Infernal Revelation : Collected Episodes 1-4 (9781311980007) (18 page)

"But why here? Why Laton? Wouldn't she go
stay with relatives?"

Her mother grabbed three glass tumblers out
of the cabinet above the sink. "Sometimes relatives are the least
understanding of all."

"Like Nana Paxton." Her father said.

"Be nice to mamma," Her mother punched her
father playfully on the arm.

"But why here?" Lily asked again.

"She was a member of the Church." Her father
picked up the serrated knife and started slicing his tomato. "From
one of the other branches."

"You know her?" Lily asked, a sudden jolt of
hope rushing through her.

"I know who she is. Was." He sounded
guarded.

"Can I meet her?" Lily asked.

Her mother poured three glasses of tea, one
for each of them, while exchanging a glance with her father.
"That's not up to us, dear."

"Mom--"

She slid one of the glasses over to Lily. "I
know you're curious, sweetheart, but you can't just intrude upon
another person's life."

"It's my life too!"

"Of course, sweetie, but that doesn't give
you the right to disrupt someone else's. Not when she'd already
made her choice."

Lily's eyes dropped to her drink, then rose
back to her mother's concerned face. "Can you ask? For me? I won't
bother her if she says no."

Her father stepped from the counter to the
table, putting his plate next to his glass. "We can ask. I can't
guarantee she'll respond, but we can ask."

"Thank you, Daddy."

He smiled and took a big bite out of his
sandwich.

"Why the sudden curiosity, dear?" her mother
asked.

Glancing between her parents' concerned
faces, Lily was torn. More than anything, she wanted to share her
news with them. She wanted to share her fears with them. But how?
Mom, Dad, I'm the Devil's own? My father was the Devil, and
government agents are trying to find me and other half-demons?
They'd think she was nuts, and lock her up. She hated keeping this
from them, keeping anything from them, but she didn't feel like she
had any other chocie.

Her gaze dropped to the table. "I'm almost
out of high-school. An adult now. The next phase of my life, you
know? I need to know where I come from if I want to know where I'm
going. And I want to know about my birth father."

"You come from here." Her father tapped the
counter. "We raised you, darling. You're a Baker. Whomever your
birth parents were."

"No, I know," she said. "You're my parents.
You're my mother. You're my father. The ones who chose to be a part
of my life, and that means a lot to me. It means everything. But I
need to know the rest. It doesn't change who I am -- you made me
who I am -- but it's important. I need the closure."

Her father chewed his sandwich.

Mom pulled her in for a hug. "Oh, Lily.
We'll do what we can."

"Thanks, Mom."

"But I want you to be ready for
disappointment. Don't expect her to agree to meet with you.
Okay?"

"Okay."

"Don't get your hopes up."

"I won't."

Lily took a long slow sip from her glass,
mostly to avoid blurting anything out. Holding back from her
parents was so not like her. They were both always open and honest
with her, and lying to them was never easy. And lying about
something like this -- it felt like a betrayal of the greatest
magnitude.

She hoped they'd forgive her.

CHAPTER SIX

"Got the glass cleaned
up nice," Reverend Baker said, nodding at Reverend Ross's kitchen.
"I'd never know anything happened."

"Patio door is cleaner than it'd been since
we moved in," Ross gestured towards the patio door with his
beer.

Baker chuckled. "Betty still using that
home-made glass cleaner?"

"Her great-great grannie's recipe," Charles
Ross said. "Bet it stunk then, too."

Reverend Baker looked out into the darkness
of the back yard. "New shed yet?"

"On order from Fred's."

Headlights flashed by from the front of the
house.

"That'll be Bill," Ross said with a
sigh.

"What happened?"

"Something to do with his boy. Didn't say
over the phone. Called from the hospital, though."

"Christ almighty, what now."

Ross put his beer down and headed towards
the living room and the front door. "We always wondered if raising
them with compassion was going to make a difference. Guess Bill
gave us a control case."

He opened the door before the town Sheriff
could knock. The man looked terrible, eye blackened, face swollen,
arm in a cast, neck in a brace.

"Jesus, Bill," Ross said. "What
happened?"

"That shit-fuck you had me raising is what
happened," Bill said through swollen lips.

"Gideon did this to you?" Baker asked.

"Beat the tar out of me like it was
nothing," the Sheriff said. "Almost went after my boy."

"Is Dale alright?" Ross asked.

"Sirens chased Gideon off a'fore he could
hurt my boy. I called for backup soon as I figured he was headed
home."

Reverend Baker sat heavily on the couch.
"Damn."

"Didn't see this coming?" Bill asked.
"Surprised? I wasn't. Knew this was coming since you dropped that
little demon off at our place."

"It's not like that," Baker said
quietly.

"It is now," Ross said. "He almost killed
Bill."

"What do we do?" Reverend Baker asked.

Sheriff Cermak threw his hat onto the couch.
"You know what comes next."

"I have no idea."

Reverend Ross handed the sheriff a beer.
"Yes you do, Tom."

Baker stood up. "No, wait. It's just the
boy. My Lily, your Jessie, the girl the Kleins are raising--"

"Have you been reading the Kleins' reports?"
Ross asked.

"I haven't seen anything incriminating."

"You've read their recommendations."

Baker rolled his eyes. "That's just being
the Kleins being the Kleins. You know how they are. They're not
even members of the Church."

"Bob takes their reports seriously," Ross
said. "Delilah is too smart to be controlled. She can't be kept in
the dark forever. And she's close to Gideon."

"You read the last report?" the Sheriff
asked. "They've been meeting. Even the Carter boy."

Reverend Baker froze. "I didn't know."

"Colluding," the Sheriff said. "Could be
about anything."

"That doesn't mean--"

"I've already sent my own report to Bob,"
Reverend Ross said. "After you called me, Bill."

"Praise Jesus," The Sheriff raised his good
arm, then winced, holding his neck.

Baker's voice dropped to a whisper. "Without
me? What did you tell him, Chuck?"

Reverend Ross's voice was flat. "Look, Tom,
I'm not going to lie. You're not looking good in all this."

"Forget me," Baker said. "What did you tell
him?"

"Everything."

Baker's face went white. "We agreed
to--"

"Look at Bill!" Reverend Ross pointed. "Look
what Gideon did to him. They're out of control. Might just be the
one now, but you know as well as I do that it won't stop
there."

Reverend Baker lowered his face into his
hands. "Oh, God, Chuck, what have you done?"

"My duty," Reverend Ross said. "My duty to
God, to the church, to all of humanity. I love my Jessie, Tom, and
don't you even say I don't, but it's done."

"Fucking Halleluja," the Sheriff said.

"What did you do?" Baker's voice gained a
warbling treble.

"It's over."

"What did Bob say?" Reverend Baker's voice
was almost a whisper.

"He's sending Porter," Ross said. "The
matter is handled."

Baker stood up, hands tangled in his hair.
"Porter? Oh God."

The Sheriff also stood. "Goddamn, I better
get my men ready. When's he coming?"

"It's Porter," Ross said. "Tomorrow. Next
week. Maybe he's already here."

"What have you done?" Baker stumbled to the
door, sagging against its frame. "Charles? What have you done? What
have you done?"

Ross called out into the night as his friend
made his way to his car. "I did what I had to, Tom. You stay out of
it, or it'll end poorly for you, too."

***

Upstairs in her room,
Jessie stood from the chair near the heating vent. She didn't know
what her father, the other Deacon, and the Sheriff had been talking
about, but she could tell that it was both dreadful and important.
Something about that name -- Porter -- filled her with an almost
inexplicable deep-seated dread. Maybe it was the context, or maybe
it was her gift. A message from her dark father Lucifer.

The only thing she knew for certain was that
something awful was about to happen to her and her
half-siblings.

The desire to warn them, to go to them, to
run, warred with her devotion to the Church and the sixth
commandment: Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.

She was adopted. The Ross's weren't her
biological father and mother, but they had raised her, and that was
the same thing, wasn't it?

But God was her creator.

Lucifer was her father.

They, too, must be obeyed. But what did they
want?

She closed her eyes, folding her hands, and
knelt beside the bed. "Please, Lord, let your humble servant know
what she should do. Send me a sign, send me a vision, send me
anything that I might know Your Will."

The answer came, as it sometimes did, in no
answer at all. God had told her His will when He had made her.

As it often was, He had nothing to add.

She would do what came naturally.

She would would serve Him by being herself,
by being Jessie Ross, by being a conduit for his compassion.

Her eyes opened. "Your Will be done."

EPISODE 4

CHAPTER ONE

In her dreams, Lily
was human.

There had been no accident. Lauren was
alive. Ashley was unharmed. Nobody looked at her funny when she
walked down the halls, and she had no reason to blame herself for
anything. Dark-haired boys with bone-white skin didn't intrude upon
her life, and the Devil was an allegorical figure.

In her dream, she'd gone off to school and
gotten a degree in social welfare. Derek was back from Boston, they
were getting married, and everything was perfect.

Almost perfect.

The wedding was being held at the Church, of
course. She took a peek from the mezzanine at the crowd below, and
for once Laton's megachurch was full to capacity. Through the glass
windows overlooking the chapel she could see Derek looking dapper
in his well-tailored tux, standing next to Reverend Robert Carter
at the head of the congregation. The head of the Church of Christ
Everlasting was personally going to officiate her wedding.

"So many people," she said.

"Your friends. Derek's friends. Both
families. It really adds up." The man who had raised her smiled, a
hand on her back. "This is it, darling. The big day. The one every
father dreads."

She hugged him. "I'm so happy, daddy." In
her dream, it was true.

Down below, she could hear the organist
strike up the opening notes to the Wedding March. "Already? Oh,
Daddy, we have to hurry."

He shook his head. "It's the father of the
bride that gives his daughter away, sweetheart."

"Yes, let's get going."

Time twisted, distorting slow as he turned
towards the door. "Here he comes now, love. Your true father."

She could hear footsteps on the carpeted
stairs leading up to the Mezzanine. Each heavy step echoed in her
ears, filling her with the urge to flee. There was nowhere to
go.

"No, Daddy, you're supposed to--" She
turned, but Deacon Baker was gone, leaving her alone in the
mezzanine.

She could hear someone, something terrible,
stop on the other side of the door, breathing in an almost bestial
fashion.

Lily backed away, to the balcony edge. Down
below the crowd had almost vanished. Gone were all of her neighbors
and friends, Derek's family, leaving only the upturned faces of the
damned.

Her true kin.

The door handle was turning.

"No." Lily stepped away from the balcony,
glancing down at her hands. They'd turned knobby and ugly, warty,
with thick black clawed nails. She caught sight of her reflection
in the glass and saw that her visage had likewise changed, twisted.
Her eyes bulged above sharp exaggerated cheek-bones, and wicked
tusks sprouted from beneath her lips.

Her true form.

"No!"

She took a few steps and leapt through the
Mezzanine glass, her tremendous strength shattering it like a thin
pane of ice. She fell towards the Church's floor, stopping as great
bat-like wings tore through the back of her wedding dress,
unfurling to catch the air.

She screeched a denial, and it was nothing
like the sounds a human would make, not if you tortured her for a
thousand years.

***

Lily sat up in bed,
drenched in sweat, her heart racing, her breath coming in jags.
Though seasoned with dream logic, her nightmare had seemed so real,
had felt so genuine.

"Fuck." She drew her knees up, crossing her
arms over them, resting her forehead.

A small sound almost made her jump. Pebbles
against her window.

She slipped out of bed and crept over,
sliding it open. "Derek?"

Gideon was standing in the front yard.

"I'm sorry," he called up in a
stage-whisper. "I tried your phone but it was off."

"What are you doing here?"

"It's important."

Lily checked her bedroom clock's display.
"It's almost midnight."

"Can you come down?"

Lily drew her head back through the window
and considered just going back to bed. But just for a moment.
Instead, she slipped into her jeans and t-shirt, made sure her
parents' bedroom was dark and still, and snuck down to meet the
redhead.