The Sifting

by Azure Boone

  “Micah, listen to me,” she whispered, grabbing his forearms. “I know what you’re thinking, why am I so alive, oh my God, it’s a fucking good question, my body is-is humming, I can tell that something has happened to it, it feels like when you hit your funny bone and there’s a tickling buzzing, that’s me, my whole body.” Micah stared at her as she rattled out her words without stopping. “The first shock, I felt this brief flash of hot and then-then my body was sucked into this cocoon, my mind even,” she nodded with wide eyes, “I could feel something trying to pull me from my skin, it was just a pressure all around me like little fingers tugging, and I knew somehow to resist it, not give in to it, and then, then I heard you reciting God’s word during it all, and-and I heard you screaming, then when I woke, I didn’t remember anything at first.” Her nails dug into his skin and she shot another glance behind him. “And then the second time,” she whispered, “the second time it was like-like the same exact thing, the instant the heat hit, I was sucked inside that cocoon, I’d feel just enough to know that…” her hand flew to her mouth, “…that God protected me,” she sobbed.

  Micah became aware that he was trembling, a full body tremble. He pulled her gently into his embrace worried she might break or vanish. When she didn’t, when he felt how real she was, he held her, rocked her, and cried with her. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he finally said, “please forgive me for breaking. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, I love you.”

  Micah didn’t understand what had happened or what was happening. He didn’t know who or what power protected her, and at that point, he didn’t care. He only cared that she was alive.

  For now.

  She gasped and pushed out of his arms. “And listen to me. On the last time, I wondered—no I thought, that I was dead, it was just too weird for me not to be dead. And I cried! Oh my God, I just cried I thought, no, no, I don’t want to leave Micah God, please! And a voice said, just like this: ‘You’re not dead.’ And then I woke up!”

  She gasped a happy laugh and Micah hugged her fiercely, never being more grateful to an entity. Whichever one it was.

  ****

  Sarah was led into a room that Micah was forbidden to enter. Again he screamed and fought like a mad man until Sarah was crying for him, for herself, praying and terrified.

  The test of holiness. What did it mean? She didn’t want to ask and they denied Micah his request to prepare her. Then he’d yelled one word as the dragged him away. One word that sent terror flooding her veins along with a full blown panic attack. Spiders.

  Sarah looked all around, holding her Bible tightly, the sound of her ragged breaths blaring in her own ears. She screamed at the sound of metal scratching then jerked to see a tiny metal little door at the bottom of the wall, open. She backed up until she hit the wall on the far side of the room and watched the black hole, the size of a doggie door.

  She screamed when black spindly legs flickered out of the dark hole, jointed tooth-pics, probing the air. Sarah turned her face, sobbing, but unable to take her eyes off of the horror entering the small room. They were too large to be real. Was it a hallucination? A trick? She whimpered, clutching her Bible tightly, wanting to hide her face in it but too scared to look away. They moved like they were very real. Big. Like lobsters. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  Seven of them. All crawling slowly as though trying to figure out where they were and why.

  Some kind of cloud mist fell from the ceiling. A sweet smell. Sarah covered her mouth and nose. The spiders began to run around erratically. She wanted to climb up something. Fuck, fuck.

  They grew more agitated. Crawling faster. Zigzagging bursts. Closer. She cried quietly, a low keening wail.

  They suddenly stopped. As though aware. All at once, they turned.

  Her. That was their purpose. That’s why they were there.

  Horror gripped her as they crawled toward her, one, then two, their pointy legs ticking on the cement floor.

  The light vanished.

  Sarah screamed, screamed until she had no breath. Then screamed some more, sliding along the wall until she hit the corner. She clutched the Bible in a death grip, eyes clenched, stepping on the hem of her dress in an effort to protect her feet. Oh God. They were crawling up her dress in the dark, she just knew it. God please. She could only scream, even when her throat shredded, she continued. Micah…please…please come back.

  She wasn’t sure how long it was before she realized it. Nothing had touched her. Where were they? What was happening? She imagined them right next to her, all around. Waiting. Quietly. Their ugly mouths opened to bite her.

  “Renounce and you go free.”

  Sarah gasped a sob in the dark, wondering where the voice came from. Was she hearing things? Going crazy? Was the mist some kind of drug? She didn’t fucking feel drugged.

  “Renounce and this is over,” the same voice said. A woman’s voice. Agony’s she realized. From some microphone? Were they watching her?

  Gasping, her nails bit into her bible. Images of Micah fucking that red haired bitch hit her. How dare they do this to somebody? Ask such a thing of somebody? “I will never renounce you fucking whore! Never!”

  Sarah waited in the dark for something. Anything.

  The lights came on and she gasped, looking around frantically. A black mass huddled in the opposite corner looking like bubbling tar. The spiders were climbing on top of each other, trying to scale the wall only to be pulled back down by the others, like an endless hellish conveyer belt.

  What the fuck was wrong with them? Keeping her eyes on the sick blob, she slowly slid her back down the wall and huddled in the corner. She opened her Bible and read the first scripture her eyes landed on. ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'

  Sarah’s eyes blurred with tears and she let out a sob. She suddenly realized that she’d never dreamed God would do this. She’d expected to suffer. Was ready to even. Why was he protecting her? What had she ever done for him that would warrant that? She liked helping people? Surely that wasn’t it, she enjoyed it, it wasn’t even a sacrifice.

  That.

  She paused, thinking about the one word and what it could mean. She realized a few moments later, he’d just answered her. She liked helping people…it wasn’t even a sacrifice. That.

  She quickly scanned the Bible passages for more, realizing for the first time, that God was doing more than just making this easy for her. But what? Her heart raced at the next scripture she read. ‘Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.’

  What did that mean? Was this…was he preparing her? For death?

  Sarah read more but didn’t find another scripture like it to confirm. Only comforting scriptures came to her. The spiders soon gave up trying to crawl up the wall and seemed to fall asleep. Sarah did the same. For seven hours.

  ****

  “How is that even possible?” Agony paced before the monitor with the rest of the council then stopped and snapped her hand to the screen. “The spiders are sleeping for crying out loud. Do they even do that?”

  “They can,” Trevor muttered. But not usually hung unspoken in his tone.

  Micah didn’t miss the hint of fascination either. How would any of them not be fascinated?

  “She will indeed make a powerful sacrifice,” Revin. “What a treasure you have found brother.”

  Micah wanted to cut his tongue out, but he was too grateful to whatever was protecting her to push his luck. If good behavior could help her, he’d be a fucking saint.

  “What about the electrocution?” Trevor asked. “Usually they all cave after the first dose of that. She went through all seven.”

  “She didn’t even have body excrements,” Zane a
dded, awed.

  “Something is making this easy for her,” Agony said, or accused.

  “Her body was marked on the outside, but no signs it went beyond the skin.” Zane watched the monitor, amazement in his old blue gaze.

  “It would appear that perhaps our lord Raxxon is protecting her. To ensure her blood is obtained?”

  “Yes,” Trevor agreed. “Most assuredly.”

  Micah wanted to snort. Or maybe her god was protecting her. That was the last thing they wanted anybody thinking. Liars. That’s what they were, that’s what they’d always been. Power was their principal, pain their pleasure, and false pride their sustenance. And to Micah, in that second, it was all a blasphemy of the basic principles of life, the principles even kids knew, before people fucked it out of them in whatever way they chose.

  Micah watched Sarah in the corner, sleeping like an angel amidst the fires of hell. So beautiful. He ached to kiss her, hold her close to him. Whisper his love in her ear over and over.

  “Let’s move on to the next phase, shall we?” Trevor said. “The sooner we get done, the sooner I can return to my normal schedule. The Sifting ceremony has always drained me.”

  Micah wished suddenly he had the power to kill all of them. And while he might be able to kill all of the ones standing in that room, he’d have a hard time with the Hell Hounds. Sadly, Micah didn’t care if they killed seven generations of her family but he knew she cared. And because of that, he cared. But now there was another reason he didn’t seek to end it his way. Because of what was happening. It gave him hope. They could pretend all night long that what protected her was on their side, but Micah figured otherwise. And he also couldn’t help but hope whatever did it, planned to save her.

  But could she endure what was coming next? Could he?

  “Let’s see how well she does with a little reversed psychological torture.”

  Revin looked his way. “Seven.”

  Without a word, Micah followed Zane, knowing how hard this was for him. Micah had become like a son. The old man had been very good to him. But he was not a man to cross in his earlier days. Seemed that even the hardest of them wearied of wickedness. He wondered if Christians wearied of righteousness the same? Of happiness?

  Micah suddenly got a clear vision of living with Sarah. She smiled at him from their bed, naked and unashamed, eyes filled with love. For him. Micah paused in mid stride at her holding a baby. Smiling up at him.

  His baby.

  Micah allowed them to strap him to the torture wheel. He’d done this before countless times for power ups. It wasn’t himself he worried for, it was Sarah.

  The door opened and they all entered with Sarah in the middle of them, a look of horror on her face. One that said not that, anything but that.

  Revin finally spoke. “We have had to make some very difficult decisions during this Sifting. And this final decision was indeed the weightiest of all. Our beloved brother, Seven, has cleaved to this woman, Sarah, in such a way that no power in Heaven and Earth can undo it. They are indeed one. And if she does not renounce, then they will die as one.”

  Micah’s eyes slowly closed and his head fell forward as all hope slipped away.

  Zane lit the flame torch and Sarah whimpered. Micah roared as the fire hit his skin, but the screams of Sarah hurt more than anything.

  Scythe laughed cruelly. “I hope you live so that you have to wear that filthy word on your skin. Christian,” he giggled, wickedly.

  Micah fought to not give them the pleasure of his agony. Fought not to give them what they wanted. They wanted his fury. His pain. He focused his eyes on Sarah. On those wide, terrified blue eyes, so tormented. He fought to show her what he needed. He needed her strength. God, he needed her strength.

  She finally saw his silent plea. Help me.

  She stared at him and held her hand out toward him. He watched her lips move, trembling with silent prayer. Her eyes closed and tears rolled down her cheeks as her brows pinched in concentration.

  The power hit Micah like a blast of wind through him. He gasped on the sensation as warm fire coated his insides. He smelled his burning flesh, even felt the pain, but somehow, it didn’t relay the message of agony to his mind, like his brain was cut off from that part of his senses.

  Just what Sarah described.

  She finally opened her eyes, panic shadowing them. He didn’t know how to tell her what was happening, that her God was helping him. Just the idea, the impossibility, overwhelmed Micah more than any torture had. Why? Why would her God help him?

  Hope surged through him like a wild fire and he roared with all his might in the face of his new enemy.

  “I renounce!” Sarah screamed. “I renounce! I renounce, please stop! Stop hurting him!”

  Micah’s eyes widened. No. “No, no no!” he roared.

  Darkness fell on them. The overhead light, the Sifter’s torch flame, the ceremony candles—all went out.

  Fear unlike any Micah had ever known fell on his soul. Oh God, no. Please don’t. Don’t forsake us.

  “Raxxon is angry,” Agony gasped, dread evident in her voice. “He wanted her blood.”

  The orange glow of a match illuminated the wicked gaze of Scythe. “Then let’s not disappoint him.” He looked at Revin. “She’s renounced her god and our brother has renounced us. The sacrifice is still powerful.”

  “Yes,” Revin’s sinister shadow whispered. “To renounce ones god for the sake of a lover is indeed powerful.” Scythe lit a candle and Revin floated forward and began unstrapping Micah. “Her blasphemy will open the portal of power. And you, dear brother,” he kissed Micah’s cheek, “will prepare her alter with your suffering.” He turned his head and stared at Sarah’s horrified gaze. “And your beautiful fallen angel will watch.”

  Thank you for reading, I know you hate me for stopping there! The third and final installment is called The Sacrifice.

  How about connecting with me on the web? I love my readers, so friend me on Facebook!

  Like broken heroes? Try other great books by Azure Boone:

  Broken Series: Broken Desires, Broken Lies, and Broken Souls (set)

  Prefer to read one at a time:

  Broken Desires (book 1)

  Broken Lies (book 2)

  Broken Souls (book 3)

  More DARK reads by Azure Boone:

  The Devil Wants A China Doll (Dark Rone series, book 1)

  Married To The Devil (Dark Rone series, book 2)

  Like hot angel paranormal romances? Try out her fantastic co-authored Archangels Creed series:

  Summon Kassern, Summon Dorn, Summon Toren (set)

  Prefer to read them one at a time?

  Summon Kassern (The Ruby Warrior)

  Summon Dorn (The Aquamarine Warrior)

  Summon Toren (The Mercury Warrior)

  Bridge books to read after Summon Toren in the Archangels Creed series:

  Wager (Puzzle Pieces)

  Flawed Warrior (Kassern Closeup)