The Book Eaters(79)
Devon gave her a sharp look. “Let me know where and when.”
“After the service,” Hester whispered, then added more loudly, “Since you’re new, I’d like to introduce you to some of my siblings.”
Devon spent the next fifteen minutes shaking hands with a series of Ravenscars, all Hester’s brothers of varying ages. There was one other woman—another fraternal twin, like Hester, and so therefore also a mind eater.
Smile, nod, move to the next handshake. Between greetings, she spotted Mani lurking in a corner, nursing a plastic cup of tea. Hot steam fogged up his glasses.
The former journalist was still a mystery to her: one she felt the need to solve. How he had gotten here and why he continued to live among the Ravenscars felt crucial in some elusive way, but she didn’t want to make a show of going over to seek him out.
Instead, Devon did a quick mental head count as she chatted her way around the room. About fifteen souls, discounting herself, Cai, Mani. The Ravenscar household had once held forty-odd members, so the rest must have died in the coup. The odds had surely been stacked against this lot for such an unfair fight.
Killock walked in. He’d changed from his plain gray slacks and shirt into an old-styled suit that was a few sizes too large. Devon would have put money on it belonging to Weston Ravenscar.
Without needing direction, the people of Traquair all found seats and fell into a quietude that bordered on reverential.
“Merry Christmas, my friends. God bless you on this sacred Sunday, and all the Lord has gifted. From the return of my sister, safe and well through the valley of death”—he jabbed a finger at Hester, who flinched—“to the advent of a new Son who has come among us.” Dark eyes alighted possessively on Cai, in a way that Devon disliked. “Sinners all, we come seeking Redemption and salvation. And God gives. And God provides. God is here with us, my dear Sabbatarians.”
Privately, Devon suspected God wouldn’t be caught either crucified or alive within a mile of this place.
“On this day, when sons are born and fathers in Heaven rejoice, I find, dear friends, that my own father wishes to speak to us today. I have not heard from him in many months.” Killock grabbed the Bible off the makeshift table, flipping it open. “Weston has this to say: Then because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced when your enemy besieges you, you will eat your own children, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord has given you. He quotes, you see, from Deuteronomy chapter twenty-eight, verse fifty-three.”
Devon felt her toes curl. She recognized the start of an unhinged rambling when she heard one, and Killock did not disappoint. He perched on the burned-out altar, speaking alternately in the “voice” of his dead father, long consumed, and his own wavering, squeaky tones.
No church would have ordained such a speech; the vicar in Cai’s head was probably tearing out his metaphorical hair. Killock had become a broken composite of two different men, his former patriarch acting as a kind of parasitic presence.
Again, Devon’s gravest concern was that no one else seemed bothered. The other Traquair inhabitants listened to that religious word-salad with serious, thoughtful attention.
Well. Two people were bothered. Hester sat rigid, hands folded in her lap and lips pressed together. And on the far side of her, Mani was also unimpressed. He listened with nose wrinkled in distaste and struggling to control his discomfort.
She was missing crucial information. Devon could understand the siblings wanting autonomy from the other Families. What confused her was that none of this church madness squared with the original plans and intentions Killock had described.
“But God provides!” Killock said, so loudly that Devon, who had tuned him out, snapped back to attention. “From the old, He makes new. From the ashes, we rise. On the Sabbath we were delivered, the Father and the Son becoming the Holy Spirit.” The strange shaking was back, and this time he did nothing to calm or quieten his body. “Remember the Sabbath, my Sabbatarians, and keep it holy.”
Ragged voices murmured en masse, “Remember the Sabbath.”
“Divinity is within us.” He clapped his hands loudly enough that Devon twitched from the echoing smack. “I will take the Chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord!”
He strode over to the makeshift table and peeled away the white cloth.
The cloth had covered not a crate, but a large-size cage, the kind a mastiff might be kept in. Inside it crouched a terrified human figure. Adult man, stripped down to his boxers, hands bound and mouth gagged.
A bad feeling settled in Devon’s belly. She forgot to breathe.
“Remember the Sabbath,” Killock exclaimed again, “and keep it holy!” He leaned over the bound human, mouth wide and tongue unfurling.
Devon stopped watching, choosing instead to inspect the lines of her palms and fingers, the unevenness of her thumbnails. She found it unbearable to watch Cai feed, and that was a thing required for her son’s survival. This, this was a wholly unnecessary consuming of an innocent, by a man who could absolutely choose Redemption as an alternative.
Cai himself would have given anything to never feed again. And Killock, the grotesque fool that he was, had no concept of the privilege he squandered. Killock had also squandered the chance to do something different. Instead of a haven, he’d created a coven of predatory monsters, squatting in an abandoned mansion. The Families would see it as definitive proof that mind eaters could not be left to their own devices.