29. Azrael
It’s been three weeks since the Disciples attacked. Willow and Bec have stayed at the Wildblood house during that time while the house was deep cleaned. Emmanuel and I also took this time to clear out Salomé’s room, burning most of her belongings but holding on to what I guess was a sort of diary of hers. I am not sure if I’ll ever read it, but I set it aside for now.
The wooden carving over my bed had split in two the day Shemhazai’s statue fell. It lay in solid pieces on my bed.
Throughout the house, we took down the Delacroix insignias that contained the crescent moon being split in two. The one over the front door is the only one that stayed since it was the original before Isaiah added his mark. I gathered all the things that have to do with the Tithing, and have set The Book of Tithes itself aside. I want to destroy it, but I owe it to the Wildbloods to have the chance to see it, to learn the true fates of their ancestors. They may choose not to read it, but it is up to them.
I’d thought the dagger Abacus had used to cut out his birthmarks lay at the bottom of the lake. I was wrong, however. Salomé had had it all along. I wonder if, in my distraction that day, I’d just assumed it was unreachable. Or, hell, maybe it was Shemhazai all along. That’s what she’d have said, at least.
The stained-glass window in the library is the only thing I kept as is. If I look at it the way Bec does, it feels different, like the angel is standing over his fallen beloved. I can almost make myself see it as that angel watching over her in sleep. That may be fanciful, but I like it. If Willow wants it taken down, then I’ll take it down, but for now, it stays.
The authorities cleared away the bodies, Larissa handling every aspect of that. Salomé’s ashes sit by the door of the kitchen, outside where she used to keep Benedict. I picked them up this afternoon because I didn’t want to leave the stain of her where she could infect other lives but I won’t have her in the house again.
All in all, between our house and the Wildblood home, nine Disciples and twenty-two Society guards were killed, most on our property and most with Salomé’s help.
Ezra finally got back to me with the information he’d been verifying as far as Caleb Church’s early release from prison. Alfred Noyes had received a transfer of funds from Salomé Delacroix’s bank account. With those funds, he had made a significant donation to the re-election campaign of the judge who helped secure Caleb’s early release with the parole board. I wonder how long Salomé had known the details of Caleb’s attack on Willow. She’d been in touch with Noyes for the last few months, offering her assistance in their witch hunt in exchange for Caleb’s help in the matter of Willow.
Ironically, the judge who had presided over the case and had sealed her files and sentenced Caleb was the very same judge who helped to secure his early release. He has since been dealt with and, just before his untimely death, he generously donated all of that money to the families of the victims of the Disciples, benevolent soul that he was.
The news channels fell on this story like pigs in slop, outing the Disciples of a radical and violent cult led by the deceased Alfred Noyes. Noyes was the mastermind of the attacks, they reported, but his own Disciples turned on him in the eleventh hour.
The location of the events are being kept secret. I don’t want photos of either of our homes circulating on the internet for years to come. The names of the victims are also being kept secret. Being a Sovereign Son does have its privileges, although I will be in Hildebrand’s debt. I don’t much like the idea but it was worth it to protect the privacy of both Wildblood and Delacroix families, and to keep Caleb’s name out of the news story.
As far as anyone is concerned, Alfred Noyes was the insane man responsible for the attacks. His Disciples have also been linked to the majority of the murders of women over the years, that carved cross condemning the killers. As far as the public is concerned, Caleb Church has simply vanished, erased from this earth as if he never existed at all.
And very soon, that will be true.
I park the car at the IVI compound and turn to Willow. It’s the middle of the night and the courtyard is deserted, the buildings mostly dark except for one light that remains on in the Tribunal building.
“Are you sure you want to be a part of this?” I ask Willow. “I will take care of it.”
She is determined though, my fierce Little Witch. “I want to see him one more time.” Caleb Church almost killed her three times now. He hurt her family. He hurt a lot of families. I understand her wanting this. And Willow is strong. I always knew she was, but at Shemhazai’s altar, I witnessed the full breadth of her strength, Elizabeth’s enduring determination an undercurrent of that power.
It was the strangest thing during that final flash of lighting that killed the Disciples. I was looking at Willow with the noose around her neck and, for brief moments, it was as though she was Elizabeth. Not the Elizabeth gasping for her last breaths on Proctor’s Ledge, but the Elizabeth Wildblood fully in her power. She was the witch Elizabeth that Isaiah should have been afraid of.
“All right then.” I climb out of the car and go around to Willow’s side to take her arm. From the trunk of the car I take the small, leather bound parcel.
We walk hand in hand toward the Tribunal building to where the same man who showed us in on our wedding day waits for us. Looking like it’s normal for him to be here at three in the morning, he’s dressed impeccably in a dark suit. He nods to me in greeting before opening the door and gesturing for us to enter. His counterpart waits inside and this time, rather than leading us up to Councilor Hildebrand’s office, we are taken to a darker corridor and down a set of curving stone stairs half as wide as those leading up. They’re lit only by torches blazing with hot fire and as we descend the interminable staircase, I keep Willow close.
No one speaks, and the sound of three pairs of shoes hurrying along ancient stones echoes eerily.
Does Caleb hear us, I wonder? Does he hear his reckoning coming for him?
The Tribunal building houses not only the offices of the Councilors, who are the judges of the Society’s judicial system, and the courtroom itself, but below ground are several cells. Caleb won’t be spending too much time down here, though. Only those sentenced after the most heinous of crimes take up residence here, some as they await execution. There aren’t many of those, the last being a low-ranking member of the Society who had been responsible for the murders of several Sovereign Sons.
Lesser sentences are also carried out here. The Society’s protections are many, and their punishments equal those protections. Although archaic in nature, most members of IVI are good, upstanding citizens both inside and outside the walls of the Society, and never even know what goes on within the confines of the Tribunal.
We reach a door and the man guiding us holds up his hand for us to wait. I glance at Willow, whose eyes are wide as she takes it all in. It’s my first time down here, too, but it’s not very different from what I expected.
The man knocks once on the door before opening it, and I hear Hildebrand’s voice as he bids us enter. I gesture for Willow to walk in ahead of me, keeping my hand on her back at all times so she feels me beside her.
“Azrael,” Hildebrand says, walking around the desk set in this cave-like room. There is electricity, I notice, so I guess they use the flaming torches for dramatic effect. It fits.
“Councilor.” I shake his hand. “Thank you for meeting us at such a late hour.”
“These matters are best dealt with in late hours, are they not?” he asks with a dark smile. He’s no stranger to the ways of the Tribunal. He has presided as one of three Councilors for nearly all of his adult life. “Although it is unusual for a woman to be present,” he says with a glance at Willow. “With all due respect,” he adds.
“My wife has a history with Caleb Church, and she’s chosen to bear witness. I will not deny her that.” I don’t give him the opportunity to do so either.
“Of course. This way,” he says, opening the door and stepping out into the same corridor we just came down. Willow and I follow. “Everything has been arranged as you requested. He’s been looked after so he’s fully healed, care you were generous to provide, Azrael.”
“For selfish reasons, I assure you. I want him fully present for what is coming.”
He smiles, nods. “Oh, I am sorry to hear about the passing of your grandmother,” he says when we stop before an unlit corridor within which I hear rustling.
“I’m not,” I say curtly.
He studies me for a beat before picking up one of the torches and entering that dark hall. He knows it well, I can see from the ease with which he walks. I wonder if he’s aware he’s humming a jolly tune as he lights several torches and we finally come to a wider opening at the back of which is a wall of bars. It looks medieval.
“I apologize for the stench,” the Councilor says.
Willow is breathing through her mouth. I smell it, but don’t care.
The Councilor lights each of the torches as Willow and I wait. I take note of the marble baptismal font standing in the center of the space outside of the cell. It must have been a hell of a job to get it down here.
This is the arrangement I asked for. The one thing I need. I walk toward the font and unwrap the parcel I am carrying. In my periphery, I see him. Caleb Church. He stands from where he was seated in the corner and walks toward the bars to watch as I take out the dagger I found beside Alfred Noyes’s body and set it along the edge. I’m fairly certain it’s the one they used to etch their mark into their victims before murdering them.
Caleb Church will die the way he lived.
Councilor Hildebrand only glances at Caleb before making his way back toward us after having lit all the torches. He hands me an ancient looking key on a heavy iron ring.
“I’ll say good night then. Should you need anything, my man will be waiting within earshot. Rest assured he is discreet.”
“Thank you, Councilor,” I say, turning my full attention to Caleb.
Councilor Hildebrand’s footsteps recede and disappear. I hear the vague echo of him climbing the stairs we just took down.
I walk toward the cell, which truly is how I imagine a medieval cell would have been. There’s straw in one corner, which I assume is meant to be used as a bed, a bucket—the cause of the stench—and a plate of stale bread and a cup of water.
Caleb is dressed in a pair of ancient and filthy looking pants made out of what appears to be burlap. They’re too short on him and come up to his shins. His feet are bare, and I imagine the yellowed, fraying oversized shirt he’s wearing was once white. He has a few visible bruises but nothing close to what he deserves.
“You,” Caleb says to Willow. “You’re dead!”
When he was brought here, he was still unconscious. I imagine his last sight of Willow was when she was swinging before the strike of lighting that smashed Shemhazai’s statue to pieces.
Willow walks right up to the bars. “Sadly for you, no, I’m not. I’m alive and well and will walk out of here tonight to see another day tomorrow. You won’t be so lucky.”
Caleb stupidly shoots his arms through the bars to grab her, but I step in front of her.
“You won’t touch her,” I tell him. “You’ll deal with me tonight.”
He looks up at me, and I momentarily see fear in his eyes. I’m a lot bigger than him, and he’s on his own. He doesn’t have his Disciples to mindlessly do his bidding.
“She’s a witch and a whore, and you… You are the devil’s spawn!”
I snort and turn to Willow, gesturing for her to back away. She does, walking toward the baptismal font and picking up the dagger. I unlock the cell door and gesture for Caleb to step out.
He looks at me, at Willow, then at the mouth of the corridor.
“Feel free to try and run, but if you touch my wife, I’ll make your final night a very, very long one for you.”
He swallows, eyes up the exit again. He knows he’s not getting out of here, though.
“Come out, Caleb Church. Fight like a man with a man rather than hiding behind others to beat and murder women.”
He steps outside of his cell and I gesture to the font.
“I had this brought here just for you. You like to baptize the women before you kill them, isn’t that right?”
“I am God’s Prophet. I do his work.”
“Is rape his work?” Willow asks. “Is mutilation? Murder?”
He stalks toward her, his rage no less diminished in the time he’s spent here. I intercept him, take him by the hair on the back of his head, and march him toward the baptismal font. Without ceremony, I dunk his head in and hold it under while he thrashes. I pull him up after a few moments.
“It’s not holy water. I didn’t want you to spontaneously combust.” I push his head under again and his scream, swallowed by the water, turns to bubbles. His hands come to the edge of the font to pull himself up. He doesn’t get up, though, until I allow it. “By the way, Brother Amos succumbed to his wounds. That’s another life on your hands.”
I dunk again, then straighten him, water splashing my shirt.
“You’ll burn in hell for what you’re doing!” he spits as he tries to suck in air.
“Willow,” I say, holding my hand out to her. “The dagger.”
Willow comes to my side, but she doesn’t hand me the dagger. I take his arms and hold them at his back when she steps up close to Caleb, and I watch as she stares him down. He struggles against me, but he’s not going to get free.
“You hurt my family,” she says. “You hurt countless innocent women. You hurt me. Now I’m going to hurt you in our name.”
“Willow,” I start, because I don’t want his blood on her hands. I won’t allow it.
“It is my due, Azrael.”
She is right. Hell, she’s due more than this. I shift his wrists to one hand and, knowing what she’ll do, I grip his hair and tug his head backward with the other.
Willow’s eyes meet mine over Caleb’s head. I nod and hold him still as she dips the tip of the blade into the water and slowly, and with great care, carves not a cross but a crescent moon into his forehead. Caleb, the coward, screams. He screams so loud the sound echoes after he stops.
“This is for all of those women and girls you hurt, you piece of shit. This is for all the families you destroyed.”
Willow’s knuckles are white around the hilt of the dagger and I see the emotion in her damp eyes. I see what it’s costing her because at her core, she is not violent. She is loving, caring. She is the opposite of him. So, I draw Caleb away and close my hand over hers to lower it, hugging her to me as she weeps for herself, and for all the others.
As her tears subside, she draws away and nods and I give my attention once more fully to Caleb Church. This time, when I dunk his head beneath the water, I don’t let him up. Not when he stops struggling. Not when the bubbles vanish and the water stills. Not when piss runs down his leg and pools at his feet. I don’t let him up until his body is limp and boneless.
And once it’s over, I drop him to the ground, the dagger with him, and I take my wife home.
I take my wife home to heal. For us to begin anew.