Corruption

by Jennifer Blackstream

  A tear appeared in the ceiling, and a swarm of bats flowed out, filling the air with the sound of high-pitched shrieking and the flapping of leathery wings. I braced myself for the attack of tiny claws and teeth as I reached for my magic.

  Thomas’ voice echoed through the room. “Our Holy Father, protect us. In your name I call the Holy Spirit, the divine presence of the Holy Ghost.”

  I stared as the paladin marched over the ceiling toward the girl struggling on the cot. The swarm of bats parted for him, the winged beasts screeching as if it hurt to be near him. They fled the basement like a billowing cloud of smoke. He picked his way over the ceiling, stepping between the beams. The gravity-effect only seemed to affect the back half of the basement, and I noticed the way he watched his surroundings, ready to fall again when he reached the limit of the spell.

  A girl’s scream tore through the air. Not from the girl on the cot, her gag remained in place as she fixed wide eyes on the priest walking over the ceiling toward her. This scream came from upstairs. Peasblossom took off like a pink bolt of light, gravity irrelevant to the tiny flyer.

  Her high-pitched voice echoed from above a second later. “There’s a girl! She’s hurt!”

  Andy ran out of the basement, still on the ceiling. He slid down the incline of the stair and landed with the thud of shoes on wood. Like Thomas, he’d realized the gravity spell had a limit, and had prepared for the fall.

  Thomas prayed again, and this time he reached toward the girl still tied to the cot. She wasn’t screaming through the gag anymore, but sweat coated her temples, and she didn’t look away from us. Her eyes fluttered and she rolled onto her side as far as her bonds would let her.

  I ran toward her, leaping into the air and gritting my teeth as the gravity spell ended and struck me with a sudden, vicious case of vertigo. I landed on my feet—for the most part—and stood there, fighting to regain my bearings.

  Paul was gone, but the eagle continued to attack the remaining robed figure, and he cried out as its talons raked his hood from his head, taking strips of scalp and hair with it.

  “Help!” the man screamed, covering his bloody head with his free hand, the other waving the knife at the bird of prey.

  I ignored him. My spell would end any second, and the eagle would vanish. Right now, my concern was with the victim.

  I ran to the bed where Thomas fought to release the girl from her bonds. I removed her gag in time for her to vomit all over the floor, splashing the robes the second man had left behind.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she croaked. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked her, working to release her from her bonds.

  “Stacey,” she gasped. She sat up as soon as she could, then flung herself to the side and vomited again. “What did he do to me?” she groaned.

  “I don’t know. Did he make you drink something?” I glared at the man curled up on the floor, bloody hands both covering his head, the knife lying on the ground. The eagle disappeared, but the damage remained.

  “Not him,” Stacey said weakly. “Your friend. The boy in black.”

  Thomas. I frowned. “Why do you think he did something to you?”

  “Shade, get up here!”

  I pulled on Stacey’s hand. “Come with me.”

  She jerked away from me and scrambled off the cot to grab the bleeding man’s shoulder. “Jack! Are you all right?”

  Something was wrong. Before I could even think the words Stockholm Syndrome, Andy’s voice boomed down the stairs.

  “Shade!”

  The panic infusing his command pushed me to move toward the stairs before I realized it. I gaped at the girl as she held the robed figure’s hand, her throat working as if trying not to be sick again. I cursed.

  “Don’t take your eyes off her,” I told Thomas. Then I fled the basement. As soon as I hit the landing, I saw Andy kneeling on the other side of the room next to another teenage girl. Father Salvatore was with him, a look of concern pinching his features. The girl was covered in blood, gagging and rolling from side to side.

  “Heal her,” Andy snapped.

  There was no time to point out the danger of leaving Lorelei unguarded. I dropped to my knees, magic already sliding against my palms as I summoned a healing spell. Blood was everywhere.

  “Where is the blood coming from?” I asked, searching for the source.

  “I can’t tell.”

  I laid my hands on the girl, extending my senses, ready to push the pooling blue energy inside her.

  The front door flew open, cutting me off before I could cast the spell.

  Lorelei stepped inside, flinging her arms out, a huge smile on her face. “April Fools!”

  Chapter 11

  I gaped at Lorelei. She stood in the doorway to the house in a Wonder Woman stance, her red camisole like a flag against the backdrop of the blue April sky. She stood flanked on either side by two young men, both in their early twenties. The one on her left had pale skin and a mop of black curly hair that partially obscured his brown eyes. His eyebrows resembled smears of black tar, not unlike Groucho Marx, and I had to blink to get rid of that image. He grinned at me and shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts. Fifty degrees outside, and he wore baggy cargo shorts and flip-flops.

  The other boy had dark brown skin and eyes. I didn’t recognize his lightly bearded face, but I’d have bet money he’d been one of the robed figures in the basement—the one who had shifted to a gaseous form and fled when the eagle attacked. He’d left his clothes behind when he’d shifted form, and a cold breeze made him shiver as gooseflesh rose over his skin.

  “Introductions first, I think.” Lorelei gestured at the young men at her sides. “This is Grant and Jerome,” she gestured at flip-flops and naked guy. “The lovely actress on the floor is Kelly.”

  The “injured” girl rolled over in the pool of what we’d assumed was her blood. She stood with more grace than I could have managed in the slippery puddle and curtsied, her long light brown hair falling over her shoulders as she did so. She was young, about sixteen, but there was a glint of superiority in her stare I could see even hidden as they were behind large black-rimmed, fake blood-flecked glasses. Her eyes crossed, and she frowned and took off the glasses. “Damn. Anyone have a wet wipe?”

  I did, but I wasn’t going to share it with her.

  “Over there is the dedicated Nina,” Lorelei continued.

  I followed her gesture and found a woman lying on the floor in the far corner. She was covered with blood as well—also fake—and seemed to be playing dead. Paul, still in Tasmanian tiger form, stood near the body, teeth bared, striped fur standing straight up to make him appear twice his actual size. In animal form, the fake blood wouldn’t have fooled him, so I assumed he was trying to scare the woman. Good.

  Lorelei frowned. “Paul, leave her alone. Nina, it’s all right, he won’t hurt you. He’s just being a poor sport.”

  The woman twitched, then sat up, her attention locked on the snarling animal. Her short brown hair stuck to her forehead, glued by the fake blood. Green eyes darted to Lorelei before returning to the animal, and she got to her feet like someone rising to stand on a balance beam.

  “Paul, stop scaring her. This is your final warning.” Lorelei’s eyes flashed crimson.

  The beast’s throat parted, revealing Paul’s human face. Nina squeaked as Paul pulled the animal skin off him and stood before her with an expression somewhere between a smirk and a leer. If I’d been in a more forgiving mood, I might have thought him mean to be scaring the girl, but as things stood, I was fine with it.

  Nina lifted her chin and retreated to Lorelei’s side with as much dignity as she could with her hair sticking up at odd angles from the tacky fake blood. She was older than the other girls, early to mid thirties by my estimation. Though it was difficult to tell with all the red liquid drying on her face.

  Lorelei frowned. “Where are Stacey and Jack?”

  “We’re here,
” came a weak female voice.

  Andy’s jaw tightened as the “victim” from the basement stumbled up the last step. Her skin held a green tint, and her brown eyes were red-rimmed from the tears that so often accompanied vomiting. Even her T-shirt seemed limp, hanging from her slight body to touch her pink leggings. When she stepped into the light streaming in from the open doorway, I froze.

  “How old are you?” Andy asked, beating me to the question.

  She fisted her hands at her sides even as she swayed on her feet. “Thirteen.”

  Andy glared at Lorelei, and I blinked. That wasn’t a bad witchy look. For a human.

  Lorelei rolled her eyes. “Freedom should not have an age restriction. And no one’s having sex with her, if that’s what concerns you.”

  “That’s only the beginning of what concerns me,” Andy said, clenching his fists at his sides.

  The man beside Stacey hissed as he eased out of the robe, revealing a faded navy blue T-shirt and ragged blue jeans. He looked to be in his forties, and had a lean swimmer’s build and tan skin that made me think he spent a lot of time outside, probably with some outdoorsy sport. Blood dried his curly brown hair into clumps, and flecked the beard and mustache outlining his mouth. Unlike the two women, that blood was real. And it was his.

  Serves him right.

  “What did you do to him?” Lorelei demanded.

  “The same thing I’d do to anyone I thought was about to sacrifice someone,” I said shortly.

  Lorelei pursed her lips. “Jack, go shower the blood off. Nina, get a bowl and mix some warm water with the disinfectant in the bathroom cabinet.”

  She didn’t ask me to heal him. Perhaps she sensed my mood.

  “What is going on?” I demanded.

  Lorelei squeezed Grant and Jerome’s shoulders before sashaying to the couch on the left side of the room. She folded herself into the corner, reclining with one arm draped over the low back and the other on the armrest. “You were so horrified to find I’d started a cult, I knew what you would expect to find here. I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I texted Nina and had them arrange a show.”

  “I could have killed someone.” Andy took a step toward Lorelei, tension squeezing his broad shoulders.

  I could feel his fury radiating off of him, and it reminded me of the day we’d stood beside the lake, watching a kelpie refuse to give up his human slave. A vague sense of unease chased away some of my anger. Andy was one of the most level-headed people I’d ever met, but seeing children in danger got to him as few other things did. It was the only time he made rash decisions.

  Rash decisions like shooting kelpies.

  “If you’re talking about your gun,” Lorelei said in a bored tone, “then don’t worry so much. Nina never would have let you fire it. I respect your dedication to your weapon, Agent Bradford, but even you have to drop a gun heated to a thousand degrees.”

  “A thousand degrees?” I stared at Andy. “Let me see your hand.”

  Andy didn’t look away from Lorelei, but he held his hand out. I tried to wipe away some of the fake blood, but stopped when Andy made a sound deep in his throat. Second degree burns on his palms. Blood and bones, how was he not curled into a ball right now? I pressed my lips together and held my hand over his. “Sana.”

  Tension I hadn’t noticed until now eased from Andy’s shoulders as the blue energy sank into his palm, healing the worst of the burn. He kept glaring at Lorelei.

  “You think that’s the only way these kids could have gotten hurt?” Andy demanded. “One of them had a knife!”

  “Yes, he did, and you didn’t.”

  There was no point explaining to Lorelei that FBI agents are trained to disarm suspects. There was no doubt in my mind Andy could have taken the knife off Jerome. And based on his temper now, he’d have used it if he had to to save the girl. A fact that would haunt him later, now that he knew the danger she’d been in was fake.

  I took a step forward, ready to let Lorelei have a fresh piece of my mind. The words died on my tongue as the thirteen year old from the basement emerged, one hand covering her stomach.

  Lorelei’s brows furrowed. “Stacey, are you all right?”

  The teenager swallowed hard. “No. I’m not feeling well.” Sweat glistened at her temples, and she pointed a shaking finger at Thomas. “He did something to me.”

  Lorelei turned to Thomas where the paladin stood near the basement door. Father Salvatore shifted closer to the younger priest, but the demon ignored him, rising from the couch and taking a step toward Thomas. “What did you do?”

  Thomas stepped around Father Salvatore, his chin held high as he met Lorelei’s stare, his face schooled into a serene mask to match the one on Father Salvatore’s face. The only outward sign of his nervousness was the flaring of his nostrils as he fought to control his breathing. “I gave her a blessing.” Disapproval pulled down the corners of his mouth. “When I thought she was an innocent.”

  Stacey covered her mouth and bolted from the room. A second later, the sounds of retching trickled through the open bathroom door.

  “Take it off,” Lorelei snapped. “You’re making her sick.”

  “A blessing is not something that needs removed.” Thomas crossed his arms. “If it’s making her sick, then she needs it all the more.”

  Lorelei’s eyes widened, hazel irises bleeding to red. “Arrogance. Your way is the only way, is that it?”

  “God’s way, is the only way,” Thomas said evenly.

  Lorelei sneered. “I’m familiar with the song and dance. Bow down to the Almighty God and walk the path of the virtuous. Never mind that path requires you to bypass the pleasures in life.”

  “It does not mean giving up all pleasures in life,” Father Salvatore corrected her. “Taking the well-being of others into consideration, leading a moral life, does not mean a total denial of pleasure.”

  “With all due respect, Father,” Kelly said, stepping forward. “I think what Lorelei means is your religion imposes a great deal of restriction on individuals. One might even say they are setting them up to fail.

  Father Salvatore’s face softened when he turned to Kelly, but his posture remained ramrod straight. “I am sorry you don’t have more faith in yourself. You are a child of God, with all the divine blessing that entails. If you chose a good life, I believe you would find you rise to the occasion.”

  Kelly smiled, and there was a quiet confidence on her face that one didn’t usually see in teenagers. She pushed her glasses up her nose and brushed her long brown hair behind her ear. “’If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.’”

  Silence fell over the room like a lead blanket. Even Andy let go of his anger in favor of an expression somewhere between startled and confused.

  “An impressive memorization,” Father Salvatore said carefully.

  Kelly shrugged. “My parents would have supported it. They like to remind me the Bible orders me to obey them—in all things. I’m not sure they would have stoned me for not listening, but the Bible tells them to do it.”

  “God does not want such things,” Thomas snapped. “It is people like you who twist things around to make him sound like a monster so you can excuse living a life of sin and debauchery.”

  “It’s in your Bible, in black and white,” she said. “I dare say most Christians would like to ignore that passage, and yet, when it’s suggested that other passages are also outdated—for example, those that condemn homosexuality—suddenly there is no room for interpretation, no need to consider the times.” She pointed at
me. “And of course there is always ‘Those who practice magic arts will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.’”

  I opted not to respond to that. It wasn’t my place to argue the accuracy of someone else’s faith. Unless they tried to throw me into a literal lake of fire, they could think what they liked.

  Lorelei seemed ridiculously pleased. She fluttered a hand at Thomas, her mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “Behold the hypocrisy of the righteous.”

  “You quote from Deuteronomy.” Father Salvatore stepped forward to stand beside Thomas. Unlike the paladin, his expression remained serene. “That is a book of the Old Testament. When Jesus died for our sins, he brought a new covenant, with new laws. The only one who may change the laws of God, is God himself. And he has done so, in some cases explicitly, in some cases, he has left it to us to interpret his will.”

  “Convenient, isn’t it?” Kelly said dryly. “You get to pick and choose what laws he meant and what ones he wants you to ‘reinterpret.’”

  “You have a lot of anger in you,” Father Salvatore said quietly. “I’m sorry for your pain.”

  Kelly’s jaw tightened. “My anger rises when someone I care for is hurt by someone who has the balls to suggest it’s for her own good.” She jabbed a finger at Thomas. “You used magic on her without her permission, and it’s making her sick—physically sick. But you won’t remove it, because you’ve judged her a sinner, and you use the consequences of your actions to justify that label.”

  “I blessed her in God’s name, asking for his protection and healing,” Thomas said tightly. “It is a good, loving gift. The sickness results from that demon’s poison in her system.”

  Kelly clenched her hands into fists. “That’s only because you assume your magic is good and Lorelei’s is evil. Look at it objectively, without your judgments. Stacey has magic inside her that was a gift from someone who cares, a gift she asked for and willingly accepted. You forced your energy on her, and you say that’s all right because it’s good for her, and you didn’t mean to hurt her. Now the two energies have mixed and it’s making her sick, but you’ll claim the fault lies with the magic she asked for, the magic she wanted, and not the magic you shoved into her without consent. You blame the victim for pain you caused. Now who’s the monster?”