The Year of the Witching(63)
Immanuelle tried to follow them through the amber waves, but they were quick and she was slow, and when they ran she stumbled and lagged behind.
The sun shifted overhead, as if pulled by a string. Shadows fell across the plains and the couple disappeared over the bend of a hill. Immanuelle struggled after them, catching the scent of smoke on the wind as night fell.
She heard the muffled rush of flames. Dragging herself through the last of the wheat, Immanuelle peered down at the plains below. There was a crowd some one hundred strong gathered around a pyre. Standing on that pyre, shirtless and bleeding, was her father, Daniel Ward.
A scream broke across the plains. Immanuelle followed the sound to Miriam, who cowered weeping at the foot of the pyre. Like her lover, she was bound, shackled at the throat. She lunged for the pyre, crawling on her hands and knees, the iron brace digging into her neck, but one cruel yank on her chain sent her sprawling, and she collapsed into the dirt again.
Immanuelle didn’t want to watch. She didn’t want to move, but she found herself descending the hill, the throng parting to make way for her. She came to stand alongside Miriam, in the shadow of the pyre.
The crowds parted again. A man passed through them. It took Immanuelle a moment to recognize him: the Prophet Grant Chambers, Ezra’s father. In his grasp was a flaming branch bigger than any torch she’d ever seen. He bore it with both hands, cutting across the field to the foot of the pyre in three long steps.
Miriam clawed at the dirt, shrieking pleas and spitting curses, begging and weeping and swearing on what little she had left to swear on—her life, her blood, her good word—to whatever god could hear her.
But for all of her pleas and curses, the Prophet did not heed her. He lowered the branch to the pyre, and with a roar, the flames stormed through the kindling.
Daniel did not move. He did not flinch. He did not plead the way Miriam did. When the flames chewed up his legs and devoured him, he let loose a single, haunting cry and then fell silent. And as quickly as it began, it was over.
Flesh to bone to ashes.
Immanuelle staggered, stooped, and broke to her knees, hitting the dirt alongside her mother. She clasped her hands over her ears to block out the roar of the flames and Miriam’s keening, the jeering of the crowd. Every breath brought the stench of burnt flesh.
Smoke rolled across the flames, too thick to see through. Immanuelle choked, blind in the darkness; the light of the pyre died to little more than the dull glow of an ember in the night.
When the darkness cleared, Immanuelle found herself alone. The pyre was gone, as were the crowds. The Prophet and Miriam were nowhere to be seen. The plains were empty.
Overhead, the moon hung, fat and full.
Immanuelle squinted. In the distance, she could just make out the crude shadow of the cathedral, breaking above the waves of wheat. Immanuelle started toward it, crossing through the empty pastures, traveling east by the light of the moon.
When she arrived at the cathedral, she faltered, standing motionless in the shadow of the bell tower. The doors swung open slowly, and even from a distance, she caught the stench of something raw on the air, all blood and butchery.
Immanuelle climbed the stone steps and entered into a darkness as thick as night. She staggered down the center aisle, hands outstretched, moving from one pew to the next.
A flame flickered to life behind the altar. In its glow, Immanuelle could make out the shadow of a figure, Miriam. She wore a white cutting dress, its folds spilling over the swell of her belly. As Immanuelle drew nearer she saw that she was smiling—a wet gash of a grin. In her right hand she held a broken antler like a dagger, its jagged point dripping blood.
A great shape moved from behind her, like a spider emerging from the edges of its web. Lilith prowled to the front of the altar and hovered at Miriam’s shoulder. Upon her arrival, the darkness retreated, and candlelight spilled through the cathedral. And as Immanuelle’s eyes adjusted, and the room came into focus, it was all she could do to bite back a scream.
The place was a tomb.
There were scores of corpses, slumped over the pews and crammed into the adjacent aisles, heaped beneath the stained-glass windows and in the shadow of the altar. All of them were mangled and ravaged, limbs twisted, heads skewed, jaws broken open.
Among the throng of the dead were faces she recognized. Judith lay in the pew at her side, her throat slashed above her collar. A few feet away, Martha lay facedown in a puddle of blood. By her side, Abram, his neck twisted on its axis. Cradled in his broken arms was Anna, her lips smeared ink black with blood. At her feet, Glory and Honor lay motionless, as if asleep, but their eyes were open, their mouths agape, as if they’d been struck down in the middle of a prayer. Leah lay stretched across the altar, her pregnant belly carved open like a gutting lamb’s. High above her, bolted to the wall with the sword of David Ford himself, was Ezra.
Immanuelle’s knees buckled. The floor went soft beneath her feet. She pitched forward, tripping over the cobbles. “What have you done?”
Candlelight played over Miriam’s face. That terrible smile of hers widened, like a wound ripping open. She began to laugh. “You know what this is.”
Overhead, the ceiling bowed, stones grinding like the cathedral was collapsing in on itself. Immanuelle staggered back, but there was nowhere to run. “Why? Why would you do this?”
“Because they took him from me,” Miriam whispered, and at the sound of her voice the candlelight died, plunging the room into darkness. “Blood for blood.”