The once proud Geneva Chapel, now stood in ruins, blitzed by the mob. Its huge stain-glass windows, once full of light and colour, stood hollow, like gaping wounds in the walls. Shards of red and gold littered the floor. The pews had all been turned over by the mad rush of people, trying to get to the men responsible for destroying their children.
Splinters of angels lay where they had fallen on the floor, disembodied and broken, their arms and faces turned to the sky, imploring their God to help them.
In the centre, propped up against the altar, sat one man and his daemon, the last of his church, sobbing his heart out.
"Oh Niala, what am I going to do?" he said, his head in his hands, cheeks still drenched in tears, "All I was trying to do was help them."
"Maybe they were right?" she said, laying her delicate red head on his lap, "Maybe it was wrong to split people from their souls."
"But, what about Dust?" he asked, looking back at her, "We saw it, they showed us, there were photographs!"
"Maybe Dust isn't bad?" she said, slightly unconvinced.
"Then why don't children, the innocents have it?"
As they sat in silence, surrounded by wreckage, it was easy to believe that it was evil they were fighting.
"I'm such a coward."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself."
But brother Padre was too absorbed in his misery to listen, "I should have fought them, defended the church, at least saved something. Anything would have been better than hiding in a cupboard like some pathetic..."
"There was nothing you could do, there were too many."
"I could have…done…I could have, taken a few of them with me, at least, gone down fighting!" he thought for a moment. "Maybe I would have been made a saint!"
"You're no fighter, you would have been killed in the first instant." she looked at him carefully, "And there's no one left any way, to make you a saint."
"They're all gone."
Niala nodded.
"All of them, there's no faith left." he started to cry again, "No more sermons, no more preaching, choir, people gathered to hear me speak, they're all gone."
The last of the sunshine sank below the horizon, and the empty and desolate hull of the church was plunged into icy darkness. Never more would brother Padre hear the gentle hymns ringing through the rafters, startling the pigeons from their sleep. The organ and the choir and the congregation, lifting their voices to the Authority, in blessed harmony.
All those hundreds of people, listening, intent on his every word, as he preached of the greater good, the end of sin, on how to be kind, and the rewards that were waiting for them, when death came at the end.
Six years he'd been here, Brother Padre of the Constitutional Court of Discipline, ever since he had wandered through into their world. Maybe he could go back, but go back to what? He had never been much in that world, a lowly parish priest in Tiptree, with a small and grumpy congregation of grannies, who had preferred their previous minister, and let him know it.
No, he was not going back, he might not be able to see his beloved Niala again. He looked at her, his beautiful Red Setter. He had always loved dogs, but until he came here, he had never known that he was one. No, he would do anything rather than lose her.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flickering. Fire.
Getting up he marched resolutely in its direction. To trash a place in the raging heat of the moment was one thing, but to come back and purposefully burn the bitter remains…well, there couldn't be more than one or two of them. He could take them on. Maybe there was still a chance for that saint hood after all.
With Niala trotting along at his heels, her long fur sweeping out behind her in the breeze, they rounded the corner with every intention of defending their church to the last.
But there was no one there. Only a candle, dancing merrily in the breeze, set up in prayer when church was still attented, unseen before in the day light glare, it was still burning, propped on it side amid the wreckage that was once a stand. Fallen from its place.
Carefully sheltering it against the slight wind, he picked it up and put it back. The only light now left, in a cavern of shadows.
"Sad isn't it?" a voice, slippery as ice, cut through the quiet.
"What?" Brother Padre turned in alarm, "Who's there? Oh, It's you. Yes, very sad."
Father Michael MacPhail stepped out from behind the pillar where he had been regarding brother Padre's activities with contempt.
Like his brother, Father Hugh MacPhail, who had once been the President of the Constitutional Court, he had a lust for power and control. However, unlike his brother, he was merciless. Piercing blue eyes and rich dark hair, every one feared him and his deadly daemon, a black widow who hung from his ear by a single, silvery thread, twirling her eight fine legs in the air, deadly and beautiful.
"So much time and work, destroyed in an instant, by a Dust driven mob." his words dripped like poison, and Brother Padre pushed his candle in more securely, to avoid looking him in the eye.
"Yes, terrible."
"But," he put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Father Padre shivered but did not pull away, "But do not fear, all is not lost. This is just a new beginning, they may have destroyed the shell, and torn down our church, but the heart of our society, Brother, is still alive and well."
Brother Padre looked up at him, he did not trust this man, smiling demonically just outside his ring of light. But what else could he do? Where else was there to go? This was his last and only hope to return to the glory of the past.
"Come Brother, trust me, us men of the cloth should stick together. You don't want to return to how you were before now, do you?" he smiled, his daemon scuttled to the end of his hand, which was still on Father Padre's shoulder and stood poised.
"No, no definitely not."
"Because, you know, you're very important to us." he whispering in his ear, running his fingers across his neck. "Very important."
"Really." replied brother Padre, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
"Come join us, Brother, and you could become something even greater, one day."
"Like a saint." a small spark of hope lifted his soul, and he looked eagerly at Niala.
"More."
"More than a…" Brother Padre was already lost, like a child, caught between a dark room and a sweet shop, he walked dazedly out the door.
But as soon as he was past, the serene smile left Father MacPhail's face. Smirking, he looked at the candle, waving slightly in the breeze, glad to be up right again.
Blowing it out, he turned, and swept out after Prey.