“Angel’s breath,” a soldier yelled, “what the fuck is that!?” His voice was lost among the smoke.

“It’s those things! Those creatures! They’re fucking snake people!”

Verune lunged at Lizzie, grabbing her with his long claw-finger. “Stay back, Lizzie. Let me do it!”

Tugging on her shoulder, Verune thrusted himself past her while reciting a prayer in his mind. Even without the blessings the Angel had given to his mental prowess, Verune would have known exactly which prayer to use.

“Ic sceawian du sunneleoht, Halig Engel. Biecnan se mist.”

The technique was Enille’s. The Lass had used this prayer to manipulate the fog off Elpeck Bay, shaping it into thick walls to hide the paths of her followers as they’d stormed Elpeck, ousting the pagan Pekt.

“Gehiewian sum wag of mist, æt sclidan úre campweorud.”

Verune felt the Angel’s power flow through him. It launched out of his fingertips and at the crowd. But the miracle did not work as he’d intended; it didn’t scatter the noxious gas. Instead, it hit the Innocents like an incoming tide, slamming them down onto the pavement while churning the gas all around them.

Simon ran out, waving his claws. “Stop!” he shouted. “You’re killing them!”

“No! No!” Verune yelled, desperate to stamp out the power rushing through his limbs. He shook his arms and scattered his thoughts, shouting in his mind.

“Simon!” Verune reached out his arm. “Go! Do as I taught you!”

Simon reared his neck and forepart, barreling at the soldiers like an alligator on its hind legs. The soldiers staggered and yelled as the changeling charged at them, tail trailing behind him.

One of the screaming soldiers pulled out another gun and fired brazenly, directly at Simon.

Verune screamed. “No—Simon!”

Within him, the whispers roared.

Verune channeled his powers and his rage, not bothering with words. Squeezing his hands shut, he thrusted his arms down, willing death onto the blasphemers who would dare shoot at a divine beast. An unseen force closed around on the bodies of the front line of soldier, crushing them utterly.

They didn’t even have time to scream.

Necks broke. Spines snapped. Bodies broke in half. Verune wagged his tail, utterly enthralled. He’d used more power than what he had at his disposal, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit drained. None of his nerves burned. Power flowed into him. He felt vital and strong. He tasted of the Angel’s glory.

Verune no longer cared why the fog prayer hadn’t worked, just like he didn’t care why the fire-killing prayer hadn’t worked. All he knew was that the last pious souls in this Angelforsaken city were right in front of him, amidst the clouds of stinging fog, drowning in their own blood.

“Behold the power and the glory!” he yelled.

Verune raising an arm, willing the bodies of the dead soldiers over the heads of their stupefied comrades. They fired bullets

In his thrill, Verune barely noticed that bits of his skin had begun to liquify, trickling down his arms and legs like molten candle-wax.

“I am a beast divine!” Verune yelled. “See me, and witness your sins reflected. See me, and know I stand with God!”

For a moment, the levitating corpses hung mid-air, ragged and unmoving.

“Monsters!” One of the still-living soldiers screamed. "Demon Norms!” In the early morning light, flashes burst at the barrel of his gun as he fired directly at the Lassedite. A stream of bullets tore holes through the hummingbird robe, plunging into Verune’s chest. The key to the faith he wore around his neck bashed into his chest as bullets struck it.

Raising his other hand, Verune willed the guns out of the soldiers hands. Fingers tore free as the weapons rocketed out of their grip. Then, thrusting his arms forward, Verune launched the hovering corpses forward, striking the soldiers like they were billiards.

Verune looked over his shoulder at Steyphan and Lizzie.

“Come! Help me!” He pointed at the Innocents in the smoke. “Help them!”

Steyphan yelled, flicking his tail across the ground as he slithered into the cloud. The others yelled and roared as they ran into the smoke, to rescue the innocents.

Several more soldiers came running out of the vehicle, screaming, guns a-blazing. Verune was aware of the smell of the plague in them. It was sweet like candy. He’d smelled it on the others, but his rage had made it irrelevant.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Now, though…

It had been hours since his last meal.

Before Verune could act, Lizzie did.

A ruby blur rushed at the soldiers. Lizzie roared as she charged at them, indifferent to their bullets. She leapt at one of them like a hyena, tearing through his clothes. The man’s flesh ripped off his body wherever it touched Lizzie’s skin or scales. The infected tissue clung to her as if glued there before dissolving into her skin. Her skin trembled for a moment, and then blossomed with luminous, ruby scales.

Within, Verune heard the whispers urge him on. They spoke to him in his own voice.

Cleanse the world of sin. Devour the evil.

Verune ran forward on his numb legs, charging at one of the soldiers who’d dared to shoot at the dragon-headed girl.

Yes, my Lord, I will.

With each step he took, he realized just how hungry he was.

Verune licked his lips as he ran, opening his mouth wide. He heard his bones crunch near his ears; the corners of his mouth stung. His throat bulged, pushing onto his chest as it swelled. The soldiers’ eyes widened behind their helmet-visors.

Bits of glowing gold came into view as Verune felt his head shift about. Verune’s nose melted into his skin as his face began to push out into a short snout as he tackled at the wicked man who’d shot him. His jaws opened impossibly wide around the soldier’s helmet, dripping with spit. The material of the helmet bubbled and sizzled where Verune’s saliva touched it. In seconds, his saliva melted through to the soldier’s hairy scalp.

The inside of Verune’s mouth tickled with pleasure as his mucous membranes came in contact with the infected man’s flesh. Thousands of slender fingers reached out from Verune’s flesh and plunged into the soldier’s skull. Bone crunched like hard candy between Verune’s teeth.

The Lassedite’s neck itched as it began to grow. Verune’s perspective thrust forward as his body pulled apart the soldier’s infected flesh and incorporated it into the Lassedite’s lengthening neck. In seconds, Verune looked down to see a man-sized column of radiant, golden hide in the space between his head and chest. His neck had engulfed the soldier’s body like a sheath. Verune reached up to touch his face, but his hands merely brushed against the part of his neck where the contours of the soldier’s legs bulged beneath Verune’s minute, golden scales.

The Lassedite staggered about, too tall for his body, looking down from above the cloud of gas.

Below him, Lizzie’s talons cut through their armor like it was butter.

The other soldiers toppled over and ran, scurrying away like rats.

Heat and pleasure flowed out from Verune’s neck as the soldier’s body was digested. It came apart like a roast long baked.

Verune felt his chest bulge as his neck tightened. His viewpoint sank back to approximately its proper height as the soldier’s biomass flowed down into his body. The biomass strained against the hummingbird robe, and, for a moment, Verune felt as if he had cylinder in the middle of his lengthened chest.

Part of the fresh new biomass settled into place, lengthening Verune’s torso, but the bulk of it flowed down toward his hips, and from there, into his tail. In a matter of seconds, what had been a human being now made up the length of the Lassedite’s radiant, golden-scaled tail. The new limb trailed behind him, tugging at his lengthened back as it swept side to side across the pavement.

“There!” Simon yelled. “I sent them flying!”

“What?” Verune asked, raising his head as he turned around. He saw Simon levitating some of the Innocents out of the smoke.

“The tear gas canisters,” he said. “I sent them flying down the street. The air should start to clear soon.” But then the Simon gawked as the smoke between them cleared. “Dude, what happened to you?”

“I devoured the sinners,” Verune replied.

Verune flicked his head and tail at the soldiers—or, rather, what remained of them. Most of them had already been rent, limb from limb.

Verune thrust himself into the gas cloud and grabbed the first person he could reach, clasping to their robe, carrying them out with the help of a prayer to fortify his strength. He walked with closed eyes, letting the stimulating smell of the preachers’ infected bodies guide him to them, marveling at the way his changed limbs swirled with the unseen Light. Minutes seemed to pass like hours as the gas burned Verune’s unliving skin.

Verune’s group ran out of the smoke, coughing and sniffling, hacking up clouds of green wisps, lashing his new tail in irritation.

Steyphan was helping the dying preachers, trying to make them comfortable on the stretches of grass. Verune went back to help some stragglers out of the smoke. The dispersing smoke seemed to glow from within as it caught the rising sun.

More than half of the preachers lay dead, either on the grass, or by the dais. But, either way, sprawled in their own blood. As for those that lived, a quiet soon hung over them. They spoke in whispers, listening to Simon and Steyphan. They stared at bloody Lizzie with looks of horror and wonder. And as Verune emerged from the parting smoke with the last stragglers levitating at his side, all eyes turned toward him.

Toward his face.

Toward the hummingbird robe, brilliant and iridescent in the dawn, even with its stains and its tattered edges.

Toward the tail that glowed with the light of day.

Stretching out his hand, Verune guided the floating body onto the grass where, with a flick of his wrist, it settled gently onto the ground.

Their leader looked up at Verune. “Who are you?” he whispered. “What are you?”

The Lassedite reared up to his full height, his tail coiling around his feet.

This too, he thought, was pre-ordained.

These pious strangers had seen him wield the Angel’s might with their own eyes. They would have a place in the Last Church.

A place in Paradise.

“I am Mordwell Verune,” Verune said, “once 250th Lassedite of the One, True, Resurrected Angelical Lasseditic Church, lost to history, but now returned. By the Angel’s hand, I was plucked out of my time and brought here to yours, a Blessèd Chosen to guide the faithful in the tumult of the Last Days. The old Church is finished. Its purpose has been accomplished. I now lead a new Church—the Last Church. The changelings you fear have been chosen by God to ascend to the form of a divine beast. We have come to mete out the Moonlight Queen’s judgment. We are mirrors for your souls. We will devour the wicked, to feast on their sins, as surely as we will guide the righteous to Paradise.”

The Sun crested over the distant hills, bathing the day in morning.

Groans and gasps rippled through the crowd as the protestors prostrated before the Lassedite Returned.

Verune sighed. “Raise your heads.”

The leader did, showing a face half-struck by fungal filaments beneath his skin, his wild hair matted on his forehead.

“Who are you?” Verune asked.

“We are the Innocents of the Mountain, and this, surely, is an act of God.” The man lowered his head once more.

And Verune nodded. “It surely is.” He raised his head to the dawn. “Glory to the Godhead! Glory to the Hallowed Beast! Glory to the Moonlight Queen! And glory to the Holy Angel, and the Unseen Light!”