Horns and Halos, page 29
“Do you want me to walk you home?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not a faith healer because I lack belief in Him. A few choice words and a prayer full of authority and power and whatever dark energy is lurking around me will always dissipate.”
“What about James? Can he come get you?” Elijah asked.
Usually, James would have joined us during our outings or assisted Ivy. Today, he had stayed behind to help prepare for tomorrow’s event. If he could drop by and get Ivy, though, I would worry a little less about her. Also, I had to wonder if that dark energy was Draki. He had visited me once or twice asking if this was where I wanted to make my home. I felt undecided still, and he would sneer, nod, and mumble something under his breath. More often than not, he made his disliking of Ivy known in the foulest of ways, and since I asked him to stop bringing it up, I saw him even less. The probability that it was him taunting Ivy was pretty high.
“I’ll be fine on my own,” she informed.
“Are you sure?” Elijah pressed.
She nodded. “I’m sure. Now, you two run along and get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, and I want you guys to get a good night’s sleep before I see you at the cathedral.”
There was no fighting her on it. She had made up her mind. We hugged and parted ways. But the walk back to the inn and my room seemed longer tonight. From the restaurant to my bed, I was tormented by my own thoughts. My insecurities had their way with me while I went over a million different scenarios that all played out in my head, right down to my fear that I would burn alive after I was dunked underwater. Would Draki show up? Would an army of angels come swarming out of the sky to strike me down for everything I had done up until now? Would I taint the faith city because I brought a devil with me? I shivered from the thoughts and tried to quiet my mind so I could get some sleep.
I should have known better.
“Did you have a fun time?” Draki asked from his lazy perch on the windowsill.
I turned to look at him. He was bathed in moonlight as he gazed out into the night-washed city. Full of contentment and lounging leisurely against the old, wooden framing, he appeared like there was more to him than the devil I saw. For a moment, he appeared as though he could be redeemed. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I remained in bed and curled up under my blankets. “Would it bother you if I said yes?”
He slowly faced me and narrowed his eyes. “Would you be disturbed if I told you I would be?”
I gave him a look and sighed. “Yes. I was having fun ...” At least, until he was mentally targeting me with things that I didn’t want to think about, or showing up in my room to pick on me.
He gave a short, clipped, burst of laughter and looked away from me. “I wonder what your little black book says about liars,” he practically hissed under his breath.
I had had enough of his sass and tormenting. As I swiftly sat up, I snapped at him in a hoarse tone, “Probably the same thing that it would say about you!”
Now that got his attention.
There was a hot rush of air rolling through the room that was unnatural. It was the kind of heat that could have peeled the paint off the walls and melted skin if he didn’t control it. And I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was drowning in the fear that was claiming me when his gaze held me in place. Slowly, he rose from his seat and waltzed toward me.
“What do you think it says about me?” he asked, but that even tone he questioned me in was betrayed by the heat in his eyes.
Words dried up and I tried to look anywhere else but at him. However, the threat that he posed was very real, and I couldn’t dare to avert my attention. I fumbled for some half-baked attempt at speaking. “I don’t know. I just thought—”
“Please, Sia,” he purred darkly, and my skin rippled with goosebumps. His weight on the bed caused me to involuntarily lean toward him as he finished with, “Tell me everything that you’ve thought.”
My vision drank in every bit of his dark perfection. I looked to his lips, down his throat, and to the muscle peeking out from beneath the white robes he wore. I daydreamed for a moment and thought about throwing myself at him and had to sober up from that thought as our eyes collided once more.
“I didn’t read about you specifically. I just thought that it wouldn’t speak too kindly of devils.”
He was threading a stray braid behind my ear as I spoke, and he went still. “You didn’t read anything about me?”
I couldn’t be sure, but his voice sounded pained for a moment like he had wanted to be important enough to be written within the Bible. He sounded like he wanted to be important enough to be remembered. He sounded ... disappointed.
Confused, I asked, “Are you written in that book?”
He froze, then. For a long moment, we just looked into each other’s eyes and said nothing. Withdrawing his hand, he looked away with a quiet sigh. “Yes.”
I rose to my knees and looked at him with slight excitement. I couldn’t explain it. I had been learning so much, and there was still a lot I didn’t understand. Yet, here was someone right in front of me that had seen countless events that I had been gradually reading and learning about. I opened my mouth to ask probably a million questions, but I could only think to ask, “Who are you?”
Nothing in my life had ever been so clear as the truth that hit me then. Draki looked back to me, and I saw it all. I saw the moonlight glowing off of him. I saw the anger and the pride, and when every moment along our journey came crashing to the front of my mind, it slammed into me like a tidal wave. I knew. Instantly, I held my hand over my mouth, and I sat down so fast I started to fall back toward my pillows. He caught me before I went too far and pulled me closer to him than I had been before.
A slight smirk flickered over the corner of his mouth before it disappeared into a thin, unamused line. “And here I was starting to doubt the intelligence that I had come to know you for.”
It was too scary to know what I had done. I hadn’t made a deal with just any devil. I had made one with the devil. And now, could I ever be forgiven? I had killed, I had lied, I had made a deal with Draki, and soon I would have to pay up. The price of my sins was too high. I had always tried to be a good person before coming to the faith city and learning everything that I had. But in such a short amount of time I had done so many things that I didn’t think could be washed away. My reasoning was so small in comparison.
I didn’t want him touching me. Not with everything that I felt when he did. “Let me go,” I whispered.
“And what if I say no?” he whispered back, getting dangerously close to me. “Will you call out to your newfound God? Will you cry out to him to save you?” He paused, and I didn’t have the strength to speak without possibly breaking down into tears, so I angrily stared at him. “Should I call out to him for you?” He chuckled softly. “Do you honestly think he answers to the likes of you or me? We are two lost souls left to decay in a world that is wasting away with countless others who’ve all been forgotten. You could scream at the top of your lungs and you’ll find yourself in the same place you are now ... helpless and still with me.” He yanked my arm, and when I crashed into him he held me there in his blazing embrace as he whispered with his cheek pressed against mine, “So save your breath.”
A tear full of all my regrets and anger welled and spilled from my eye as I thought, “God forgive me. I’ll pay the price for my sins and carry this cross if you’ll keep Elijah safe. Just please don’t leave my side until the very end.”
Draki pulled back and wiped the wetness from my face as he shook his head at me. “Shhh. You still have me. Until the end, I’ll be here.” He smiled then, but it held promises of torture. There was no mercy in it, nor was there any in him. He was hell-bent on destroying everything that held me together before he’d let me go. And that truth struck me deep.
Chapter 29:
Within these Walls
Draki warned me that I had until the end of the following day to make up my mind if the faith city was to be called my home or not. I wasn’t sure if I would be welcomed by everyone by the time sundown rolled around. After agreeing that I would give a clear answer, I went to bed with a heavy heart.
The next morning, I was awoken by Dara’s chipper voice from the other side of my bedroom door. “Today’s the day! Rise and shine, Sia. We need to get you to the cathedral for your baptism before the Hours of Whispered Prayers tonight!”
My body felt heavy and sore, and my thoughts were instantly full of gloom. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat breakfast at this rate, but I wanted to try to keep my strength up for what the day would hold for me.
There was a light knock on the door. “Sia, are you decent?” Elijah’s voice sounded worried as he called out to me.
I double-checked my attire to make sure the girls weren’t hanging out after a night of tossing and turning and fussed with my braids as I replied, “You can come in, Elijah, I’m dressed.”
After stepping in, he looked out in the corridor to make sure the hallway was free of other people. He quickly closed the door and faced me. “So ... are we running before everything goes down or going in on a wing and a prayer that your deal with you-know-who doesn’t burn the cathedral to the ground during your baptism?”
Even though I was laughing so hard that my side ached, I mentally latched onto one, beautiful word that he had spoken when he walked into the room. We. He didn’t ask what I was going to do or what my choice was going to be. He asked what we were going to do. There was such a profound comfort in that. If I wanted to run, he’d run with me. If I wanted to stay, he would as well. Wherever I went, he would be there, and it wasn’t because he was forced to. It was because he wanted to.
My laughter ebbed, and I shook my head. “I don’t think we need to make dust trails just yet. I ... I really want to try.”
“Getting baptized or calling this place home?”
I looked at him as I let the words sink in. “Both?”
He nodded. “Then I’ll make sure our stuff is packed and ready if things go south.”
Grinning, I asked, “And if they don’t, we decide to stay, and Dara or Micah notice our things neatly packed?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell them we expected to be rehoused soon.”
“Logical.”
Walking over to me, Elijah took my hands and guided me to my feet. “No matter what, we are going to be okay.”
I didn’t need him to say anything else. I believed him. “You’re right,” I said and gave him a big, long hug.
Elijah was going to be baptized first. However, that was planned only after I had insisted that he go ahead of me. If things were going to go bad once it was my turn, I wanted Elijah to be saved. I wanted him to be forgiven and have a fresh start. I wasn’t going to take that away from him. Not with everything he had lost ... and was going to lose.
I had gone to eat breakfast after packing up my belongings. Elijah was still getting his things together. As previously discussed, if things made a turn for the worst, we were going to make a run for it, grab our stuff, and leave the city before anyone could stop us. After everything that we had been through, I didn’t put these people above trying to kill us if they discovered that I had a deal with a devil—with the devil. When that thought slithered through my brain, I bit my lip so hard I was sure it would bleed.
About halfway through my meal, Elijah showed up and gave me a slight nod to let me know his things were in order. We ate and headed out for the cathedral after making sure that the inn was in good hands. We had to grab an extra set of clothes because we were going to change after the event.
Hours later, we were right outside the cathedral’s front doors. It looked as intimidating as ever. I managed to keep my sweaty palms a secret as we headed inside. We said our hellos to the others that were there for their baptism and went up front to stand in line. Each of us were to be baptized by our tutors. Elijah’s teacher was David, who was a tall, thin man with deep brown hair and bright blue eyes.
“Step forward, Elijah,” David instructed.
“You’ve got this,” I whispered.
He smiled and squeezed my hand before he let go and walked onto the stage.
I stood behind wondering if everything that he was experiencing would be something I would get a chance to know. It didn’t matter, though. Elijah would. I could feel good about that, at least.
After he came up out of the water, Elijah was all smiles and full of laughter. There was clapping and a roar of excitement from the pews of spectators below. But all of that was drowned out by the voice of the last being that I wanted to hear from that day.
“Getting ready for your new life in the faith city?”
I mentally snapped back with, “I told you I would give you an answer by the end of the day.”
“I’m looking forward to it. You still have promises made to me, Sia. Forget them and I’ll go after everything you hold dear.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Just remember that if you change your mind and want to build a place to call home ... you’ll always have me to depend on ... hahahaha.”
The chills I felt at that moment made me feel like I had been threatened, and nothing he said was as comforting as he attempted to make it out to be. It was almost as if he knew the outcome to this whole situation, and I was dragged along for the ride. If words held the essence of the intent behind them, I could feel his desire for me to give up on calling this place home. I could feel his hand ushering me toward the path he had laid out for me. Was I really going to do that? This place was so peaceful and clean and free of worry. Why would I want to give up on making a life here? He was just trying to rattle me and make me doubt this place. He only wanted more from me. He was a devil, after all.
But why did I still feel like there was a darkness lurking?
“Sia?” Ivy called out to me. The tone in her voice told me that it wasn’t the first time she had called out to me.
Blinking, I awkwardly looked to the sea of patient faces and blushed, embarrassed. I shook my hands at my sides, wiped my sweaty palms on my hips, took a deep breath, and stepped up onto the stage. It was hard to make out any other sound in that moment because my heartbeat was drowning out everything around me. This was the moment of truth.
But a small part of me wondered if any of this would matter at all. If I went through the motions and said all the words right and meant them with all that I was ... could I really be saved? Was I really going to be born into a new life? Or were the shackles of my sins too heavy? Were the ties to the devil too great that I couldn’t find redemption in this life?
“You’re going to be fine,” Ivy whispered.
Taking her hand as I stepped into the water made some of my anxiety dissipate. She became an anchor for me. I turned around after I was comfortably in the pool, and she whispered to me again.
“Give it to God. Trust in him.”
You can’t give anything to Him when you are deceiving everyone around you.
I closed my eyes and fought past the sound of Draki hissing his taunt at me and repeated only the words that Ivy spoke. I crossed my arms over my chest and hoped that nothing would go wrong. Ivy pushed me down into the water.
Just like when I had gone under the river current, I was scared as the cool liquid swiftly covered my face. I held my breath, but I still felt the air bubbles as they left my nostrils. This water was kinder than the raging currents from before. These were still waters that consumed all the sound. A gentle hand held me in place as my hair floated beside my face. My eyes opened and I could see Ivy hovering over me. For a moment, I wondered if she would just leave me there to drown. As if it was a fate I had escaped and was destined to fulfill. Closing my eyes, I took a moment to soak it all in. The silence was a living, breathing entity that hugged me like the surrounding liquid that pressed my clothes against my body. It enveloped me in a stillness that was almost peaceful. I let go of so many things from my past as I remained underwater.
“God ... if you can ... forgive me? Guide me to where I’m meant to be, please. I feel ... I feel so lost.”
There was no whisper from Draki, there was only the welcomed silence and the cold embrace of the water around me. A second later, Ivy’s hand aided me up toward the surface. The moment I felt my forehead break through the top of the water, there was a tingling sensation on my skin. All around the cathedral, everyone was alive with shouts of glee, and the next person was called forward as I stepped out of the pool. I looked back to the water sloshing about behind me. Were my sins left back there? Did I feel lighter? Had I been forgiven?
Did I forgive myself?
Ivy guided me to the backroom to change into dry clothes. After I was dressed, she rushed in and embraced me while wearing a bright smile.
“I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks,” I stated softly.
“Here,” she said, handing me a book.
“A Bible?”
“It’s yours. We all need guidance in this life, Sia. There are going to be times that you feel so alone in this world that you’ll fall into despair and feel like there is no hope left.” She pointed to the book. “Let your faith be your guiding star on your darkest night.”
I hugged her because I didn’t feel like anything that I would say in that moment would have been the right thing. She felt like home when we touched. My worries and doubts were silenced when I was around her. I wanted to stay like this forever. Comforted and accepted.
“I get the feeling that you’re going to leave, sometimes,” Ivy said in a hardly audible tone. “Silly, right?” But she didn’t sound like she believed that it was an absurd thought.
“Yeah. Silly,” I muttered back.
Elijah met up with us within the hour, and we had a short Bible study session before we were taken to get our ceremonial robes. Afterward, we all waited for the knights to escort the clergy fathers and us to our destination. We made a very long and very quiet walk to the city wall.
