They entered through the back, through the alley-side entrance to Lct. Stoneway’s-at-the-Rousas—the former Rousas Mansion. Verune didn’t need to open the door to let Lizzie in; the doorway had already been broken down when the changeling hunters had broken in.
“Welcome, Lizzie,” Verune said. “Welcome to the Last Church.”
“Uh…” The girl pointed a clawtip at Verune’s head. “Your ear…”
Verune brought his unchanged hand up to where Lizzie had been pointing. His fingertips dabbed into a warm fluid that dripped down from his ear, pooling in his lobes and matting on his hair.
He brought his fingers to his face. It was beautiful, like liquid opal. It glistened as he rubbed it between his fingers. A moment later, it disintegrated, evaporating in a wisp of darkness that faded into nothing. A tiny voice in his heart muttered about fear and worry, but Verune pushed those concerns aside. He had no use for doubt. It was not his place to question. Action was his charge.
And I will act. I will not forgive this age of its blasphemies.
Solemnly, Verune nodded at Lizzie. “It’s as I said. I can hear the Angel’s voice. And it’s beautiful. It’s as I told you. A new Church has begun with us. A Church without end.” He looked up at the back of the old Rousas mansion.
It amused Verune greatly to learn that fortune had given all of its smiles to Jacob Jr.’s home instead of to the man himself. The building was too lovely to be the house of a greedy sycophant. Repurposing it as a church had saved it from the ravages of time and given it new purpose. Its peaked roofs and steep, pyramid-crowned tower were crushed between the looming shadows of two modern office buildings. The alleyway was nothing more than the mansion’s baluster-studded veranda, which wrapped around the side of the building to the back. Its pale green walls seemed as gray as its shingled roof in the dim light of dawn.
“It might be small, now,” Verune said, looking Lizzie in the eyes, “but the Last Church can only grow. It will be as in ancient times. The Church—the First Church—won its followers through the power of the Lass’ miracles. The people saw her deeds and knew her words were true.”
Lizzie nodded, mystified, but then turned to listen as an otherworldly sound caught her ear. Not speech, not music, but something in between. It resonated out through the broken doorway.
Lizzie turned to him. “What’s that sound?” she asked, but then she cut herself off: “Beast’s Teeth! What happened to you?”
Verune nodded. “You can see it now, can’t you?” He raised his arms, admiring their golden gleam.
“Your arms, they’re…”
He nodded again. “I know.” He gestured at Lizzie’s claws. “Look at your own. I told you you were beautiful. Your changed flesh glows with ruby light. You can see it now, can’t you?”
She looked down at her arms and gasped. “Holy shit. You’re right. I’m…” She raised her arms, marveling as she flexed her radiant fingers. Lizzie looked Verune in the eye. “What is that sound?”
“It’s the others.” He beckoned her in. “Go on, go inside. See for yourself.”
Wonderstruck, she walked up the short staircase and stepped inside.
Verune had finally found his purpose.
It was just as he’d told her, for what he’d told her had been the truth, no more, no less.
The world was overgrown. Humanity had lost itself to pride. It had fallen into decadence, perversion, and cruelty. Wild mobs burned the city to the ground. Men murder priests. They raped and pillaged, leaving their fellow man to die in terror and agony.
The Godhead chose the Green Death to be our punishment. It is how They have chosen to humble us.
The whispers thrummed in his soul.
Verune’s horror had been his error.
Lizzie hadn’t understood it at first; neither had Simon and the others. But that was why the Angel had brought him to this era. He was one of the Blessèd Chosen. His mission was to guide the changelings through their transformation into divine beasts. He would gather them and train them with the knowledge of the secret prayers.
If the creatures the changelings were becoming had seemed frightful, it was only because Verune and the others had not yet cleared the wool from their eyes. To the wicked, salvation was a terror to behold. It stoked the flames of their hatred of God, burning them with the pain of their sins. The terror the people of the world felt for the Godhead’s divine beasts was the ultimate proof of their sin. Once Verune understood this, the veil had been lifted. The Angel showed him the glory of what he and the others were truly becoming.
Yes, all would fall at the hands of the Green Death, but the righteous would rise again. And what were the changelings if not a resurrection? The changelings were the Blessèd—and Verune, a Chosen among the Blessèd, plucked out of time by the Hallowed Beast Itself.
The plague was the outer darkness from the beginning of time. It was the distilled essence of the divine wrath that the Godhead had tempered to make way for the world’s creation. The souls of the faithful—souls like Anne’s family, and Steyphan’s—souls like Catherine and Simon—those who were capable of weathering the darkness, they would be transfigured into divine beasts. Meanwhile, the fragile and the gentle would be released in spirit-form, to be carried by the Norms until the Last Days were finally done.
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Perhaps the Angel Himself would return to greet them, to pluck them from the darkness into the bosom of Eternal Light. Verune could hardly wait to find out. But, until then, he would do as he had done with Simon and the others—and, now young Lizzie, too.
He would find the Blessèd and guide them through the change, and together, they would smite the forces of Hell until the Angel returned to transmit them all into Paradise.
And the whispers smiled.
A yell of astonishment shot through the broken windows.
Verune smiled.
Lizzie had found the others.
“Verune?” A polyphonic voice reverberated through the air.
The Lassedite looked up to the second floor. “Yes, I have returned.”
He imagined they’d be rather hungry.
Changing prayers, Verune gestured at the flesh boulder where it lay in the middle of the alleyway, straining against the walls.
“Fleoganin stan,” he muttered.
The flesh boulder came undone, unfolding. Verune’s prayer separated the bodies and limbs from one another. Fungal connections snapped and ripped where the corpses had begun to meld into one another. One by one, Verune’s magic plucked the corpses free and then levitated them in through the broken doorway.
Fluid dripped down from his ear as he walked inside, leading a hovering chain of broken bodies.
The interior of the Rousas Mansion had been preserved in its entirety, rich with the splendor of its dark wood. Thin, earth-hued carpeting covered the floor wall to wall. The balusters were as shapely as chess pieces. Broad Moon archways segmented its long hallways. The windows had stained glass highlights, depicting the Angel or the Rousas’ railroads. Simple, cylindrical light fixtures hung from the ceiling, giving the halls a fire-like warmth.
In hindsight, Verune realized the Angel Himself must have guided him to Lct. Stoneway’s-at-the-Rousas. From what he had seen of Simon’s changes, the wide openings the Moon archways created would be more suited to their new forms than doors could ever be.
He led the bodies through the Moon archways, and then, turning, stepped into the main hall. Arc-shaped sofas surrounded a depression in the center of the room where the altar stood, beneath the ceiling Eye, on a patch of ceramic tile. A grand staircase curled up at the side of the room.
Verune spread his arms. “I have returned.”
The broken, mutilated bodies hovered out to either side of him. His prayers levitated them over to the altar and set them down on the ceramic tile around the altar.
Lizzie stood by one of the support columns, clutching to wood as she stared in wonder.
It was perfectly understandable for her to stare.
Some of the others were already well along in their transformations into divine beasts. The creatures they were becoming resembled the wingless, serpentine dragons of Munine legend, only without their hind legs.
Anne and Simon were the most magnificent of them so far, though their changes were far from complete. Anne was nearly as long as two cars laid end to end, fully covered in radiant emerald scales. Their light cast shadows from the columns, balusters, and archways. Most of her length was in her torso, and—to a lesser extent—her neck; her tail was still coming in. Her head was fully transformed: a dragon’s maw lined with ivory teeth, with curling horns and gleaming eyes, both of solid gold, and glowing like the sun. Anne curled against the side of the staircase, surrounded by her family’s spirits, who kept close to her at all times. At the moment, her children’s spirits slept against her side, lulled by the wings of a bedtime story she’d recited from memory.
Simon was perhaps even more radiant than Anne. His tail had grown out, curling around an arc-shaped divan. Where Verune had once seen fungal horns at the back of Simon’s head, there were now twisting, night-black horns that seemed to cut through the light of his golden scales. His legs were fading stubs, while his still-human face stuck out awkwardly small compared to his neck and horns.
Then, there was Steyphan.
Lizzie was not the first new convert Verune had found on his quests for food. Steyphan had come before her, a retired engineer of middling age whose life had fallen apart. Childless, his wife had succumbed to the plague just as his own changes had begun to set in. He’d gorged himself on corrupted flesh, powering his changes ahead. Above the waist, he was almost completely human, save for the claws that were replacing his hands. Below the waist, he was a serpent, and he couldn’t have wrapped his arms around his girth if he’d tried. Steyphan was currently talking to his wife. He’d rescued the spirits of several children; they slept next to Anne’s.
As for Mother Catherine herself, sat cross-legged in front of the structural column closest to the altar in the circular depression in the center of the room. Her legs were shriveled and brittle, her mallard robe spilling around them—green skullcap, brown cassock, and the gray sulpice which, ordinarily, she would have only worn during services. Her torso was as tall as the room itself. She pressed it against the column behind her, leaning on the thing for support. Her alabaster scales glowed like the Moon. The faint, green haze in the room glistened by the light of Mother Catherine’s scales.
Most of the other changelings kept close to her. Before Verune and the others had shared the truth with them, Catherine’s scales had been sickly white, and a second pair of eyes had sprouted on her face. The handful of changelings under her care had been afraid of themselves and one another before Verune showed them the truth.
Indeed, they were stronger together.
Verune turned to Lizzie. “Welcome.” He bowed. “Truly, welcome.”
Spirits flickered into being all across the room. Some were faint and insubstantial, others seemed like flesh and blood people. There was an intangible connection between the divine beasts, shared through the music of their voices. Through their song-speech, they could see the spirits that had been entrusted to individuals other than themselves.
The souls under Verune’s protection occasionally flickered into being at the edges of the room. Unlike the others, Verune didn’t interact with the souls in his charge. There was too much work to be done, and he found that focusing on the souls’ presence made it difficult to hear the Angel’s voice within him, and vice-versa.
“I’m…” Lizzie stammered as she pointed at Simon and Anne. “I’m going to turn into that?”
Verune nodded. “Eventually, yes; we all will. Your connection with the Angel will deepen as you change,” he said. “Soon, you will able to channel the power of God and use it to defend the souls of the righteous from the minions of Hell.”
“It is a grave responsibility,” Catherine said, from up above, “but an honorable one.” She nodded, brushing her green skullcap against the ceiling. “It is the highest honor any of us could ever hope to receive.”
“Everyone, this is Lizzie,” Verune said, pointing at the new arrival.
Anne reared her forepart up from the floor and leaned toward Lizzie, only to recoil and let out a keening, mournful cry.
Your face! Darling girl, what happened to you?
Anne no longer spoke human language; her language was now that of the divine beasts: a rich, mysterious polyphony. By a miracle of God, something within everyone else’s minds converted her music into words. Her words passed through their minds like a melody against the polyphony—a dirge for Lizzie’s lost innocence.
“Where are your parents?” Dayve asked. The spirit of Anne’s husband sat on the ground, his arms on his children as he leaned against his wife’s scute-covered underbelly. “What happened?”
Lizzie lowered her head in shame.