Chapter 1: Unholy Communion
The rain had stopped, but the damp clung to everything in Havenwood, seeping into the warped boards of the porch and the wool of Pastor Miller’s borrowed coat. Inside the chapel on Hollow Ridge, the air was worse—thick with the ghosts of incense and rot. Sera Bellweather traced the splintered edge of the altar with her fingertips, the wood soft and crumbly with decay.
She heard his steps before she saw him, the careful crunch of gravel giving way to the hollow groan of floorboards. He paused in the archway, a silhouette against the bruised twilight sky.
“You came,” Sera said, not turning around. Her voice was a low curl of smoke in the vast, empty space.
“You said it was important.” Pastor Miller’s voice was tighter than it had been on Sunday, when he’d preached about fidelity to thirty listless souls. He was new, young, with uneasy eyes that had lingered on her a second too long as she’d left, a knowing smile on her lips.
“It is.” Finally, she turned. She wore a simple green dress, but it might as well have been silk the way it clung to the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips. The last of the day’s light, filtered through a jagged remnant of blue stained glass, caught the copper in her hair and turned it to fire. “The roof over my kitchen’s about to cave in, Elias. I need it fixed before the next storm.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m a man of the cloth, Sera. I don’t… I don’t have that kind of money.”
“I know.” She hoisted herself up to sit on the altar, the old wood protesting beneath her. She leaned back on her hands, letting her knees fall slightly apart. The hem of her dress crept up her thighs. “But you know Frankie Larson. He does roofing. He listens to you.”
“And what would I tell him?” Miller took a step forward, his eyes locked on the exposed skin of her legs.
“You’d tell him it’s a charitable act. For a vulnerable member of the flock.” She smiled, a slow, playful thing. “Or you’d tell him nothing at all and just make sure he shows up at my place tomorrow with his tools.”
He was close now. She could smell the nervous sweat on him, mingling with the scent of old books and damp stone. His hand reached out, not for her, but to brace against the altar beside her hip, as if for balance.
“This is wrong,” he whispered, but it was a weak sound, crumbling like the mortar between the stones.
“Is it?” Sera brought one hand up, cupping his clean-shaven jaw. His breath hitched. “Feels like the only real thing in this whole ghost town.”
Her other hand found the front of his trousers, palming the rigid bulge there. He gasped, a sharp, desperate sound that echoed in the hollow sanctuary.
“You think about this,” she murmured, applying a gentle pressure, “when you’re up there talking about hellfire. Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer with words. His mouth crashed onto hers, all teeth and clumsy hunger. She opened for him, letting his tongue plunge in, tasting his guilt and his want. It was messy, unskilled. She guided his hands under her dress, up over her stockings to the bare skin of her thighs. His fingers dug in, rough and eager.
“Tell me you want it,” she breathed against his lips, breaking the kiss.
“I want it,” he groaned, the confession ripped from him.
“Then earn it.”
She lay back on the cold, rotten wood, the splinters catching at her dress. He stared down at her, his chest heaving, his piety lying in tatters around his feet. Then he dropped to his knees.
He pushed her dress up to her waist, his movements frantic. He fumbled with the waistband of her plain cotton underwear, yanking them down her legs. The night air was cool against her exposed skin, raising goosebumps. He didn’t pause, didn’t worship, he dove in.
His mouth was hot and wet on her cunt. His tongue was a clumsy, urgent thing, lashing against her. He groaned into her, the vibration making her back arch off the altar. One of his hands gripped her thigh, holding her open, while the other shoved two fingers inside her, curling them roughly.
“Like that,” Sera hissed, her fingers tangling in his hair, not guiding, just holding on. “Just like that.”
She was already wet, but his technique was all fervor, no finesse. It didn’t matter. The spectacle of it—the good pastor on his knees, his nose buried in her, his desperate slurping sounds echoing in God’s forsaken house—was what coiled the heat tight in her belly. She watched the top of his head bob between her legs, watched his shoulders strain under the cheap fabric of his coat.
She came with a sharp cry, her hips bucking against his face, her vision whiting out for a second as the pleasure, sharp and bright, shattered through her. He didn’t let up, drinking her in, until she pushed his head away, overstimulated and spent.
He looked up at her, his lips glistening, his eyes wide with a kind of horrified awe.
She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the altar, and pulled her underwear back up. “Frankie Larson. Tomorrow by ten.” Her voice was steady, almost bored.
He stayed on his knees, his trousers painfully tented. “What about…?” He gestured weakly at his own obvious need.
Sera smoothed her dress down. She leaned forward, close enough to kiss him again, but she didn’t. “You get the roof. I got what I needed.” She patted his cheek, a patronizing gesture. “A man in your position should be careful about leaving unfinished business lying around.”
She slipped off the altar, her heels clicking on the stone floor as she walked out, leaving him there in the gathering dark, alone with the scent of sex and sin.
The cold air outside was a slap. She lit a cigarette, the flame of her lighter a tiny, defiant sun in the twilight. The thrill of the transaction was already cooling, leaving the familiar, hollowed-out feeling in its wake. It was just a trade. Another roof, another fuck. Havenwood kept its books balanced.
As she started down the ridge toward the town’s flickering lights, a different shadow detached itself from the pines near the path. Not Pastor Miller. Taller, broader. It stood silently, watching her descend.
Sera paused, the cigarette halfway to her lips. She met the shadow’s gaze, unflinching. A new ledger was about to open.