《Blood_Brothers》
Prologue
The first book in the Sign of Seven Trilogy series
To my boys,
who roamed the woods,
even when they weren't supposed to.
Where God hath a temple,
the Devil will have a chapel.
- ROBERT BURTON
The childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
- JOHN MILTON
Prologue
Hawkins Hollow
Maryland Province
1652
IT CRAWLED ALONG THE AIR THAT HUNG HEAVY as wet wool over the glade. Through the snakes of fog that slid silent over the ground, its hate crept. It came for him through the heat-smothered night.
It wanted his death.
So he waited as it pushed its way through the woods, its torch raised toward the empty sky, as it waded across the streams, around the thickets where small animals huddled in fear of the scent it bore with it.
Hellsmoke.
He had sent Ann and the lives she carried in her womb away, to safety. She had not wept, he thought now as he sprinkled the herbs he'd selected over water. Not his Ann. But he had seen the grief on her face, in the deep, dark eyes he had loved through this lifetime, and all the others before.
The three would be born from her, raised by her, and taught by her. And from them, when the time came, there would be three more.
What power he had would be theirs, these sons, who would loose their first cries long, long after this night's work was done. To leave them what tools they would need, the weapons they would wield, he risked all he had, all he was.
His legacy to them was in blood, in heart, in vision.
In this last hour he would do all he could to provide them with what was needed to carry the burden, to remain true, to see their destiny.
His voice was strong and clear as he called to wind and water, to earth and fire. In the hearth the flames snapped. In the bowl the water trembled.
He laid the bloodstone on the cloth. Its deep green was generously spotted with red. He had treasured this stone, as had those who'd come before him. He had honored it. And now he poured power into it as one would pour water into a cup.
So his body shook and sweat and weakened as light hovered in a halo around the stone.
"For you now," he murmured, "sons of sons. Three parts of one. In faith, in hope, in truth. One light, united, to strike back dark. And here, my vow. I will not rest until destiny is met."
With the athame, he scored his palm so his blood fell onto the stone, into the water, and into the flame.
"Blood of my blood. Here I will hold until you come for me, until you loose what must be loosed again on the world. May the gods keep you."
For a moment there was grief. Even through his purpose, there was grief. Not for his life, as the sands of it were dripping down the glass. He had no fear of death. No fear of what he would soon embrace that was not death. But he grieved that he would never lay his lips on Ann's again in this life. He would not see his children born, nor the children of his children. He grieved that he would not be able to stop the suffering to come, as he had been unable to stop the suffering that had come before, in so many other lifetimes.
He understood that he was not the instrument, but only the vessel to be filled and emptied at the needs of the gods.
So, weary from the work, saddened by the loss, he stood outside the little hut, beside the great stone, to meet his fate.
It came in the body of a man, but that was a shell. As his own body was a shell. It called itself Lazarus Twisse, an elder of "the godly." He and those who followed had settled in the wilderness of this province when they broke with the Puritans of New England.
He studied them now in their torchlight, these men and the one who was not a man. These, he thought, who had come to the New World for religious freedom, and then persecuted and destroyed any who did not follow their single, narrow path.
"You are Giles Dent."
"I am," he said, "in this time and this place."
Lazarus Twisse stepped forward. He wore the unrelieved formal black of an elder. His high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat shadowed his face. But Giles could see his eyes, and in his eyes, he saw the demon.
"Giles Dent, you and the female known