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

thought that the Fey would have been caught dead in a place like this,” I commented as Mab led us through the helter-skelter circle of single-wides and dilapidated campers.
“Most people don’t, that’s why we do it,” Mab replied peevishly.
“Is the whole park full of faeries?” Shaw asked looking around.
“Most of the residents are human enough. They don’t talk about us and they serve as a mask against the authorities for us.”
“Where are we?” I demanded. The trailer park wasn’t located in one of the nicest places that Georgia boasted. Trash was strewn everywhere and it plugged the drainage ditches. There were plenty of cars up on cinder blocks with their hoods propped open and their engine blocks rusted. Many of the trailers had broken toys poking out of bent aluminum skirts and there was the toxic scent of chicken manure and bleach lingering in the warm air. Ah, there is nothing like the smell of a meth lab in the early afternoon.
“We’re in Gwinnett,” Mab said. I saw a few curtains twitch as we passed close to the trailer. The natives were watching from the safety of their rickety fire traps and tornado magnets. I wondered how many of them were fingering their guns as they sipped iced tea sweet enough to chew.
Mab’s destination was a double wide trailer that was younger and in better condition than the rest of the park. The thing was big enough to be a real house except for the press board walls and cheap vinyl siding. Mab rapped on the simple white door and then pushed it open before permission to enter could be granted.
The interior was markedly different from the outside. It wasn’t that there was anything out of the ordinary there, but the quality of the items was much better than what most people of a meager income could afford. The furniture could have come out of any upper middle class home instead of the broken garage sale fodder that was usually found in these kinds of domiciles. Even the carpets were too nice and everything was too clean.
Baja and Kootch stood up as we entered the living room and they glared at us. Baja had set aside his sun glasses so that I was confronted by a vicious green stare that bored down into the black depths of my soul. It was a rather nasty sensation that made me want to beg him to put the glasses back on.
“Good to see that you’re still alive,” Baja said and gave us an oily smile. The display of very white, even teeth in his dark face made his eyes look predatory and made my primitive brain gibber like a spider monkey. There was nothing good about the way he looked; indeed he appeared to be anything but happy to see us.
“I’m always alive, bright eyes,” I replied, using the small joke to cover up how nervous he made me. People like Baja should never know when they give another person the willies. It makes them needlessly manipulative as they expertly exploited that fear.
“I fetched the humans and now my work is done. I shall return to my sister’s side,” Mab announced and produced a slip of paper from the thin air. “Make certain that Finvarra receives this, I’m sure he’ll want to read it.”
Baja took the paper with a respectful nod and promised to do as he was told. As soon as Mab was gone, Baja opened the paper and squinted at it.
“What’s it say?” Kootch demanded, pressing close to the other man to peer at the note.
Annoyed, Baja pushed the redneck off with his elbow. “I don’t know, it ain’t English.” He held the paper out to me. “Can you read this?”
I glanced at a series of straight lines and tiny circles and searched my memory for a match. I recognized the runes as Norse, but rather than representing phonetic sounds, these marks were a representation of whole words. It had been a language reserved for shaman, druids, and witches, and I had not seen it’s like in over five hundred years. I could still pick out words here and there, enough that I got the gist of the message’s contents.
“Some children were set on fire,” I said, confused and horrified. Why would Finvarra give a crap about human children? Then it hit me. The Children of Orpheus had been in a state of panic when we left the safe house. “No, some members of the Children were burned by the Divine Inferno.” The Children were of no threat to anyone, why would someone go to the effort it took to corner them and then set them on fire? Even I didn’t possess enough ill will toward them to do that.
“Bummer.” Kootch whistled and then joked, “Someone went Satanic on their asses.”
That was the most I’d ever heard Kootch say at one time, and it was easily the most intelligent thing he had ever uttered. Baja seemed to think so too. He stared in surprise at the ornery cracker.
“What’d I do?” Kootch asked.
I shook off the moment and handed the note back to Baja. “Now what?”
“Now we take you to see the King,” he replied. “You aren’t going to try to resist this time, are you?”
“I think those days are done for now,” I relented with a shrug. At this point defiance would only make my life more difficult. “Let’s get it over with.”
“The King is in the second door on the left with Morrigan and the Dark Man.” Baja pointed to the short hallway on the other side of the kitchen.
Like all things Fey, the room was not what it seemed. Shaw opened the door and we were assailed by vibrant flowering bushes that made chiming noises whenever the breeze rustled their leaves and small, talking trees that spat colorful curses at a carpet of thick moss. Unlike the Mound, there was no cloaking darkness to hide dangerous creatures and magics. Instead, everything was bright and glistening like a jungle after a cleansing rain.
Finvarra was sitting on a smaller version of the throne he owned in Mound Knockma. He was dressed for the spring warmth in a sleeveless tunic and linen trousers, minus the long cloak of royal blue. His long gold tresses were woven into braids and twisted into a bun at the back of his head with a simple golden band of kingship resting lightly on his brow. Impatient, he waved us forward with a graceful sweep of his long fingered hand.
At our approach, three women and two men emerged from the plants crowding the space and stood in a semi-circle with Finvarra at their center. I recognized Bridget who stood closest to the king on his right side while Morrigan took a place at the end. Far Dorocha stood slightly behind her with his big hands resting on the pommel of a sword hanging from a belt of silver chains. Bres stood on Finvarra’s left hand side, with a woman wearing short, chestnut colored hair styled in jaunty spikes. She wore a simple dress of pale green that made her seem like nothing more than a wealthy housewife. She was lovelier than Bridget and Morrigan with wide eyes the color of an early night sky and a full, rosy mouth that needed no cosmetics to make them more beautiful.
Her eyes combed over Shaw and I saw a light of lust ignite in their bottomless depths. Shaw shivered under her scrutiny as if he had caught a stray chill, and pointedly ignored the woman’s stare. I caught the woman’s gaze and firmly shook my head no. Then I gave her a look that made it perfectly clear that this man was off limits and I had every intention of retaliating if she crossed the line. The woman got my hint with a sniff of disdain and she stopped admiring Shaw. That meant I win. Ha-ha!
“You will complete a task,” Finvarra began in a tone that had the sound of ritual in it. I felt a tingle rush across my skin to end in little pinpricks in my fingertips. “The Mounds, Knockma, Connaught, and Munster have suffered a despicable invasion of thieves who have taken from us objects of great power. It has fallen to you, Philip Shaw a mortal man, and you Rebecca Calden an immortal woman, to recover these treasures as servants of the Seelie High Court.”
Finvarra paused and turned to the spikey haired beauty at Bres’ side. “Cliodne, Queen of Sidhe Munster, please give our servants the list of items they are to recover.”
Cliodne stepped forward and offered a rolled length of parchment to Shaw. She let her fingers linger too long on his hand and smiled seductively. Shaw pretended that it wasn’t happening, which only encouraged the woman. She shot me a triumphant smirk as she returned to her place next to Bres.
Shaw unrolled the parchment and frowned. “I can’t read this.”
Bres’ face split in a wide grin and he exclaimed victoriously pointing at Bridget and laughing at her. Finvarra rolled his eyes and told him to shut up.
“You can read the language,” Finvarra said to me. “Translate it for Philip Shaw.”
I studied the parchment and saw the same kinds of lines and circles that had been used in Mab’s note to the King. It was a list of three items, each written in dark indigo ink beside a sketch depicting the items in question. The first was the Claiomh Solais, or the Sword of Light. It was a simple short sword of twenty one inches and marked with the seal of the legendary Irish king Nuada on the handle. Next was Dagda’s Cauldron, made from brass and perpetually filled to brimming with dark ale and haunches of boar meat. The stories about it said that if a corpse was immersed in it, it would be restored to life. The last was the living spear Areadhar, drawn as a long weapon possessed of demon’s eyes upon the blade. Written in red next to each item was “Faith of the Divine Inferno” followed by the address for the Immortal Church of God.
“Why would they steal these items?” I dreaded knowing, but asked anyway. According to myth and legend, the first two items were closely associated with knowledge and healing, while the spear was considered evil used in the cause of good. I know, it sounds like an oxymoron to me too, but that’s faeries for you.
“I do not know,” Finvarra admitted reluctantly. “It is our theory that these items, when used together for a single purpose, can be forced to take something very old and remake it new, and thus change the nature of the thing.”
“Where do I fit in to this?” I had to have a place in this hideous mess. The Immortal Church of God—excuse me, Faith of the Divine Inferno—has been trying their best to get their hands on me ever since all of this started. They have lured me into their church, tried to kidnap me, and now that I knew they were some kind of devil worshippers I knew that they had