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"The seventh offering is vengeance Turn the heretics from the Temple of Solomon And their sins shall be purified by blood and fire"

"Isaiah?" Me out of his brother’s mouth made him cold with fear

"Anoint thy flesh and prepare ye the walls of your houses to receive him" Isaiah’s thin body jerked with sripped his arms Should he run for Octavia? The doctor? He didn’t know "Isaiah, what are you talking about?" he whispered urgently

"They’re co The ti a nightmare Wake up, I say!"

Isaiah went limp and calht drift back to sleep Suddenly, he stiffened His eyes snapped wide open He stared at Memphis as his small body shook His words were a choked whisper: "Oh, my son, my son What have you done?"

Isaiah swayed, but Meht him in time and put his little brother into his bed, where he resu had happened

Me on his own bed Unable to rest, he watched the rise and fall of his brother’s chest for some tiht How could Isaiah have known? No one knew except Me trance in those last moments with their mother on her deathbed As he’d walked in that other place, aand death, he’d seen her spirit,out toward him just before she ed by so:

Oh, my son, my son What have you done?

BLOOD AND FIRE

Eugene Meriwether let hi white edifice of the Grand Masonic Lodge on West Twenty-third Street, near the rattling thunder of the Sixth Avenue El, and climbed the steps to a small office on the third floor He’d enjoyed a dinner out with his Brothers following a et under way Now, by the soft glow of his banker’s lamp, he worked up a proposal for the Grand Master to review

In the quiet of the office, he opened the jeweler’s box secreted inside his jacket and brushed a finger across the cuff links nestled into the dark velvet To Edward saying, "What is this?" as he opened the box and beheld the fine workmanship of the cuff links, which featured a scrolled E, the initial they shared He could practically feel Edward’s sweet kiss on his lips Edward, his great love; Edward, his great secret