Trials

by Kady Cross

  “Gordon, son, come with me now. Nothing to worry about.”

  Grog’s stomach twisted. In his mind’s eye, he saw the pastor dripping with blood, red all over except for his shining white teeth. A monster, created by the madness. And the monster was determined to take Grog away with it.

  He took another step, and stumbled over his own feet. Fear swept through him, a rushing cold that numbed his toes and fingers. The center, he had to reach the center before the monster ate his soul. The music swelled again, but this time, the voice he’d run from joined in the song. Grog didn’t understand what it said, but it took away the paralyzing fear. He straightened, and continued on his path.

  The pastor shouted, his words muffled as if he stood behind a velvet curtain. Grog understood well enough. They were the same words he’d always shouted. Words about sin and Hell, warnings about the suffering all of his congregation had brought down on the world by turning their backs on the church. He’d seemed so confident in those words once upon a time. Now, with the Angel singing into Grog’s ear, the pastor’s words sounded like the rantings of an angry toddler. Blame and fear. And none of it directed at himself.

  “You’re walking into Satan’s trap, boy! This idolatrous maze is designed to confuse the weak. If Jesus wanted us to walk in circles, he’d have curled all the roads around each other!” The pastor paced around the edges of the labyrinth, his face red. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. “This ain’t the right way to God, and you know it! Get your ass over here so we can leave this tainted place.”

  Grog stared at him. How had he ever given in to the ugliness this man claimed was holy? No wonder the Host had punished people with blood and insanity. “I have to finish walking.” He turned away. The center was close now, and he knew that everything he needed was there. Step by step, he moved forward. Step by step, the confusion and terror fell away. The wounds that never stopped aching began to ease. Just a few more steps.

  “We can save them all, Gordon!” Pastor Daniel screamed from the darkness. “You come with me, and we’ll visit everyone we can find, show them how to shed their evil. They’ll feed us and give us money. We’ll be rich, you and I.”

  “Money?” Grog asked, not looking away from his path. He remembered money. Gordon had used money to buy things he wanted. Things that no longer mattered. “You want to use me to get money?”

  “It’s the least of what they owe us, boy,” he said. “All the sinners, all their evil, they caused this. Even my own boy over there, he was a sinner, too. You and me, we’re God’s chosen. We deserve to be put on a pedestal. We’re like angels our own selves. You know I’m right.”

  “My mother was a sinner?” Grog asked. Six steps. Five. Four.

  “Especially your mother,” the pastor said.

  Three steps. Two. One.

  He walked into the center. On the floor under his feet, he gazed at a flower, six petals surrounding a perfectly round circle. Like a daisy. His mother loved daisies. She hadn’t meant to hurt herself, and she’d run away to keep from hurting him. The Angel sang to him, and at last he understood the words. The confusion he’d lived with for so long lifted, and his mind was, for the first time, clear. He turned toward the pastor, and held out a hand toward him.

  “Come to me.”

  “What?”

  Grog waved his hand over the labyrinth. “Walk to me and I’ll leave with you.”

  “Fine.” The pastor started to cross over the path, but Grog shook his head.

  “You have to walk it the way I did. From beginning to end.”

  “I don’t have time for this foolishness,” Pastor Daniel said. Grog didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. The pastor would figure it out well enough on his own.

  After a moment of silence, the pastor sighed, and walked to the opening.

  At first, he almost ran around the turns and lengths of the pattern. He slowed down after a few minutes, his breathing heavy. From time to time, he jumped, looking behind him as if something followed. Grog stood in the center, watching him. Was he seeing visions, the way the Angel had shown them to Grog? Perhaps his sins lay too deeply within him to allow redemption. None of Grog’s business, either way.

  The pastor began to weep, and fell to one knee. He cried out, his words garbled with emotion, but Grog said nothing. He tore at his shirt, popping the buttons in his haste. Symbols matching those on Grog’s skin were appearing on the pastor’s chest. Blood ran from each new cut, and the pastor moaned and shrieked. He rose and stumbled forward, falling away from the path and rolling into the center. He lay on the floor, bleeding on the daisy.

  “Son.” His mother’s voice again, gentle and kind. “Use your gift. Take this man’s life. He destroyed your innocence and sought to use you for personal gain. His life is forfeit.”

  “You’re not my mother,” Grog said.

  She appeared before him, in the same dress as before. But this time he knew. This was the Angel.

  “Reach inside his chest, and take his heart in your hand. It will be quick.”

  “Murder is a sin.”

  “This isn’t murder,” the being who was not his mother said. “It is justice.”

  Grog gazed at the broken man lying below him. Pastor Daniel shivered, tormented by visions of the cruelty he’d inflicted on so many. “Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me,” he mumbled. Tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t seem to see Grog at all. He stared into the distance, begging for forgiveness that would never come.

  Grog glanced again at Shadrach. In the shadows, he couldn’t tell if the young man still breathed. His own father had murdered him. How many other deaths were the fault of the pastor? Grog leaned over and pressed his hand against the pastor’s chest. The heart thudded, and for a moment Grog considered. It would be so easy to soften his aspect, slide his fingers between the bones of the old man’s ribs, and stop that heart. So easy. He sighed. “I’m not a judge. His life isn’t mine to take.”

  “As you choose.” Light surrounded the Angel. It no longer wore the face of his mother, and the light was almost too bright to bear. His eyes watered under the onslaught, and he blinked to clear them. When he looked again, the Angel was gone. The church basement was swathed in shadow. In the flickering light of the candles, the labyrinth looked like mere painted lines on the floor. Something had changed. He had changed.

  For an instant, the pastor focused on him, and raised a trembling hand. “I’m sorry, Gordon.”

  The Angel had given him a gift, but he would learn to use it for something other than vengeance. He would begin by finding the pastor’s other sons, and sending them in to help their father. Grog wouldn’t have bothered, but what Grog wanted didn’t matter anymore. “Yes,” he said, “I’m Gordon.”

  MISTY MASSEY is the author of MAD KESTREL, a rollicking adventure of magic on the high seas (Tor), KESTREL’S VOYAGES, a collection of short stories featuring those rambunctious pirates (Amazon), and the upcoming KESTREL’S DANCE (Lore Seekers Press). She is a co-editor of THE WEIRD WILD WEST (Espec) and LAWLESS LANDS (Falstaff Books), and a founding member of Magical Words, the well-known blog for and about writers (magicalwords.net). When she’s not writing, Misty studies Middle Eastern Dance and performs at regional events as the opportunities arise.

  You can keep up with what Misty’s doing at mistymassey.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

  Set in Stone

  6 PA / 2018 AD

  Faith Hunter

  Holy Amethyst reared back in the cockpit of her wheels, her eagle face forward, beak raised in screaming challenge. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, talons scoring deep runnels in the gold. Her mate, Zadkiel, was taken. She saw it as it happened, a vision strong and true.

  She felt the Darkness as it slithered across his wings, burning, scorching deep. Zadkiel screamed in agony. The Aqua Dragon and his minion, Forcas, swept forward, leathery wings beating the air, throwing dark lightning, dark energy so dense it covered the seraph scent like a flood. Her vision of Zadkiel,
her awareness of him was . . . gone. Never since they mated had he been so far from her that she couldn’t sense him. The space in her mind that he had occupied was an empty chasm.

  She whirled to the throne of the Most High and screeched a prayer. The Light of the throne, the holy Shekinah, the cloud of glory, rested on its sapphire base, pulsing with power, with incredible might, hanging above the singing throng. She knew the Most High felt Zadkiel’s pain. She knew He could help him. Yet He let her mate suffer.

  She screeched in agony, howling above the song of the gathered seraphs. The other three cherubs stared at her across the holy Shekinah. Their singing fell silent. Below them, the throng that sang to the glory of the Most High fell silent. Disquiet filled the holy square. A hush seeped through the smoke of the holiness.

  Amethyst screamed again. “Help him,” she prayed. “Assist him,” she begged. “Save him!” she demanded. The Light did nothing—did not even seem to hear her—as the Most High had not listened to their pleas in long years.

  Amethyst powered up her wheels, the rings speeding into smooth rotation, one rolling east to west, another north to south, and the others from Heaven to Earth in oscillating harmony. “Holy Amethyst, no! Wait,” Holy Citrine screamed. With a final screech, Amethyst powered her wheels away from the throne—away from the Host—away from the Light of the Most High.

  With a roar of power, she dropped through the golden streets, scattering seraphs, and pointed the nose of the ship down, aiming for the River of Time. Calculating the descent and the angle of impact, she hit the River and cut through the glowing water. And out the other side, into the atmosphere of Earth with a boom of displaced air.

  The scent of battle whipped by her, smoke and blood and death. She rotated, bringing her lion face to the fore. Sniffing. It had been long and long since she’d scented battle, not since the battle when Michael and his lieutenants, and the wheels to which they were bound, fought the Red Dragon and defeated him.

  She pointed the wheels at the Earth, at the mountain that appeared just below. This close, she could sense Zadkiel once again. And she could smell humans—human blood. She blasted the rock with light, exploding granite away, revealing a chamber of a hellhole. She dove the wheels down, into it, screaming her mate’s name, burning the spawn of the hellhole to vapor.

  The rock closed over her as she bored deeper, dust flying. From a tunnel a dragon appeared, wings spread, the Aqua Dragon, his body scaled and glistening with dark energies. And he cast a sparkling net of Dark power over her. A trap.

  Instantly, she reversed the wheels and strained against the energy net. Below her, she felt the shift of power. A human had offered his life for Zadkiel; had poured his own life-blood over the demon iron that trapped her mate. And Zadkiel was free!

  Amethyst called to him. But the energy net caught the energies of the summons and bounced them back to her. Zadkiel and his seraphs flew from the hellhole, alive and free. Sending power to the wheels, Amethyst tried to draw on the might of the Most High, but it was as if she had been cut off from the Heavens. The net: a weapon of great darkness or a judgment against her?

  The dragon laughed and threw himself at her, landing on the deck of her wheels. “You are mine, now,” he said. “And you will mate with me. And your power and your wheels will be mine. And I will sit on the throne of the Most High.” He reached out a hand and brushed her many breasts.

  Amethyst screamed as the feathers and flesh beneath his fingers blistered and smoked. But her shriek was a ploy, and her hands shifted the keys of the cockpit chair. In a single instant, the wheels rotated upside down and reversed. The dragon was tossed against the floor of the rock chamber. The wheels opened up with the light, the purple lasers blasting an outlet. An incantation of protection was contained in a single word, and Amethyst spoke it as the wheels shot for the surface of the mountain. The navcone tore through the energy net the dragon had cast around them.

  The wheels hit the atmosphere and exploded with the power of protection. But in that instant, the net dragged over the cockpit chair and snared Amethyst. Pain erupted through her. She was jerked from the chair, down into the chamber, hard against the dragon’s chest. The wheels pulsed once, and they were gone.

  The dragon wrapped his net tight around her, anger vibrating through him. “Your mate is free, but you are mine. And soon, your ophanim—your wheels—will be mine as well. Your energy is mine. Your essence is mine. With you I will create new life.” His claws raked her through the energy mesh. “Call the wheels back. Now!”

  Amethyst reached for Zadkiel—reached for the wheels—reached for the Most High. No one and nothing answered. She was a prisoner of the Darkness.

  Wind Blown

  14 PA / 2026 AD

  Faith Hunter

  Pearl stared out over the waves, the wind lifting the hem of her homespun cotton dress. Her eyes were closed against the bright sun, her hands fisted tightly, arms angled at her sides for balance. The pearls for which she was named were strung in disordered rows—round ones, rice-shaped, and the baroque pearls she loved so, the nacre shaped like smooth nails, small knives, and the teeth of predators. Some said they were ugly, but Pearl thought them all beautiful and wild, as untamed as the sea.

  There were hundreds of pearls, each knotted with twine, intermingled with sharks’ teeth, sea-smoothed glass, dried starfish and seahorses. There were skate egg sacks, black and crusted, sand dollars, and smooth driftwood, shells of every kind, all tied and draped around her. Her amulets glistened with the power she had drawn in, the pearls so full they seemed to dance with might, with the stolen power of the sea, the teeth and glass and dried sea creatures shining with energy, like tiny suns.

  Heated sand clung to her ankles, the thunder of the surf carried through to her bones. The salt air twisted her hair into riotous waves and curls, sun-bleached, sandy highlights that contrasted with her café-au-lait skin and dark green eyes, eyes that carried a hint of storm. She sighed into the wind, face turned to the sky. Her power and the wind lifted her hair in coiling ringlets and danced along her flesh, almost painfully.

  The pull of the surf swept through her, waves churning and beating against the sandy ocean floor. A shark swam, far out in the waves, searching for meat and blood, hungry. A pod of mammals, perhaps small whales, though she couldn’t tell for certain, swam closer in, feeding, playing, throwing themselves into the air in abandon, only to fall back to the waves with huge splashes that seemed to echo their joy. Their very lives were a sea-dance, mating as they pleased, skin brushing skin, wet and silken and raspy-coarse. Unlike her, they were never alone. She dove through the water with them, singing her incantation, Sea, storm, waves, and tides, carry me, carry me . . .

  She was one of the treacherous ones, born eight months after the first plague. A neomage. A being not human, although born of a human mother who had survived all three plagues while pregnant. Scientists postulated that the genetic mutation that shaped her, and the others like her, had been caused by the viruses that had killed off six billion humans. She was a mutant who could twist the leftover energies of creation. But she was the only one she had ever heard of who could draw it from the sea, for saltwater blunted the power of all other mages. Or so they said—she had never met another mage. Pearl, at fourteen, was truly and utterly alone. Alone with this new power, this incredible might.

  She had been drawing power, wild, dangerous power, for two weeks now, ever since her parents had thrust her out of their house, faces etched deep with fear. She was hungry, thirsty, sunburned. She hadn’t slept. Yet she was getting stronger, because now she was no longer hiding what she was. Now she was free to experiment with the wild power of the energy particles that called to her, energy that she could see with a blink that opened mage sight and turned the world into an energy sink.

  I see you.

  Pearl opened her eyes, startled.

  I see you. Female, Near the shore. Can you see me? the foreign voice asked. Odd; he had an accent in his thoughts . .
. French? Pearl had heard a Frenchman speak once . . . Can you hear me?

  Pearl turned away from the beach, seeking with her eyes, sniffing deeply. Searching. And she found the mind. It was male. It—he—was neomage, like her. Power swirled around him like a wind storm, like a small hurricane.

  Air mage, he said, mind-to-mind. But my power is less controlled near the ocean.

  Why? She thought back. Can’t you do this? And she showed him how to twist the energy particles so they were protected from, and empowered by, the salt in the air and the water. She watched as his mind tried to follow the energy pattern of a riptide out into the ocean; she slid her mind around his, as if in an embrace, and shifted him closer as he reached out, struggling to hold the might of the sea. And she felt his helpless failure as he lost control of it.

  But the strength of his mind was the strength of the wind, ceaseless and warm. And his thoughts were like the width of the sky, trying anything, all things, seeing the world as she never had. She turned in his mental embrace and smiled at him, knowing his mind, his heart. He held her as if she were a priceless pearl, a pearl of great price. There was a sheepish innocence in his thoughts. I can’t hold the sea, he whispered. But I can show you the wind. He turned them into the sky, a dance like the waves in the ocean, but higher, freer. She heard the incantation of his passage. Flight and storm and battle wind, carry me afar . . .

  But below the freedom, beneath the fierce independence, Pearl could hear an echo of loneliness in his mind. Could sense the fear there. The disgrace. He pulled away in a whirlwind of shame, but not before she saw the image of the storm that destroyed his family’s house. An angry wind, out of control, powered by the fury of a young boy’s rage. And the vision of the beam that had fallen on his little sister. Anna. She had died. He had run, just ahead of the villagers who threw stones. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’m only now learning how to control the wind. How to control myself.