sorcerer, a murderer! You should have asked him to go into your church.”
“Captain Caul walked into that very church this morning.” Furness’ sharp eyes cut through her. “He took his hat off in front of the tabernacle and delivered his warning to godly people. He is no sorcerer.”
Caul could enter a church but Stanton could not? But there was no time to figure it out; the men had brought out ropes. They pulled Stanton’s hands back roughly, lashed his wrists tight behind his back. His face was pale with pain.
“You don’t have to do this,” Stanton said. In answer, one of the men hit him hard across the face with a balled fist and shoved him down to kneel in the dust.
“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live.” Furness looked down at him. “In New Bethel, we take the word serious. We whip whores, we hang thieves, and we burn sorcerers.”
Stanton moved his jaw in a slow circle, then spat a mouthful of blood at Furness’ feet.
“Do you deny that you are a sorcerer?” Furness asked.
“I am a Warlock.” Stanton lifted his chin, his voice ringing clear in the stillness. “And this is the United States of America. Being a Warlock is not a crime.”
“Not yet, servant of Baal,” Furness said. “But God is not mocked. He calls the elect to vanquish sin and false powers.”
“I am no minion of Satan, nor a servant of Baal.” Stanton looked at the faces of the men around him. “The powers that witchcraft and sorcery harness are natural powers, legal powers. They are not—”
“All power is given by the Lord!” Furness roared. Without taking his eyes off Stanton, he spoke sidelong to a pair of his followers:
“Get kindling and good heavy oak logs. Wood that burns slow.” He paused, lips curving with anticipation. “We’ll send the sinner off screaming.”
At that moment, Emily caught sight of something coming down the road. A buckboard loaded with marsh hay. Dag was in the driver’s seat, craning his neck to get a better look at the brouhaha in front of the store.
“Dag!” Emily shrieked. “Dag!”
The man behind her clamped a callused hand over her mouth. She writhed under his grip, but he just pulled her back harder, drawing her tight and close.
But Dag had heard her. He reached down to the floor of the buckboard, and when he straightened, he had a rifle in his hand. Lashing his leads secure, he climbed down, squinting in her direction.
“Emily?” he called. Emily screamed affirmatively from behind the man’s hand.
Dag levered his rifle. Grudgingly, the man holding her let his hand drop from her mouth.
“It’s me, Dag!” she cried.
Dag raised the rifle. “Let her go.”
“Hansen, this is New Bethel business,” Furness barked. “You got no call to interfere!”
“What are you going to do with him?” Dag nodded his head toward Stanton.
“He’s a sorcerer,” Furness said. “You know what we do to sorcerers.”
“Good,” Dag said. Then he stepped forward, took Emily’s wrist, and pulled her toward him with a jerk. She stumbled into his arms, and he lifted her easily over his shoulder like a bag of grain. With long strides he carried her back to the buckboard, dumping her into the pile of fragrant marsh hay.
“Wait, Hansen! The law wants her. You can’t just …”
“The law can take it up with me,” Dag said. “She’s a Lost Pine girl.”
Brushing hay from her face, Emily sat up and planted her hands on the buckboard’s gate. “No!” she screamed. “Dag, please … you can’t let them. You can’t let them kill him!”
A badly controlled flare of jealousy darkened Dag’s face. “Why not?”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong!”
Leaping over the buckboard’s gate, she snatched the rifle from his hand before he could speak. Pointing it at the sky, she fired. The sound echoed. Then she turned the rifle toward the men surrounding Stanton.
“Get away from him,” she snarled, levering another cartridge. She lifted the weapon, centering her aim right between Furness’ astonished eyes.
Furness took one step back, his face pale. He lifted his hands.
“Ensorcelled,” he said, softly. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
“That’s me, the roaring lion,” Emily said. “Now get away from him.”
Slowly, Furness and his men moved to comply. Keeping the rifle up, Emily went to Stanton and reached inside his coat, feeling for the misprision blade. When she found it, she snicked it open. It gleamed in the high afternoon sunlight. She cut the ropes that