THE WOMAN CLOTHED IN THE SUN

Stars. That’s what Evie saw first. Above her, the inky sky twinkled with the false hope of stars. Her head ached where she’d hit it on the floor. Her mouth tasted of blood.

“Ah. You’re awake, ” the voice said. “Good. ”

Her vision blurred for a second, then focused on the sight of John Hobbes. He was a big man with a thick mustache. He’d removed his shirt, and she saw the brands covering his chest, back, and arms, his body a nightmarish tapestry. Anoint thy flesh….

The eyes were the same ones she’d seen before: cold and blue.

“Very kind of you to come to me. Saved me the trouble of coming for you. ” He shimmered before her like candle wax, an unstable thing, but still with the capacity to burn.

“Jericho! ” Evie shouted. “Jericho! ”

Naughty John smiled. “Your companion is not well at present, ” he said, and Evie was afraid to ask what that meant.

Evie sat up and was surprised to see that she could do so freely.

“What would be the point in restraints? ” he said, as if he could read her thoughts.

Evie was numb with fear. “Why? ” she asked. It was all she could manage; the terror had reduced her words.

“Why? ” John Hobbes repeated, as if she were an insolent child and he her annoyed but patient teacher. “Why should I let this world go on? It is filled with sin and vice and all manner of corruption. It requires a new god to lead it, Lady Sun. ”

“I’m n-not your Lady Sun, ” she whispered.

John Hobbes pulled out the small square of cloth from her gold brocade coat. “The Woman Clothed in the Sun. ”

He smiled, making Evie’s blood throb in her head. Her eyes darted about the room, looking for some means of escape, taking in what might be used to her advantage. Her heart began to race again as she realized that the door was slightly ajar. She darted forward, and as if it sensed her plan, the door shut before she reached it. She beat on it with her fists.

“ ‘And the Lord said, let the Beast be joined with the Woman Clothed in the Sun. Anoint her flesh as your flesh. ’ ”

John Hobbes walked calmly toward the lit brazier. Several branding irons now protruded from it, their symbols growing hot on the coals.

“I… I…” Fear choked Evie’s words in her throat.

Think, Evie, old girl. She had meant to burn down the house, and Naughty John with it, but that plan was gone. She needed a new plan. Will had said they needed to bind his spirit to a holy object like the pendant, then speak the words and destroy that object. But what was at her disposal? Her eyes darted frantically around the room again, searching out something, any object that could be used.

“This room is your strength, isn’t it? ‘Prepare ye the walls of your houses. ’ Isn’t that what it says? What will happen if I destroy these walls? How will you manifest then? ” she asked, stalling.

“Too late for that. The comet’s almost overhead. Three minutes more. You will be my bride, and your heart will assure my immortality. And you will live on, like the faithful. It is time, my Brethren. ”

Beside Evie, the glistening walls breathed. They bowed out like a membrane, and she could see faces and hands pressed against them. Evie stumbled backward toward the altar as bodies pushed through and the room was filled with the hollow dead of Brethren—living corpses with skin weeping red, burned down to bone in places. Skeletal faces without eyes. Mouths torn away. The faithful. The damned. Ready for the final sacrifice, the last offering. They wouldn’t stop until her heart was ripped from her chest and the Beast was made whole.

“They are here with me. The chosen of Brethren, sacrificed for the first of the eleven offerings. May it please the Lord! ”

It sounded like the wind whipping over Brethren as the faithful replied, “Amen, amen, amen…”

“They demand tribute for their sacrifice. And they shall have it. ”

The dead of Brethren were coming toward her. Coming for her. Evie raced ahead of John Hobbes and grabbed a branding iron from the coals. It burned her hand and she dropped it, crying out in pain. She wrapped the hem of her skirt around the iron handle and picked the iron up again, holding it out in front of her. Her hand shook wildly.

“Into this vessel, I b-bind your spirit. Into the f-fire, I… I…”

She couldn’t remember the words.

John Hobbes’s laugh bubbled up with all the cruelty of a child delighted by the power of bringing his boot down upon an insect.

“It must be a holy relic! Only a blessed object can contain the spirit. ”

“Jericho! ” Evie screamed again, though she knew it was no use. She flung the branding iron at the walls and it skittered across the floor.

“No matter. I can anoint your flesh when you are dead. ”

Evie laid a hand across her chest, as if this would be enough to keep the Beast and his faithful from tearing out her heart. Her fingers grazed the edge of her half-dollar pendant and she grabbed it and held fast to it like a frightened child.

Mute no more, the dead of Brethren opened their mouths in a collective din that crawled up Evie’s spine. Their jaws unhinged and they vomited out an oily black substance, which fell to the floor like a river of snakes. It crawled up the legs of John Hobbes, where it coalesced with the brands on his skin. It covered him like armor and then was absorbed into him.

“Look upon my form and be amazed! ” He stretched out his arms, threw back his head, and cried out in what could have been either agony or ecstasy. His flesh rippled, as if something were trying to break out from within. Evie watched in horror as John Hobbes’s face contorted. His mouth curved into a cruel sneer. His teeth grew long and razor-sharp, and his fingertips sprouted claws. From his back, two enormous wings sprouted, white as the down of a lamb. The room was filled with light. He was manifesting into a thing of terrifying beauty right before her. Her eyes hurt to behold him. To be fully complete, he needed only to take her heart.

“The Lord will brook no weakness in his chosen! ” The Beast said. His voice was like a thousand voices speaking at once, a demonic symphony.

For a moment, Evie lost all desire to fight. There was no fighting an evil this grand, this perfect. All one could do was submit. Let it happen and be done with it. The night sky seen through the small opening began to brighten: Solomon’s Comet on its prophecied return to the skies. The futility of the fight weighed on Evie like stones on a grave.

“The comet is almost overhead, ” John Hobbes announced.

His hand was a claw, sharp enough to open her. She would be like all the others—Ruta Badowski, in her broken dancing shoes. Tommy Duffy, still with the dirt of his last baseball game under his nails. Gabriel Johnson, taken on the best day of his life. Or even Mary White, holding out for a future that never arrived. She’d be like all those beautiful, shining boys marching off to war, rifles at their hips and promises on their lips to their best girls that they’d be home in time for Christmas, the excitement of the game showing in their bright faces. They’d come home men, heroes with adventures to tell about, how they’d walloped the enemy and put the world right side up again, funneled it into neat lines of yes and no. Black and white. Right and wrong. Here and there. Us and them. Instead, they had died tangled in barbed wire in Flanders, hollowed by influenza along the Western Front, blown apart in no-man’s-land, writhing in trenches with those smiles still in place, courtesy of the phosgene, chlorine, or mustard gas. Some had come home shell-shocked and blinking, hands shaking, mumbling to themselves, following orders in some private war still taking place in their minds. Or, like James, they’d simply vanished, relegated to history books no one bothered to read, medals put in cupboards kept closed. Just a bunch of chess pieces moved about by unseen hands in a universe bored with itself.

And now here she was, just another pawn. Evie wanted to cry. From fear. From exhaustion, yes. But mostly from the cruel uselessness, the damned stupid arbitrariness of it all.

“ ‘A great sign appeared in heaven, the sky alight with fire, a woman clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars. And her heart was a gift for the Beast, the heart of the world, which he would devour and become whole and walk upon the earth for a thousand years…. ’ ”

The half-dollar rubbed against Evie’s hand and she thought of James, and as she did, a horrible, desperate thought took shape. No. She couldn’t. There had to be something else.

The dead were coming. They were coming for her.

Shaking, Evie removed the pendant from around her neck and held it in front of her. “Into this vessel, I b-bind your sp-spirit…. ” She shook so badly she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the words out.

The dead kept coming. All she could see were hollow eye sockets in shadowed, skeletal faces. Dead white fingers reaching toward her. Blackened mouths oozing black juice down mottled chins.

“Into the fire, I commend your spirit, ” Evie said louder.

Hands reached for her. Dead fingers splayed over her toes and she kicked them away, screaming, careful not to lose her balance and topple into the unholy throng. The room brightened. How long till the comet? A minute? Thirty seconds?

The hissing howls of the Brethren were deafening. They spoke in a thousand tongues. But beneath the cacophony, she could hear a few moans. Beneath their rage, she could sense their fear. Their urgent, overlapping growls bounced around the room. “Kill her, kill her, kill her. You are the Beast, the Beast, the Beast, The Beast must rise…. ”

“That coin is no holy relic, Lady Sun, ” John Hobbes taunted.

Evie gripped the half-dollar tightly, feeling the grooves against her palm, both comfort and punishment. Her only physical tie to her brother.

“It is to me, ” she croaked. She shouted above the din. “Into the darkness I cast you, Beast, nevermore to rise! ”

The souls of the Brethren cried out. Fire licked at the walls. It was like some macabre painting come to life. The Brethren screamed as, once again, they were engulfed in flames. She shut her eyes and hoped. The pendant shook violently in her hand. The hissing was gone. In its place came a skin-crawling symphony of screams and shrieks, guttural growls and barks, sounds she could not and did not want to identify. She smelled smoke. When she opened her eyes, she saw the screeching souls of Brethren being dragged backward as they were sucked into the walls, which were engulfed in the flames of long ago.

Naughty John remained. He’d gotten stronger, thanks to the ten offerings. Perhaps too strong to be contained. And Evie was afraid that whatever she had wouldn’t be enough after all.

“I’ll break you apart, ” he growled, lunging at her.

Evie held the half-dollar high. “Into this vessel…” she shouted, stronger this time.

His form flickered, the flesh moving through a series of contortions Evie could only imagine must have been quite painful. Black blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. His teeth loosened and tumbled out. The mighty claws retracted.

“I-I… bind, I…” Her awe overpowered her memory.

“Destroy me, and you’ll never know what happened. Or what is to come, ” John spat out on broken breath.

He meant to distract her. Trickery. Deceit. “Into this vessel, I bind your spirit…. ”

John Hobbes cried out. He fell to his knees. His skin crawled as if filled with scrabbling rats. “You’ll never know… about your brother, ” he said.

Evie went cold. “What about my brother? ”

A cackle started low in his chest and became a cough. A few droplets of black blood sprayed Evie’s face and she fought the urge to scream.

“What about my brother? ” she shouted.

“You’ve no idea… what has been… unleashed. ”

“What do you mean? ”

John Hobbes grinned. Blood stained his remaining teeth. “Ask… James. ”

He thrashed and his wings nearly upended Evie, who dropped the pendant. With a cry, she dove for it, but so did he; his hand was quicker. They wrestled, the Beast gaining the advantage. He was above her; the comet was so close. A claw peeked through the skin of his right index finger, and then a second poked through his middle finger—enough to cut her open, enough to take her heart.

Evie forced her hand onto the pendant from the other side, her fingers touching his. “Into this vessel, I bind your spirit. Into the fire, I commend your spirit. Into the darkness—”

“You lose…. ”

“I cast you, Beast, nevermore to rise! ” Evie finished.

John Hobbes’s blue eyes showed true fear for the first time as Solomon’s Comet blazed overhead and his form was sucked into the half-dollar pendant, which shook and glowed red in Evie’s hand until she was forced to drop it. A great column of fire shot up from its center and was joined to the comet, the brightness like an explosion. Then, as quickly as it had come, the comet was gone, as was the pendant, which was now nothing more than ash. The night sky darkened and quieted again. A smattering of fresh stars showed in the haze.

Evie heard another hiss and scrambled to her feet. Flames burst from the blackened walls, and this time not from a long-ago memory. This was a real fire. The heat of it made her eyes sting, made it hard to take in a breath without coughing, and again Evie felt a sense of panic. How would she get out? What should she do? For a moment, she stood perfectly still, numbed by her fear and the horror of the evening. She looked up at the sky, as if waiting for it to make a decision for her. Thick black smoke wafted up, blocking the stars. No. She had not come this far, sacrificed what mattered most to her, in order to lie down now. The ceiling buckled, raining down plaster. With an almost animalistic howl, Evie bolted for the door, her hands up to ward off any fiery debris. She ran through the basement and up the stairs on shaking legs, screaming for Jericho.

“Evie? Evie! ”

At the sound of Jericho’s voice, Evie felt renewed hope. “Jericho! Keep calling! ”

She followed Jericho’s calls to the room where he had fallen through. She grabbed a flashlight and shone it into the hole. It wasn’t so deep—she could see that now. When he’d fallen before, he must’ve hit his head. She reached an arm down, and it was enough leverage for Jericho to pull himself up.

“We’ve got to beat it and fast, ” she grunted out.

“What happened to…? ” He rubbed his eyes.

“Gone, ” she said. “Finished. ”

Boards splintered. Windows shattered, showering them in slim shards of glass. The house shuddered on its foundation, sinking with the fire as if it meant to take everything and everyone down with it. Evie and Jericho ran toward the kitchen.

“Why did you light the match? ” Evie yelled.

“I didn’t! ” Jericho swore.

The kitchen door wouldn’t budge. Evie pulled frantically at the handle. Jericho ran for it, but couldn’t release its hold. Evie screamed as the roof sagged and the door was forced open. She didn’t wait but grabbed Jericho’s hand, pulling him through, and they barreled down the lawn and into the street as the house blew apart.

The fire department turned its hoses on the smoking ruin of Knowles’ End as it caved in on itself, a final curtsy. There would be no saving it. The kerosene had seen to that even before Naughty John’s last stand.

Evie sat on the curb, a blanket thrown across her shoulders, and watched it burn. Jericho had refused to be seen by a doctor, claiming only a bump on the head. He came and sat beside her, still looking a bit glassy-eyed. A curious crowd looked on from down the street. Several kids tried to inch closer, drawn to the flame and the excitement, and their mothers admonished them to keep a safe distance.

Evie would never believe in safe distances again.

“You’re crying, ” Jericho said.

“Am I? ” Evie said faintly. “What a chump. ”

She put a hand to the empty spot at her neck and wept.