If Bernie’s street had been crowded and frightening, St. Francis was even more crowded, and emotions were jacked up accordingly.
Sam was concentrating so hard on driving while watching the crowd for any sudden moves that I didn’t dare talk to him. I crouched in my seat, every muscle twanging with tension.
The tigress and Quinn were loping ahead of the truck in tandem, their paces matched as if they were in harness. It was beautiful to watch. A woman darted in front of them with a bucket of paint in her hand, and before she could aim it at them, the tigress bent to hit the bottom of the bucket. The paint splashed upward all over the woman, who had the neat, casual look of a soccer mom . . . one who’d strayed way out of her league. Covered in red paint, the woman staggered back the way she’d come, and half the crowd laughed while the other half shrieked. But tiger and tigress kept on running at their easy pace.
I looked in the rearview mirror to see how Bernie’s car was faring, and watched, horrified, as a group surged forward with pieces of wood and bats in their hands to pound on the roof. The children! Togo, drawn by the noise behind him, turned and then cast a quick, doubtful glance at me.
“Go!” I yelled. “Go!”
Togo didn’t hesitate but sprinted back to the crowd and began pulling people away from the car and tossing them to the side of the road as if they were cockleburs he was removing from his pants hem. Sam had stopped, and I glanced over at his agonized face. I realized that he didn’t know whether to leap out of the car and go to help, or if that would leave the truck—and me—open to attack. Trish was back at Mindy’s car helping Togo.
Then I saw a blur move by the truck and recognized Quinn. I swiveled in my seat and looked through the rear window. Quinn vaulted into the pickup bed, making the truck rock on its shocks.
I thought we were all done for, that this violence would spread and spread, and we’d be attacked and overwhelmed. Instead, the people of the town and the shifters who’d come in to support us began to shout for calm.
For the first time in its existence, most likely, the town of Wright heard a tiger roar. Though the sound came from an apparently human throat, it was unmistakable.
The crowd fell nearly silent. Togo and Trish, both bleeding, covered the windows of Mindy’s car with their bodies. I could see Trish heaving for breath, while Togo’s shirt was soaked on one side with blood. I peered through the windshield to see if help was coming from the church direction. I saw a thick crowd, and way at the rear I could glimpse the brown of the Wright police uniform. Two uniformed officers were trying to make their way through to come to us, but they’d never be here in time if the crowd decided to rush us. I looked back through the window to see Quinn drawing himself up tall.
“There are children in this car!” Quinn called. “Human children! What example have you set them?”
Some protesters looked ashamed. One woman began crying. But most seemed sullen and resentful, or simply blank, as if they were waking up from a trance.
“This woman has lived here for decades,” Quinn said, pointing at Trish, whose hair was soaked with blood. “But you harm her enough to make her bleed while she’s protecting children. Let us pass.”
He looked around, waiting to see if he’d be challenged, but no one spoke. He leaped down from the truck and jogged back up to resume point position with his new friend. She touched him, her brown hand resting on his arm. He looked directly at her. It lasted a long moment.
I had the feeling that Quinn might not need to have a talk with me anymore.
Then the two weretigers began their run again, and we moved behind them.
Porter Carpenter and another uniform had kept an area in front of the church blocked off for our arrival, and they moved the sawhorses aside so we could park. They looked relieved.
“They didn’t come help us,” I said, and I found that my lips and mouth had been so tense that I could hardly talk now.
Sam turned the truck off and shuddered, having his own reaction. “They were trying,” he said, his voice ragged. “I don’t know how hard they were trying, but they were on their way.”
“I guess this was a little more than they could handle,” I said, making a determined attempt to be less than furious.
“Let’s not beat them up,” Sam suggested. “What do you say?”
“Right. Contraindicated,” I said.
Sam managed to laugh, though it was a sad little snort of amusement.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Before we get out and the madness starts all over again . . . forgive me for dragging you into this.”
“Sam, not necessary!” I said, genuinely surprised. “We’re friends. Of course I’m here, and glad to do it. Don’t bring it up again, you hear? I’m just glad Mindy’s already married!”
My weak joke lightened his mood. He grinned at me and leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, and we both opened our doors.
The noise had begun rising again. The car’s passengers had emerged, too. Mindy and Doke, carrying their children, hurried up the steps of the church. Bernie, her fists clenched, faced the crowd, her eyes fixing on face after face. Some people had the grace to look ashamed, and some people were cheering for her, but some faces were twisted with loathing for this small, ordinary woman. Sam stood by his mother, his back straight.
I was so proud of him.
Craig moved to flank them, and I seized his hand. “Craig, you need to go on in the church now. We’ll be in there in a second,” I said, and I felt the anger come through him for a second before he understood that I was right. After giving his mother and brother one more look, he hurried into the church to reassure his bride that he’d arrived intact.
“Sam, you and your mom need to go in,” I said. “See, Togo’s brought Trish.”
All the two-natured who’d flooded into Wright were pressed into service by Quinn and his new friend. Togo carried the stunned and bleeding Trish into the church and laid her on a back pew before he took his place in the shifter barrier that formed around the church. The three Biker Babes and the Suburban Weres were joined by the Wright law enforcement officers, though some were more willing than others to man the barricade. They were joined by a score of others.
I saw a tiny woman I knew. “Luna!” I exclaimed, and gave the twoey a hug. I hadn’t seen her since I’d stayed in Dallas; it seemed like years ago, but it wasn’t.
“You always in trouble?” she asked, flashing me a grin. “Hey, look down the line.”
A few bodies away in the living chain, two Weres grinned and waved. One called out, “Hey, Milkbone,” and I realized that they were the ones who had picked us up in Dallas. Amazing.
“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole,” Luna yelled, to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “We may have busted up that phony church in Dallas, but I bet some of the same people are still here yelling that we ought to die. In fact, I already saw one of ’em. Sarah’s here!”
I gaped at her. “Sarah Newlin?” She was the wife of the founder of the Fellowship of the Sun, and she’d gone underground with her husband after the raid.
Luna nodded. “Ain’t that something?”
“I got to get into the church,” I said. “I came all this way to go to a wedding, and I better go watch it. I hope I get to talk to you later.”
She nodded back and turned to scream in the face of a man twice her size who said he wanted to get into the church to shoot the minister who’d perform such a travesty of a ceremony. That’s exactly what he said, though he stumbled over “travesty.” (Prompted? I think so.) Luna didn’t even use words to respond. She just screeched. She scared the hell out of the man, who stumbled backward.
I ran quickly up the steps to the double doors of the church, amazed at Luna’s revelation and cursing my high heels. (Today had turned out to be about so much more than looking good.) The FBI had been looking for the Newlins since the night Luna and I had escaped from the Fellowship building. They’d found all kin
ds of interesting things—guns, a body—concealed in the huge building, a former church. Steve and Sarah Newlin had continued their ministry of hate while on the run. The pair had a huge following. I would love to catch Sarah Newlin and turn her over to the law. It was no thanks to her that I hadn’t been raped or murdered at the Fellowship building.
Nothing could drown out all the noise from the street, but the vestibule of the church was calm and relatively quiet. I could see through the open doors into the sanctuary that the candles were burning and the flowers were in place. Deidra’s army brother, Jared, had brought a rifle with him, and he was standing by the church door ready to use it. Sam was with him.
I could see that the Lisles were waiting in the aisle, though Deidra’s mother was struggling not to cry, and Deidra’s father looked very grim. He had come armed, too. I didn’t blame him. Craig and Bernie were right by them, along with Brother Arrowsmith’s wife. She’d brought their son with her, cast and all. He looked angry and horrified and humiliated, and most of all he looked ashamed, because Bernie stood in front of him and looked him right in the face, not letting the boy dodge her gaze.
A door in the east wall of the vestibule opened, the door to the bride’s room, and Deidra’s sisters peeked out in their bridesmaid dresses, both pretty and very young. And very frightened. Their older brother nodded at them, trying to look reassuring.
“Where are Denissa and Mary?” the younger sister asked.
“The girls who were supposed to sing? They didn’t make it,” Jared said. The door closed. I knew Deidra was waiting in the little room in her wedding dress. “Their parents were too scared to let them come,” Jared told Sam and me. “Sookie, you want to sing instead?”
Sam snorted.
“That’s one thing I can’t help with. You hear me singing, you’d run the other way.” I wouldn’t have thought anything could make me laugh, but I did. I took a deep breath. “I’ll stay right here and watch the door. You two are members of the wedding.”
Jared hesitated. “You know how to use this?” he asked, handing me the rifle. It was a .30-.30. I looked it over. “I prefer a shotgun,” I said. “But I can make this work.”
He gave me a straight look and then vanished through the double doors. Sam patted my shoulder and followed Jared.
I heard the music starting up in the sanctuary. The older of Deidra’s sisters came out of the side room, her lavender dress rustling around her feet, and her eyes widened at the sight of me standing there with the rifle.
“I’m just insurance,” I said, trying to look reassuring.
“I’m going to ring the bell,” she told me, as if she had to get my permission. She pointed at the door in the west side of the vestibule, the bell tower door.
“Good idea.” I had no idea whether it was or not, but if tradition demanded the bell be rung at the time of the wedding, then the bell would be rung. “You need me to help?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. My little sister needs to stay with Deidra. She’s real nervous. You’ll have to put down the rifle for a second.” She sounded almost apologetic. “My name’s Angie, by the way.”
I introduced myself and followed her through the little door into the bell tower. A long red velvet rope hung down like a big thick snake. I looked up at the bell hanging overhead, wondered how many pounds it weighed. I hoped the builders had known what they were doing. I laid down the rifle, and Angie and I seized the rope, braced ourselves on our heels, and pulled. “Four times,” she said jerkily, “For a four o’clock wedding.”
This was actually kind of fun. We almost came off our feet when the bell swung up, but we managed the four rings. And I heard the crowd go quiet.
“I wonder if there’s a speaker outside,” I said.
“They put in one for Mr. Williston’s funeral,” Angie said. “He was in the state legislature.” She opened the door to an electrical panel and flipped a switch.
I could hear a crackle outside, and then “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” poured over the heads of the crowd. I heard a yell or two, but I could tell that people were turning to listen.
Angie went over to open the door to the bride’s waiting room, and Deidra and her youngest sister came out. Mr. Lisle joined them, and I could tell he was trying to focus on his daughter instead of on the mob in the street. Deidra was a vision in white, and her hands were holding a happy bouquet of sunflowers and daisies.
“You look beautiful,” I said. Who could not smile at a bride?
“That’s our cue,” Angie told her sister, and she opened the door to the sanctuary. The bridal march began, and I could hear it from in the church and from outside. Deidra turned to me, startled.
“All rise,” said Brother Arrowsmith’s sonorous church voice, and though there were precious few to rise, I could hear a rustle of movement.
Angie went down the aisle first, then her sister. Finally Deidra, her face glowing, took her father’s arm and went slowly down to join her fiancé.
I had retrieved the rifle, and I stood in the vestibule halfway between the outer and the inner doors, glancing from one to the other. I saw Deidra’s father step forward to whisper something to Brother Arrowsmith, who said, “Please join me on this holy occasion, as all of us, inside these walls and outside, stand together in God’s sight to say the Lord’s Prayer.”
He really came through in a pinch. I stepped closer to the outer doors, put my ear to one of them. After a moment, I could hear voices outside saying the prayer right along with the wedding party. Not all the people outside were joining in, but some were.
I risked going into the bell tower to look out one of the small windows there, and what I saw amazed me.
Some people had fallen to their knees to pray. The few protesters who felt like keeping up with the yelling were being decisively silenced by means both fair and foul by the devout. I dashed to the inside double doors and gestured to the minister to keep it up. Then I went back to look some more.
And I saw her. Sarah Newlin. She was wearing a hat and dark glasses, but I recognized her. She had a sign, of course: IF YOU BARK AND GROWL, IN HELL YOU WILL HOWL. Nice. She was looking around with baffled resentment, as if she couldn’t believe we’d played the God card and it had trumped hatred.
Next we had the Apostles’ Creed. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty . . . ” chorused voices inside the church and out. Brother Arrowsmith’s voice rang with sincerity. There was a long moment of silence when the creed was over.
“Today we gather together to join in holy matrimony. . . .” Brother Arrowsmith was off and running with what was probably the most ceremonious, solemn wedding ever held in this church; I was willing to put money on that. The people outside listened as Deidra, her voice shaking, agreed to be the wife of Craig, who sounded both strained and reverent.
It was beautiful.
It was just what we needed to turn the corner.
Gradually, the hostiles began dispersing, until only a few die-hard haters were left. All the two-natured stayed. When Craig and Deidra were pronounced man and wife and the organ music swelled triumphantly, there was actually applause out in the street.
I leaned against the wall by the church doors. I felt like I’d just run a marathon. The little wedding party milled around, hugging and congratulating, and Sam detached himself and hurried down the aisle to join me in the vestibule.
“That was some good thinking,” he said.
“Figured it couldn’t hurt to remind everyone where they were, and who was watching,” I said.
“I’m calling the closest liquor store to get a keg delivered at the house and a lot of snacks from the grocery,” Sam said. “We’ve got to thank everyone that came from so far away.”
“Time to go to the reception?” The bride and groom, who looked as happy as two young people can be, were leading the way out of a rear door of the church to go back to the fellowship hall.
“Yeah.” Sam was busy on his iPhone for a few minutes, making the arrangements for
an impromptu party following the church reception.
I didn’t want to distract Sam from this happy family occasion, but there were a few things we had to talk about. “How’d they all know to get here on time?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, startled. “I thought Twitter or the Internet. . . .”
“Yeah, I get that. But some of those people had to travel for hours. And the trouble started just this morning.”
Sam was intensely thoughtful. “I hadn’t even thought about that,” he said.
“Well, you’ve had other fish to fry.”
He gave me a wry grin. “You could say that. Well, do you have a theory?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Of course not. I don’t like anything about this. But spill it anyway.” We were standing on the covered walkway between the church and the fellowship hall, and I realized the entire property was ringed by the two-natured, and they were all looking out. They hadn’t relaxed their vigilance, though perhaps seventy percent of the protesters had left. I was glad of that because I didn’t really think this was over. I thought the worst had been staved off, at best.
“I thought about this some when I saw how many people were here. I think that this was all planned. I think the word about the wedding spread, and someone decided this was the chance to see how an organized protest went . . . kind of a testing of the waters. If this went well for the assholes who were out there screaming—if the wedding had been put off, or if the weres had attacked and killed a human—then this would have become a model for other events.”
“But the weres showed up, too.”
I nodded.
“You mean the twoeys were also alerted early? By the same . . . ?”
“By the same people who alerted the anti-furries.”
“To make this a confrontation.”
“To make this a confrontation,” I agreed.
“My brother’s wedding was a test-drive?”
I shrugged. “That’s what I think.”
Sam held open the door for me. “I wish I could say I was sure you’re wrong,” he said quietly. “What kind of maniac would actually make things worse than they are?”