•
Brandon and Heather paced back into the chapel—the very same chapel where they’d been joined by marriage just hours ago. Ribbons still hung from the sides of the pews, and bouquets brought in for the ceremony lingered about the room like guests overstaying their welcome. Flower petals lined the center aisle, left there by the flower girl, who’d been so nervous and shy that she’d practically run from one end of the chapel to the other, prompting chuckles from the delighted audience.
That little girl was dead now. Brandon had seen her body among the others at the country club.
He set the old radio down at the foot of the pulpit, then stood, sighed, and turned to his wife.
She sucked in her lips and shrugged. “Here we are again,” she said.
“Here we are,” Brandon replied.
Heather backed up a few paces, and Brandon noticed that her feet were bare. She must have lost her heels during the fiasco at the country club.
“Funny how scared I was earlier of what the people here would think of me,” she said. “Of the girl who stole one of their own.” She sat at the near end of the front pew and dropped her gaze. “I guess there are worse things to fear than rejection, huh?”
“Guess so,” Brandon said, noting how composed Heather seemed now, especially after her erratic behavior earlier.
She patted the solid wood of the pew next to her. Brandon accepted the invitation and sat.
“I just didn’t want you to have to go through it alone,” Heather said. Brandon was in no mood for a heart-to-heart, but he indulged her and listened—if she wanted to comfort him, she was welcome to try.
“When my family kicked me out, I had no one,” she continued. “And I mean
no one
. None of my friends would talk to me. I guess your church is a little more accepting than mine was, but still. I wanted to be here for you the way no one was ever there for me, so that you didn’t have to feel like I did. Alone. Vulnerable.” She rested her head on his shoulder, and they faced the chancel together.
His thoughts wrested partially away from Tim, Brandon began to regret his ignorance of Heather’s earlier apprehension toward the ceremony. She’d been the one to talk him into having it, so he hadn’t given a second thought to whether going through with it would be healthy for either of them. She’d always been so giving toward him, even when she had nothing to give, and though he loved her for it, he swore to himself that he’d no longer be blind to the toll it took on her.
You inspire me, hon
, he wanted to say.
Whether you know it or not, you push me to be a better man. A man who deserves you.
He often tried to emulate her giving nature, and it pained him that after all the support she’d shown him, their Bristol ceremony had reopened some of her old wounds. She’d experienced the ostracism of a tight-knit community all over again—because of him.
And now they had a far more devastating tragedy to share.
“You know,” she said, melancholy in her voice, “I wonder if it’s worth it, sometimes.”
“If what’s worth it?”
“Doubt.” She shifted in her seat and raised her head toward the large cross on the wall behind the pulpit. From this angle, the cross appeared almost perfectly situated in the center of their floral wedding arch.
“Doubt?”
“I mean, I want to live my best possible life. And I want
you
to live
your
best possible life. But I wonder. Would we be better off—would we be safer, more protected from all the hate in the world—if we just blended in? If we just believed whatever they wanted us to, and never voiced our doubts? If we just pretended that there were no problems with those beliefs? Maybe we’d live better lives. Happier lives, at least. Less lonely lives.
“That might be nice—to be part of a bigger family again. To stop asking so many questions.”
Brandon took her hand in his, and their fingers intertwined. “I know you better than that,” he said.
She smiled a little—just a little—but that smile seemed to illuminate the whole chapel, and the whole night. Tragedy seemed to grip Brandon’s mind a little less tightly.
We’re a damn good team, her and me. We’re stronger together than we are apart.
“We’ll find a new family,” he promised her. “A family that asks questions.”
Brandon hated weddings, but marriage… marriage, he was slowly warming up to. Especially marriage to a woman like this. They were each other’s family now, with a bond at least as deep as he’d ever shared with anyone from church.
He heard footfalls behind them, and turned to see Karen striding into the chapel, her eyes set on the ham radio. Heather frowned, and Brandon followed her lead as she rose to help the preacher.
•
Whoever had been lurking at the top of the basement stairs was gone now, so Thorn eased his head around the basement door and peeked down the hallway. Sure enough, one of Marcus’s demons skulked through the halls, searching every open door and down every passage.
Perhaps they haven’t found us.
If the demon had realized that Thorn and the humans were present, it would be calling for reinforcements or running off to join Marcus, wherever he was.
Thorn recognized the demon as the one who’d held Karen in a trance while Drelial murdered Tim. This one was smaller than the others—and smaller than Thorn.
I could take him. Then only four would be left alive. Maybe fewer, if Thilial managed to slay some.
Perhaps they’d scattered after fighting her, each wandering the Sanctuary alone in search of Thorn and the humans.
Thorn darted across the hallway, into a side passage that led to a parallel hallway. He drifted past preachers’ offices and a choir practice room, past some blinds covering a window to the outside, and soon arrived at a corner that lay right along the enemy demon’s path.
Thorn waited in the church’s silence. Had he been on Earth, he’d have gone underground and ambushed the demon, but that approach wouldn’t work in a Sanctuary, where the ground remained firm even for spiritfolk.
I must be swift.
Thorn raced around the corner.
No one was there. No sound could be heard. When Thorn had last seen the demon, he’d been coming this way. Perhaps he’d gone down another passage.
Damn. Now I’ll have to search the whole church for him. Or flee before more of them come.
A quick rush of air.
Although demons could neither taste, touch, nor smell, their hearing was impeccable, so Thorn heard the attacker a moment before he struck. Thorn leaped aside, spun around, seized the demon from behind, then hurled him against a wall.
The demon yelped in pain, and Thorn realized that the demon was female. She wore slacks and a black jacket, so he hadn’t noticed her sex before. He struck her again, just to be safe. She fell.
“How did you get inside?” Thorn asked as he clutched her wrists behind her back and yanked her up into the air with him. She struggled to break free, so Thorn rushed forward at full speed and slammed her against another wall.
She groaned. “Chimney. There’s—there’s an old chimney in one of the—the rooms. I barely fit through. I—I brought you—I brought you Christmas presents.”
The small demon chortled and snorted.
Great. A comedian.
Thorn kneed her in the back. She hissed at him. “End it now,” she said. “Claim your victory over me, but know that it’s we who will defeat the Enemy you serve in the end.”
For a moment, Thorn considered killing her… but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not like this. Not in cold blood.
What a maudlin weakling you’ve become
, a sinister part of himself said. He tried to ignore it.
Thorn gripped his enemy’s wrists tighter and started moving toward the chapel’s sanctuary.
A sanctuary within a Sanctuary. And with a chimney, no less. How quaint.
“I don’t serve the Enemy, you fool,” Thorn said. “And I won’t kill you. Yet.”
“Oh, I’m more valuable as a prisoner, am I? You think Marcus will stay his hand if he sees that you have a hostage?”
“Perhaps. How did you come to this place? Is the angel dead?”
The demon hissed again. “She lives. She cares little for us. She roams the countryside now, hunting you. You best beware.”
“And what of the other demons?”
“We split up to mount a search of our own. When I don’t report back, they’ll know you’re here. You’re dead any way you look at it.”
Thorn and the demon drifted through a propped-open door into the rear of the chapel. Near the altar, Karen lit a candle next to the amateur radio, which was now plugged into a floor outlet. Brandon and Heather knelt next to it. A pulpit rose above them, with choir chairs behind it. In the very back, a gigantic wall-mounted crucifix loomed over the sanctuary.
“You’re too forthcoming,” Thorn said to the demon, tightening his grip on her wrists. “You’re lying about something. Tell me the truth and perhaps I’ll let you live.”
The demon chortled again, then said, “The truth is that I don’t want to be on this assignment, and don’t care much about its outcome. I’m here for loyalty, and loyalty alone.”
“Loyalty to whom?”
“If I were less loyal, I might tell you. But regardless, you need not fear me. We were told ahead of time that our target was Thorn, but had I known we were supposed to kill
the
Thorn, I’d have respectfully declined the mission.”
“You know of me?”
“Who doesn’t? Your daycare shooting is legendary. How all was against you, how you had no ally but your own wit, yet you still used your intellect to put yourself back on top of the food chain. When I heard the tale I admired you greatly. Until I learned you’d gone soft for a human girl, that is.”
“You know my story well.”
“Better even than you think. I’m quite honored to be in the presence of the great Thorn of Constantine, even as his captive.”
Thorn peered as far as he could around the side of her head. She must have seen this, because she turned toward him, bringing their faces just inches apart.
“Who are you?” Thorn asked.
“Paxis. I was one of your followers when you first came to power.”
Thorn probed his memory. “Under Xeres?”
“No. Eons earlier, during the Unification War.”
And then Thorn remembered her. She’d been quite the troublemaker back then. “Paxis, yes. I don’t recall you being female, though.”
Paxis shrugged. “I don’t recall you being male. I don’t recall any of us assigning genders to our peers until the humans came around. It’s pathetic how much of our culture is based on theirs these days.”
“True enough.”
“We idolize celebrities as much as the humans do. We appropriate and marginalize our own Third World as much as the humans do theirs. Some demons even prefer men as charges still. Myopic idiots, they are.”
“Demons, or men?”
“Anyone who thinks we’re not all the same vile scum at heart. Women can be just as cruel and brutal as men. If we hadn’t kept females subservient and uneducated for so long, more of us would realize that.
“And what of you, Balthior? You seem to have changed a bit in the last two billion years as well. You’re much more frail than I remember.”
Thorn nudged her farther into the chapel, and together they floated toward the humans. As they drifted, Thorn examined the building’s old stone walls and the series of stained glass windows set into them. One depicted Mary and Joseph with their newborn Messiah; the next showed Jesus walking on water in the midst of a storm; and the next depicted him suffering on the cross. Thorn glanced up at the roof and found an ancient network of rafters, crossbeams, and girders. Small chandeliers hung at regular intervals down the length of the center aisle, but none were currently lit. Dense scratches from years of use adorned the wood of the old, worn pews. Thorn even found some graffiti in the markings; one of the stranger carvings read: “Dash your little ones against the rock Psalm 137:9.” Thorn marveled at all the strange history these pews had seen, and marveled even further that the pews hadn’t existed before dusk tonight.
Still restraining Paxis, Thorn settled onto the front pew. A few feet in front of them, Heather whispered words of comfort to Brandon while Karen tinkered with the radio. Thorn wondered how she’d explained to Heather and Brandon where Virgil had gone. He’d have to use the body again if he wanted to lead these humans to safety… but he wasn’t sure how to deal with Karen. He supposed he could simply kill her, since she would just resurrect in another Sanctuary, after all—but that would ruin any trust that Brandon and Heather might have in him. And such an act felt obscene to him besides.
No, I’ll have to convince her to trust me somehow. But how?
“Why did you never have a right-hand demon?” Paxis asked. “I always wondered about that. Several of us aspired to the position.”
Thorn answered distractedly, preoccupied with his thoughts of the humans. “Right hands are always licking their chops, waiting for you to die or meet disgrace so they can seize your power. They’re efficient for commanding followers, but they’re ultimately not worth the trouble.”
Paxis snorted. “I would have been a loyal right hand. I wouldn’t have let your name fall back into nothingness like it did. Even today, who’s ever heard of Balthior?”
“I did what I thought was right at the time.”
“No, you sided with the group you thought would win, and you know it.”
Thorn thought back to the Unification War, a bitter conflict fought on primordial Earth that had lasted centuries. It started when demonkind’s leaders had declared, after one particularly crippling defeat by Heaven’s armies, that demon society would no longer be mired in anarchy and civil war. All demons would join together under a single code that would unite them against the Enemy.
But disagreement had brewed over the nature of that single code, and three competing factions had emerged. The structuralists, which included most of the leaders, wanted an ordered society that was free from self-interest, and instead focused on loyalty, duty, and military organization. The seclusionists, of which Balthior had been a member, claimed that the smartest choice was to leave Earth and form a new, free society in the absence of God’s tyranny.
What a strange twist that my old viewpoints are so analogous to my current, desperate goals.
And the legalists had claimed to desire concrete statutes that would guide demonkind to victory, but the movement had really been a front for the Judges: former Angels of Judgment eager to reclaim the power they’d once held in Heaven.