Page 22 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
“Sophia,” Juniper snapped. Her voice cut through the darkness.
Heretic,someone hissed. A scream lodged in Sophia’s throat.
“Look at me,” Juniper said.
Sophia cracked her eyes open. The suddenness of her was startling. Darkness pressed on the light haloing the psychic. Amy was gone, and Juniper stood in her place, golden, glowing. She breathed like she’d been running. Her aura flickered.You look like Mary,Sophia almost said.Like Holy Mother.But she sobbed instead.
The scream trapped inside her became a storm. Something she could wield. Something she could harness. But as she reached, tangling her fingers in the feeling, she couldn’t find the strength to release it.
“Come back,” Juniper said, nodding.
The pit where’d she’d fallen was like quicksand. Invisible hands latched around her ankles, tugged at her clothes, and cuffed her wrists.This is the river Styx, this is Xibalba, this is the place before Hell.Cries and chatter came and went, some familiar, some not.Judas spewed and gurgled, speaking a language she didn’t know. Closer, Colin’s voice ricocheted—Michael, mighty and merciful, do not leave us stranded in our time of need—and Tehlor called out—Sophia! C’mon, get her back! What the fuck is happening, get her—and Bishop’s jaguar snarled close by. But it was Juniper who remained buried in her consciousness, holding tight to her spirit.
“They can’t have you,” she rasped. Desperation looked strange on her. She set her teeth and narrowed her eyes. “Come on, Sophia, come back. You have to decide, you have to make the choice—wake up!”
Gold, frankincense, myrrh,Sophia thought.Wise men once looked to a planet masquerading as a star and found their way through the dark.
“Wake up,” Juniper shouted, thumbs situated at each corner of Sophia’s mouth.
Move, priest.Lincoln.Your angels aren’t coming this time.
“Please, Sophia.” The psychic shook her head. “Follow me—”
The volume increased tenfold. Judas, Amy, Kimberly—all the spiritual residue leaking into her from purgatory—screamed at the very same time. Agony racked Sophia’s small frame. Pain. Visceral, hellishpainshot through her chest, singed her throat, burned her bones. One moment, she was facing Juniper Castle, trapped in darkness, and the next, she was standing outside herself, watching Lincoln Stone press his bare hand to the base of her neck.
You’re burning,someone said, wailing through her skull.We’re burning!
Sophia surveyed the scene. Tehlor covered her mouth with both hands. Bishop turned away; their lips folded into a grimace. Colin, reaching for her, surrounded by silver light, and Juniper rising from her chair, mouth agape mid-shout. Lincoln’s palm glowed red-hot.Skin sizzled.Her skin.Again, time had slowed to a crawl, but the second Sophia leaned toward herself, she regained control.
Coming back felt like dying. It was the terrifying part. The hard part.
The first thing she did was gasp, filling her lungs until they hurt.
The second thing she did was scream. No sound came, though. Only the action, only the intention. She thrust both hands out, hitting Lincoln’s wide chest, and jumped to her feet, sending the chair toppling over behind her. The delicate flesh between her collarbones sizzled, charred from Lincoln’s hellfire. She reached for the wound but stopped, holding her trembling hands above the blackened palm print.
Everyone shouted her name. Tehlor darted toward her, Colin set his hand on her shoulder, Juniper said something sharp in Spanish, and Lincoln sighed. Bishop was the only one who kept their distance, watching her from the other side of the table.
“Unnecessary,” Colin hissed at Lincoln.
“Right, because yourprayerssure got the job done, exorcist,” Lincoln snapped back.
“We’ll fix you up,” Tehlor said, hushed, nodding vigorously. “Bishop’s a healer, they can—”
Sophia jerked away. She felt loose in her body. Clumsy, almost. Like she’d shrugged on a thrift store jacket or stepped into pants two sizes too big. Part of her wanted to fall to her knees. A larger, louder part of her, took shelter in the comfortable repetition of a childhood mantra, saiddigger, listener, runner.Before she could think better of it, Sophia ran. She elbowed her way past Lincoln and flew through the front door.
Colin rushed after her. “Wait!”
“Let her go,” Juniper said. Her voice grew distant as Sophia’s bare feet smacked the pavement. “I’ll find her.”
Night fell over West Hollywood, disrupted by neon bar signs and brightly lit food trucks. People dressed in designer clothes stomped on sidewalks and puffed vape pens outside of crowded clubs. Most of them didn’t look at her, but a few did. Perfectly curled eyelashes flicked, following Sophia’s jilted movements. Pouty lips moved quickly around commentary she couldn’t hear spoken casually to people she didn’t know. Someone glanced at her naked feet. Another person averted their gaze, shying away from the sight of her. When she focused, she noticed the uninvited. Graying skin, broken flesh, burial clothes. The dead mingled with the living, watching Sophia stumble along, the final girl in a cheap horror flick.
She still felt incompatible with her body, like a program downloaded into the wrong machine.
The busy city block gave way to lamplit neighborhoods and darkened alleys. She skirted along the edge of the populated areas, startling at the gruff sound of a nearby bark and the clatter of a metal trash can. People shouted, laughter echoed, and Sophia quickened her pace, bundling her sleeves into each sweaty palm.Los Angeles isn’t beautiful.The thought came and went as she dodged a broken bottle.None of this is beautiful.
Not the escape, not the grief, not the magic.
“Lord, I come to you orphaned,” she choked out, murmuring the prayer under her breath. “In need of a shepherd. For when Moses saw the burning bush, he knew it was you, and when the angel appeared to Abraham, he saiddo not be afraid,but I am afraid. I’m scared of dying, I’m scared of living, I’m scared of what I became at the revival and what I’m becoming now. I need you to show me.” Her throat tightened. She turned down a quiet street and walked toward a warehouse covered in graffiti. “Show me, Almighty. Show me what I am.Tellme what I’m supposed to do.”
