Read Online Seraphs by Faith Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

paused. The location was an odd choice until I saw the fire door set into the wall, a quick way out if needed. He leveled a gaze on the pew’s occupants. I don’t know what they saw in his expression, but all six people scrambled out the other side and into pews many rows back. The row behind took the hint and vacated as well.
    Satisfied but dour, Audric held my arm when I would have gone in first, letting Rupert lead the way, trailed by Miz Essie and Eli, Jacey, Big Zed, and their brood. When they were all in place, he released my arm and shoved me down in the pew ahead, seating me in the aisle seat as if I were a mannequin he was positioning for display. Audric slid into the pew behind me and sat. No one sat beside me. It was the only empty seating in the full church.
    A sour miasma rose, the collected odors of humans, damp mold, and old building. The Central Baptist Church had survived a battle on the Trine, the towering, three-peaked rock face that had risen two thousand feet during an underground war fought by seraphs and humans against minions of Darkness. Constructed of stone, the building’s foundations rested on a single rock, making the church a place of power to me. Unknown to the elders, it was a conduit to the power of the deeps. I was lucky to have been brought here and not to the kirk. That building was set above a streambed, not stone.
    A gavel banged, bringing a deeper quiet to the silent crowd. The town fathers were seated at a long table to the right of the stage, the table set at an angle to the audience so they could see and be seen, yet leave a wide space for proceedings. One of which would be me, I reminded myself. Sweet seraph.
    Across the aisle to my right, Lucas slipped into a seat, Ciana beside him. My ex-husband inclined his head, his lips turning up. As always, my heart somersaulted. Lucas Stanhope was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, even when wasted from weeks of captivity. His cheeks were sharply defined, brow wide, nose a perfect line, blue eyes making every girl in town sigh. Too bad he was a lying, woman-chasing cheat.
    His eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage, the child of my heart if not my body, waved, a bright smile on her face. Dismayed, I waggled my fingertips at her. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t see a town meeting. She should be safe, in school, where illusions about her world and the people in it wouldn’t be shattered. Yet, even knowing that she should be carried away and protected, I was glad to see her, her bright eyes alight with hope and trust. Ciana’s presence brought a measure of peace to me that I badly needed.
    The girl was small for her age. She crawled into her father’s lap, her back to his chest. Her legs were encased in thick leggings and kicked on either side of his, her arms twined with his around her waist over her padded coat. The seraph pin she always wore peeked out. The old church had no heat and her breath puffed, tiny clouds joining the breath of the throng. Lucas leaned over and whispered, “She wouldn’t go to school. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Said she had to be here.” He kissed Ciana’s head with a worried frown and sat back.
    The gavel banged again. The chairman of the town fathers was Elder Shamus Waldroup, a baker and also the senior judge over all civil and criminal disputes brought before the district court. Shamus called out, speaking with the thick mountain brogue of his generation. “The meetin’ of the town fathers of Mineral City will come to order. I see we have quite a crowd for today’s proceedings, and a long docket. Let’s get on with it. Court’s in session.”
    The old man’s dark-skinned balding head caught the light as he peered from the dais into the seats of the condemned. “First item of business is the judgment on two caught cursing. Their iniquitous words were heard by an elder. Upon questioning at the last town meeting, they confessed, sentences were pronounced, and will be carried