do this!” I was forced to my knees at his feet, my guard holding me down and then wrenching my head back, so I was forced to look up at Jeremiah’s face. The calm expression, the utter disconnect from any emotion — he may as well have been looking at a bug struggling at his feet. My mouth was too dry, or I would have spit in his face.
“Let me go, Jeremiah.” I was breathless, my voice hoarse from the struggle and lack of water.
He just shook his head. “It’s almost over,” he said softly. Then, louder, “Brothers and Sisters, it’s almost at an end! Our long struggle, the culmination of our devotion — before an eternity of faithful devotion to our God. The end of the Age of Man is here. With this, our final sacrifice, we give Earth back to God.”
“Back to God,” the crowd murmured in unison. Jeremiah turned toward the waxy altar behind him, and when he faced me again, he had a slim knife in his hands. He crouched down, and pressed the tip of the knife up under my chin.
“Now, there’s no need for me to hurt you unnecessarily, Raelynn,” he said softly, so softly only I could hear. “But if you struggle, if you fuss, this knife might slip, and this will all be a lot worse than it needs to be.”
“Fuck you,” I hissed, then yelled. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you!”
Jeremiah smiled patiently, then roughly grabbed my shirt, slicing through it with the knife so quickly that the sharp tip nicked my flesh, leaving a long thin line of welling blood down my chest. My guard’s grip on me tightened as I began to squirm, protesting as Jeremiah grabbed my bra and sliced through that too, leaving my chest bare and my ruined clothes hanging off my shoulders.
Goosebumps spread over my skin. I glared at him as he smirked at me, and tried to flinch away as he reached out and flicked one of my tender nipple piercings. “How cute,” he mocked. “I knew there was a freak in you. It really is too bad, Rae. We could have had so much fun, but…” He shrugged. “You’re promised to another. It’s a shame I can’t keep you.”
I was promised to another, but it wasn’t him and it wouldn’t be his evil God. He raised up the knife again and pressed it into my skin. I held my breath, my head going light as I tried to ignore the pain, the dragging burning sensation of him slicing me open.
“Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit,” he said, and the crowd echoed him: “Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit!”
I tried not to look down, but I couldn’t help it. The sight of the blood streaking my skin made my vision blur. But I wasn’t going to scream, I wasn’t going to give him the goddamn satisfaction of knowing it hurt. Lines and circles, runes, a language I couldn’t understand — he etched them all into my skin, just like I’d drawn that summoning circle onto these floorboards once. It seemed so long ago now. A lifetime.
Back when I’d thought I was invincible. When I still thought my greatest adventure would be to catch a ghost on camera.
But now, no one would believe what I’d seen. No one would believe the way it was all going to end.
Jeremiah stood, and as he stared down at me, he licked my blood from the edge of his knife, and smiled. “Brothers and Sisters, it’s time. Unchain her, so that she may walk to God.”
My guard gripped me by the arms as another masked figure stepped up and unlocked my wrists and ankles. The freedom renewed my struggling, but between my hunger, dehydration, and blood loss, my fight was weak. I was hauled to my feet and forced to walk, Jeremiah close behind; back between the rows of white-cloaked figures, who closed in and followed behind us. Out the doors of the chapel, into the rain, into the woods. Up a narrow path through the trees, the absolute silence of those following me chilling me to the bone.
The path evened out, and there, set into the hillside among the trees, were the old wooden beams of a mine shaft. More of those fishbone trinkets had been hung around it, words I couldn’t read etched into the wood of the entrance. Jeremiah took my arms and led me away from the guard. His masked followers gathered around, watching as he dragged me toward