Faith of the Divine Inferno by Leslie Thompson (e textbook reader txt) 📕

about it anymore, leaving me to ponder his words until I was ready to scream at him. However, if there was anything twenty-five centuries of life had taught me, it was patience. There is some comfort in the knowledge that the people who annoy me today will be dead sooner rather than later, whether I was what killed them or not. I glared at Alejandro and wished a slow death in very old age upon him. Mortals seem to think that this is the best of all outcomes of life, but I don’t believe it. I’ve seen what ninety years or more of life does to the human body, and I’m glad that I never have to endure it. It looks like an undignified and annoying way to live, where the mind can clearly recall what it was like to feel good and run like the wind, while the flesh sags and decays with time and gravity.
As the sun was beginning to slide behind the horizon, Alejandro pulled in front of an old white house with a curving driveway and a carefully manicured lawn. It had a colonnade of tall pillars that stretched from the floor of the porch to support the broad eaves just below the roof. There was a glittering chandelier lighting the front doors and pretty furniture set out in neat clusters. A group of tall, broad figures emerged from the deepening shadows to stand menacingly before me as I got out of Alejandro’s car.
They were like clones; each man was the same height, wore the same thick layer of hard muscle, and a uniform of black trimmed with white. Even their close cut hair was the same shade of yellow blonde over blue eyes. With their stoic expressions they looked like an odd result of Hitler’s breeding program without the menacing, genocidal vibe. They felt more like an honor guard, standing formally by until someone with a high enough rank called them away.
“What’s all this about?” I asked Alejandro, gesturing to the odd squad. He gave me a somber look and climbed the porch steps to the house. He paused long enough to hand over the car keys to a blonde who had stepped forward, and then he disappeared behind the line. I waited beside they car and wondered what would happen if I turned in the opposite direction and walked away. Only one way to find out.
“Please, come into the house.” I glanced over my shoulder to find that three of the big blondes had separated from the line to follow me down the driveway. I snorted in contempt of them and kept going. I didn’t care why the Children wanted me here, and I had better things to do than humor their delusions of grandeur. I was going to call a taxi as soon as I found a phone, and I was going to go home.
A heavy hand slapped down onto my shoulder and strong fingers squeezed the muscle and bone painfully. I glared at the man, tilting my head back to stare into his cool blue eyes. “I must insist that you come with us, Madame.”
“Oh really?” I sneered, feeling the first pricks of rage along my spine. “How are you going to make me?”
Chapter 7

Well, the son-of-a-bitch made me go with him. In my defense, I had been having a rotten day. I’d been beat up, kidnapped, and endured a massive brain aneurysm. Even with the fey magic working wonders with my injuries, I was exhausted and in no real condition to fight. I did get my hits in though. I broke his nose and knocked out two of his teeth in the scuffle, and he will have to have an ear reattached. In the end, he shot me in the chest and tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I really hate that bastard.
I recovered in record time, but not before I bled all over the expensive antique couch they put me on. I know it’s petty to feel immense satisfaction at the knowledge that I had ruined the property of people who had hurt me. But some days, petty is all I have and I will take it. I sat up as the pain faded, and I pulled at my shirt so I could look down the neck and peer at the bullet wound.
The wound was already closed up with a scab covering the hole and a nasty bruise spreading across the ribs the slug had broken. The squashed bullet had been ejected from my body and was caught in my lap between my bloody t-shirt and jeans. I would have enjoyed this wonderful side effect of Bres’ geas if the man hadn’t been such a dick head. Instead, the accelerated healing was one more way that the creature had control over me.
“You never healed this quickly before. Either you have managed to hide more from us than we thought, or you have grown in power.” I hadn’t noticed the old man sitting in the chair across the room, and I glared at him when he startled me. I let my t-shirt go and sat back on the couch, moving a little so that I wasn’t sitting directly in my own blood.
“Your man shot me.” I said petulantly. As far as bad days went, this was amongst the most bizarre. Never in my two thousand plus years have I ever endured such a string of traumatic events in so short a period. Even the days of the Black Death and the Holocaust had more down time between disasters. I seethed and fumed, and swore that somebody was going to suffer for this. The old man in his three-piece suit and wire rimmed spectacles looked like a good target to start with.
“You gave him no choice. You were asked politely to come along, and then you bit his ear off.” The old fart was a dignified gentleman with thick, white hair and fingers like sausages. The lines on his face made him look like a kindly grandfather instead of the maniacal leader of a secret society that has stalked me for hundreds of years. He gave me the calm watery eyes of men who were so old that they were ready to die and waited for me to respond.
“Just tell me what you want so I can tell you to go to hell and leave,” I growled. “I have other things to do.”
“I am aware of your troubles, and I am sorry for it. We tried to give you the assistance you needed, but you refused. A foolish move I thought was beneath you, but you have always been an independent creature…” he let the words drift away, as if he hadn’t the strength to carry on. I doubt that this man has ever lacked for strength. As old and gnarly as he looked, he held himself like he was used to getting what he wanted, no matter the cost or effort required. “As I’m sure you already know I am the Great Bard of the Children of Orpheus. But I know you hate formality, so you may call me by my Christian name. I am Howard Stevens.”
“What do you want Howard?” I remembered having to repeat myself with Alejandro the night before. I wondered if this was the kind of thing I would have to do with all of the Children. If so, I was going to have to find ways to avoid conversations with them if they were going to continue this new habit of talking to me.
“I would like to show you something.” Howard unfolded his lanky body from the chair and stood with the grace of a man half his age. His big hands smoothed the expensive fabric of his suit as he adjusted his posture into something stiff and formal. I rolled my eyes in disgust and followed him out of the sitting room and into the foyer.
I expected to be taken upstairs where the offices and the private rooms were located. The fanciest technologies would be in that section of the house and I figured that Howard wanted to impress me with the Children’s newfound strength. Instead, he led me to a panel under the sweeping stairs and opened it with a touch of his fingers. Behind it was a steel door with a glass plate on one side. I was aware of this hiding spot, but I have never been past this point. Whatever the Children had hidden here was protected with secret passwords and bio-scanners, and so I could never get through. The not knowing had driven me nuts for years, and this moment should have made me giddy with anticipation. Instead, I was annoyed with the tediousness of it all.
After scanning Howard’s hand print and a small donation of blood, the steel door clicked open to reveal a simple flight of wooden stairs leading to a basement below the house. Howard let me go first with a gentle sweep of his hand and down I went. At the bottom was a vast museum, all of it devoted to me. There were displays of the weapons, clothing, and jewels I had discarded as I moved through time. In every available space were neat rows of shelves, holding books and folders, likely containing notes and articles about my activities. One wall was hung with a variety of paintings and photographs of me, wearing an assortment of clothing and hairstyles, depending on what era I had existed in. Creepy. The Children had picked up my trash and they stored it away like a bunch of squirrels hoarding nuts. I turned away from it all and saw Howard behind me with a proud smile on his face.
“You people need to find something better to do,” I snapped. Really, there must be more to life than following me around. I do some pretty cool things when I get bored, but no one is that interesting.
“While you are still our main focus of interest, we have moved on to other things,” Howard replied, stepping past me. He let his fingers dance across the objects he passed, touching the things that represented generations of futile efforts to discover my secrets. I remained where I was and stared at it all, too troubled by the products of hundreds of my lives stretched out before me to see. It’s odd, that no one ever realizes how much one life can accumulate, not just in materials but memories as well.
I caught a glimpse of a simple pewter bracelet, and I recalled the anniversary my fifteenth husband had given me the trinket and the joyful light in his eyes that he had been able to do it. That night there had been sweet kisses and gentle touches in the comfortable warmth of our small home in Southern Italy. In another spot was a torn and blood stained gown draped around a seamstress’ mannequin and I saw the pale and enraged faces of German priests as they applied hot irons. I had screamed for them and begged for the lives of the children I had sheltered, but I never knew why they had taken me. Afterwards, I returned to my home to find the children gone, forced into convents and monasteries or dead from starvation and abuse. There were ancient weapons that brought flashes of terrible battles and murderous deeds