LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Not all of your duties will be pleasant. But that is the sacrifice you make, for as a Church employee you must always remember that you are privileged above all others.

      —The Example Is You, the guidebook for Church employees

      The guillotine waited for them, its blackened wood dark and threatening against the naked cement walls of the Execution Room.

      Chess limped past it, trying not to look. Trying not to remember that she deserved to kneel before it, to place her neck on the age-smoothed rest and wait for the blade to fall. She’d killed a psychopomp. Hell, she’d killed people.

      Only the death of the hawk meant automatic execution.

      But nobody knew about that. At least, nobody with the authority to order her death knew about that. She was safe for the moment.

      Too bad she didn’t feel safe. Didn’t feel the way she should have felt. The dull ache in her thigh with every step she took in her low-heeled Church pumps reminded her of the almost healed gunshot wound; her limp reminded everyone else, drew attention to her at a time when she wanted it even less than usual.

      Elder Griffin’s hand was warm at her elbow. “You may sit while the sentence is read and carried out, Cesaria.”

      “Oh, no, really, I’m—”

      He shook his head, his eyes serious. What was that about? Granted, an execution wasn’t exactly a party-it-up event; very few Church events were. But Elder Griffin looked even more solemn than usual, more troubled.

      He didn’t know, did he? Had Oliver Fletcher told him about the psychopomp, about what she’d done? If that bast—No. No, she was being stupid and paranoid. Oliver

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