November 1887—Freemont, Mississippi

The young man, bound facedown to the table, quit his struggling. Gallons of sweat stained the hard oak beneath him, and his chaffed, cut wrists bled against his back from around the taut leather binding. His blonde hair hung askew, matted, and plastered clumsily to his cheeks. Spasms wracked his spent muscles, rendering further struggle pointless. Any movement was almost involuntary. He knew this now.

His judges knew all along and waited on him to realize for himself.

From the table’s head, the Council Marshal rose, his chair emitting a light, grating whine against the wooden floor, and beckoned someone from the shadows. Into the flickering lamplight stepped a man obviously far from home. His long, formal morning coat and matching trousers blended with the room’s shadows in an ominous form. He seemed only a disembodied head and clasped hands floating into view. No working man in Freemont wore such frippery or affected such a demeanor.

He spoke and removed all doubt of his origin.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for entertaining my request. For a half century, our government has sought allegiance with your Council. And after this recent incident,” the Washington man’s eyes slid coldly over the trussed up, gasping form on the table, “we are grateful an agreement can be struck.”

The gathering grumbled and murmured asides. Trust among this community came hard. Outsiders were not only unwelcome but considered threats when allowed so much access. If not for the insistence of their Council Marshall and his top lieutenant, no one would listen. Certainly, this spectacle, lashing one of their own to the table and watching the hope drain from him, would not have happened. They would have simply executed judgement and been done. Grant it, this case’s only fair judgement equated to execution, but at least, they’d preserve the man’s dignity.

A gavel rapped repeatedly, hard and loud, across the space, bringing the room to order. The attendees quieted, but many of the faces betrayed an emotion far from chagrin. Their distrust and anger grew as their patience waned. Trust had a limit of both time and credulity. Theatrics would not improve the quantity of either. The Council Marshal sympathized, yet he knew that after whatever came next, none would dispute this new alliance. Or, if they did, the risk would be their own.

He motioned for the outsider to continue, and the man assumed the posture of a humble school master.

“Each of you is proof that the grand architects of our world thought you worthy of much more than mortal flesh. For you, they gifted the ability to run among the beasts and fly among the birds as one of them—as more, than them. But what do you know of others: branches, kin, like unto yet quite different from yourselves?”

The man paused. His eyes roamed amongst the seated, waiting. The question was not rhetorical, and the more his audience knew—or was willing to accept, the easier they would agree with an alignment. Of course, their leaders understood. They were learned, traveled men, who from their youth saw the world widening; extended themselves with it; and brought those lessons back to better their own. Still, their own had been too slow in adapting, their leaders too timid in guiding. Tradition ran deeper than a coal vein here. Only seeing equaled believing. Thus, he showed them.

“May I?” The man asked softly of the Council Marshal.

“Proceed.”

“Elfie,” the man pronounced hardly audible enough to be heard more than two seats away, “you may enter.”

Hinges squeaked on the opening door of the adjoining hall. All heads snapped quickly, most having only heard a murmur from the man, if anything at all. A silhouette shadowed the doorway. Seconds later the silhouette disappeared, as if only a shadow cast by clouds over the moon. Yet, almost simultaneously, a slight breeze passed through the room, stirring hair and shirt collars.

Mouths gawped at the figure now standing beside the man. A woman, no older than twenty years but with a demeanor and poise of one who’d lived a hundred lives. A moment of protest arose at the woman’s arrival; the Council Marshal silenced their objections with another rap of the gavel.

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“Before we go further,” the man’s tone blackened, “we must deal with this.”

His hand extended toward the man lying on the table. The bound man swallowed hard, his breath ragged and body drained. He managed to turn his head away from the stranger and toward his father, whose matching sapphire eyes flamed with empathetic pain, met his instantly, and did not look away.

Behind him, the stranger continued, “Am I correct that the penalty for his crime would be death?”

The man’s father blinked heavily yet remained focused on his son as he answered, “He took lives in cold blood. There ain’t no question. His life is required.”

Silence descended on the room. A father’s condemnation. A son’s acceptance. What more was there left to say? Except from one.

“Sir,” the man’s voice was a command calling all eyes to his own, “if your son could be spared death, be allowed to walk and work among his fellow man, would any other penalty do?”

Long moments passed. No one dared answer in the father’s place for none knew what the stranger proposed. Yet all might have entreated for justice of their own kind. Still, not a word breeched the silence.

“A devil’s bargain?” The father managed.

The stranger’s mouth twitched as if to smirk. Yet, his words remained stoic. “No devils. No gods. Only the use of those powers granted to us select few. Only a moment’s pain. However, five generations will remember this day in honor of the lives taken.”

Murmurs and whispers erupted around the table once more. The gavel sounded, yet none adhered to its admonition. What manner of punishment was this? Why should a murderer be allowed to walk among us? How could this be equal to his crime? Who may tell what five generations will bring?

The father nodded once to the man. “I accept,” he said, but his voice was lost to the din. “I ACCEPT!” His harsh, watery shout reverberated through the room. A hush fell, as all turned back to the grim stranger.

“Very well,” the stranger backed from the table, motioning the woman forward. “Elfie.”

The woman strode behind the seated men. The two, blocking access to the bound man, slid apart, taking their chairs with them. Her next moves happened so fast, no one was sure what they saw. The thick ropes lashing him to the table snapped and fell away. Before the binds touched the floor, the man was hoisted up and away from the table. The ties keeping his hands connected to his ankles was cut, and the women held him on weakened legs in front of the visitor.

Startled cries pierced the room. The realization—a woman in human form performed these tasks—swept as fire through dry brush among them.

“ARE YOU,” the man’s raised voice extinguished their fervor, “ready?” He continued in a solemn tone. Attention solely on the condemned.

“Wh-What will you d-do to me?” The bound man found the courage to sputter.

While on the table, he considered how to escape. He imagined the moment they cut the ties from between his feet and wrists. If he changed then, he might escape with his life. But for the woman, he might’ve followed through. She whispered in his mind without speaking. The woman showed him the only way his plan would end—the terrible, bloody way she would end it. He conceded a final defeat.

The outsider faced him without a shred of emotion. Without pity or anger, compassion or hate. Now, he was only about a mission, his face a formless mask of plaster instead of skin and bone. And he answered as such.

“A mercy. A curse. A display of supranatural power beyond your current ability to understand. But you will soon.”

The man reached forward and unbuttoned the other’s shirt. He performed the act with delicacy, intimacy, and unbridled intimidation. He pressed a warm hand to other’s breast, and a slow, foreign recitation began to fall from his lips. Pale, milky light shone between his fingers, and a howl burst from the bound man.

At the table, a pained, shocked gasp pulled attention to the condemned’s father. The father clutched his forearm. His chair clattered to the floor as he scrambled away, pawing back his shirt sleeve on the offending limb.

Across the room, the incantation finished, and the stranger pulled his hand from the condemned’s chest. A heartbeat later, the woman sliced his remaining bonds with a single digit. They fell to the floor, and exhausted, the man followed them. The father’s colleagues escorted the elder man back to the table. His face was purplish red, dripping sweat, and his breath came sharp and jagged as crushed stone.

The Council Marshal poured a mug from the sacred cistern and rushed to his friend’s side. As he guided the mug into the other’s hands, he glimpsed the markings. Stark, plain symbols minted his friend’s arm where only flesh rose before.

The man’s father sipped and finally gulped down the draft. Seconds later, agonized cries broke from his throat. The aftershock rattled the others as well. He pulled at his arm, at the markings as if to strip them from his skin. The markings darkened, morphed from shades of skin to wine, to black, and finally, as if an invisible knife were drawn across them, they split apart. At their final division, the man’s cries faded, as if he’d already forgotten their pain. Relief, dread, confusion clouded his features.

“Fascinating,” the stranger’s voice broke the silence, his form bent across the table, “and disturbing. What did you give him?”

“You have yet to earn that.” The Council Marshal returned harshly. “That is all you need to know.”

The two men exchanged a violent look heavy with the unknown. Seconds, hours ticked away.

“Very well,” the stranger conceded. “This town’s secrets and keeping them safe are the reason we’re here. However,” to the gathered his eyes seemed to glow in their sockets at the intensity of his words, “if we are to continue, I must insist on two stipulations.”