Healing the Broken: A Kindred Christmas Tale Read online

  “I’m coming, Ladara,” he growled hoarsely and began to run.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  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 too