not happening,” I said, each word as hard as stone.
“No one would have to fight,” Stavros continued, watching me carefully, even as he and Zach kept fucking ignoring the words coming out of my mouth. “But you know there are people here who have wanted to help. Why not show them how?”
“We are not letting vulnerable people—”
“You’re vulnerable.”
I stiffened, glaring down at Deyva, at her high chin and the thin press of her lips as she stared up at me.
“You are human, Kais. You’re vulnerable. Zach and Stavros are vulnerable. I am vulnerable. So are the demons. Fuck, so is Azariah for that matter. No one is safe. If someone wants to fight, really wants that right, you don’t have the authority to stop them. No one does. Not even God.”
My throat burned and my fingernails bit into my palms. I wanted to be sick, I wanted to hit something, I wanted to turn my back on them all. I wanted to wrap up this entire fucking town in an impenetrable blanket and put us all to sleep and never wake up again, just so I’d never be there for the moment it all went to shit again.
“And when something happens to them? No one will save them, Deyva, not even you,” I said. And I left the room.
I was outvoted between Zach and Stavros, but I was surprised that they bothered taking it to the town as an offer, rather than just a new fact. Did the town as a whole want to continue to lean on us, their priests, for protection? Or did they want the opportunity to stand up for themselves?
For about ten seconds at the start of the vote, I thought the offer would get beaten down. Surely these people, who’d expressed so much faith in us, so much gratitude for the relative peace of their lives, would want to continue in the way we’d established.
As it turned out, I knew shit all.
Dozens of hands were lifted to the air, resolve written over the faces of our settlement as they gazed back at us from the pews. Even the women, which gave me an inkling that I might’ve been more sexist than I’d originally thought.
I expected Stav or Kais or Deyva to look smug. They didn’t. They looked worried. I was worried. But I knew what needed to be done.
I stepped forward on the dais to join the others. Deyva and Az were sitting together in the front pew, both of their faces solemn. Azariah was antsy in his seat, but Deyva had convinced him to sit this announcement out, to let us speak to our people directly without his heavenly presence influencing their decision.
I turned my gaze up to the many hands raised into the air. “Any volunteer fighters should report to me every evening at eight and again at seven the next morning. We’ll train in the gym until we set up a good target practice area outside. Brody, can you add that to the list of town reno?”
“Why twice a day?” One man, who didn’t even have his fucking hand up, called out.
“Because Hell doesn’t attack at our convenience. Because fighting this war is long and messy and exhausting, and I need you all to be prepared, to be safe, and to understand that this isn’t fun, it’s grueling and ugly and—”
Stavros coughed into his hand and my rant stalled briefly. In the front pew, Deyva was shooting me a serious ‘what the fuck’ look.
“No one taking this seriously expects it to be easy, Fathers,” Angus Miller said, rising from his seat. “We never thought it was easy for you, we knew how lucky we were. But I, for one, am ready to stand at your side, and I’ll do whatever you ask of me so you can be as confident in me as I am in you.”
Stavros and Zach both puffed up proudly, their smiles beatific as they thanked Angus. I tried to mimic them, tried to feign that claim of confidence so that no one would know that my stomach sank like lead inside me.
I’d worn that face years ago, I’d stood side by side with men, shone with confidence as we faced down a legion of Hell. And in the end, I’d been the only man left standing, and then running. Running for my life with the image of the soldiers who’d been slaughtered burning in my eyes as their blood tracked down my face.