CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The sun crept down to the edge of the mountains, and as it did the dead began to rise. Lazarus Cotton moved from his resting place and made the journey at a speed that would have terrified his enemies if they knew how very quickly he could move. Likely they would find out soon enough.

He met with his Deacons at the base of a tree that looked like a man in agony. Twin limbs rose in supplication and a collection of knots in the wood looked for all the world like a wretched face twisted into a mask of pain. Jesus suffered. It seemed somehow fitting to know that the very trees sometimes remembered His pain.

“I take no pleasure in what we must do, my brethren. The men we are up against feel that they are in the right and they are ignorant of the desires of our Lord, and of the blessings He has bestowed upon us. I do not believe they are malignant, but merely misguided. That said, it is time to put an end to their foolish and wicked interruptions.”

He looked to his children and felt their love, their adoration. They were blessings in his life.

“They seek to destroy us. We will surely seek the same. I might even offer some of them the blessings of the Lord, but not their wizard. We have called for them to meet us, and I have no doubt the sorcerous imp who crippled our young before will be there. I shall do my best to seek him out. It is best if I handle the one who has been so close to the devil’s black heart.”

The Deacons nodded, fully aware of the wisdom of his words. They were strong. He was stronger. It was exactly that simple.

He recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Deacons spoke the words with him. There was no fear in their hearts. They were the blessed of the Lord. The unbelievers would fall.

All would be right with the world. Amen.

And when the prayer was done, the Reverend Lazarus Cotton reached out to his wounded children, those who would not last much longer, and offered them the first chance to work as the instruments of God’s vengeance.

And from deep within the waters at the bottom of the quarry, where the sun could not reach them even at the height of the brightest day, the wounded rose toward the night above, and their last chance at redemption in the eyes of the Lord.

Say Amen.