Indie Saint: An Urban Fantasy Adventure

  INDIE SAINT

  ©2021 VK FOX

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  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu. Artwork provided by Grady Earls.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading Indie Saint

  More In Urban Fantasy

  Chapter One

  From the dense, noisy crowd of true believers, Jane searched for her equal. The revival stage was awash in floodlights, insects, and dust from adjacent fields of drying feed corn. Crowds clustered behind the rows of occupied foldout chairs, eyes shining with light and amazement in the smoky, warm night.

  Jane was late. Her Sunday shift at work ran over, and she’d rushed to arrive before the service, not wanting to miss anything. Two pork-and-slaw sandwiches from a folding table meant this trip wasn’t a total waste: a free meal was worth the gas money.

  Food in hand and face stuffed, she stood near the back, trying to see without being seen. This was not the type of place that appreciated her mix of heroin chic and grunge clothing. The black lipstick didn’t help either; she was the poster child for everything baby boomers knew was wrong with Gen X. Thankfully, all eyes were on Reverend Charles Amherst as he continued his sermon.

  “You may not understand what you are witnessing here tonight. I will tell you the truth, my brothers and sisters, I do not fully understand either.” The preacher’s voice dipped and swelled in all the right places. “Our divine Savior, the almighty Lord Jesus Christ, does not ask for our understanding. He asks for our faith!”

  Jane tested that faith for more than an hour, her shoulders sagging. Like citizens of the Emerald City in an audience with the Great and Powerful Humbug, the crowd gasped, clapped, and played along. The theatrics were there: the lights, the commanding voice, a promise to make the impossible tangible. Capitalizing on people’s hope and desperation was old hat. In their desire to go home and be normal again the crowd was willingly taken in. Everyone wanted a wizard. Everyone prayed for a miracle.

  As a third audience member was healed, this time of cataracts, Jane gave up on getting answers. The preacher, whipping his designer jacket around as a miraculous instrument, paused and mopped his brow. Beads of sweat and humidity reappeared almost immediately. Onstage, the astonished woman staggered to her feet—hair askew, one shoe missing, and speechless from his healing power.

  This was such a waste of time. In Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, and now Illinois, no one could work the magic they claimed. Not like her. This healer was no different than the rest. There would be no answers, no companionship, and no new friend. At least they’d served dinner.

  Tucking away the old Altoids tin that held her cigarettes, Jane lit up and turned to go; her books and bed were calling. As she scanned for an opening to the parking lot through the throng of onlookers, a feminine hand touched her shoulder. A woman with nutbrown and silver hair pursed her lips and eyed the cigarette. Under a mask of disapproval, something more complicated smoldered.

  “There’s sick people here, miss.”

  “There isn’t any amount of secondhand smoke the reverend can’t cure.” Jane smirked at her joke and took another drag before rubbing it out on her army surplus boot, tucking the stub safely away for later. “I think they’ve got it under control.”

  The woman’s mouth, defying probability, compressed even further until the skin around her lips whitened and her eyes became glassy in the weird, flickering light. For a horribly awkward moment, tears threatened to overflow, but a friendly shout from the tent perimeter caught the woman’s attention and she abruptly turned and strode toward the side of the stage.

  She joined arms with a middle-aged man accompanying a boy of seven or eight years old. The boy gave his mother a fragile smile, firelight reflecting on his bald scalp. The little family waited patiently in line, fidgeting with nerves and anticipation. Jane scuffed the ground with her shoe—she’d been a total asshole.

  Some of the faithful onstage might be part of the act, but not this little trio. No parent would parade their sick child around as part of a con. The ushers pulled them to the waiting wing of the stage. A sick little boy would play well to the crowd, and no one would be able to instantly tell if his cancer was cured. The family wouldn’t know about the lie until later. What if they stopped taking him for treatment because they believed? What if the “healing” made it worse?

  Jane’s embarrassment over her rudeness gave way to a sick anticipation, her stomach twisting as she peered into someone else’s tragedy. This wasn’t going to end with happily ever after. Poor boy. Poor parents. Her palms itched.

  Onstage, one of the ushers, thick as a bouncer in a white linen jacket and a baby blue button-down shirt, escorted the formerly cataract-afflicted woman to the wings. There she could rest, recover, and not talk too much about her experience before they were certain of her devotion to this divine mystery. The family took her place beneath the bright lights.

  Baskets were passed around. With a sick kid onstage, this was the moment for everyone to show their faith and support by emptying their pockets. Hands dug deeply into wallets, purses, and fanny packs, pulling out currency in whatever form was available. Donations dropped into the fabric lining silently or with a muted jingle.

  Jane noticed the boy’s grin—filled to the brim with anticipation, with hope. She picked absently at her chipping purple nail polish, eyes glued to the stage, watching the whole scene unfold, and for a stupid moment, Jane prayed for a miracle. Magic existed. Good people existed. Heroes who stood for what was right, no matter the cost. Both magic and selflessn
ess were rare, but why couldn’t those qualities come together? If someone found they wielded power, couldn’t it spur them to use it for good, to lift up someone weak and precious?

  “By the power of the Spirit, be healed!” The preacher swung his jacket at the small family, forcing them back. The boy fell, caught by his mother just in time. The gathering settled to complete stillness. The parents’ burning optimism shone brighter than the lights. The boy’s nervous anticipation still bubbled over as the microphone was thrust to him.

  “Uh, hi?” His voice, soprano and unpretentious, generated immediate laughter in the crowd. The preacher pulled the microphone back. He stooped over the child, his large frame looming.

  “How are you, my son? How does it feel to receive His holy light?”

  “Good?” The boy leaned awkwardly into the microphone as he spoke. The preacher basked in those words of affirmation.

  “Praise the Lord! Praise Jesus Christ who said, ‘Let the little children come to me!’ Today you have witnessed true healing. Through my hand, by the hand guiding us all from above!”

  The dazed family was ushered off the stage amid deafening applause. Jane watched them shuffle back to their seats. The bewildered boy mouthed something unintelligible to his mother. She gave him a small smile and squeezed his shoulder.

  Jane shuddered and hugged herself as goosebumps rose on her skin and her vision blurred around the edges. The preacher had been testifying and scanning the crowd. Now his gaze was locked on her, assessing. Inspiration settled unpleasantly on his wide features.

  “Brothers and sisters, there are many kinds of suffering in this world. There are the kinds seen with the eyes, touched with the hands, known by the senses—and there are the kinds hidden to us. Suffering of the mind—of the soul.”

  “You don’t want me onstage,” Jane mumbled to herself, trying to smother a growing sense of panic. Jane struggled to hold it together. In a crowd infused with so much hope and need, Jane could barely keep her hands clamped over the fountain inside. Being onstage when the power surged through her was a worst-case scenario. Dear God, I don’t want me onstage.

  The crowd stilled as he continued to drawl on. “Even our almighty Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledged such suffering as he cast out demons from the lowest among us, from prostitutes and heathens.” The preacher paused, his face transforming from concern to rapture. “And do you know what He is telling me tonight?”

  “That you’re full of shit?” Jane said with a little more volume than she intended, eliciting a few nearby gasps.

  “There is no reason, no excuse, to be afraid! He is here with us, He shall never leave us, and He shall walk always by our side! Child!” A deeply tanned hand reached out, undeniably indicating that Jane should be produced from the crowd. “Here you will fear no evil. Come forward and witness His saving power!”

  Jane clasped her hands so they wouldn’t shake. A younger couple, smiling broadly, turned and grasped her arms. She was already losing control. One touch told her the young woman was three months pregnant and her husband had a mild cold. Jane tried to resist without pulling too hard and making more of a scene. She took a few steps back and shook her head to politely decline. Her feeble protest only magnified their warm encouragement.

  “Oh, honey! The reverend must see something in you! You’re in God’s hands here. He’ll put it all right.” They gently urged her toward the stage. Jane clenched her jaw, energy sparking in her blood, and took one last glance behind to calculate her chances of running without it concluding in impotent humiliation. Not good odds.

  Jane rubbed a hand over a luxury from her former life: several dozen jelly bracelets in bright colors. She’d bought them when she lived at home because they were pretty and cheap, and she’d kept wearing them in rebellion because her mom was convinced they were a secret slut code between sexually active young people. The things her mother took to heart from talk shows were so unfathomably stupid. Now a couple hundred faithful who matched the target demographic for Sally Jessy Raphael were staring at her as she was led onstage as a harlot. How widespread was her mother’s ridiculous misconception?

  The linen-jacketed ushers appeared, pressing claustrophobically close and proceeding to steer Jane by the elbows. Her world narrowed to a tunnel, elongated and ending in only one possible conclusion.

  One minute she was trying to cover her bracelets. Then she was in front of the reverend under the lights. The air was hot and full of insects.

  “Receive the Spirit!” His voice boomed and spittle flew. The jacket slapped Jane’s face, and she turned away from the buttons striking her cheek. Stunning silence followed, the crowd still and tense, the sound of a little boy vomiting resounding in her ears.

  Unacceptable. This could not be the world Jane lived in: a world where magic and goodness were real but a little boy’s family was publicly swindled and sent home to bury their child. Heroes must exist, and if one wasn’t going to show, she could fill in the gap. Sparks flashed and glass fell from the string lights along the tent supports, the soft rattle punctuated by startled shrieks. Jane stood, luminous before the crowd, a ray of cool white light rising through her and up to the canvas roof. The reverend attempted to speak, but the power was out, his booming voice now quiet without amplification. He stood with his mouth open, mic in one hand, miraculous jacket hanging limply. Jane left the stage and waded into the crowd toward the boy. The light followed her.

  He sat, doubled over in his mother’s arms. Her trembling hand grasped a blue plastic vomit bag. The light, soft but strangely penetrating, glowed on the fresh tears on the mother’s cheeks. Jane knelt next to them.

  “I don’t know what to say, but I can help. What’s your name?” Jane swallowed. If she didn’t have the crowd’s undivided attention before, she did now. “Do you want me to help you?”

  The boy blinked at Jane, seeing past the light and into her eyes. “I’m Luke,” he answered softly. “Yes. I want help.”

  Jane reached for his hand, glancing at his mother for permission. A few more tears escaped, and she gave a tiny nod.

  Jane took the boy’s hands, her thumbs brushing over them reassuringly. Crap, she’d bitten off more than she could chew. She could put him back in a good spot, before the tumors had spread as far . . . that would help. Or she could heal him entirely and be out of it for days. His little face was hopeful for the second time tonight. She couldn’t imagine his next appointment if they told him he still needed more chemo.

  Jane squeezed her eyes closed. She would go right home. She’d drink a ton of water to ward off dehydration. Then she’d sleep. The light and energy in Jane’s blood hummed, flowed, and left her through her glowing fingertips. A faint aura haloed Luke’s small body for a few seconds before winking out. The congregation was submerged in flickering shadows from the few fires still burning. Jane slumped forward as if she had been unplugged.

  “Get your hands off her!” A pulling sensation penetrated the fog of unconsciousness. Jane was a chew toy caught between two terriers—her shoulders going one way and her feet the other. She opened her eyes and blinked rapidly to no effect: no images, only darkness. Her sight was gone again.

  The summertime smell of campfires and the churning activity of a panicked crowd registered sharply as voices around her rose and fell. Words were only waves of sound, swelling and receding.

  Jane yelped and twisted, trying to wrench herself free.

  A voice, pitched to travel but without amplification, called out, “Brothers and sisters! Take a moment to join in prayer with—”

  But the rest was lost under another shout, a man’s voice, close to her ear this time. “You awake? Can you manage a kick or two, honey? I’m trying to get you out of here.”

  Jane thrashed her legs frantically. Strong fingers dug into her ankles like a vise, wrenching her the other way, and a deep voice bellowed, “Let go, you idiot! She’s with the reverend. We need to help her backstage!”

  From some distance away, a c
all of fire! echoed. An eerie howling rose in the distance—weird and inhuman.

  Jane ground her teeth and swore loudly as pain shot through her.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, asshats!” She pulled her knees up as far as she could and kicked hard. The crunch was more a tangible agony than a noise, and the result was instant—ankles free and a whole lot of man screaming from the same direction. Her shoulder was still being used as a leverage point, which really fucking hurt, and the calls of fire seemed to be getting closer.

  The same voice by her ear again, male and middle-aged. “I’m here to help. It’s going to be okay.” Jane was set on her feet and ushered in an unknowable direction. “You helped my boy when no one else could. I won’t leave you.”

  Jane scrambled to stay upright in utter confusion. Serious, heavy smoke tainted the air. In the frantic surge forward, she tripped over a fallen chair. “Please help me! I can’t see!” Panic rose in her voice, and she groped for the man.

  An arm came around her waist, dragging her over the uneven ground. “Just a little farther.” The sound of sirens cut the chaos. “Good thing is, I think we lost them.”

  Jane’s head snapped back as her hair caught. Another voice spoke, female and with an undercurrent of panic. “Is she the healer girl? I need her help! Wait!”

  “I’m sorry . . . I can’t! I have to go, please!” Jane tore at whatever had caught her hair. Surges of pushing and pulling in a crush of bodies and pressure was the worst mosh pit of Jane’s life. Except, as a bonus, she was blind, surrounded by fire, and in a crowd of desperate people who believed she could fix all their problems. Had a wolf howled in the distance?