Heretic Behaviour (The Secrets of Demons #1)
1. Prologue
Prologue
I t takes no special talent to kill a human, the High Priest Abbott mused as he watched the woman thrashing before him. No special training or ceremony required. Any hard object swung fast enough will often do the trick…
He stared with disgust at the struggling woman’s thin black horns that were beginning to protrude from her long mass of blonde hair.
Yes, he thought. Death is a simple thing to accomplish where humans are concerned. Demons on the other hand…
“To die with such pageantry,” he told her solemnly, “is proof your death really means something. Consider it an honour many are not afforded.”
Anger and hate flashed across her pale face as she looked up at him and opened her mouth. For a moment, Abbott thought she might speak, but instead, she screamed.
He’d heard many screams in his time. Screams for mercy, screams of pain, of fear…but this scream, the High Priest Abbott instantly knew, was different .
It nearly blew out his ear drums.
The force of it opened the heavy wooden doors of the Grand Cathedral and rattled the stained-glass windows in their sockets. His spies later reported that it had defied the laws of sound completely and had spilled out onto the winter streets of Jeralusah, travelling right over the outer walls of the small Holy City.
Good. Let them all know.
Despite the unnatural power of her cry, and the pain it caused him, Abbott refused to lower the censer to block his ears, and he was pleased to see that none of the elite warrior priests who held her, his jesu , flinched either. Instead, two of them pulled the noisy demon to her feet and began to haul her forward into the main hall of the Grand Cathedral. They braced for her resistance and were not disappointed. As soon as she stood, she stopped screaming and began to thrash violently in their arms, fighting against their grip and the choking clouds of sedative incense that Abbott determinedly swirled. Despite her efforts, the jesu bore up well and continued to drag her forward.
They were professionals, and this was not their first time.
The demon’s blue eyes flashed up at Abbott in helpless fury again. He noted that her horns were starting to retract into her head, and she did not scream again.
Perhaps she cannot . Perhaps her abominable power was all used up in that single moment of desperation. How pathetic.
Despite the cool winter air, her naked torso glistened as streams of sweat poured down her lithe body, and her long blonde hair clung in thick, knotted clumps to the back of her neck.
Beautiful.
The word rose unbidden in the High Priest’s mind as he drew his eyes away from her and surveyed the entire sacred ceremony, the Sacrament of Contrition .
Nearly two hundred priests and acolytes who served the Church of Midas stood at attention in lines that spanned down either side of the Grand Cathedral. They hummed a low, hypnotic droll, with their heads bowed and palms pressed firmly together in reverence.
The stained-glass murals on the towering windows above them caught the winter morning sun on its entry into the hall and turned its cool light into sharp rainbow streams. The glass depicted images of Midas emerging triumphantly from the depths of the ocean and presenting himself as the One True God to the cowering folk of Artor, a pivotal moment in the Church’s fresh history.
Beautiful, it was all so beautiful.
Abbott watched as his jesu pulled the demon closer to her death. The sedative smoke was finally starting to take effect, and she stumbled now, looking disorientated. He shifted his gaze from her to the God-King, who was greedily eyeing the scene, like a stalking crocodile, from upon his throne of glass and sand.
Midas seemed to sense the High Priest’s gaze and glanced over at Abbott, who swiftly forced his focus back on the ceremony at hand, maintaining the rhythmic swinging of his censer and preparing for the ritual lines he would soon deliver. It was always considered improper to stare too directly at the Divine, but today, of all days, it seemed particularly voyeuristic.
“With this smoke and herb,” he intoned, “I cleanse thee, demon, so that thou may be a fitting offering for our Almighty God-King. We earnestly pray that he may forgive this sinful and blasphemous world. That his wrath and anger may be appeased, and that he will look upon us for yet another season, with his Divine mercy.”
The jesu had dragged the demon close enough to Midas for him to touch her now.
She had been forced to her knees again and now knelt with a face frozen in fearful intensity. The expression somehow made her simultaneously beautiful and ugly to the High Priest, and he considered it thoughtfully. The fear was very good, he conceded, but he saw considerably more fear in the eyes of the jesu who held her.
That, he mused silently, is even better.
The demon was one of ten sacrifices being provided by the nation of Artor to the God-King for the winter season. It was a requirement of his rule that kept even the most devout fearful and wary of a misstep.
Abbot moved behind the demon. He signalled for the humming in the Grand Cathedral to stop. Two hundred priests obeyed instantly, as if he had pinched the sound from their throats. The low droll was replaced by an eerie, heavy silence that fell over the ceremony like a smothering hand. It was a strained absence of sound, more akin to the silence of a drowning man than the peaceful silence of a sleeping baby, the kind of silence that could only be made in the moment when two hundred priests paused, waiting for their God to perform a miracle.
Midas removed his gloves and extended his palm towards the demon. His eyes unfocused the moment that he pressed a thick thumb into the centre of her forehead and his power struck the woman.
Abbott marvelled for the millionth time how incredible it was to watch someone’s body transform, and how beautiful the Golden Sand looked as it glinted in the highlights of the sun on its journey to the ground.