Prologue
JULIAN
The cheerful sunlightwas a painful contrast to the grim events taking place in the courtyard of the Paladin Guild of Los Angeles.
Julian Heroux had expected it to be a day like any other when he woke in his bed that morning and drove to HQ. And it was—until he arrived.
The outer wall and its holy wards had been repaired, and the children were back where they belonged in the boarding school and nursery. They had been living in a small, heavily warded safe house—the location of which had been unknown by all but the senior guild officials—until the children’s dormitories were finished. Construction at the administrative building was still going on, but they were making progress. It would never look quite the same, which he found eerily fitting. Things at HQ had been…differentfor quite some time now.
A sound filled the air as he emerged from his car, a rhythmic banging sound that seemed to be coming from the other side of the administrative building. He could see a crowd gathering around the corner of the building and drifted in that direction. His instincts jangled with alarm; something was wrong. The crowd was too quiet and still.
He found his squad captain in the crowd. Nicolas Garcia was like a big brother to him, and Nicolas’s actual brother Daniel was Julian’s best friend. There was no sign of him right now, though he and Nic rarely went anywhere without the other.
“What’s going on?” Julian asked softly. Through the press of bodies in the courtyard, he saw Sloan directing some of the paladins to erect a thick wooden pillar in the middle of the courtyard.
Nicolas’s bleak gaze met his. His normally warm brown complexion was waxen. “They arrested the dissenters this morning. They’re holding them in the jail.” He nodded his head at the squat building on the other side of the courtyard, folding his arms tightly across his chest.
Shock hit Julian. Daniel had been the one leading those meetings. Julian had never attended one, but he agreed with the sentiment behind them. They didn’t sow dissent, despite what Commander Sloan insisted; they just met up to talk about the direction of the guild. Ever since Alex Hawk and some other paladins left the guild to be with demons, Sloan had been increasingly focused on exacting some sort of vengeance against them for their ‘betrayal.’ Some paladins, like Daniel and the others in the meetings, worried that Sloan was losing focus of the guild’s purpose. They were meant to hunt demons, not humans who sympathized with them.
Julian privately agreed with Daniel, but Nicolas had outright asked Daniel to stop attending the meetings more than once. He thought it was dangerous. Daniel had insisted that the guild was still full of good people, and there was no real danger as long as they were doing the right thing. Torn between the two, Julian had opted to listen to his captain.
As far as he knew, they hadn’t even had any meetings in a few weeks. Isaac Morrow had been present at the last one, but he went missing a week ago. Right before Commander Sloanoverthrew the council and arrested those who weren’t voting in his favor, like Doctor Maxwell, Head of Administration Regina Lang, and Principal Bradley Barker. Sloan had then sent a squad of paladins to attack the skating rink where the traitors worked. None had returned.
Daniel had received a warning message from Isaac a few days after they found Father Hawley’s body in the church. He’d shown it to Nicolas and Julian, but no one else. They didn’t know who else they could trust.
‘Sloan made me tell him about the meetings. None of you are safe. Be careful.’
Daniel had promised Nicolas and Julian that he hadn’t held any meetings since then, but apparently that didn’t matter. Sloan made a move on them anyway. He was going after anyone who disagreed with him now. That was… frightening.
“What—What do we do?” Julian asked. “What is he planning to do with them?” He eyed the wooden pillar in the middle of the courtyard. Two paladins were pouring quick-setting cement around it now to secure it in place. Whatever it was, Sloan intended for it to be a permanent fixture.
Nicolas shook his head. “I don’t know,” he breathed, glancing at the crowd of paladins around them. “I don’t think we can do anything.”
They certainly couldn’t talk freely out here, surrounded by people who might be loyal to Sloan.
“Nic,” Julian said, gut twisting with anxiety. Nicolas was their captain, and he’d always been so protective of his little brother. Surely he would do whatever it took to protect Daniel now. He wouldn’t let them hurt him. Julian could barely wrap his mind around the fact that theymight. Were they really so far gone that they would turn on their own people?
Nicolas squeezed Julian’s shoulder. “I know, Jules. I just…”
Julian swallowed down his despair. Nicolas didn’t know what to do. Neither did Julian. They were supposed to be able to trust their commander to do what was best for the guild.
How was this the best thing for anyone?
Julian watched with slowly mounting dread as another paladin came out with some kind of chain and an electric drill. No one spoke as he drilled the hardware into place on the pillar and attached the chain, and Julian’s stomach dropped as Paladin Morris stepped back to reveal a pair of shackles attached to the pillar.
“Oh God,” he whispered, and Nicolas’s hand tightened almost painfully on his shoulder. “What is that for?”
“I don’t want to know,” Nicolas whispered. “He can’t be planning to execute them, can he?”
Julian hated that he didn’t have an answer.
“He can’t… Hecan’t,” Nicolas breathed. Whether he was trying to convince Julian or himself, Julian didn’t know.
Sloan turned to address the audience, clasping his hands behind his back. “Thank you all for joining me on this momentous occasion. There are big changes happening within the guild, which I’m sure you’ve all noticed. You will no longer be taking orders from a unified council. Too many of its members were lacking conviction. From now on, you will take all orders directly from me.”
Sloan’s cold gaze swept over the crowd, and Julian resisted the urge to fidget or shift his weight. He didn’t want to draw even a small amount of attention to himself right now. Cold dripped down his spine, and his mouth was dry. This was wrong. Very wrong.
“To mark this moment, and to show you what happens to dissenters who sow rebellion in our midst, I’ve implemented a new punishment.”
