“My Children,” the Prophet called out.
“God All-Father on Earth, Master of the Hollow Men,” the people answered. An expectant hush filled the room.
“It is never easy to be among the Heavenly Father’s Chosen. On all sides, unbelievers and blasphemers will assail the Truth of Our Righteous Judgement. Those of Us who have been chosen must be ever vigilant. The sin and decadence of the outside world will always try to undermine and pervert the holy teaching of your God All-Father. We must guard what We have built. Yet We must also open Our Heart to the Heavenly Father’s will. We must be open to others, as He is to Us, so that We may offer Our Salvation to those who seek it.”
The Prophet paused. He looked from one side of the room to the other.
“Our purpose in building this refuge was not just to stand apart from the old world that Our Heavenly Father has condemned, but to serve as a beacon of His Righteousness. A beacon that will shine so that others might join Us and know the Truth of Our Judgement. It is a difficult balance that We seek to maintain.” Jeremiah reached into his pocket and set a squat red vial of vaccine serum on the pulpit. “But We fear this balance may be in peril.”
Miranda felt the crush against her chest, as if she’d taken a punch to the solar plexus. Murmurs of apprehension filled the sanctuary. Almost instantly, Doug was on his feet.
“That belongs to me,” he said. “It and several others were taken from my things yesterday.”
“You admit that it is yours?” the Prophet said, surprised.
“Of course. They’re antibiotics.” Doug waited a beat before continuing, a note of doubt now tinging his words. “Is that a problem?”
“We reject the fallen world and all it stands for.”
Doug shrugged. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Jeremiah. It didn’t occur to me. It’s just medicine.”
“It is blasphemy!” the Prophet roared, spittle flying from his teeth.
The Prophet’s anger made the assembly grow restive. Miranda grabbed Doug’s arm.
“Don’t do this!” she hissed. “Don’t make yourself the target.”
Doug winked before shaking her off. “If this is a problem, we can be on our way.”
The room grew quiet once more. Miranda could feel the change, the tension in the air. All eyes were on Doug. When she looked around, she saw fear on the faces of the people surrounding them that anyone would defy the Prophet so brazenly. Finn and Dalton, their supposed allies, stared at them. The Prophet’s Guard bristled. Miranda had a sudden flash of déjà vu: a line of police at a demonstration, back when people did things like demonstrate. The Prophet’s Guard looked just like the police had then, right before they started cracking skulls.
“There is but one way to deal with corruption, of the flesh or of the spirit,” the Prophet replied. “It must be cut out before it spreads, as you and your followers shall be!”
Half of the members of the Prophet’s Guard standing behind the Prophet moved forward. Miranda heard footsteps behind and turned to see more approaching from the rear of the sanctuary. The space between her and her companions and the people seated behind them swelled, like an invisible wave flowed between the rows, pushing them away from danger. As if being seated near them was enough to make them culpable too. A moment later, rough hands seized her and the others, dragging them into the aisle.
Doug struggled with the guard attempting to shove him to his knees. Even though the guard was larger, his difficulty controlling his prisoner was plain.
“This isn’t necessary!” Doug shouted. “The mistake was mine! You don’t need to punish the others.”
“They will be as you have molded them,” the Prophet sneered. He snatched the vial from the pulpit, dropped it to the floor, and crushed it under his foot.
“No!” Mario cried, trying to get to his feet. Mike slipped the two guards holding him and lunged forward. The Prophet shied back from the pulpit in surprise. Behind him, Finn and Dalton sprang up into defensive positions. Mike almost reached them before two guardsmen set upon him with clubs. A blow connected with his temple and Mike crumpled, groaning, to the floor. They dragged him back and dumped him, semi-conscious, next to Connor.
The Prophet murmured something to the guard closest to him, who handed him a bag. The Prophet loosened the drawstring and dumped the contents on the floor. Red and blue vials hit the rough wooden planks and rolled across the dais. The Prophet nodded, and the guardsmen began to trample them.
Miranda stopped resisting the man who held her and fell limply to the floor. The grip on her shoulders loosened. She pulled free, rolled onto her side, and slammed the heel of her good leg into the guard’s knee. A bark of pain and the man went down. As she snatched the man’s club, the pain from her injuries receded. She lunged toward the dais. A single red vial rolled toward her. All she needed was one vial, for someone to escape with it, and-
Blinding pain exploded against the back of her head, then she was looking at the ceiling. The room spun, and something warm and wet dripped down her neck. She turned her head toward the dais. The vial still rolled toward her. It was too far away, but she reached for it anyway. A roar of helpless fury savaged her throat as a boot crushed down, splintering the fragile glass. Puddles of liquid, all that was left of their hopeful undertaking, littered the dais.
She must have blacked out, because the next thing she knew Mario leaned over her.
“Are you okay?”
Mario was yanked away. Miranda tried to climb to her knees but was knocked back down.
So this is how it would end. The fury, the rage, that exploded in her chest left Miranda unable to breathe. They were going to be killed. There was nothing she could do to stop it. This madman would ruin everything. The world would stay the same.
The Prophet’s commanding voice cut through the noise. “Start with their leader.”
Miranda raised her head. Two guards grabbed Doug and dragged him forward. Another walked toward him, wielding a sword.
“All-Father, wait!”
Miranda turned toward the interceding voice.
“Would it not be more fitting to make them walk with you, All-Father?” Finn asked. “To let them feel the hand of the Heavenly Father’s Judgment directly?”
“We walk to testify our faith,” Jeremiah said. “Not to punish.”
Finn nodded. “Of course. Forgive me, All-Father, I do not mean to anger You. It is just… they have seen Your power, the miracles You have wrought.” Finn glanced at Miranda, then back to his father. “Might not even one of them have accepted Your truth, All-Father, even if they do not yet realize it?”
The Prophet’s eyes narrowed. He looked at his son as if he might turn into a viper, but then his expression softened. He looked at Miranda.
“Our son reminds Us that even We cannot know the heart of another,” Jeremiah said. “We are the instrument of the Heavenly Father’s Judgement, but not its arbiter.” He turned to Finn. “We shall walk Our Faith with these,” he pointed vaguely in the direction of Miranda and the rest, “in the morning. That will be sufficient to make ready. Confine them.”
“As the Prophet commands,” Finn replied, bowing low.
The Prophet motioned for two of his Guard to join him. As he left the building, people began to cry out, “As the Prophet commands!” and “Praise to Him, the God All-Father on Earth!”
Finn called to his cousin and the remaining Prophet’s Guard. Miranda was hauled to her feet. She sought out Mario as she was shoved toward the others. He caught and steadied her.
“You’ve got a nasty cut,” he said.
“I’ll live.” She winced as he touched the back of her head. “Until tomorrow, anyway.”
Finn approached them. Miranda’s temper began to flare, but it made her head hurt.
“Your wounds will be tended in the infirmary, where you will be confined overnight.”
“Fuck you,” Seffie spat.
Finn ignored her. “Quit fighting a battle you cannot win and rest.
You will need it.”
“So much for our interests coinciding,” said Doug.
Finn looked at Doug evenly. “Anything can happen during a Faith Walk.”
Finn turned and left them. Doug’s mouth settled into a hard line, but the anger in his blue eyes softened. Something had happened, some dynamic had shifted. Miranda feared her pounding head muddled her thinking. Had Finn just offered them help?
“Did he just say what I think he said?” she muttered to Mario.
“We still have our heads, so yeah, I’d say he did.”
49
.
Pinched, terrorized faces looked down from the balcony to where Miranda stood, waiting for the Faith Walk to begin.
You’re a bunch of fucking sheep, she thought contemptuously. So many of you and only one of him. You deserve the whack job for being so spineless.
Almost immediately she saw the reproachful frown, the disapproving shake of the head, that her scorn would elicit from Father Walter. No one deserves this, she thought, closing her eyes.
Picture a meadow, a lake, any place that isn’t here… take a deep breath.
It did not help. She did not feel any calmer. Blood still sang in her ears and thrummed under her skin, reminding her just how alive she was now that death was so close. As if she needed persuading that her job was to survive, to live.
I’m finally losing it, she thought, looking up at the balcony again. Calm? Now? Father Walter was always telling her to take a moment, to center herself, to think first. She could imagine the sparkle of mischief in his hazel eyes, hear the indulgent sigh of his voice: Miranda mo ghrá, if there’s anyone with more talent than you for ending up in thick of it I’ve yet to meet him.
Fury that she might never see Father Walter again rushed to the surface. How was she supposed to imagine a meadow that didn’t include Delilah chasing a rabbit? The stab of pain that leaving her dog in this sick, savage place produced was too painful to bear. What was the point of knowing Mario still loved her? What could calm offer her that anger could not? She and anger were on intimate terms, so familiar it was indecent. It would be the familiar that she would fall back on. The familiar is what any frightened animal falls back on.
She peeked over her shoulder at the archers lining the wall behind her, one for herself and each of her companions. However things played out, whether the archers would come to their aid or enforce their compliance, this was going to be the most memorable Faith Walk in New Jerusalem’s nasty little history. Either they escaped, which seemed fantastical as she inspected the fresh blood stains on the uneven ground and tried to ignore the doors on both sides of the building creaking under the press of the zombies that would soon spill through them, or they went down fighting.
The only thing Miranda knew for sure was if they didn’t make it out, neither would Jeremiah. She would cower close to the creep and use the dagger hidden in her splint to slit his throat. She could beat a guard or an arrow, just. If Jeremiah was going to snatch away any chance at a future worth living, make every painful sacrifice for nothing, Miranda was determined that he would never enjoy a second of it.
In the center of the pit stood the man of the hour, the God-fucking-All-Father, droning on about God’s – so, therefore, presumably, his - Judgment.
Christ Almighty, can we just get on with this?
Doug caught her eye. He stood two people to her left, three once the Prophet joined them. Even now, he winked at her, triggering a rush of gratitude. He was so fucking cool, the best friend she could ask for. Seffie was immediately on her left and wound so tight Miranda was sure the slightest touch would cause her to explode.
He puts the women on either side of him. He’s pathetic.
The Prophet stuck Mario next to Doug, on the end, the most vulnerable spot on the line. The tiny flicker of affection in his brown eyes filled her own with helpless tears. Despite everything, she still loved him. She could admit it now, if only to herself. As usual, her timing sucked.
Connor squeezed her right hand. She squeezed his back. Beside Connor stood Mike. Since Mike’s size and strength posed the most obvious physical threat, the creep put him on the other end of the line.
“What does it say about me that I feel better down here on the ground, surrounded by zombies than I do up high?” Connor said softly.
The tiniest of smiles stole across Miranda’s mouth. “That you need to work on your threat assessments.”
“We’re going to be okay, Miri.”
“He’s cutting this awfully close. If he’s doing anything at all,” she added under her breath.
Connor, Doug, and Mario were sure that they would escape and be able to take the Prophet as well. Whatever Finn had planned, they were convinced it would work. Miranda’s confidence in Finn had eroded with every step toward where she now stood. Being in a zombie pit was not her idea of a clean getaway.
A wave of nervous murmurs spilled down from the balcony. The Prophet walked toward them, his greedy golden eyes undressing Miranda with frank anticipation. She searched the balcony one last time. No sign of Finn or Dalton. Whether their absence boded well or ill, she had no idea.
Jeremiah stopped in front of her and proclaimed, “Is there anything you wish, Sister Miranda?”
It took Miranda a moment to figure it out. When she did, her bark of laughter silenced the nervous voices above. In the quiet that followed, she could hear the zombies outside moaning.
“The Maiden’s Privilege?” she blurted, her voice carrying through the hush. “You’re fucking delusional.”
Jeremiah’s face darkened. “You dare mock your God All-Father?”
Miranda raised her voice. She wanted everyone to hear. “The first guy I fucked was Oliver Mattheson. I was sixteen and he was…” she purred the next word suggestively, “imaginative.”
The Prophet’s body vibrated with rage. “I shall enjoy breaking you!”
Miranda looked sideways at Seffie, eyebrow raised. Are you ready? Seffie’s infinitesimal nod answered. Yes.
Miranda turned her attention back to the Prophet. “I might have slept with you the other night to get that serum. The only intimate act you’re going to get out of me now is when I kill you.”
Miranda’s cheek exploded in a white flash of pain as the Prophet backhanded her.
“You will be silent!” he roared.
His arm cocked back, telegraphing the punch. Still dazed from the first strike, she couldn’t get her arm up quickly enough to block. His fist rammed into her eye, snapping her head backward. Silky blackness seeped along the edges of her vision. She fell as bright points of light glowed against her eyelids. The madness in his golden eyes burned like an inferno. He dragged her to her feet and took his place in line between she and Seffie, clenching her hand in his vise-like fist.
“Brothers and Sisters, My Children,” the Prophet called out, raising his hands high. “Watch as We walk in the ways of God’s terrible Judgement among the Hollow Men! Unbelievers and blasphemers shall perish, surely!”
Miranda held her breath as she blinked to clear the vision in her left eye. Nothing happened. No distractions or explosions, no sign of the cavalry coming to their rescue. The Prophet stepped forward, so they did, too. Behind them, Miranda heard the creak of the archers drawing their bows.
If this asshole fractured my eye socket, I’m going to murder him.
The first set of doors opened. The rank smell of rotting flesh burned Miranda’s nostrils, even from thirty feet away. The zombies lurched into sight from both sides of the building, but in far greater numbers than the last Faith Walk. The human line kept moving forward as the zombies reeled toward them, fuzzy with flies.
A cold, sticky sweat soaked Miranda’s body. Her heart thrashed against her sternum. The zombies were twenty feet away now. It had been years since she had faced one unarmed. She looked over to Doug for the signal, but he kept his eyes forward as he walked.
He’s trying to let Finn make the first move, she realized. A sc
raping sound ahead. The second set of doors were opening.
The Prophet’s eyes widened. “It is too many, too soon,” he said. “It will be over too quickly!”
Fuck this, Miranda decided, when a strangled gasp above caught her attention. A second later, the Captain of the Prophet’s Guard thumped to the ground in front of Connor, an arrow piercing his throat. Blood gurgled and foamed at his mouth. The Prophet stopped short, staring at the man in disbelief.
Miranda ripped her hand from the Prophet’s. She stepped into him and smashed her elbow against his Adam’s apple. He staggered back, stunned and gagging. Seffie felled him with a ferocious, bone popping kick to the side of the knee. He writhed on the floor, hacking and groaning.
“I need him alive!” Miranda shouted over and over, hoping she could be heard over the chaos and noise that suddenly enveloped her. Without the serum, the Prophet was all they had. Now was not the time for an archer to settle an old score.
Miranda pulled her dagger from her splint and tossed it to Seffie. Seffie pivoted to a zombie two feet away. She drove the dagger hilt-deep into its eye socket.
Screams of panic, crashing sounds of combat, and the stampede of hundreds of feet intensified in the balcony. An arrow brushed Miranda’s shoulder as it whizzed by. The archers in the pit were killing zombies!
Two more members of the Prophet’s guard fell into the arena, but these men were alive. The undead swarmed, crawling over one another like ants. The men’s’ agonized shrieks amplified the uproar. The zombies began to break into smaller groups, snarling at one another over bloody limbs and trailing intestines in the fine mist of blood that hung in the air.
The Prophet climbed to his knees, eyes unfocused. “You will die, blasphemers.”
Miranda punched his temple. He fell face first in the mud, unconscious.
Doug slammed a zombie’s head against the wall until it went limp. Its smashed skull left a trailing smudge as it slid to the ground. Connor stomped on the face of a downed zombie, black blood and brains spattering his trousers. Archers loosed arrows with abandon, but no one had counted on there being more zombies than the last Faith Walk.
Undead Age Series (Book 1): Love In An Undead Age Page 34
