Mighty and Strong (The Righteous) Read online

  Nothing of that now. His soul was on its way to a better place.

  Fear-Not turned while his stomach tried to heave its contents onto the roof. He fought it down with effort.

  His brother in faith, dead. A man who had followed him without questioning. Fear-Not and Vigilant had received their blessings from the prophet on the same day. They had washed each other's feet, broken bread together. Fear-Not had taken this man's daughter as one of his wives, and given over his younger sister in return. And now he was dead.

  He wiped his hand on his pants. After a moment, the world regained its focus and he hazarded a quick peak over the edge. Enemies below with pen lights, taking positions in the darkness. He heard someone in the building below, searching for a staircase to the roof. It wasn't there, but no matter. They'd find the real access soon enough.

  “Heavenly Father,” he prayed silently. “Take this fear. Walk beside me. Guide my hand.”

  Zeal was with the woman. Her name was Christina Fayer, according to her FBI identification. She'd tried to negotiate her own release, claimed that she was LDS and that she was their friend, just trying to make sure that they got a fair shake with the FBI. Sure she was. And that's why she took money and orders from the agents of Satan.

  But it didn't matter. He didn't need her for anything more than to provoke this attack. As of now, in fact, she was nothing but a burden.

  Fear-Not rolled Vigilant onto his back and rested both rifles on the man's chest. He dragged the body back to the edge of the courtyard, to the spouts that would gutter rainwater from the roof into the cisterns. He felt the man twitch under his hands and realized with surprise that Vigilant was still alive, in spite of the horrific extent of his wounds.

  It was no longer possible to pull Vigilant; he had to leave him behind. But first, he put his hands on the man's head. “Brother, it is time,” he whispered. “To pass to the spirit world and rise again on the morning of the First Resurrection. Die now, and aid thine brothers from the other side of the veil, if thou art able. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

  He released his hands. Vigilant gave a single shudder that passed from his shoulders through his arms and legs. And then was still.

  An electric thrill raced through Fear-Not's body. How awesome was the power of the priesthood, that he could seal a man unto death.

  And it was the priesthood that would end this. What good were bullets and military tactics against that power? The time had come to find the prophet, tell him what great things Fear-Not had set into motion on his behalf. And let the prophet bring about the destruction of the enemy. The beginning of the great day of the Lord.

  He left Vigilant's body, scooped up the rifles, and hurried at a crouch to the next courtyard, then the next. Took the stairs down. Moments later, he was at the door where they held the agent. He knocked three times, then spoke: “Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.”

  The answer came from the other side. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate. And he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of the land.”

  The door opened a crack. Fear-Not slipped inside.

  Zeal shut the door behind him and held up a lamp, leaned forward to peer into Fear-Not's face.

  “Do you mind?”

  Zeal lowered the lamp. “Sorry.”

  Christina Fayer lay at the foot of the bed. Ropes bound her hands, but her ankles were no longer tied. She was not wearing pants and her legs were scratched up, with one knee skinned as if dragged over the stone. The table lay overturned, one of the chairs broken. She met Fear-Not's gaze with a defiant glare.

  He looked back and forth between the half-naked woman and Zeal. The young man's nose had been bleeding and his clothes were suspiciously rumpled. Fear-Not felt a wave of disgust.

  “No, you wouldn't. Tell me you didn't violate her.”

  Zeal touched his eye. “Well, I was going to. A filthy whore, it's fitting punishment for someone like that, don't you think?”

  “Those are the tactics of the enemy, not the Lord's servants.”

  Zeal stared at him. “Wake up, we're at war. We do what it takes to win.”

  “No, we don't. We do what is necessary, and we never take pleasure in it.” He looked at the blood trickling from Zeal's nose. “But you didn't? She fought you off, is that what happened?”

  “No, I had her, or would have. Except she's a virgin,” Zeal continued. “Can you believe that?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I had to check, didn't I? Just to be sure. Wouldn't have been right, otherwise. Used my fingers.”

  “I told you to guard her. I didn't tell you to violate her.”

  Zeal looked down at the FBI agent, not seeming to hear anything Fear-Not had told him. “I don't understand it. How could she be a virgin, you know how these people are.” Zeal shook his head. “Unless she's a lesbian. That's even worse. I should—”

  “Go to hell,” Fayer said between clenched teeth.

  “Well, are you?” Zeal demanded. He held the lamp over the woman, reached down with his other hand. “Bet you are, you filthy dike.”

  Fear-Not grabbed Zeal and spun him around. “Shut up. We don't have time for this. Can't you hear the gunfire?”

  “How are things going?” He didn't look away from the woman.

  “Vigilant is dead,” Fear-Not said.

  This caught his attention. He looked up. “What? Really?”

  “Killed by the enemy.”

  “But I thought. . .you're sure?”

  “His face was gone. Yes I'm sure.”

  “You're next,” Fayer said. “And I hope it's painful.”

  Fear-Not ignored her. “I'm on my way to the prophet. He'll be with the saints in the main courtyard. Probably forming a prayer circle to call down the wrath of God. It won't be long now.”

  “What about her?” Zeal asked.

  “She's going to die anyway,” he said with some reluctance.

  Fear-Not thought about offering her the chance to join them. After all, if she really was a virgin, then maybe she was a good Mormon, misguided, of course, in following the apostate prophet in Salt Lake City, but maybe she just needed to be offered the chance to follow the One Mighty and Strong.

  But that last, defiant statement had changed his mind. So what if she agreed? He'd never trust her. The body of saints needed to be pure. If ever that was true before, it was doubly true now.

  Zeal nodded. “I'll take care of her.”

  He didn't say anything for a long moment. “Okay. I'm going ahead. Meet me when you're done.”

  “No, please,” the woman said.

  “But don't violate her. And don't spill her blood.”

  A short nod. “I'll knock her out, then strangle her.”

  Fear-Not turned to go. He didn't want to see it done.

  “Don't go, don't leave me with him,” the woman said. “You don't have to do this, don't you see? I can be valuable. You can use me to negotiate.”

  He turned at the door. “We don't want to negotiate. We want to destroy you.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine:

  Jacob slipped into the darkened bedroom and groped along the wall for the doorway that would lead him into the courtyard on the other side.

  “Please, don't hurt us.”

  “Who is it? Who is there?”

  “Just me and my grammie.”

  “Sister Devorah? It's me, Jacob Christianson.”

  “Oh, Jacob! I prayed to Heavenly Father that you'd come for us. I knew you wouldn't leave us.”

  “No, of course not,” he said with a guilty twinge. He felt his way along the wall toward the voice. A shaky, dry hand took his. “Is that you, Sister Grace Ellen? How are you feeling?”

  “Terrible,” came a second, thinner voice. “But I guess the Lord didn't take into account an old woman's aches and pains when planning the end of the world. So it's true, you're going to b
e my granddaughter's new husband? I was hoping she'd catch the prophet's eye, but I suppose you'll do.”

  “Grammie!” Devorah said.

  “I'll take you to the others,” he said, “but we'll have to hurry. Can you manage that?”

  “With your strong arms,” Sister Grace Ellen said. “And my girl here to help. I'll do my best.”

  Jacob had no time for this, he had to get out of here, run, find Fernie and Nephi. But he couldn't just abandon these two.

  They found their way into the courtyard on the other side. Sister Grace Ellen stopped and leaned against the wall to her right.

  “You okay, Grammie?”

  “Yes, just a second,” she said, wheezing. “Is this the end of the world, Brother Jacob?”

  Jacob fought his impatience. “I don't know, let's try to hurry, can we?”

  “I'm tired of sleeping on that hard bed. I miss my house and my nice Serta mattress. I told the Lord I'd do it, if that was His will, but that I was going to grumble and He'd have to deal with it.”

  “Shhh,” he said. “Please, move faster.”

  “If the Lord comes, he can either take me to the other side of the veil or heal all these aches and pains, it's up to Him. I just wish He'd hurry up about it. The Lord can be damn slow in fulfilling His promises.”

  “Grammie,” Devorah said in a shocked voice.

  “Please, just hurry.”

  “You're a good man, Jacob Christianson, to leave your family and come back for us,” the old woman said. “But my, you're impatient. My old heart can't keep up. I thought you, of all people, should know better.”

  Then maybe you should shut up and stop wasting oxygen talking, he thought, but felt guilty at encouraging such uncharitable thoughts. The woman's arm trembled and he supported most of her weight. She hadn't so much been talking as wheezing. With her left ventricle functions struggling, Sister Grace Ellen was literally suffocating.

  He collected another family as he passed through the next courtyard. Two sister wives and their five children between them heard him coaxing Devorah's grandmother and burst out of their room. Children were sobbing, their mothers barely better. They were convinced that the “army” now assaulting the compound was intent on massacre and rape. While he tried to get them settled and moving in the same direction, two young men—fifteen, sixteen, maybe—came out of another room. They looked equally panicked.

  “Everyone, calm down,” Jacob said.

  “That's right,” someone said. “Brother Timothy will protect us.”

  A light machine gun snarled from the courtyard to their rear and this seemed to clarify their thoughts. He herded them as fast as he could through the courtyard and beyond. A moment later they approached the main plaza.

  Sister Miriam had been right; a crowd had gathered there. Armed men lined the roof and trained rifles and hand guns down at Jacob's small band.

  Jacob followed his group in, but two men challenged him, grabbed him roughly by the arms. “Leave him alone,” Devorah said. She grabbed one man's arm and tried to pull him away. “That's Brother Jacob.”

  “Oh, it's you,” the man said. It was Brother Enid, the young man who'd been guarding the training fields above the compound. “Thought you'd run off to join the enemy. How do we know you didn't let them in?”

  He spoke this last part in a louder voice and several other people looked their direction. This angle of questioning could go wrong in a hurry.

  Jacob pulled free of the two men holding his arms and gave Enid his sternest face. “Remember your place, brother. And get those guns out of my face. Now where is the prophet?”

  A tilt of the head. “Over there.”

  “Good. No go back to your posts. And keep down. There are FBI snipers on the roof. They'll have night vision. Go.”

  He turned, saw that Devorah was trying to follow him. He put a hand on her arm. “Stay with your grammie. She needs you more than I do.”

  Jacob made his way across the courtyard, ostensibly toward the prophet. But he was searching for his wife and baby. It was dark, in spite of a few lamps, and there was a lot of movement. He climbed on a bench to get a better view.

  A knot of men and women and children surrounded the prophet. Two men, one of them Brother Clarence, tried to hold back the crowds. Clarence had been in the thick of it; Jacob saw a scratch on the man's face and blood stained his shirt.

  Brother Timothy met his gaze. “Jacob! Over here.”

  Jacob gave one last scan of the crowd, but didn't see Fernie and Nephi. He pushed through. Men with guns parted the way.

  Brother Timothy embraced him. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “Where's my wife, have you seen her?”

  “You took your time getting here,” Brother Clarence said. He had a deer rifle slung over one shoulder. “We searched your rooms, but you were gone. And your family, too.”

  “We got out when we heard gunfire,” Jacob said. “Somehow I got separated from my wife and kids.”

  “Well, where did you go?” Clarence asked. A strange light gleamed in his eyes.

  “Looking for my family, of course. And rescuing as many others as I could find.” He gestured to Sister Devorah and the other newcomers. “Found quite a few. There are a bunch more out there, I'm sure of it. Someone needs to get them.”

  “They should be coming here, if they know what's good for them,” Clarence said. “We've got one group of enemies pinned down near the well. The other is on the other side of the compound, doing who knows what. Rape and murder, most likely.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Clarence asked.

  “All the blood. That's not yours. Whose is it?”

  He looked down at his shirt, seemed to notice it for the first time.

  “Brother?” Timothy asked. A frown creased the prophet's brow.

  “I don't know. I was helping some wounded people, it's all a blur.”

  You didn't have to possess the gift of discernment to see Clarence was lying. But Jacob had bigger concerns. He turned back to Brother Timothy. “But what about Fernie, have you seen her?”

  “Oh, yes. She's fine. Back with one of my wives, in those rooms over there, trying to calm the baby.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. Now, we've got to deescalate this thing.”

  “How do you mean?” the prophet asked.

  “Who are these guys? Police? FBI? They want something or someone. I say we call a truce. Not to surrender, but we have to figure out what they want before anyone gets killed.”

  “People have already been killed,” Clarence said.

  “Before anyone else gets killed. Because they will.”

  Brother Timothy licked his lips, nodded. He looked stricken by uncertainty, swept along in events beyond his control.

  Brother Clarence took Jacob's arm with a rough grip. “Don't be an idiot. There's no turning back from this. This is the end.”

  “The end? The end of what?”

  “The world. It's the final conflict with the forces of Satan.”

  “Are you insane? The final conflict here? How many men and guns do we have? And we're supposed to defeat them how?”

  “We've got the priesthood on our side,” Clarence said. “And angels, and the power of the Lord.” He nodded at Brother Timothy. “And the prophet. He can stop them with a single word.”

  “The only word that will stop those guys is 'surrender,'” Jacob said.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Brother Clarence said. He turned to the prophet. “You anointed this doubter as your counselor? Why?”

  Brother Timothy looked back and forth between the two men. “What should we do?”

  “What should we do?” Brother Clarence asked, his voice rising in pitch. “What do you mean, what should we do? You're supposed to tell us. What does the Lord want us to do?”

  “I-I don't know. I guess I should go pray about it.”

  “Yes, at once.”

  “Wait
,” Jacob said. “You don't need to pray about this. You know what we need to do. Figure out why the government is attacking us and negotiate a peaceful end.”

  “Don't listen to him. He wants you to listen to his advice, not the Lord's.”

  “There are what? Three hundred people here,” Jacob continued. “Women and children. This isn't a castle, we can't hold them off. They're inside already. If we fight, people will die. Our wives and children will die. A massacre. Whatever the Lord wants, it's not that.”

  “No, no,” Brother Timothy said. “Not that.”

  “If we're planning to surrender to Satan,” Brother Clarence said. “Then why are we even here?”

  “To build the Kingdom of God on earth,” the prophet answered.

  “But again and again you've told us to be ready. The day of the coming of the Lord is upon us. Gather the faithful, set aside food and weapons, train to fight and defend our homes and families. Get ready for the end of the world.”

  “That doesn't mean this is it,” Jacob said. “Today, here, now.”

  “Be quiet, you're putting doubts in his head.”

  “Who's the prophet, you or him? Brother Timothy, put an end to this.”

  “I wasn't ready for this,” Timothy said. “I didn't expect it.”

  “Nobody knows the day or hour,” Clarence said. “But we have to be ready when it comes.”

  “Somebody knew,” Jacob said. “Somebody triggered this, it didn't just happen. Brother Timothy, listen to me. Our people are going to die. You have to stop it.”

  “I am not afraid to die in service of the Lord,” Clarence said.

  Jacob studied his face in growing suspicion. And the blood on his clothes, the vague details about its origin. “Not afraid even a little?”

  “I'm not afraid of the enemies of the Lord.”

  Jacob sized him up. Medium height and built, light-brown hair, thinning on top. He thought about what Krantz had said. “If you're not afraid, maybe we should call you Fear-Not.”