Sarah wondered where the voice of the Goddess was as she was led down the aisle—more like dragged down it—by Amos and Charlie.
Goddess, she thought frantically. Goddess please, I know you said to be patient and that help was on the way but we’re getting down to the wire here. Where is the help you promised?
She was desperate to do anything to put off the ceremony, which she knew was going to be short and perfunctory. The Prophet didn’t really care about the wedding part of the whole business, his main interest lay in what came directly after—the claiming of his bride.
There was a “Bridal Bower” waiting just through the far doors of the chapel—really just a back room with a large four-poster bed in it. The bed was kept draped in white and fresh sheets were laid for each new Bride of the Prophet. Father Caleb liked to keep the sheets he used with virgins as trophies, after they had been stained with blood.
Only there won’t be any blood from me, Sarah thought dismally. And that’s going to make him so mad!
What would make him even madder was if the Alquon stay-tight still hadn’t dissolved—which it hadn’t the last time Sarah had checked in the shower. If he couldn’t get to get what he wanted, he would doubtless take his anger and lust out on her some other way. And it would be twice as bad when he learned she wasn’t a virgin anymore.
Father Caleb would take any woman in The Brotherhood who suited his fancy as a “bride” but it was the virgins he liked the most. Especially young girls he’d watched grow up in the Compound. He often referred to them as “Flowers waiting to be plucked” or more crudely, when he was speaking only to the men—his Controllers—he might say, “cunts waiting to be fucked.”
That was all women were to him, only that and nothing more.
Disgusting old monster! Sarah thought, remembering her own adolescence, hiding and shying away from The Prophet, praying he wouldn’t see past her glasses and her bulky clothes. No one should have to live with that fear, that uncertainty. No little girl should have to look in the mirror and pray, “Please God, make me ugly so The Prophet doesn’t want me.”
And now The Prophet did want her and there was no place to run. No place to hide.
Though she tried to drag her feet, Sarah soon found herself at the front of the chapel, just below the raised dais reserved only for The Prophet.
Father Caleb was standing there, dressed as usual, in blinding white, with a benign smile on his face.
“Beloved,” he began as Sarah was brought to a halt with Amos and Charlie both holding her arms to keep her from running. “We are gathered here today to bring this lucky young woman into the light by making her a Bride of the Prophet.”
Father Caleb always performed his own “weddings.” In this way he could get the inconsequential ceremony done as soon as possible and take his new “bride” directly to the Bridal Bower to enjoy her assets.
“We…” Father Caleb stopped for a moment and frowned, putting a hand to his belly. Then his face cleared and he resumed. “We know that such unions are right and just because The Prophet must purify.”
“He is the Prophet—he will purify,” chanted the congregation. The males were sitting on the left and the females of the Compound—of which there were many more—sat on the right of the small chapel.
“And the only way to…to purify.” Father Caleb winced, as though at some internal pain. “The only way to purify a female is to…to take her as my bride.” He winced again.
Sarah was watching him closely. What was going on? Usually he was smooth as silk during these ceremonies. He’d preformed so many of them he knew the words by heart. So why was he hesitating and wincing?
“He is the Prophet—he shall purify,” the congregation chanted on cue and there were a few scattered murmurs of, “Blessed be.”
“When I take…take a bride as my own…” The Prophet was sweating now and his face had gone red but he went doggedly on. “When I take her she is brought…brought to purity by my touch.”
“By his touch,” chanted the audience. “By his touch she is made pure. By his touch. By his touch.”
“But I don’t want you to touch me!” Sarah wasn’t sure where she got the courage to do it but she heard her voice ringing out above the brainwashed murmurs.
“Shut up, you little slut!” Amos shook her but she didn’t care.
“I don’t want to be a Bride of the Prophet!” she shouted, glaring at Father Caleb. “And I bet none of the girls he’s ‘purified’ wanted to be his ‘bride’ either!”
“Silence her!” Father Caleb made a chopping motion with one hand. He was shaking now and his face was more purple than red. Something was definitely wrong with him. “Shut her up!”
“You just don’t want to hear the truth!” Sarah shouted.
“Shut up, bitch!” Charlie slapped a meaty palm over her mouth. “Shut up and wait for The Prophet to finish.”
Sarah bit him and he screamed hoarsely, ripping his hand away from her teeth and splattering blood on her white “wedding gown.”
“You little cunt!” he roared and lifted his hand to punch her.
He was too close to duck. Sarah closed her eyes…but the blow never came.
Suddenly a warm, spicy, familiar scent filled her senses and a low, dangerously soft voice filled her ears.
“How dare you touch my female?”
Sarah’s eyes flew open and she stared in shock at Sazar. The big Kindred had Charlie’s upraised fist held casually in his own much larger hand and he was glaring down at the smaller man.
Charlie was clearly doing his best to move but though Sazar didn’t appear to be using any effort at all, he couldn’t get free or budge his captured hand so much as an inch.
“Get away from my female…now.” Sazar spoke in a soft, measured voice yet there was so much rage in his tone it froze Sarah’s blood.
“Okay, okay—just let me go, man! I wasn’t gonna hurt her—I swear,” Charlie gasped.
“You’ll never hurt anyone again—not with this hand.” The big Kindred’s fist tightened and there was a crunching sound, like many small branches breaking.
Charlie’s face went pale and he sank to his knees, moaning. When Sazar finally loosened his grip, the thing he released hardly looked like a hand at all.
More like a baggie of meat with a few crooked sticks poking out of it, Sarah thought, feeling slightly ill.
The rest of the Controllers had raced over by now but they stood uncertainly, milling around Charlie who was moaning and clutching his ruined hand.
Sazar ignored them and focused on Sarah.
“Are you all right? Did they hurt you? I swear to the Goddess I’ll kill every last one of them if they so much as laid a single finger on you, Sarah.”
“No, I…I’m all right. They didn’t get a chance.” Sarah swallowed hard. “That…that would have come after the ceremony.”
“Kindred devil!” Father Caleb shouted, his voice hoarse and strained.
All eyes had been focused on Sazar and Sarah but now the entire congregation looked to The Prophet again. He was shaking and clutching his belly, his face going from pale to puce and back again. He pointed a shaking finger at Sazar.
“He is a devil and she…she is his witch! She has poisoned me! Poisoned the Prophet!” he groaned.
Surprised murmurs ran through the crowd. “Poisoned the Prophet? She poisoned the Prophet? How?” “How did she…?” “Why did she…?” “What did she…?”
The same questions were running through Sarah’s head. She’d been so stunned by the sudden appearance of Sazar she hadn’t had time to really question what was going on with Father Caleb.
But suddenly she remembered the brown chample.
“Tastes just like chocolate cream pie,” she’d told Father Caleb.
Apparently he’d believed her—at least enough to take a bite. And one bite was all it took.
“You heard Father Caleb—this little bitch poisoned the Prophet!” Amos, who had backed off when Sazar entered the room, suddenly roared. He surged forward and so did the rest of the Controllers—all of them burly men Father Caleb had picked for their strength more than their brains.
“Stay behind me, Sarah.” There was a light in Sazar’s eyes—the light of battle…of rage. She saw them flash from pale to red and knew someone was going to die if they didn’t watch out.
“Get back,” she shouted at the Controllers. “Get back, you idiots! He’ll kill you all!”
As if to illustrate her point, Sazar bared his teeth, flashing his double set of fangs which had grown long and sharp.
Sarah heard someone mutter, “Fucking vampire!” and then Sazar waded into the knot of Controllers, moving faster than her human eyes could see.
Everything was a mass of confusion. There were blurs of motion followed by hoarse screams and cries. Controllers dropped to the floor clutching wounded throats, broken arms, shattered ribs…Father Caleb was roaring from the front of the chapel and the rest of the congregation was too shocked to do anything but watch, though some of the Sisters screamed and fainted.
He really will kill them, Sarah thought numbly. All of them…
And then a new voice rang out.
“Sazar, stop!”
Sarah’s head jerked around and she saw Commander Sylvan standing at the entrance to the chapel. He was flanked by four large, menacing looking policemen although not even Tampa’s finest could look as big and scary as a Kindred warrior. Still, they were enough to make the males in the congregation—the ones Sazar wasn’t currently fighting—look pale and start edging for the doors.
“Enough, Sazar,” Sylvan shouted again. “Release the Rage—your female is safe. The human police are here to help us. You must not kill.”
Sarah wasn’t certain if it was the authority in his commanding officer’s voice or the pleading in her own voice when she whispered, “Sazar, please stop!” that made the big Kindred still his violence. She only knew there wasn’t a single Controller left standing when he straightened up and his eyes gradually went from red to pale.
“What’s all this about? How dare you come in here like this and interrupt a wedding ceremony?” Father Caleb demanded. He was still clutching his stomach but sick or not he was clearly unwilling to allow anyone else with authority within his venue.
“We have reports of a kidnapping, not a wedding,” said one of the policemen.
“Yes, that’s true,” Sarah said, stepping forward. “Father Caleb had me snatched off the street yesterday. He planned to pretend to marry me today and then rape me in the back room of the chapel. Then…” Her voice got suddenly tight and she almost couldn’t go on. “Then he was going to…to let his Controllers—these men…” She pointed to the fallen men, lying on the floor of the chapel groaning. “He was going to…to give me to them. And let them rape me too.”
“Bastard!” Sazar’s eyes began to glow red again and his big hands, already bloody, curled into fists.
“Liar—she’s a witch and a liar!” Father Caleb shouted. He looked at the policemen and somehow managed to find his old reliable televangelist grin. “Jonathan Styles, I know you! We worked together at the last policeman’s fundraiser. Now who are you going to believe? A man you trust or this little witch?”
“Well…” The policeman, who seemed to be the ranking officer, began to waver. “You’ve always seemed like a good guy before, Father Caleb,” he said. “I’m just not sure what to believe here.”
Sarah’s heart sank. Was this all going to be for nothing? Would The Prophet get away with the evil he’d been doing for so many years because of his duplicitous charisma and charm?
“It’s true—everything Sarah said is true.” The new voice came from the female side of the chapel. Sarah whipped around and saw Sister Jenny standing there, her chin lifted defiantly. “They did it to me too,” she said, speaking to the policeman Father Caleb had been trying to win over. “I ran away too—like Sarah did. And they found me and brought me back. And when they did…” Her voice started to choke but her eyes never wavered, though they filled with tears and spilled over. “When they did Father Caleb “married” me and he let the others do it too!”
“He did it to me too,” another girl spoke up—Sister Lena who was younger than Sarah by several years and heavily pregnant. “He does it to all the young girls in the Compound—rapes them and then passes them off to the men who serve him best.”
“Sister Lena and Sister Jenny and Sarah are telling the truth,” another girl spoke up.
“It’s true—it’s all truth. He keeps us here—we can never leave,” said another. “We’re prisoners!”
One by one, they rose and spoke. Mostly the younger women, whose spirits hadn’t been broken yet…but some of the older ones as well. Sarah was sad to see her mother was not among them but at least she now knew she wasn’t alone.
“Listen to these women, Officer Styles.” Commander Sylvan’s voice was soft and intense as he gripped the policeman’s shoulder. “Listen to what they’re saying and see what has been done to them. This is an offense—an evil committed against those who should be protected and cherished. Do your duty.”
Officer Styles nodded and jerked his head at one of the more junior officers.
“Come on—up here.”
They went up to the platform where Father Caleb was. The Prophet had gone white with rage—or maybe the after effects of the brown chample—Sarah couldn’t tell which.
“Don’t touch me!” he exclaimed, holding out his hands as though to ward the policemen off. “How dare you? Do you know how much I’ve donated to your organization? I’ll have your badges if you try to take me in. I’ll…I’ll…”
Suddenly he doubled over, clutching his belly.
“Poisoned me—oh God, she poisoned me,” Sarah heard him moaning.
“Come on now, Father Caleb. That’s enough.” Officer Styles grabbed The Prophet by the arm but the next minute he made an exclamation of disgust and jumped back.
Spreading across the front and back of Father Caleb’s immaculate white suite pants was a large, brown stain.
As he sank to his knees, shouting and raving about how he’d been poisoned, Sarah turned away. It was enough. The Prophet had been exposed and his credibility ruined. The women of the Compound would be free to seek their own lives and hopefully most of the men would be brought up on charges.
And most of all, she could finally be free herself.
“Come, Sarah—I think we’ve seen enough.”
She looked up to see Sazar staring down at her, an unreadable look in his pale eyes.
“Sazar?” she made his name a question, though she hardly knew what she was asking.
“I’ve come to take you back to the Mother Ship,” he said quietly. “Will you go?”
Not trusting her voice, Sarah only nodded.
A look of relief passed over his sharp features.
“Thank the Goddess,” he murmured. Swinging her into his arms, he carried her out of the chapel, away from the Compound, and The Brotherhood and her old life forever.