Page 160 of Nightshade

The ringing stopped, and he opened his eyes to red. Blood red. The color of the moon.

A sign.

Sliding his hand beneath her legs, he lifted Lustina into his arms and carried her through the dark forest, until he came to the edge of the trees. Off in the distance, the torches of the Pentacrux lit up the night sky, where they stood lined at the entrance of the monastery, protecting their precious bishop.

There would be no protection.

No mercy.

Not for the bishop, nor Jericho’s father.

He lay Lustina gently on the ground and stroked a trembling hand down her hair. So peaceful she looked. Angelic.

Kettled rage exploded inside of him, and he shot toward the sky, could feel the tingling in his wings, the power that gathered in every feather, like thousands of lightning bolts trapped inside of him. A flock of ravens circled, drawn to the vibrations that shook around him, heating his skin. He lifted his hand to bolts of jagged light that flickered between his fingers, caught in his palm, and directing his gaze on the men below, he could hear their shouts as they readied for a war they would never win.

Jericho drew back his fist, and when he slammed it through the air, bolts of lightning struck down upon the men, with a force that sent a crack up through the monastery’s stone walls. Flames caught on the surrounding wood and straw.

Their arrows slung toward him, one piercing his leg, another piercing his bicep, but he merely busted their shafts away and sent another powerful bolt of lightning down upon the men.

The sound of their screams, as they burned alive, rose up into the sky, echoing all around him, and he reveled in their morbid dirge.

The destruction felt good. So good, he rained more of his wrath down upon them, moving beyond the monastery to the surrounding village. Blast after blast sent villagers screaming from their homes. Mothers clutched their children. Fathers gathered their animals. They ran up and down footpaths, through the village, like scattering mice.

He felt no remorse for the cries of the innocent, who begged him for mercy.

He felt nothing, at all.

It wasn’t long before all of Praecepsia was lit up like one giant pyre.

Jericho returned to the monastery, to find flames bursting out of the windows and the belltower. The clank of the old metal was the only warning, before the massive bell cracked and fell to the ground on a plume of embers that rose up into the night. Bodies crackled and burned all around him. Those still alive pleaded for help. He ignored them as he stalked toward the cathedral.

Tucked inside the archway to the undercroft, Jericho found a shadowy figure cowering there, and as he approached, he realized it was the bishop. Eyes wide with fear, the old man stared up at Jericho, his hand covering his face blistered by burns.

Jericho strode up to him, his wings still tingling with the vengeance that pulsed through him. “I have only one question for you. Why?”

“You could have had the propensity to do good, if not for your evil nature.”

“Answer the question! Why her? She was the only good in this place. This world.”

The bishop clutched the rosary wrapped tightly around his trembling hand, as if prayer could possibly deter his fate. “She was born of evil. Cursed. Like her mother.”

“Like every mother who defies your lies and cruelty.”

“Your mother had no choice. And had I the wisdom to know better, I should have killed Lustina sooner. Before your affections complicated everything. Did you honestly think I would baptize such a detestable creature into our holy faith? I knew what you intended, boy. I smelled the bloodlust on your breath the moment your mother passed.”

Jericho had suspected as much, but hadn’t fully grasped just how much the bishop loathed him until then. That he would’ve forgone the trip to Rome, the opportunity to establish his power in Praecepsia in order to ensure Lustina’s death, was a level of enmity he hadn’t anticipated.

“I’ll admit this,” the bishop prattled on. “I underestimated you. Your power, it exceeds anything I could’ve imagined. But alas, it does not matter, does it?”

“Why?”

“You do not know?” A chuckle escaped him, which turned into a coughing fit amid the black smoke that grew thicker around them, as the destruction of Jericho’s wrath took its toll. “She is cursed. To be reborn. Again. And again. Never to remember her lives past. And on the eve of the pentad blood moon, she will die as a sacrifice. It is written in scripture, and it has come to pass.”

The vague recollection of the prophecy rose from the mire of thoughts in his head. “A sacrifice to whom?”

“To you. And you will be banished from this world as punishment for your vengeance upon us.”

“You could have let her live. Saved yourselves and your city.”