Page 91 of The Year of the Witching

No.

Gazing around the cathedral—at the corpses crowding the aisles, at Glory sobbing on Abram’s chest, at all the suffering and the senselessness—Immanuelle was certain of one thing: There was no divinity in this violence. No justice. No sanctity. All that ruin and pain had been wrought not from the Mother’s darkness or the Father’s light, but from the sins of man.

They had brought this fate upon themselves. They were complicit in their own damnation.

They did this.

Not the Mother. Not the Father.

Them.

“You ought to burn for this,” said the Prophet, whispering now though it was so quiet in the church that everyone could hear him. “Take her to the pyre.”

At his command, what was left of the Prophet’s Guard broke forward, their rifles raised. But Immanuelle and Ezra were ready. As the Prophet’s men backed them toward the altar, Immanuelle sprang for Lilith’s corpse and ripped the gutting blade from herskull. Ezra snatched one of the fallen guardsmen’s rifles and raised it—peering down the barrel with one eye shut, his finger curled over the trigger.

“Don’t make us do this,” said Immanuelle, raising the gutting blade. “There’s been enough bloodshed today.”

There was a chorus of jeers and shouts. A crowd of the survivors pressed into the center aisle. Immanuelle took a step closer to Ezra, the gutting blade raised and readied. She would hack her way to the cathedral doors if she had to. She hadn’t come this far just to die at the hands of a mob. But as the throng pressed closer, Immanuelle realized they weren’t shouting at her and Ezra.

No. Their eyes were on their Prophet.

Vera was the first to push past the Prophet’s Guard, limping between them and Immanuelle. She’d been wounded in the attack; her leg looked broken, there was a deep gash at her hairline, and the left side of her face was slick with blood. But despite the severity of her injuries, her stance was that of a soldier’s. “To get to her, you’ll have to strike me down first.”

More women followed, almost all of them from the Outskirts, placing themselves as shields between Immanuelle and the Prophet’s Guard. Glory joined them, elbowing to Immanuelle’s side with a fierce cry, and Anna followed after with Honor on her hip.

Martha stepped forward next, much to Immanuelle’s shock. “I stand with them.”

Esther staggered toward her son and, emboldened by their matriarch, a few of the Prophet’s brides followed suit. More joined the ranks. Men of the Outskirts. Leah’s mother and older sisters, then other women of the Church after them—little girls no older than Glory, matriarchs who could scarcely walk without the help of their canes. All of them moved forward in unison, flooding the aisle, forcing themselves between Immanuelle and the Prophet.

The Guard faltered, and a few lowered their rifles, unable to point their guns at their wives and mothers... their sisters and aunts. Slowly, more and more women, and a few men, stepped forward to join the throng.

A chant began. At first it was little more than a murmur, like the sound of distant thunder. But then the chorus spread through the crowd, rising to the rafters and blasting through the cathedral,“Blood for blood. Blood for blood. Blood for blood.”

The Prophet cowered in the shadows of the altar, watching in horror as his flock raised their voices against him. They left their pews behind them and spilled into the aisle, surging to the front of the church.“Blood for blood. Ash to ash. Dust to dust.”

Ezra raised his hand and they stopped dead, like hunting dogs trained to heel at the foot of their master. He turned to Immanuelle. “Give me the blade.”

No one moved.

No one uttered a single word. Not a curse. Not a prayer. Not a protest. The whole flock looked on in silence.

Immanuelle’s gaze shifted from him to the Prophet. From father to son. She didn’t move.

Ezra extended his hand again. “For your father,” he whispered. “For your mother. For Leah. For Abram. For us. Let it be over. Let it be done with.”

Immanuelle stared at the Prophet, cowering there on the ground, pleading for his life. Then she raised her gaze to Ezra. “Is this what you really want? Is this what you want to be?”

Ezra drew a little closer, stepping with care like he was afraid he’d spook her. “What I want is to make sure this never happens again. I want a world where sins are atoned for. A world where evil men suffer for their wrongdoing.”

“So did Lilith,” Immanuelle whispered. “So did my mother.”

Ezra winced a little at that, like her words cut him. “He deserves to die for what he’s done. He would have put a blade through your heart. He killed your father. He preyed on your mother and countless other girls. We can’t let him walk free. Blood begets blood.”

“The boy is right, Immanuelle.” Vera shouldered to the front of the crowd, limping badly. “Think of your father burning on the pyre. Think of the people in the Outskirts, resigned to a life of squalor and suffering because of the greed of this man, and all of the others that came before him. You have a chance to seek recompense for their suffering. So raise the knife and take it.”

Immanuelle’s hand tightened around the hilt. All at once, she knew what she had to do.

“The world you want can’t be bought with blood. You build it with the choices you make, with the things you do. Either we can keep purging, keep the pyres burning, keep hoping that our prayers will be enough to save us—or we can build something better. A world without slaughter.” Immanuelle held out the gutting blade to Ezra. “It’s your choice. I have no right to take it from you.”

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