They, too, must be obeyed. But what did they want?
She closed her eyes, folding her hands, and knelt beside the bed. "Please, Lord, let your humble servant know what she should do. Send me a sign, send me a vision, send me anything that I might know Your Will."
The answer came, as it sometimes did, in no answer at all. God had told her His will when He had made her.
As it often was, He had nothing to add.
She would do what came naturally.
She would would serve Him by being herself, by being Jessie Ross, by being a conduit for his compassion.
Her eyes opened. "Your Will be done."
EPISODE 4
CHAPTER ONE
In her dreams, Lily was human.
There had been no accident. Lauren was alive. Ashley was unharmed. Nobody looked at her funny when she walked down the halls, and she had no reason to blame herself for anything. Dark-haired boys with bone-white skin didn't intrude upon her life, and the Devil was an allegorical figure.
In her dream, she'd gone off to school and gotten a degree in social welfare. Derek was back from Boston, they were getting married, and everything was perfect.
Almost perfect.
The wedding was being held at the Church, of course. She took a peek from the mezzanine at the crowd below, and for once Laton's megachurch was full to capacity. Through the glass windows overlooking the chapel she could see Derek looking dapper in his well-tailored tux, standing next to Reverend Robert Carter at the head of the congregation. The head of the Church of Christ Everlasting was personally going to officiate her wedding.
"So many people," she said.
"Your friends. Derek's friends. Both families. It really adds up." The man who had raised her smiled, a hand on her back. "This is it, darling. The big day. The one every father dreads."
She hugged him. "I'm so happy, daddy." In her dream, it was true.
Down below, she could hear the organist strike up the opening notes to the Wedding March. "Already? Oh, Daddy, we have to hurry."
He shook his head. "It's the father of the bride that gives his daughter away, sweetheart."
"Yes, let's get going."
Time twisted, distorting slow as he turned towards the door. "Here he comes now, love. Your true father."
She could hear footsteps on the carpeted stairs leading up to the Mezzanine. Each heavy step echoed in her ears, filling her with the urge to flee. There was nowhere to go.
"No, Daddy, you're supposed to--" She turned, but Deacon Baker was gone, leaving her alone in the mezzanine.
She could hear someone, something terrible, stop on the other side of the door, breathing in an almost bestial fashion.
Lily backed away, to the balcony edge. Down below the crowd had almost vanished. Gone were all of her neighbors and friends, Derek's family, leaving only the upturned faces of the damned.
Her true kin.
The door handle was turning.
"No." Lily stepped away from the balcony, glancing down at her hands. They'd turned knobby and ugly, warty, with thick black clawed nails. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass and saw that her visage had likewise changed, twisted. Her eyes bulged above sharp exaggerated cheek-bones, and wicked tusks sprouted from beneath her lips.
Her true form.
"No!"
She took a few steps and leapt through the Mezzanine glass, her tremendous strength shattering it like a thin pane of ice. She fell towards the Church's floor, stopping as great bat-like wings tore through the back of her wedding dress, unfurling to catch the air.
She screeched a denial, and it was nothing like the sounds a human would make, not if you tortured her for a thousand years.
***
Lily sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, her heart racing, her breath coming in jags. Though seasoned with dream logic, her nightmare had seemed so real, had felt so genuine.
"Fuck." She drew her knees up, crossing her arms over them, resting her forehead.
A small sound almost made her jump. Pebbles against her window.
She slipped out of bed and crept over, sliding it open. "Derek?"
Gideon was standing in the front yard.
"I'm sorry," he called up in a stage-whisper. "I tried your phone but it was off."
"What are you doing here?"
"It's important."
Lily checked her bedroom clock's display. "It's almost midnight."
"Can you come down?"
Lily drew her head back through the window and considered just going back to bed. But just for a moment. Instead, she slipped into her jeans and t-shirt, made sure her parents' bedroom was dark and still, and snuck down to meet the redhead.
Her irritation melted when she saw how terrified he was. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Oh, shit is so fucked," he said. "Look, everything has hit the fan. I called the others and told them to meet us at the Spot."
"What's this about, Gideon?"
He jerked his head, looking up and down the street. "Look it's, ah... fuck, I can't even think of the words. Come on, Lily, please, let's just get down there. I'm feeling really, uh... really..."
"Exposed?"
"Yeah, exposed. I had a fight with Bill and... fuck, it's bad."
She felt herself go cold. "Did... did you kill him?"
"No, it's worse."
"Worse? How could it be worse?"
His voice was ragged, wheedling. "Please? I need to get off the street."
Something in his tone got Lily moving, and she set off without another word. Gideon followed along behind her, and the way he kept looking around, darting from shadow to shadow, was rubbing her nerves raw. She found herself straining her own senses, listening for engines, peering down side-streets for headlights. She could hear, somewhere in the distance, cars rumbling along the dark streets of Laton. With her enhanced senses, they could have been anywhere in town.
Barny was squatting near the beginnings of a bonfire when they arrived, and Delilah was leaning against her dirt bike.
"Where's Jessie?" Gideon asked.
"Fuck if I know," Barny said. "What's the big news, big guy?"
"Fuck it, I can't wait," Gideon said.
Delilah ran to meet him, and the pair embraced. "What's wrong?"
"Everything." He was shaking when he stepped from the girl. "I've fucked everything up."
Barny stood, menace in his posture. "The fuck did you do?"
"No." Gideon looked towards town, then back towards the fire. "Shit was fucked before that. More fucked than we even knew."
Barny walked towards him. "Out with it, tub of shit."
"I really don't have time for your bitch mouth right now, fucker!" His voice cracked halfway through, and he moved towards Barny, fists clenched.
Lily stepped between them. "Easy. Calm down, Gideon. Tell us what happened."
Gideon sat heavily on a railroad tie. "Okay. Fuck. Okay, I was going home to grab my shit. Hadn't been there in days, right?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Fat-ass has been sleeping in the culvert and behind the school," Barny said.
"What? Why?"
"When things get rough, I don't like to go home. Sometimes I crash in Delilah's basement."
Lily turned towards Barny. "And you knew?"
"Easy, woman. Laton isn't the fucking wilderness. He wants to camp out, it's none of my business."
"Okay, shit, that's not important," Gideon said, standing. "Look, I went home, and Bill's waiting for me. With his shotgun."
"What?" Lily asked.
"Oh, shit," Barny said.
"Gideon!" Delilah gasped. "Are you okay?"
"Nuh nuh nuh nuh!" Gideon waved his hands. "That's not the point. Listen. Guys. He fucking knew."
"What?" Lily asked. "What did he know?"
"He fucking knew. About me. About all of us. Our gifts. That we're not human."
"He knew?" Barny asked.
Gideon nodded. "We fought. I hurt him. I
don't know how bad. But bad."
Lily turned away, staring back at the town, a chill running through her body, trying to understand what it was she was hearing. Somehow Sheriff Cermak knew about them, what they were. How had he found out? Why had he kept it quiet?
Delilah spoke up. "He's not the only one who knows. They all do."
Lily turned her head. "What?"
"They all know. Our foster parents. The upper echelons of the Church."
Delilah's words weren't complicated, but somehow Lily was having difficulty processing what exactly they meant. "What do you mean, they know?"
"I was looking into our adoption records earlier, and I found another set. Hidden in the town's intranet. Way different from the official available certificates." Delilah stepped next to Gideon and slipped an arm around his. "Gives our birthplace as Polvorin. Signed and witnessed by our parents and Reverend Carter."
Lily felt faint, and leaned against Barny's truck. Her legs didn't feel capable of supporting her.
"Even our names are different." Delilah walked over to stand beside her. "Not all of them. Mine and Gideon's names are the same. The rest of yours... yours is Lilith. Barny is Barnabas."
"The fuck kind of name is Barnabas?" Barny asked.
"It's Biblical." Jessie walked out of the darkness and into the fire's range. "It means 'son of the prophet.' My birth name is Jezebel."
"Jessie," Lily said.
"How did you know?" Delilah asked.
"I've always known." She had that far off look again, tinged with sorrow.
"From your visions?" Gideon asked.
"No," She walked to the bonfire. "Father told me. My foster-father."
"He did?" Lily asked. "When?"
"When I was young. When the visions started. He explained it to me. Who we are, what we are."
"You didn't think this was something the rest of us might have liked to know?" Barny asked, hostility naked in his voice.
She turned to him, eyes wide. "Oh, I couldn't!"
Delilah stepped to the girl and took a hold of her hand. "Jessie. Sweetie. Please. Tell us what your father told you."
Jessie turned back to the fire, a small smile at her lips. "He told me that I was special. That I was born with more than my share of original sin. So I would have to be good, extra good, to make up for it. That I would have to work extra hard to earn myself a place in heaven."
Lily felt, for a moment, physically nauseated. "He said that to you?"
"When I was little. After my illness. He said that if I wasn't the best I could be, that the bad men would come and take me away."
"No wonder you're so fucked up," Barny said, without his usual mockery.
"Barny!" Lily turned on him, furious.
"No, seriously, can you blame her? Being told that she was defective? Evil? Can you imagine how fucked up that would make you?" He pointed at her. "Well shit, no need to imagine it, because there you have it."
Gideon scowled. "Knock it off."
Jessie put her hand on Gideon's shoulder. "It's okay. No, even if your parents didn't tell you, they pushed you. Didn't they?"
Lily thought back to the way her parents had always encouraged her, been supportive of her, been concerned about every up and down in her life. She'd always thought it was just because they'd loved her, and had wanted the best for her. She almost collapsed next to the truck, head in her hands, trying not to puke.
"The only direction Bill ever pushed me was away," Gideon said. "That makes its own sick sense."
Jessie turned to Barny. "He didn't tell me about the rest of you, I'm sorry. I knew there were others out there -- the visions showed me as much -- but I didn't know who until I saw Lily in one of them. She told me about the rest of you."
"Why didn't you tell us then?" Lily asked.
"Maybe I should have," Jessie said.
"Ya think?" Barny said, turning back to his bonfire, stoking the flames with an errant branch.
"There's more."
Lily stood again. "What's more?"
"I overheard our fathers talking to the Sheriff."
"When was this?"
"Right before Gideon called. They were talking about him."
"Great," Gideon said.
"Why?" Barny asked.
"Probably because I just beat the shit out of my dad."
Barny stared at Gideon for a moment, then dropped his eyes back to Jessie.
"They know that our gifts have started to awaken," Jessie said. "But they don't know how much we've discovered, or that Melchizedek has contacted us."
"What else did they say?" Lily asked.
"Most of it didn't make sense," Jessie said. "My dad was sad. Yours was scared. The Sheriff was angry. They said that Bob knew what was happening -- Reverend Carter, I think -- and that he was sending a man named Porter to take care of things."
Barny folded his arms. "Porter? Porter who?"
"I don't know. When Deacon Baker found out, he got very scared and ran out of the house."
"I don't like the sound of that," Gideon said.
"We should ask Melchizedek," Delilah said. "Maybe he knows."
Lily bit her lip. "Can you go get him?"
Delilah walked to her bike. "Give me twenty minutes. If he's still at the desert shack, I'll bring him back."
Lily turned back to face the intermittent lights of Laton twinkling in the distance, a dull headache beginning just behind her eyes. Her parents knew. They knew, all this time, that she was more and less than human. They'd kept this from her, this most-important secret, lying about her adoption, lying about who knows what else.
And their love, was that a lie? Was this all some horrendous duty to them, like it seemed to be to Jessie's parents?
They'd raised her. They'd never treated her like a monster, like the Sheriff treated Gideon. They'd never held her at a distance, like poor Delilah's parents did. She couldn't believe it was all an act. Not when Jessie had described her father's reaction to this Porter. She couldn't believe he didn't care, that they didn't love her. And even now, he was coming home, terrified, and would discover her gone.
She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket. Maybe she should call him.
Even so, they'd kept so much from her. How could she trust them?
She put her phone away.
CHAPTER TWO
Porter walked through the desert at a steady pace, a tall figure, blurry and indistinct, alone in a long tan coat and wide-brimmed hat. He could have driven to Laton easily enough, but the night was clear and the weather was nice, and it wouldn't have saved him any time.
He liked those still places between human habitation, rare as they were. Gave a feller time to have a think, should the need arise. Let him feel a sense of connection to the world that he no longer felt to his fellow man.
From his own perspective he strode across the salt flats and scrub lands at a leisurely pace, a pleasant mosey with purpose but no great hurry. He could go faster, had he a mind to. Great many things he could do, had he a mind to, but he was in no great rush to get on with the task at hand.
Not that he found it distasteful, though he could see how some might. Just that it was getting rarer and rarer that Reverend Carter sent him out, and he wanted to enjoy the feeling of his hair spread out behind him as each step took him towards his goal.
On Porter's feet, any boots were seven-league.
All too soon the lights of Laton came into view on the horizon. Porter sighed and stooped, putting a hand into the sand, letting it run through his fingers, feeling each individual grain against the skin of his palm. Maybe, if he got this wrapped up quickly, he could take the long way home and visit the Gulf. Been a while since he'd felt the surf around his ankles.
***
When Melchizedek arrived it was in a swarm of black shadow that, when it departed, left the pale teen, Delilah, and her bike in their midst. Lily felt a sense of strange relief at his arrival.
"Jesus," Barny said, tossing his cigarette into the bonf
ire.
Lily stood and walked towards them. "Delilah brought you up to speed?"
"Yes."Melchizedek spoke rapidly. "We need to get out of here. Now."
"Porter is that dangerous?"
Melchizedek turned towards the desert. "Porter is... I don't know. He's not one of us, but he's not human."
"What is he?" Delilah asked.
"Dangerous. Deadly. He was with the men who took me out when I was like you. He was the reason they captured me."
"No," Delilah said. "What is he?"
"I don't know. Something else. He's fast. Faster than I am. Strong, too."
"How strong?" Gideon asked.
"I threw a motorcycle at him," Melchizedek said. "He caught it single-handedly."
"Shit," Gideon said.
"And he's armed. Guns. Lots of guns. I don't even know where he keeps them all."
"So we run," Delilah said.
"We need to come up with a plan," Lily said. "Melchizedek couldn't take him on alone, but if we work together--"
"Gideon and I were planning on leaving," Delilah said. "To El Paso."
"What?" Lily asked. "When?"
"Tonight. I was going to tell you, but this doesn't change our plans."
"It's a good plan," Melchizedek said. "You should all leave. Split up, so it's harder for him to track you down."
"We can't just leave," Lily said. "Laton is our home."
"Weren't you listening?" Barny said. "Our parents are behind all of this. Or at least complicit. There's no such thing as home."
"I have to at least try!" Lily turned on him. "Maybe it's different for you, maybe your parents don't care, maybe you don't have a real family, but I do."
"Lily--" Delilah said quietly.
"No, I know I do. My parents love me. They couldn't fake that."
"Good for you." Gideon's voice was flat, his eyes narrow.
Lily reached out towards him. "Oh, God, no, Gideon, I didn't mean--"
"I know what you meant." Gideon's face was grim. "And you're right."
"Gideon--"
"No, you're right. I don't have anything left here. Neither does Delilah. We're going to El Paso."
Infernal Revelation : Collected Episodes 1-4 (9781311980007) Page 14
