Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(62)

Phantoms painted black across the white walls . . . “Wait, this is . . . this is that death cult,” I said, my voice hushed because the old man sitting in the last pew stirred and looked back at us once the door slammed shut behind us. “You’re kidding me. They’re Scales, Belle.”

“The Deoscali,” Belle said simply, using the “proper” term, as if we somehow needed to respect a group of psychos who thought getting eaten by phantoms was some kind of honor.

I’d heard they did rituals and worshipped phantoms in “churches” like these before going on pilgrimages into Dead Zones through illegal networks and letting phantoms kill them. They were probably in the middle of one now. Montreal’s Cirque de Minuit may have had an unhealthy fascination with using phantoms for entertainment, but they did everything on the level and kept people safe. Then you had Scales, who took unhealthy fascination to a whole new level.

Not very many people out there bent the law in order to get killed.

Motioning me to follow her, Belle took her seat in the second-to-last pew. Disgusted, I trailed behind her nonetheless.

That was when the old man launched himself at me.

“Effigy!” he spat as he grabbed me by the collar and pushed me back out of the pew. “You’re not welcome here. . . .”

He tried to push me again. Swiftly, I shoved him back into his pew and held my foot against his chest to pin him down.

“Okay,” I said, no longer bothering to keep my voice low. “And you want to tell me why you took me to some den of phantom-worshipping death cult nutjobs? Especially when they hate us?” I added as the old man struggled against my foot.

“Not all of us,” said the priest standing at the pulpit. Despite the commotion of the attack, the procession hadn’t even stopped shuffling toward him until he put up his delicate hand. He’d tied his wavy brown hair in a ponytail behind his giraffe neck, showing the contours of his soft, small face. “Joseph, please escort Mr. Goffin out of the church.”

A large man who’d been standing silently by one of the white pillars nodded at the order.

“Yeah, teach him some manners while you’re at it,” I said as Joseph grabbed the cursing man by the arm and began dragging him out.

“Pastor Charles,” Belle said as the man came near us. “I thought you had made some progress with your teachings.”

I straightened my blouse. “What teachings? Or do I want to know?”

The halted procession had turned to take a look at us and finally I could see each of their faces, all manners of shapes, sizes, and shades, but each with the same fear tinged in a slight hint of distrust. Scales were stupid enough to worship the monsters responsible for terrorizing mankind. Of course, this made Effigies the bad guys. We were like their Lucifer or something.

“Please sit,” Pastor Charles told us. “Let us finish here. Then we’ll speak.”

When Pastor Charles asked the procession to continue, they did so, but only reluctantly. After prying their eyes from the two Effigies at the back of the church, they managed to complete their ritual, marching up the steps of the pulpit platform, circling the altar with their candles. I watched from my seat while their quiet chants rumbled low to the floor like the silent tremors of an earthquake. It was hard to concentrate for those ten minutes that they “gave thanks” to the beasts they called the spirits of life and death, “for where life begins, so too must death.”

“The spirits, you see,” Pastor Charles explained once the procession had ended and the worshippers had left, “are agents of both.”

“Spirits.” I stood up with Belle. “That’s what you’re calling them? Is that the politically correct term? Or are you trying to make phantoms more marketable and cult-friendly?”

“Phantoms are not spirits,” he said. “Phantoms are of spirits. But they are not spirits. The spirits’ existence is what allows for life and death to occur naturally in the world. In that way, they are also agents of fate.”

Walking up the aisle, he spread open his arms as if the painted phantoms would tear themselves from the wall and fly to him.

“Life and death.” Pastor Charles kept his hands behind his back as he spoke to us. “During our present lives, they maintain that balance, giving us the tools we need to live. They are in all things. They are our souls, the souls of nature, animals, the elements, the universe. They never leave us. They are with us always, even if we cannot see them. Feel them.”

Closing his eyes, he breathed in the air as if he didn’t look crazy enough.

“And when we die, our spirits leave our bodies and join the chorus before it’s time to be reborn again. Maia, these spirits are not our enemies.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” I tilted my head. “You said phantoms weren’t spirits. They were of spirits. Now, I have no idea what you mean, but all this weird crap just sounds to me like you’re trying to let phantoms off the hook for what they do. If that’s the case, then I’ve seen enough of their handiwork to respectfully disagree with you on that, sir,” I told him.

I didn’t dare close my eyes, even for a second, because if I did, I’d see the dead bodies of all the people I’d failed to save.

“The phantoms are not spirits,” he insisted. “Indeed, phantoms are evil,” he agreed, surprising me. “But the spirits are not. Neither are the Effigies. And that is what I’ve always tried to teach here.”