Chapter 10
MERCY
I take my place on the altar anointed with white cloths and polished, silver candlesticks, ostentatious displays of opulence and wealth, while members of Reverend Mathers' flock starve.
Silas drags the roused pretender down the wooden aisles of his church by the side of his neck, feet kicking and scraping.
Throws him at my feet. My lip curls as I look down on him, calling out for God in choked sputters.
It was delicious, watching Silas rip him from his slumber at the parsonage behind the church, a house far more distinguished than most in the village, his night dress twisted around his legs.
My Bonded looms above him, that flaming gourd summoned right back in place, striking terror into the abomination at his feet.
I did want a bit of drama.
Mathers banishes Silas in the name of God, threatening damnation as he pulls the cross up from around his neck and wards it against him.
But those words are spoken to a God he does not truly serve, and there will be no Deus Ex Machina to strike us down.
His God is as disgusted as we. I quirk an eyebrow, impressed by the audacity he has to name us as monsters with the stains that sit on his soul.
"I command you, foul demons, in the name of God to leave this house of worship—"
"Which God?" Silas asks, his voice low and menacing as his mouth twists unnaturally to form the words.
"What?" the Reverend's jaw goes slack, stunned and confused. Silas bends, lowering his flaming head closer, the firelight casting golds and yellows over his night dress.
"To which God are you referring when you are begging to be delivered from this evil?" he asks, slow, patient, enunciating each word. The Reverend stutters and stammers, pushing onto his knees, broken and frail. I can smell this stench of him from where I sit.
The fear.
Putrid. Different from the others, because he believes that he is a righteous man, and that makes it all the more devastating. His wrinkled, gnarled hands come together over the wooden cross in his grip, his eyes falling shut.
He begins to pray.
"I believe in the one true God, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross—"
"He would have dropped you in the fucking Red Sea for destroying the innocence of countless children.
" I bark. He flinches back, eyes wide, full as fear as I crack open his chest and pull out his darkest, deepest, most depraved secrets.
I devour them as I demolish him. "Gods and Kindred have existed for as long as this rock has hurtled through the heavens.
I have lived to see countless civilizations born from sticks and mud, built with rock and stone, only to fall, bloody and broken, and do you know what every one of them had in common?
" Disdain oozes from every word that drips from my lips, slicing from my razor-sharp tongue.
“Men like you, good Reverend, who exalted themselves above the others, who forced false supplication upon those they deemed less worthy.”
He shakes his head, dismissing my venom even as his eyes leak, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever."
"Oh boy," Silas sighs, sagely stepping away as my anger rises, filling every inch of this room, the wood groaning at the pressure. I push off the altar, getting right into his face. He sprawls back, shaking, mortified, limbs insubstantially thin and frail.
"I walked with him in Nazareth, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer.
I watched him preach love and kindness and acceptance.
He commanded you to do the same, all of you.
And men like you, they took that kind prophet, they put him on a cross and crucified him, then twisted his message to harm and hurt and break anyone they deemed different.
Any who threatened their power. Love thy neighbor—instead you condemn him.
You keep account for any slight that will keep your boot on his neck, so you may feel more important.
Jesus told you to show kindness and charity and you mock his words with your very existence.
Countless 'Holy' wars, the rape and desecration of pagan cultures, murdering millions of those that Jesus Christ would have broken bread with.
" I rise, and lightning crackles on the lifted strands of my hair.
"Do not count your seat at his table, Reverend, for he taught kindness and love and peace, and you are a stranger to them as I have ever seen.
So no, I do not fear the darkness. I do not fear the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but you do.
Should I administer your Last Rites? Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. .."
My body soars back through the air, and I settle down on his pristine altar, watching. Waiting. Silas' bare feet land like thunder, an omen that rattles the good Reverend's last vestiges for self-preservation.
"One day, you will kneel at the altar of our Lord God, and h-he will punish you for this!
" He shouts, brandishing his cross in shaking hands toward Silas.
He halts, and for a brief moment, the Reverend exhales in relief.
Tensions swells in the room, the anticipation thrilling.
Without warning, Silas strikes, eyes on me, gripping Mathers around the neck and raising him to his considerable height.
Gnarled feet dangle and kick, finding no purchase on the air.
"I fear the only altar I have ever worshiped at lies between her thighs," his eyes turn to me, flaming pits of retribution that sends my core molten.
He squeezes, the snap of bone louder than lighting striking oak.
Mather's eyes bulge and he screams, but his body falls limp, still alive but in paralysis.
Conscious, as Silas tears him limb from limb, desecrating the body of the abuser with vehement violence.
He rips, he claws, he eviscerates. It is the highest form of personal treason to harm a child, sacrilege of our most basic tenet to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Silas Cohen is a protector.
He feels the failure of every child, every offense, boy and girl alike, suffered at the vile touch of this man's hands.
He renders flesh from bone, destroying, stripping Mathers of every dignity for those children, of which there were many, orphaned victims of opportunity left in the care of the Church.
The screams stop, a shout to gurgle, and I look up to see my Bonded, baptized in blood.
It drips in a deluge from his shoulders, his muscles, his eyelashes, a slowly beating heart clutched between his fingers.
Green eyes, stare back at me, his form restored.
Silas is returned, as rooted as the great Yggdrasil.
There is only the final piece left, but he charges forward, blood lust surging through his veins.
Covered in violence, I see him in two lifetimes, here and now, in this new world—and turns ago, shrieking into the heavens, awash in battle and blood, eyes white with root and rage.
"I have to have you. Now." He rushes me on a harsh growl, breathing deep.
Pushing me back against the altar, lifting my legs over his blood slickened shoulders, he kisses his way up my thighs.
Warm tongue caressing, he erases every trace of the taste of that monster from his mouth with my flesh—my body a balm for his chaos.
I cry out when he flattens his tongue, one hand clasped around my thigh, skirts pushed up around my waist, and licks me from top to bottom, wedging his broad shoulders for more access.
He eats.
He feasts.
My taste on his tongue and an offering in his hands.
The Cast spirals through the base of my spine, arches my back as I grind myself faster against him.
Silas slams the heart against the altar, the ritual completed, the offering accepted.
These sacrifices were for his soul return, but for him, they were in tribute to me and as he kneels at the altar of my body, he worships me.
Fingers grips both thighs, mouth groans against my heated flesh as his tongue pushes inside of me.
He salivates as it laps back up, sucks that most sensitive space—
"Fuck!" I cry out, slapping my hand against his shoulder, fingers slipping in the mess, but I dig my nails in as he presses and licks and flicks, my vision narrowing and blackening, the world spinning.
We both come on a groan, his release a roar, mine a broken cry and in this house of worship built on sand, we are reforged, once more.