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“Xhiphias answers to an overlord. Are you prepared to do the same? To take innocent life and deliver souls to those who will spend eternity tormenting them? Or to become a dojzra slave to some sadistic overlord who would have you do unspeakable things at his command?” He asked the last question through clenched teeth, as if the very thought enraged him.
Admittedly, I’d been a little naive, not really considering the consequences of bringing Jericho back from Ex Nihilo. That wasn’t to say I wouldn’t do it all over again. Exactly the same. In a heartbeat. “Is there no other way?”
“Of course. There are hundreds of other ways. All of them with the same outcome. Pain. Suffering. Eternal misery for a human.”
“I not only brought the wrath of the heavens, but opened the gates of hell.”
His muscles stiffened beneath me, and without warning, he sat upright. Abruptly. The sight of him had the hairs on my neck standing upright, the way his brows pulled tight as he stared off at seemingly nothing. It reminded me of the nights I’d woken to find Camael hissing at something only she could see at the end of my bed.
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, he continued to stare off, the deepening of his frown becoming worrisome. “They’re here.” His words had the hairs on my neck standing on end.
“Who?”
“The Sentinels. They must’ve sensed my return.”
“Like,here-here? In my house?”
“No. I can sense when they’ve breached the plane.” His gaze finally landed on mine, and the intensity in it sent a chill down my spine. “We have to leave tonight. Right now.”
5
THE BARON
“The holy penitential tells us that confession of sin is a means of cleansing our soul. The Holy Father demands such sacrament in order that we might be purified enough to sit beside Him in the heavens. Now tell me, boy, what sins have you to confess?” Bishop Venable’s voice echoed through the cold and dimly-lit room.
Cold chains dug into the baron’s arms as he stood on the balls of his feet, in the center of a dank room of the church’s undercroft. A place he had seen countless others—mostly boys—taken for questioning under the guise of righteous intent. His tunic and jacket had been removed, exposing his bare chest. Food had been withheld since two days prior, when his father had escorted him back to the manor and demanded a meeting with Bishop Venable. The two had prodded him to speak of what he’d seen in the woods, but the baron had known better. Had seen too many young boys go missing for confessing equally strange things. As punishment for his silence, his father had him taken to the undercroft of the church, where the two elders continued their inquisitions in private. Only one other pentrosh stood in attendance, and his cousin Drystan, whom the baron had long suspected was born from the infidelity of his father and aunt. The thought brought to mind the visual of his father’s monstrous form fucking her like an animal, and the baron clenched his jaw to keep from showing his repulsion.
“Have you nothing to confess?” the bishop asked, his voice laced with stark irritation.
The baron said nothing. Did not so much as twitch, or move, or show the slightest inclination to entertain their questioning. Hunger and exhaustion gnawed at his bones, but he would not relent. Giving up his silence would result in punishment far worse than an empty stomach and weak muscles.
Except, the bishop was far shrewder a man than the baron was in his delirious state.
More conniving.
“It is to be assumed, with your lack of response, that you do not wish to cleanse your soul, and therefore, you must be infected with evil. An evil that claims your tongue!”
The baron ground his teeth at the accusation, his thoughts reverting to the night in the woods when he’d seen true evil in the flesh while watching his father fuck his sister like an animal. The black scales and tentacles. Horns and fangs. Had he told them what he had witnessed, he would have been labeled a sorcerer of evil. A prophetic seer of demons, which the Pentacrux deemed an offense to the bishop.
Yet, he could not bring himself to tell the bishop that he had seen nothing, either. Such blasphemous words burned his tongue and squeezed his muscles.
“We will rid you of this evil, boy. However long it takes, you will be cleansed.”
From the corner of his eye, the baron caught a glimpse of the leather plaits of a whip hanging from the bishop’s grip, knotted and menacing and hungry for flesh. A rush of adrenaline surged through his body, his arms shaking, clattering the chains.
The bishop’s quiet chuckle grated his nerves. “You are stubborn, young lord. But not unbreakable to the will of The Holy Father. Evil cannot be left to fester within us, for it will grow like a violent weed and strangle the life of our good community.” He ran his fingers through the leather braids in mocking. “As an act of mercy, I offer you one last opportunity to confess.”
In that moment, the baron thought of his mother, could hear her voice like a soft wind caressing his ear.Tell them you saw nothing.
“I can’t,” the baron whispered to himself, but the bishop must have picked up on his words because he volleyed back, “You can and you will, lest you suffer the punishment of a heretic!”
Tell them,his mother’s voice urged.
The baron lifted his gaze from the floor, catching sight of Drystan, who stared back with a piteous look in his eyes. A look that would one day turn to resentment and spite, but right then showed nothing but sympathy.
Swallowing back the rage that had climbed to the back of his throat, the baron shook harder, wanting nothing more than to set the entire room to flame. “I saw … nothing,” he gritted out past clenched teeth.
