door as he leaves, throwing her into darkness so complete that it eats you alive.

  “Please,” I whisper, though I don’t know who I’m talking to. My entreaties have never moved the Prophet or anyone in this godforsaken place. There is no compassion here, no help.

  The guard walks me out into the chilly morning, the sun playing across my face but offering no warmth. He shoves me into the back of the car, and the Prophet sits next to me. He hums a little, the torture pick-me-up lifting his spirit as mine mires in despair.

  I shrink against the door as he turns to me, his lips almost in a smile.

  “I must have misread the signs. The flames can do that. It’s more of an art than a science, you know?” He grabs my chin and wrenches my face to his. “But it makes more sense now. You will not be my downfall, witch. I will be yours.”

  Noah slinks into my room and gently closes the door behind him. He’s early. I don’t move from the bed as he slides in next to me and turns to face me.

  “Hi.” He rests his hand on my hip.

  “How is he?” I don’t say Adam’s name, but he knows who I mean.

  “Fine. Well… Worried. He saw Dad come to get you.” His light blue eyes, so unlike Adam’s, peer deeply into mine. “I found out he took you to see your mom. Are you okay?”

  “No,” I whi
sper.

  He pulls me closer but keeps his hips back. “I went to see her afterwards, fixed up the cut. Assured her that she wouldn’t be here long.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I let him stroke my hair, even though it’s wrong and he isn’t the one I want. A little bit of comfort from a friend—my thoughts halt. It’s odd that I think of Noah as a friend now, when only a little while ago I wanted him dead. But Heavenly creates strange bedfellows.

  “I have to get her out of here.” I haven’t changed my plan. Swaying Evan to my side is my only chance of saving her. And I’ll give up everything to get her and Adam to safety.

  “We will.”

  “What’s going to happen tomorrow?” I press my forehead to his shoulder.

  “A lot. Too much. But you’re my priority. I’ve sworn to Adam that when shit goes down, I’ll keep you safe.”

  I don’t like the hardness in his voice, the promise of blood, possibly his and Adam’s. “Tell me everything.”

  “The short and sweet version goes like this: Chastity, Jez, and some others are planning to blow up the entire church at service.”

  I move back and gawk at him. Chastity would do that? Kill thousands of innocents. “No.”

  He pulls me to him again, holding me tight. “Just listen. That’s their plan. I’m going to stop them. In the meantime, Adam will be in the crowd. Mom, Castro, and Grace are planning a big coup, probably just before the service or after. She won’t kill Dad in front of everyone. But—” he shrugs, “She’s a little bit crazy so I don’t know. Castro is on her team and won’t tell me anything other than some vague bullshit. I guess they don’t want me cocking up their big reveal.”

  I can’t fathom it all. Rachel? I always thought she was cowed, a hostage in the Prophet’s game of control. But I was wrong. If she’s come up with a way to destroy him, then she has a lot more guts than I ever dreamed. A glimmer of hope ignites in me, and I swear I could kiss Rachel. So many people coming together against the Prophet. Is this the way out for all of us?