“I’m cold, Papa,” Suzy said. Her body went slack.
The echoes of the songs of praise languished in the air.
Kayla’s body slumped. A hand settled on her shoulder and she turned. The monk stood beside her, his breaths coming in ragged gasps, intermittent coughs racking his chest.
Maria turned on them both. “How could you?”
“I tried to save her,” Kayla said, wearing the blood-stained dress Maria had given her. A few faces in the crowd held compassion, but most glared with contempt and loathing. All knew the law of the Founder.
Maria’s face contorted with hatred. “You will burn for this, both of you!”
Two nights later, Maria’s pronouncement became prophecy.
***
The last hues of the setting sun aged the sky with dirty purples long past their prime. The entire settlement gathered before the two stakes in the center of the clearing. The monk and the cripple, two heretics about to suffer the ultimate punishment for their crimes. Attendance was mandatory, a lesson none dared shirk. Had they shielded the lawbreakers, the entire village itself would be liable.
A vision of the piles of skulls in the desert flashed before Kayla’s memory.
They are doing what they must to protect their families.
As the first tendrils of smoke embraced her, Kayla raised her face to the darkening sky. Her lips moved in silent supplication. When she finished her prayer, she stilled, waiting, listening. The echo of a distant hyena mocked her.
Kayla’s head slumped, and the matted strands of her auburn hair veiled her misaligned face. Not an inch of her once-pristine Easter dress remained unsullied. Her wreath was gone, torn away by Maria as they lay bound in the town square for the past two days during their trial by the village elders.
A growing warmth beat back the twilight chill—a reminder of the price for her sins. Tremors seized her legs and spread upward until her entire body vibrated.
Near her twisted foot, a line of ants marched across the evidence of what Minister Coglin labeled her “mental fornication.” The ancient books encircled her in testimony of her sins.
Despite her prayers, their blasphemous words tormented her still, the forbidden fruit staining her mind and soul with a sin it seemed no atonement could erase. If free will was a divine test, she had failed miserably.
Wisps of smoke reached the colony, and they froze, antennae waving frantically. Their Judgment Day had arrived as a result of their geographic association with her, the abomination, the heretic.
A rock cracked against Kayla’s forehead, and a stream of blood mingled with the dirt and sweat already coating her face. The pain eclipsed that of her twisted foot and the ropes cutting into her wrists. If only the rock had been larger and thrown harder. But her judges avoided such clemency. The witch must suffer the full punishment.
A few yards to her right, hemp ropes secured the monk to a second post, the illegal tools of his healing arts heaped around his feet. His circle of burning lumber outpaced hers—a preview of her own fate. His wrinkled face wore the mask of serenity that transformed him when lost in meditation and prayer.
He’d called her daughter. Why hadn’t she called him father in return? Or told him she loved him?
The heat scorched her feet, and a fit of coughing battled to expel the smoke choking her lungs. She turned her eyes toward the crowd.
Mrs. Shore cradled the newborn Kayla helped deliver only months before. She was a kind and loving woman. Now, her face writhed in hatred. “Witch, blasphemer, daughter of a whore!”
There stood Allie, who’d broken her leg milking her cow; and Christy, who had nearly died of infection after her husband whipped her for contradicting him. There stood Billy, cracked skull; Jamie, attacked by a lion during a hunt; Mr. Caldwell, dislocated shoulder; Widow Nilla, anemia.
I know you all.
They shouted, spat, and threw refuse. Could this really be the same joyous and peaceful community of two days earlier? It’s me who changed them. The tumor threatening to destroy the body if not removed.
Minister Coglin raised his hemlock-carved crucifix like a sword of vengeance, and the crowd fell silent. The minister’s blue eyes glared at them, fierce, ever-challenging. He kept his black beard shaved above his lip so that his pale features floated within a circle of darkness. “We gather here to administer the laws decreed by our dual saviors—the Lord Jesus Christ and our beloved Founder of Potemia!”
The minister swiveled to the left and right, displaying the crucifix even higher for all to see. All bowed their heads in silence, the crackling flames a reminder of the eternal torment awaiting any who dared defy the divine order.
He faced Kayla and the monk. “You have been pronounced guilty of practicing sciencecraft!” The monk’s eyes opened and fixed on the minister.
“The Great Founder who led us to this Promised Land decreed that freedom and technology cannot coexist! We choose Freedom and the grace of Almighty God!”
The minister’s voice rose to a shout. “And she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her!”
The flames rose around the monk as if in response. The healer’s eyes closed, and his face transformed to a mask of contentment—even while his robe ignited. The crowd gasped, and a few looked away when his beard caught fire.
The monk’s flesh peeled and shriveled, but no sound, repentant or otherwise, sated their need for vengeance. The meager fat of his body flashed and sizzled, suffusing the air with the sickly-sweet smell of roasting meat. A few vomited.
“Why does God allow evil to exist?” she once asked the monk.
“Without darkness, can there be light?”
As the bone of the monk’s skull appeared, Kayla forced her eyes away.
Suzy’s parents stood at the back of the crowd; Matthew’s body rigid, dark circles surrounding his eyes. His arm corralled Maria’s shoulders as she stared into space. Their son, James, huddled before them, eyes darting like a cornered rabbit.
The sound of screams jolted Kayla from her reverie. What could possibly make such a horrible sound? The screams came from her.
Pain flooded her mind, and the flesh of her legs peeled and cracked. Her screams spluttered as smoke clogged her throat and lungs, filling her with a suffocating panic. She writhed upward, trying to somehow climb the pole.
Then he appeared. Far beyond the sea of her death-drunk tormentors.
Ishan.
Her lover perched in a tree with bow pulled taut, sighting along the shaft of an arrow. Kayla stopped screaming.
His chance for redemption.
Kayla drank in the sight of him a final time. Then she nodded.
Ishan released the arrow—his final kiss. The shaft seemed to slow, flexing like a snake through the air toward her. An instant before impact, her eyes closed. The razor-edged steel sliced through her skin and shattered two ribs. Then it reached her heart, the force exploding both chambers like a water skin.
Thank you, my love…
Kayla’s blood ceased its seventeen-year marathon.
Her consciousness expanded outside her body to a viewpoint above the confused and angry crowd. Her body hung limp, the arrow still quivering in her chest.
Is this my soul exiting my dead body?
A flash of light burst into being within the thing tied to the stake—her former body—and eclipsed the bonfire. The crowd’s angry cries ceased. Beams of light erupted from the puncture in her chest and consumed the arrow.
A breeze drew toward the pyre, stoking the fire into an inferno. Her Easter dress crumbled into cinders. At the fire’s core, unharmed, irised within the flames, a naked apparition held its hands before its face, turning them slowly, examining the blazing light emanating from within. When the whirlwind reached its peak, the fire flowed into her glowing body, tracing the network of veins and organs underneath.
Was this an illusion her brain generated as oxygen depletion starved away the final bits of electrical activity?
Her deformed foot and face transformed.
“It’s a miracle of the Lord!” someone shouted.
Kayla’s scars vanished. With hair billowing, the elemental beauty of her naked and burning form blazed angelic.
Many fell to their knees. The blacksmith’s wife, Anna, raised her hands to the sky and shouted, “Heal me, OH, LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise!”
“This is no miracle!” Minister Coglin shouted. “This is demonic sciencecraft!” But none paid him any heed as they gloried in God’s power.
A red glow ignited in her eyes and grew into a crimson fire. Her arms extended outward, and her skin blackened impossibly dark. Glowing symbols appeared across her body, hands, and face. The wind roared, and the villagers cowered before the astonishing sight. The creature rose into the air, her Hellish eyes climbing to the sky.
An otherworldly scream erupted from her throat.
The mob fled in a desperate stampede. A few townspeople went down under the tide of bodies but managed to rise and stagger onward, driven by a fear that subsumed pain. Soon, only the apparition remained, suspended above the charred remains of her funeral pyre.
The wind ceased, and her eyes lost their crimson glow. Like an untethered marionette, she crumpled to the ground atop the blackened books she’d first feared, then loved, and finally cursed. Her skin faded to its pale shade, the symbols vanishing last of all.
Kayla’s external view of her transformed body faded to darkness.
Two glowing eyes appeared within the void—windows into a realm of flames. In one eye a man writhed in torment, while the other imprisoned a woman.
“I am Melchi,” a deep voice intoned with the eerie echo of a monastic chant. “I look forward to our meeting—Nihala.”
Melchi. The demon from my dream in the desert!
She tried answering, but found no voice capable of speech.
Chapter 5
Silvery moonlight drifted across a pale form. Neither wind nor flutter of wing disturbed the eerie solitude. Even the crickets had fled.
Kayla’s body twitched, then she gasped. Her hands sought her exposed chest. No arrow. No wound. She frowned at the steady beat of her heart.
Not oblivion. Was it Heaven—or Hell?
Her eyes opened. The monk’s charred skeleton lay amidst the ashes of his blackened pyre.
My father. I killed you.
Grief and guilt yanked at her heart.
She stared into the skull’s empty sockets. His words echoed in her mind: “I am willing to forfeit my life to serve others …”
She tore her gaze from this rebuke, and her eyes drifted to her feet, both perfectly formed in every way.
“It’s not possible,” she whispered.
Her hand caressed the left foot. She stood, hesitant, flinching. For the first time in her life—no pain. Her hands explored her face and encountered smooth perfection.
A miracle?
The books from the past claimed that all events had logical, natural explanations. But how could anything natural explain the healing of her deformities, her resurrection, her soul exiting her body, and … Melchi?
When you’d eliminated all other possibilities, the one that remained had to be the solution, no matter how improbable it seemed.
Which left the supernatural. Which left God.
Should she thank God for sparing her? Or curse him for taking everyone she loved?
Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head. God was not to blame. My choices led to this.
Clothing, food, and even a couple of shoes littered the clearing.
After covering herself with a discarded cloak, she began digging with the shovel used to bury their stakes. A shallow grave formed. She placed the blackened remains of the monk gently at the bottom.
Kneeling, she clasped her hands, and recited the words Minister Coglin used at church burials. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul …”
Kayla remembered herself at age six, gathering healing plants in the woods with the monk.
“What was my mother’s name?” Kayla had asked.
“Elaine Nighthawk. I met her the night she died giving you life.”
“Is it true, what the other children say about her?”
“No one knew where she came from, but I can say with certainty that she loved you more than her own life.” The monk smiled. “I promised her I would take care of you.”
Kayla knelt before the open grave and stared at the charred skeleton of the only parent she’d ever known. His body-machine had been destroyed. Did his soul live on?
When the first rays of dawn roused her, she filled the grave and camouflaged it against desecration.
Then she left the place of death. The rustle of squirrels and the songs of birds returned. A robin called to her and, farther on, she startled a few rabbits. The animals saw her, at least.
A squeak froze her mid-stride.
“Puck?” She fell to her knees before the mouse, and extended her hand. Her three-footed friend scurried to his customary place on her shoulder. Together, they passed the deserted fields surrounding the village.
But no one appeared. By now, farmers should be hitching their plows, children running to fetch water, and women heading to the river to do laundry.
“So you are alive,” the voice of Elias said.
Kayla’s every muscle seized.
Her rapist strode from behind a tree and leered. “Thought you might go chasing that heathen of yours.” He circled like a scavenger sighting carrion, his eyes molesting the outline of her body beneath the cloak and examining the improved aesthetics of her face with interest. The reek of barley-ale hung about him like a shroud.
If only she had his terrible strength.
The giant stopped close. “My father says you conjured science-magic to escape your crimes.” His expression hardened. “I didn’t see what trick you played, since I went chasing your black-skinned heathen after he …” For the first time, doubt crept into his face. Something she could exploit?
Kayla lifted her chin in a brazen challenge. “Yes, I used sciencecraft, and I will use it against you if you don’t let me pass.”
A note of caution entered his voice. “You admit to being a witch?”
“They’ve all seen the proof, so I need no longer hide what I am.” Hatred narrowed her eyes. “And now it’s time you paid for your crimes.”
The giant retreated. “Stay back, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? You’ll rape me? You’ll burn me at the stake?”
“I never meant to …” He edged back, eyes wide.
Now what? How do I sustain this act? Kayla glanced around. “Where are the rest of my oppressors?”
“They’re huddled in the church, praying to God for protection. They’ve banished you and sent messengers to the other councils.”
Banished from Potemia?
“They say you drank fire into your body … that your skin pitched black as the Abyss and bled sorcery through strange symbols that glowed like windows to Hell.”
So my out-of-body vision was no dream!
A hint of uncertainty crept into his voice. “My father says you created an illusion, a contrivance of sciencecraft, but the elders are convinced you’re possessed by a demon.”
“The council is right,” she said. “Satan offered me great knowledge and power in exchange for my soul.”
His face convoluted, torn by opposing forces within, then calmed.
“I don’t believe you.” He reached for her and she retreated.
Elias leered. “I don’t know what illusion you tricked them with, but I’ve never been afraid of anything, and I’m not starting with the daughter of a whore.” Elias stepped forward, and her body went rigid. What could she do against a force like Elias?
“I think it’s time you had a second lesson,” he said.
A scream of agony, but not hers. She opened her eyes. Elias groveled on his knees, his face contorted with pain. Her fingers gripped his wrist as if squeezing a sausage nearly in half. She could feel the two bones of his forearm bending under her fingers.
“Please, let go,” Elias sobbed.
I wonder what would happen if I …?
She bent Elias’s forearm to the side, and he screamed. The bone splintered just above his wrist, puncturing the skin and spurting blood. Kayla started in shock and released her hold.
Elias collapsed.
Her heart quickened at the sight of him sobbing and cradling his shattered arm, a long stream of spittle forming on his lower lip and stretching toward the pool of blood beneath him.
An intoxicating thirst for retribution blossomed inside her like a neglected garden gone to seed. The violence was his, inserted into her soul the moment he raped her. Now it burst free and filled every muscle of her body with a demand to return to the source from which it sprang.
She seized his ankle.
“Please, no!” Elias shouted.
It took the slightest twist to break it. He screamed and she smiled. The first hint of red glazed her vision.
“Please, God, please help me,” Elias begged.
Kayla’s smile became a snarl. “You dare invoke God?”
“I’m sorry—”
“God resurrected me, and I am his vengeance!”
Anger coursed through her veins with a demand for action. Elias dragged his broken body away from her, leaving a bloody trail like a wounded slug.
“Crawl in the dirt like the serpent you are!” She stalked him, her pupils glowing with demonic fire.
He collapsed.
She faced the steeple of the distant church, and her voice boomed with an unnatural resonance. “I will burn your precious fields, your houses, and your church!”
She strode toward Elias and grasped his head between both hands. Then she stared into his bloodshot eyes and smiled.
Nihala Page 6