Chapter 29
“J esus, has he been in here all night?” Emerson looked up from his notes to see Rix smirking at him. “You realize Jack has that sexy as fuck woman tied to your bed right now, right?”
“And you’re not up there?” he asked his friend.
Kendrix snorted. “You know that ain’t my scene...though it is yours.”
It was, and it was just fucking tough noogies that he wasn’t involved. “Well, it’s good they are keeping her busy. We gotta talk.” He looked to Finn and Easton. “Shit hit the fan.”
"That sounds serious." Finn sobered immediately and pulled up a chair. "What's going on?"
Emerson nodded to the books and the packet on the table. “Read the letter,” he offered to Finn as Rix started looking at the books.
Finn scanned the paper and then handed it to Easton, his lips drawing a thin line. "Summarize the rest of it for me," he said, eyes fixed on Emerson.
“Well, you know how we have been talking about how things aren’t right?
” Rix looked up to him and then to Finn.
“They aren’t. Dad’s journal I found was only the tip of the iceberg.
These there...” he laid hands on the two journals to his right, “have information...” He swallowed, trying not to get choked up, “Information on how things before they died were different and what my father saw as wrong due to our own rites.”
“What do you mean?” Rix asked. “This book reads like stereo instructions.”
“Well that book, brother, details how having a single female for a group to worship with brings not only favor, but abundance...and independence.”
Rix frowned. “Something we think we have but don’t...but our fathers...”
“The Elders they had were more hands off, and allowed for the different options of faith.”
“Options of faith?”
Emerson nodded. “Our mothers were an option. Petra is an option . Blood sacrifices are an option. An option .”
"Emerson, get your shit together," Finn sighed. "Stop waffling and get to the point. What do you mean by 'an option'?"
“Sorry, Finn, this is fucking crazy to me.” He swallowed. “These were options. Killing all year is an option. He Who Sleeps would rather...varied energy, but his favorite is feminine.”
“We knew that, that’s why we sacrifice a woman...”
“We didn’t have to. We could have had since the beginning what we have with Petra now.
Our fathers, remember seeing that they tried to find a woman for all of them?
And failed? But they all found women to marry, have children with.
..and perform personal rites with.” He looked to them.
“Their large sacrifice was blood, but the rest of the year, it was sex. And the veils...they aren’t as heavy as we have been led to believe through the year.
He watches...he savors what we do.” He sighed.
“And I think that because we have been all but starving him of variety he stopped speaking to us.”
“What? I have never...”
“Nor I. But my father details here how He sent my mother to him...how He sent all our mothers to them.”
"You're waffling again." Finn held up a hand to pause him. "Let me get this straight; our fathers were feeding the God all year round by gathering energy from our mothers? That's always been an option? We could have been feeding Him all year round with Petra since day one?"
He nodded. “Yes, individually and because it’s Petra, as a group. The energy we raised last night...the spike when Easton touched her...” He shook his head. “But we have been led to believe that blood is what He craves, and only what he craves. Why?”
“Control,” Rix said. “Fuck.”
Emerson nodded. “This journal, it shows how our fathers were led to our mothers, after the attempt to find a central female failed. My father writes that each of them were given visions through dreams of our mothers, and followed the feeling to find them in waking life.” He picked up the book closest. “And this book? It tells of why and how females born to our order are kept separate, as not to create bonds...because they serve a purpose, too. To become mothers, and in some cases a central female for a group. They were never to be sacrificed; they are the feminine divine for He Who Sleeps.”
"Wait," Easton spoke up for the first time. "You're saying that Petra might be...one of us? She was raised in an orphanage."
Emerson shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible.
We need to ask her about where she was raised again, about what happened the night she found us.
” He sighed. “Each of our mothers were of the blood, raised elsewhere. My father says my mother, Francine,” he chuckled.
“I never knew her name,” he said absently.
“Says she was raised on a commune outside San Francisco. Finn, your mother Daphne was raised in an artist collective in Canada.” He looked up.
“Each of the mothers were raised in alternative societies. Rix, your mother Kimber, she was an orphan.” He looked to Easton.
“And I don’t think you being brought in was an accident. ”
"That's monstrous," Easton whispered. "They farm them like fucking dairy cows, bringing them in when they're ready to breed. And they did this to me? They...they..."
"Everyone, shut up," Finn was frowning. "I need to think this through.
" Rising from his seat, he paced back and forth across a rich rug that muffled the sound of his footfalls.
"This doesn't make any sense," he said eventually.
"What do the Elders have to gain by weakening the God when they gain their power from him? "
“Honestly I don’t know, Finn. The control, though...that makes sense.”
Rix leaned back, looking thoughtful. “Controlling what he gets, keeping him at their mercy... Yes, they do gain from him but...He gives but He doesn’t take away.
Each of the new Elders, even my father, are captains of industry, politicians, fuck, isn’t Hartford a fucking gun runner?
” He shook his head. “They don’t need more power, only to maintain what they have and ensure none surpass them. ”
“Man has a point,” Emerson said. “And East...” he looked to Snake, “it says here all the mothers were aware who they were, what they were raised into. It wasn’t anonymous.
And not all females from where they were raised were called to serve.
Many worshipped Him on their own, in their own female led rites.
Much like the school we went to. By all this information, my father wrote out they were loved, and in love, and never coerced into being with our fathers.
” He smiled and looked up. “They had normal courtships, actually fell in love, and those actions served His purpose as well...”
"And the Elders just decided to shit all over that?" Easton's fury was clear in every line of his body. He was almost vibrating with the force of his rage, his muscles tense and strained. "They just killed your parents for the hell of it?"
“For control,” Emerson said. “And yours, I think. Well, your mother. My dad wrote that they finally found a fallen heir, but I can’t find anything past what’s written here about it.
Your name, and where you were found, and the.
..” He swallowed. “State of you when you were finally brought in.” He held up a finger as he began to read.
“Visholu found the fallen heir two days ago, and I fear we were too late. We still aren’t sure how the hell he was spirited away, or how Glynnis ended up at the bottom of a ravine, all we know is he’s been traumatized, but exhibits much of what his blood gave him.
Eye for an eye, those that harmed him are dead by his hand, as is proper, though on a personal note, Easton should never have had to deal with any of that.
He is resilient, and I hope his future is filled with the love and care he should have had, as part of our order. ”
He looked up, gauging his friend’s mental capacity. “There is more, if you want to hear it. Not much but...”
"Of course I want to fucking hear it!" Easton howled. "You have no idea what I suffered! You have...you had...the fucking..." He was hyperventilating and couldn't get the words together, terminating instead in an inarticulate howl of helpless and primal rage.
"Brother," Finn approached him, palms up, as though gentling a skittish animal.
"Breathe. Brother, breathe. We're with you and we will raze everyone that had anything to do with this to the ground.
I give you my word on that. They will suffer.
But we need to be clever about this. Destroy it at the root.
We need to figure out what happened and who was involved and for that we need calm.
" He didn't know who was more shocked when Easton fell into his arms, crying like the broken child he was.
Emerson got up, followed by Rix, gathering around their fallen friend and brother, and wrapped themselves around them both. They weren’t normally so tactile, but in this case it was needed. He felt horrible, always had about what Easton had endured, but if there was a way for true vengeance...
It was long moments before they let him go, and he leaned up, looking at Emerson expectedly.
“You good?” he asked and Easton nodded. “Glynnis Ambrose was your mother. Daughter of Elder Harnis Ambrose, who was murdered the night your mother and you disappeared. It doesn’t say who your father is, though they think he wasn’t of the blood, and took you and Glynnis. ..” He got up and went to the journal.