Blackwood draped the flaming robe over the table. The sulfur caught quickly, a blue flame rising out of the bowl, filling the space with the smell of rotting eggs.

Solomon said, “This whole church will go up.”

Blackwood said, “That is the idea.”

The robe was engulfed, flames dripping to the floor.

“This is arson,” said Solomon, but there was nothing to fight the fire with. The smell was overpowering in the small space.

Solomon got out fast. Blackwood was behind him. Solomon was figuring out what to do. Call in the volunteer fire department first. Question Pastor Eppert, but away from the tensions outside. Arrest Hugo Blackwood. How was he going to keep this situation from exploding into violence?

He exited the sacristy, back into the main part of the church, just as the pastor, with his silver blaze in the middle of his black hair, returned inside. “What are you doing back there?” his voice boomed. “What is the meaning of this?”

Solomon pointed at the pastor accusatorily, his own voice rising to match. “Confess what you’ve done!”

The pastor stopped in his tracks before the altar. “I am the one people confess to,” he said.

“Confess and go quietly or else I swear I will throw you to the mob out there.”

Pastor Eppert looked at Hugo Blackwood stepping up beside Solomon. “Who is this man with you? Get out of my church. This is a house of worship, and you will leave immediately. Call the sheriff, Mother!”

Only then did Solomon realize that the organ music had stopped. But nothing could stop Solomon, his anger rising, walking toward this man of God.

“Vernon Jamus was the best Sunday school student, you said. He was ‘the best of us,’ you said.”

Pastor Eppert stared back at Solomon, never before having been confronted in such a way in his own church. “And he was.”

“You said you sensed evil,” said Solomon. “You said you saw ‘the devil’s hand in this.’ Well, now, so do I.”

The smell of smoke and rotting eggs reached the pastor’s nose. “What is that?” he said, sniffing. “My God, what have you done?”

“What have you done?” said Solomon, gripping the pastor by his collar.

But Pastor Eppert was defiant. “I tried to help him!”

Blackwood was at Solomon’s side. He said, “The corruption of an innocent, of something pure. He was used as a conduit, a conductor. You needed him to serve as a circuit through which vengeance could be enacted…conducting the spirits of the slaves whose blood and sweat founded this church. You used Vernon Jamus as an instrument in this dark rite. Just as you are being used now.”

Blackwood reached out to Pastor Eppert, his hand near his face, palm open, fingers curled in a beckoning motion.

Solomon looked back and forth between the men, not understanding.

Blackwood uttered a few words in Latin, a chant, his voice dropping an octave as he did.