Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Fire singedthe ends of Father Auguste’s hair; the thick smoke surged down his throat and into his nostrils. But he stood firm. His fists were clenched at his sides as he stood among the pile of fallen priests. He scanned over their bodies, his eyes streaming from the acrid fumes that rose from the charred pews and paintings of Brethren warriors of old, from the crumbling barn walls. But even with his vision encumbered, he could see that not all of them had been killed in the explosions. Some had knife wounds. Some had slit throats and sliced-open stomachs.

Auguste shook with rage, but he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He would not succumb to rage. He would not give himself over to wrath—he wouldn’t sin.

He opened his eyes and walked over the bodies littering the floor. Some groaned and rolled, only half dead, their souls still gripping on to the hope that they would be saved. But it wouldn’t be by Auguste. These men had failed him. They had failed the Brethren by being weak.

They had failed Father Quinn.

Father Auguste headed to the back of barn. Father Abel came rushing to meet him. His face was dusted with ash and sweat. He bowed before Auguste. “The Fallen, the Coven … they got away,” he said, head lowering further in shame.

Auguste felt his legs shake. His temper rose along with the scalding air in the destroyed barn. He clenched his jaw, his bones aching at the pressure.

Auguste walked past his Brethren brother and stood in the doorway of the room his prisoners had been kept in. He could see small drops of blood on the ground from their wounds. He dampened the darkness that tried to sweep through him, tried to make him forget his mission, the holy path that he had been chosen by God to walk upon. It was a demon clattering its sharp claws against the window of his soul, trying to shatter the glass and climb inside. But Auguste wouldn’t break. He wouldn’t bend to evil.

Unlike his heathen brother.

Selaphiel’s face appeared in Auguste’s mind. Auguste’s little brother was bigger now, grown. Auguste had always wondered what he’d look like older. Exactly like Auguste did, it turned out, only a fraction taller and broader. But where Auguste had a crusader’s warrior heart, Selaphiel was weak and too susceptible to sin. Selaphiel had always been weak, opening his soul up for possession, welcoming evil into his heart to sully its purity.

Even among the dying flames around him, Auguste felt a flash of victory as he remembered how Selaphiel had looked at him. Disgust. Selaphiel’s demonic self had seen Auguste’s righteousness shining through—his total opposite. He pushed Selaphiel from his mind. He couldn’t stand thinking of him any longer.

Auguste turned on his heel and left the smoldering barn for the waiting town car outside. He slid into the back seat and nodded at the driver to take him away. As the orange glow of the burning barn disappeared into the countryside behind him, Auguste thought about the Fallen and the Coven joining forces. He had no idea how the two groups had even met. Their lives had never overlapped. None of the Brethren’s imprisoned sinners ever met another group; they kept them all far apart. What the Fallen and Coven could not have known was that, over the years, many others had escaped, slipped through the cracks too.

And they were being tracked down. A special unit of Brethren soldiers had been tasked with bringing back lost souls who had managed to flee the Brethren and the eternal salvation it offered.

Auguste thought of the explosions, the screams, the surprise attack. It had not been the Fallen and Coven. They wouldn’t have had a chance to plant bombs. No. Someone else was involved. Auguste tried to think of what other enemy group it could have been, but he could not pin down a firm suspect. In truth, it could have been any one of the escapees from over the years. Maybe the Fallen and Coven were working with them too. If that was true, the threat they all posed could be greater than he thought.

Inky rage crawled back up his skin. But Auguste blocked it out. He took out his Brethren Bible and focused on the passages to soothe his frayed nerves. The war with the Brethren’s enemies would be long. The Crusades had taken centuries. Auguste could bide his time. He would push his soldiers harder, make them unstoppable.

But one day he would have the Fallen back in captivity. He would have the Coven back in his dungeon and under his firm hand. And he would finish his task of exorcising them, of defeating the evil they possessed.

Auguste was young.

Patience was a virtue.

So he would wait.