Faith Hunter - Seraphs

I slowed, watching the effect of the elder’s greetings. Louis looked away. Louis drank a bit. More likely he was hung over rather than sick. Richard ran an ongoing card game. Gambling kept him too busy to attend many services, and he stepped away, into the crowd, as his absence at religious events was commented upon. Gambling was punishable by branding.

Rumor had it that Joseph owned a still in the hills nearby, a still that made him rich and a lot of town men too drunk to worship or work. He too melted into the dissipating groups of troublemakers. Florence was a firm orthodox. A kirk elder placing her name in context with rabble-rousers made her flush.

“Mrs. Abernathy, no need to worry about Hannah Zelmack. That was all rumor. She isn’t pregnant at all, let alone by a married man.”

Mrs. Abernathy blanched. “I never said—”

“Of course you did. To all sorts of people. Let’s get inside and seated, why don’t we?” Elder Jasper said, shooing cowed people up the steps with his hands. “Otherwise this crowd’ll disrupt the meeting. Thorn, Rupert, after you.” He gestured us past the dispersing group and inside. Most of the crowd filed in behind us, boots scuffing, pews groaning as they sat. At the door, Jasper said, “I believe there’s a special place for Thorn with the elders up on the—”

“Thorn will be sitting with us,” Audric said. His tone brooked no disagreement, and Jasper smiled and took his wife’s arm.

“Of course. This way, Polly, dear.”

Audric maneuvered us to a pew midway down on the left and paused. The location was an odd choice until I saw the fire door set into the wall, a quick way out if needed. He leveled a gaze on the pew’s occupants. I don’t know what they saw in his expression, but all six people scrambled out the other side and into pews many rows back. The row behind took the hint and vacated as well.

Satisfied but dour, Audric held my arm when I would have gone in first, letting Rupert lead the way, trailed by Miz Essie and Eli, Jacey, Big Zed, and their brood. When they were all in place, he released my arm and shoved me down in the pew ahead, seating me in the aisle seat as if I were a mannequin he was positioning for display. Audric slid into the pew behind me and sat. No one sat beside me. It was the only empty seating in the full church.

A sour miasma rose, the collected odors of humans, damp mold, and old building. The Central Baptist Church had survived a battle on the Trine, the towering, three-peaked rock face that had risen two thousand feet during an underground war fought by seraphs and humans against minions of Darkness. Constructed of stone, the building’s foundations rested on a single rock, making the church a place of power to me. Unknown to the elders, it was a conduit to the power of the deeps. I was lucky to have been brought here and not to the kirk. That building was set above a streambed, not stone.

A gavel banged, bringing a deeper quiet to the silent crowd. The town fathers were seated at a long table to the right of the stage, the table set at an angle to the audience so they could see and be seen, yet leave a wide space for proceedings. One of which would be me, I reminded myself. Sweet seraph.

Across the aisle to my right, Lucas slipped into a seat, Ciana beside him. My ex-husband inclined his head, his lips turning up. As always, my heart somersaulted. Lucas Stanhope was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, even when wasted from weeks of captivity. His cheeks were sharply defined, brow wide, nose a perfect line, blue eyes making every girl in town sigh. Too bad he was a lying, woman-chasing cheat.

His eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage, the child of my heart if not my body, waved, a bright smile on her face. Dismayed, I waggled my fingertips at her. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t see a town meeting. She should be safe, in school, where illusions about her world and the people in it wouldn’t be shattered. Yet, even knowing that she should be carried away and protected, I was glad to see her, her bright eyes alight with hope and trust. Ciana’s presence brought a measure of peace to me that I badly needed.

The girl was small for her age. She crawled into her father’s lap, her back to his chest. Her legs were encased in thick leggings and kicked on either side of his, her arms twined with his around her waist over her padded coat. The seraph pin she always wore peeked out. The old church had no heat and her breath puffed, tiny clouds joining the breath of the throng. Lucas leaned over and whispered, “She wouldn’t go to school. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Said she had to be here.” He kissed Ciana’s head with a worried frown and sat back.

The gavel banged again. The chairman of the town fathers was Elder Shamus Waldroup, a baker and also the senior judge over all civil and criminal disputes brought before the district court. Shamus called out, speaking with the thick mountain brogue of his generation. “The meetin’ of the town fathers of Mineral City will come to order. I see we have quite a crowd for today’s proceedings, and a long docket. Let’s get on with it. Court’s in session.”

The old man’s dark-skinned balding head caught the light as he peered from the dais into the seats of the condemned. “First item of business is the judgment on two caught cursing. Their iniquitous words were heard by an elder. Upon questioning at the last town meeting, they confessed, sentences were pronounced, and will be carried out posthaste.”

The smell of smoke blew through the old sanctuary on a gust of cold air as a brazier was carried into the room from one of the doors at the front. Once upon a time, a choir would have proceeded through, robed and singing praises. Now it was five burly, brown-robed elders, all armed, acting as bailffs. Two carried long poles with a portable brazier suspended between, the iron brazier glowing red-hot. The others held Bibles and branding irons, all in the sign of the cross.

Oh, saints’ balls, they were going to do it right now . I looked at Lucas in alarm but he was already turning Ciana into the crook of his shoulder. “No. I wanna see,” she said, resisting, her shrill voice rising. Lucas quieted her with a murmured word, and though she stopped fighting, she hissed, stubbornly, “It’s not fair.”

The brazier was set on the stage and the five elders, all young postulants, went to the pew set aside for the condemned. The clink of chains echoed in the still air. The crowd leaned forward in anticipation. I stared at the cloak over my knees, the leather burned and scorched. I’d suffered a lot for this town, yet many wanted to see me brought forward in chains, a cross brand set aside for me.

Scuffling and cursing came from the dais, the words quickly muffled. Shamus said, “Now Mack, watch your mouth. You don’t want to be punished twice in one day. Mack here is charged and found guilty for cursing, lewd speech, and propagandizing in front of a schoolyard and the kirk. Because this is a first offense, you have the right to address the assembled. If we take off the gag, you can even repent, which might cause this court to go easy on you, but if you cuss again, I’ll have you duct-taped for the rest of the proceedings.”

Mack started speaking as soon as the gag was removed. “I’m not being punished by the kirk because I cursed. I’m being punished to suppress the EIH.” More scuffling ensued while Mack shouted, “You know it’s true. The Most High isn’t real. The seraphs came from another planet and took our world. It’s a plot, a ruse to claim the Earth, to enslave us. We have to fight them—”

“That’s enough of the conspiracy claims,” Shamus interrupted, sounding tired.

The rest of Mack’s words were muffled into grunts, unintelligible noises, and sounds of struggle. Vibrations thudded through the wood floor. “May you find absolution and forgiveness in the countenance of the Most High,” Shamus said.