Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

“Your grandpa tried,” he allowed with a smile that sliced sharply between his cheeks as he flipped through a worn, black leather Bible. “But his connection to God was lessened by the sins of his house. Your sister turned your family name to one of wickedness.”

I wanted to speak, to tell him that my sister had done no such thing, that my grandpa was the saintliest man I knew, but my tongue was dry and heavy in my mouth.

Tabby was undressing me, I realized with a sharp stab of panic, cutting my clothes away until I wore just my underwear. Seth studied me almost clinically, but it was Tabby who spoke. “You and I will both tend to our messiah. I am his physical wife, tied to his bodily needs, and I will produce his heirs. But you will be his spiritual equal, his holy wife. He deserves this. God sent him a vision of it.”

I was able to whimper, just barely, but Tabby only gave me a little smile warm with comradery. “It will be an adjustment as Seth teaches you our ways, but when you settle in, I know you’ll love being with us.”

“You’ll recognize many of our flock from First Light Church,” Seth boasted as Tabby pulled an old-fashioned white dress with a ruffled neck over my head, pulling my arms through the long sleeves. “Opal Burns, of course, played Tabby so brilliantly in the clearing today. Her son Owen already sacrificed himself for our cause, so it was only fitting Opal should follow. And Eric…” He clucked his tongue. “Well, I tried with him, I really did. He came to our church so diligently at first, but then I sensed him turning from my light. His sacrifice was necessary.”

Seeing the panic in my eyes, Seth paused in his pacing and Bible skimming to bend down to me. “They shot him in the clearing, you see, thinking he fired the gun. It was Opal, good sweet Opal so pious for me. The women always are. It takes a little more to swing the men, but that is why I have Tabitha.”

Tabby laughed warmly, clearly delighted by the praise.

Eric.

Oh, my God.

Sweet, beautiful Eric with his plays at rebellion and his pure heart.

Tears burned the backs of my eyes and tipped down my cheeks. Seth tutted me as he bent to collect my now robed form in his arms the way grooms carried their brides.

“Don’t cry for him. He’s not worth your beautiful heart. You’ll learn, only the devout are gifted with God’s light.”

He was crazy. So crazy. Inside my frozen body, I shivered and railed against his tender hold. I imagined ripping out his throat with my teeth, cursing him to hell, breaking his neck. Instead, I lay limply in his hold as he took me outside into the brightly moonlit night and started around the back of the church. A river babbled through the snow, punctured with shards of gleaming ice.

“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he said, inhaling deeply like a child on Christmas morning, filled with excited anticipation. “I will baptise you, cleanse you of your sins, and then you will be mine. My pure God-given wife. I’ll kill the man you sinned with,” he promised like a lover’s pledge. “He doesn’t deserve to live after he’s sullied you.”

He stared down at me, his face hidden from the moon’s light, so dark he seemed like an abyss with a disembodied voice. “‘When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring,’” he quoted from Ezekiel in the Bible. “I almost turned from you, sweet Bea, because of your sister and your filthy relationship with the biker, but that would have been a mistake. I am the Prophet of God, I have the power to cleanse you of your sister’s taint, of your biker man’s touch, of your many recent sins. I will help make you pure and whole again so we can be as one.”

Tabby hadn’t followed us, which was why, I’m sure, he felt secure in touching my cheek tenderly and whispering, “I’ll kill her, too, my sweet Bea. So we can be together in all ways as man and wife. Just be patient.”

Be patient.

I would be.

I’d wait until the moment presented itself, and then I would run. If I couldn’t run, I would fight. I would not go gracefully into Seth’s fucked-up night.

He stepped into the creek, wading into the middle where the water was hip-deep. He lowered me into the stream, the icy water shocking my system. The feeling began to burn through me, thawing my limbs of desensitization with the cold.

Hope sprang spring green and delicate in my chest.