"Yes," she whispered, still holding on to the last vestiges of shyness. Or was that a remaining thread of doubt he saw across her face?
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Father." No … it had to be that she was just shy.
"Better." He spoke in a hushed tone, ensuring that only she could hear him. "Lenore … Lenny is what you like to be called, right?"
She nodded, unable to speak as she stared in admiration at her savior. His voice elevated to address the crowd.
"Tell me what led you here, Lenny. Tell your brothers and sisters how you came to be amongst the chosen."
A look of dread overcame her, but she still spoke: "My mom and dad gave me away when I was a little girl. They sent me to an orphanage to be adopted, but no one ever adopted me. I lived there until I was fifteen. The monsignor of the church that ran the orphanage told me I had to leave because I was different. He said I was bad, evil. I left and lived on the street until I saw a flyer for Children of Light."
"And thank the Lord you did. But, I want you to tell us the real story. What happened to you on the streets? What did you have to do to survive in order to get here?"
"I had it better than a lot of other kids. I had to fight to try and find food, but so did everyone else. I settled into a camp where I could sleep at night, so I never had to search for a place to stay. I stayed out on the streets for ten years, so I got good at taking care of myself."
"Were you forced to do things? Did you use drugs? Did you prostitute yourself?"
A shocked look contorted the girl's face.
"No … I never … I never did that."
"Thank God for that." He smiled warmly as he squeezed her hand harder before letting go. "That's good, Lenny. Thank you for sharing with us. Please, take your seat."
He gripped her shoulders and gave a gentle push, urging her to leave the stage. He was disappointed that the girl had not given more information about her time as a runaway. He had hoped she would divulge all of the salacious details, but it would apparently take time for her to truly open up. Time was one thing he had plenty of. He watched her walk off the stage, admiring her long, dark hair and thin frame. There was something different, something special about her. He just needed to find out exactly what it was.
She would do nicely.
Chapter 3
After informing his children that he expected all of them to attend the upcoming blood drives and volunteer soup kitchens, as well as their regular services, Hershel left the stage. He walked down the short hall toward his office nestled in the back of the building.
Joseph stood outside the office door, waiting for instructions. He leaned against the frame, picking at his well-manicured nails. His expensive suit hung on a frame that was much thinner than it had been before he joined Children of Light. He had a healthy charm, and he was a handsome young man, even though most of the church members were afraid of him. He had an air of menace about him that hung just behind a cool smile. He was handsome, all right, but paled in comparison to Hershel, no matter the cost of the suit.
"How did it go, Father?" Joseph asked, grinning widely as he opened the door.
"It went very well, indeed." Hershel stepped inside, waving the young man off while he took the seat behind the desk. "Gather the Faithful. We need to discuss a few things."
The office had no real décor except for the oak desk and a floor lamp that stood next to a large, black filing cabinet. There were no pictures or paintings. No mementos lined the shelves or cluttered the top of the desk. Hershel did not like things that were flamboyant. He preferred simplicity.
Within ten minutes, the five members of the Faithful, Children of Light's inner sect, stood around Hershel's desk, eagerly awaiting instructions.
"My children, I have news for you all." Hershel folded his hands and looked at each member individually.
They all looked back at him with a pure desire to please.
Celia sat to his right. A pretty Hispanic girl, no more than seventeen years old, she had a curvy, muscular frame that conveyed softness. Her long, black hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing a round face with dark eyes that looked angelic. Hershel knew she was anything but. She was easily the most merciless of the Faithful. She was also the most loyal. Hershel trusted her with his life, which was why she had been appointed his personal bodyguard.
Joseph, Hershel's assistant, sat to his left. He was a bored thirty-something who had lived his life as a bank manager until his turn toward true salvation. He had always come in handy when it was time to work the books and creatively move funds. He also came in handy when it was time to invest and grow the coffers to support all of their operations. It turned out Joseph was a wizard in the stock market as well as a loyal right-hand man.
Naomi, Kevin, and Joshua were all definitely faithful to him, but they were more like mindless followers. Zealots were what they would be called by the less enlightened world. Hershel freely used their muscle and devotion to keep the rest of the flock in line when any of them had a crisis of faith.
"We have been given the go-ahead to move forward with the cleansing."
Each of the Faithful smiled and clasped their hands in praise.
Naomi whispered as a tear formed in her eye, "Praise, Father!"
"We will open the outreach next week, starting with the clinic. Joseph, I trust everything is ready?"
"Yes, Father. Everything came in this afternoon."
"Awesome. So, everyone has their assignments, right? I trust you all can carry them out without my help?"
"Of course, Father," Celia purred at him with her slight Puerto Rican accent. "We will make you proud."
"I know you will." Hershel reached over and squeezed her bare thigh. "Well, go and show me, then. Joseph, would you stay behind a second?"
After the others had given their congratulations to Hershel and left the room, Joseph took a seat opposite him.
"How can I serve you?"
"The girl … Lenore. I want you to bring her to me tonight. There is something special about her, and I want to find out what it is."
"Not to question you, Father, but are you sure? She seemed to me to be a bit … skittish. Perhaps one of the other girls could keep you company this evening?"
"It sounds suspiciously as though you are questioning me, Joseph."
"Please forgive me. I just have a bad feeling about that one. Your safety is always first in my mind, Father."
"While I appreciate the concern, I think I can handle one tiny girl. Bring her to me tonight."
"Yes, Father." Joseph turned to leave.
"Oh, and Joseph?" Hershel asked almost absent-mindedly as he shuffled through the papers on his desk.
Joseph turned. "Yes?"
"If you ever question me again, I'll kill you."
With a nod, Joseph left.
Chapter 4
Lenny nervously paced the floor of her small room. She was one of the few followers who had a private room, and she had no idea why she was so special. She had never really felt all that special. Different, definitely. Special, not so much. Most people dismissed her as being mousy and shy, but no one knew her secrets. She had a bit of a wild side, but also a healthy fear of being discovered.
She walked to the window that overlooked an empty field, thinking of the many times she had slept in various places outside that fence and beyond. Her life had been easy compared to most. That part of what she had told Father was true.
What she had not said was how she had made her life as a runaway so easy. She had shifted into the forms of famous people whenever she wanted to go to a fancy restaurant and eat for free. A whole lot of the "Britney Spears has wild night out" headlines had been her responsibility. When she wanted to sleep in a nice hotel, she shifted into the form of a guest and asked to extend their stay.
It had been so easy … and so addictive.
The biggest problem had come on a night when she was particularly lonely. She'd shifted into the form of a man's wife. She had seen t
he couple around town for a few weeks and made her move when the wife left for a night out.
The husband was so handsome, with his dark hair, peppered with silver at the temples, and those beautiful green eyes. She could still smell his cologne for weeks. After she spent the night with the man, she felt like garbage. She'd barely been able to stand herself. Even though the couple probably never knew what happened, Lenore still felt like a homewrecker.
She was just so lonely….
Lenny couldn't stay in the room a minute longer. She felt as though she couldn't breathe and the room was only getting smaller by the second. She stepped out into the hall and began to wander down the corridors with no real idea of where she was going. She ended up downstairs, outside the kitchen. Her chest tightened as she thought about poor Richard and how scared he must have been, being attacked like that. When she heard the voices coming down the hall in front of her, she jumped. It was against the rules for anyone to be out of the rooms so late, and she had no desire to get in any trouble.
Looking around the room for a place to hide until the voices passed her by, she decided to duck behind the large kitchen door. As quietly as possible, she slipped back behind the wooden door, hiding herself from view. The owners of the voices did not pass by the kitchen as she had hoped; instead, they stopped directly in front of the doorway and continued their conversation, unaware of her presence. One voice belonged to Dale, the counselor, and the other belonged to Father himself.
"I told you, Demas, you can take all the junkies you want, but you can't take established members that will be missed. And you definitely cannot leave a bullshit mess like this." Hershel spat the words.
"I just couldn't help it," Dale whined. "I was so hungry and he was so tasty."
"Just finish cleaning this mess up. Get rid of the damn body—and I do not want this shit to happen again. Is that clear?"
"Crystal," Dale said with obvious disdain. He seemed to know that Hershel needed him, and he was obviously pushing his boundaries.
Hershel turned and walked down the hall to his office without another word.
Dale went into the kitchen, grabbed two large plastic garbage bags and walked out the back door. Lenny eased her way out from behind the door. She knew she should have gone straight to her room, but before she knew it, her feet carried her to the back door. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she looked out into the courtyard. Lenny saw Dale hoist the two bags into a large barrel with no real effort at all. He pulled a lighter from his front pocket and set the contents of the barrel ablaze.
Dale watched the fire grow. He cocked his head and sniffed the air like an animal smelling prey. As he slowly turned toward the door, Lenny panicked and instinctively began a quick shift. She didn't know what she was shifting into, but was able to stop herself and step back into the shadows before Dale saw her. As she stood with her back to the wall, her eyes focused on something else in the far corner of the yard. A woman stood, cloaked in shadows, watching her from her hiding place. She had skin that was an almost translucent shade of pale. Long silver hair cascaded over broad shoulders where it rested on her chest. She was six feet tall if she was an inch. Her dark suit jacket, worn over fitted trousers with a dark blue silk shirt, sat slightly open to expose some impressive cleavage.
It was the woman-thing she had seen that morning, Lenny was sure of it.
Lenny gasped audibly before she was able to clamp her hand over her own mouth.
Idiot girl dies from inability to stop gasping. News at eleven.
She turned and ran out of the kitchen toward her room, scared that someone would see her. Scared that Dale, or whoever he was, would see or hear her.
When she was safely behind her bedroom door, she leaned against the frame, breathing heavily. She wished there was a lock on the door, but Hershel didn't allow it. He said that no door should ever be locked because the Children of Light had no secrets.
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked the empty room.
"Well, that man outside is not a man."
Lenny jumped, her breath caught in her throat when she saw the tall woman from the courtyard. "Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"My name's Apollyon, but my friends call me Polly. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. Now that we know each other, maybe you can explain what a shifter is doing in a nut-job cult."
"I don't know you."
"Oh, yeah." Polly held out her hand to shake and smiled in a way that almost looked painful, showing off a set of perfect teeth. Lenny only stared back at her. She dropped her hand back to her side. "Stranger danger and all that jazz, huh? I'll make this quick, then. You are apparently a shifter, and I am a demon."
"What are you doing here?" Lenny asked with a definite sternness to her voice that made Polly take notice.
"Listen, I am only here to try and track down an escapee from Hell by the name of Demas." Polly crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, inspecting long red nails on one hand. "And I'm pretty damn sure that was him outside."
"Demas," Lenny whispered. "That's what Hershel called Dale. But he's a nice guy, he can't be a demon."
"A djinn, actually." Polly wrinkled her nose. "I hate djinn. They are messy and nasty and all around shitty."
The door to her room suddenly opened, and Naomi stood there.
"Lenny, Joseph sent me to get y—" She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Polly. "Demon."
Lenny cried out when she saw that Polly's eyes had turned a deep crimson and seemed to be glowing.
Naomi called out. "Help! There's a demon here!"
"Not for long," Polly said, and then she was gone.
"What the hell is going on here?" Lenny repeated, turning to Naomi for answers, but she, too, was already gone.
Chapter 5
Apollyon had been surprised to see the shifter. Watching the girl shimmer between human and other in a blatantly visceral response to the removal of Demas' leftovers made the demon certain the girl had absolutely no clue what she was looking at. Shifters only shimmered like that out of fear or surprise. Apollyon was intrigued; this case was taking all kinds of odd turns. First, there was the fact that for a demon—the First Knight of Hell, no less—to be tracking down a lowly djinn seemed a task far below her station.
It wasn't until Lucifer explained what Demas had escaped Hell with that Polly's interest in the creature was piqued. Demas had once been a member of Lucifer's cabinet, and as such he'd been allowed to sit in on meetings. Information from which was now being sold to the highest bidder.
Polly could always count on a djinn to trade information. The entire world knew to beware of skeevy little bastards. Delivered properly, the virus he stole from Hell could wipe out more than half the world. Polly wondered what the fuck he was doing with it at a hippy-style commune. Demas wasn't the religious or cultish type. The whole ordeal was beginning to stink, and Polly was hopeful that the shifter would have some shred of information that could help.
She just hoped she was right and the girl knew enough about the djinn to actually be of help. It was more likely, however, that the girl had no clue what Demas was up to, or even what his true nature was, but it didn't matter. Finding a shifter was the best news Polly had discovered all week. Demas could now be tracked without his knowing. Tracking a djinn was difficult business. They're so tricky and paranoid it's hard as hell for anyone to get a bead on them.
Once Polly knew where they were, then her focus could shift from finding them to actually taking them down and, because djinn never went quietly, doing it without getting a city block blown to smithereens.
As she once again wondered about Lucifer's true intentions in giving her this task, she centered herself and prepared to meet the shifter. Once she made an ally of the girl, she would have all over access to the cult so she could figure out why Demas was there.
Something about the way the shifter responded to Demas' kill made Polly curious.
What's he doing there, and why was the s
hifter so startled to see him? Doesn't she know what he is?
Shifters were usually pretty good at avoiding a mess, and it was rare to see one right in the thick of a plot involving a djinn. Even though she didn't think the shifter knew what Demas was, Polly had to be careful. One wrong move could blow all the hard work she'd put into tracking down Demas over the past week.
She decided to watch the compound and see what else could be gleaned from the comings and goings there. In the meantime, she was going to have to approach the girl and find out exactly what she knew. If it was nothing, then perhaps Polly could use her as bait for the djinn. If she knew a little, then perhaps her life was useful enough to be spared. Either way, she had to find, and talk to, the shifter.
Polly took a deep breath, inhaling through her nose to track the shifter's scent. She found the girl in a room down a long hallway toward the back of the church. However, the initial encounter hadn't gone the way Polly had expected and, before she knew what was happening, she'd had to pop out and get away from the damn djinn that found her inside the girl's room.
Stupid fucking djinn always screwing everything up.
The woman could see her as a demon, that was clue one that something was up. Clue two was the horrid smell of djinn; it was a spicy burnt motor oil scent with a note of singed flesh for fanciness' sake. The scent was unmistakable, and though her sources told her that Demas was the only djinn in the joint, they were obviously wrong.
She teleported back to Hell. Once she was sure she was home, safe and unwatched, she put her fist through a thick rock wall while screaming her rage at the situation. She screamed louder as her hand broke through the rocks and two of her knuckles shattered. Nobody came running to her aid. She hadn't expected anyone to, since the spell that acted as a security camera would show those monitoring the room that her screams were of rage and not fear. They would ignore her and move on.
She called upon the hellfire in her veins and healed the knuckles while ranting viciously about the djinn. Nothing like a lesser demon to piss off a Knight of Hell. Demas had been damned stupid to backbite Lucifer, and he was looking at some serious pain when she got him back to Hell.
Cast In Blood: Revelations Series Book 1: Page 2
