Two spots opened, each a window, showing another viewpoint. The two were slightly different, a left eye and a right eye, and as they filled his new perspective, they widened and overlapped until they were his eyes that he looked through. He felt a heartbeat, felt shoes tapping their steady beat as the wearer walked.

He felt lips part and greet him with a, “Hello…”

⊙

“…I’m so glad you could join us, Teacher.”

Heads turned, thralls and hostages alike. She smiled. Teacher was only here for her.

It wasn’t often that others were looking through her eyes. It required that she let them.

The room was large, with a fan in the one side and the associated turbine loomed house-large in the space. Scaffolding surrounded the turbine and more machines fed air into ventilation that reached the rest of the facility. Much of that was closed off to prevent certain powers from being used against them.

All around them, sheet metal and machinery from broken turbines, broken tile, and broken sections of wall littered the ground. Bodies and hostages were scattered all around them.

For every person who was down, there were two thralls. For every hostage who was alert and able, there were two thralls and one of her Fallen guarding them, keeping them in line. She had no shortage, since Teacher had rescued them from prison and collected them from the city.

More than that, Teacher had given her a world of faithful, and for that, she was willing to let him share her eyes, share her awareness.

Christine clasped her hands together and pressed them against her chest. She could feel her connection to more than two hundred and ninety thousand souls in the heart of Cheit. To each of those souls, she granted a small grace. A part of her watched each one with a separate eye and its own ability to judge and track their actions. Enough of them were believers that she could give them small blessings. She made the beautiful more beautiful, the holy more holy. Crosses on walls throbbed and glowed. Sacred hearts bled. Images of martyrs turned their heads to smile down at their blessed with love.

Here and there, she tested, and she judged. She could nudge, by giving grace to some and giving others a reason to doubt. Some of these denominations? No. For now, she punished those who preached too much peace, with glimpses of the holy that fled or walked away. She punished those who spoke of God but not of Jesus, or worshiped the Koran and not the Bible, by making certain books, icons and objects rot and twist like snakes, and by making shadows deeper. She gave them glimpses of hell.