Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) by J. Bryan Read Free Book Online Page A

the boy cried out in glee. 
    “Is he?” the woman asked Juliana.
    “I don’t know,” Juliana answered. “I hope so.”
    The preacher went on and on, getting louder, stomping the stage, sending the crowd
     into hysterics.  The kids from the wagon joined the rest of the audience in screaming,
     howling, and flopping around, except for the smallest boy, who just watched from his
     father’s shoulder, unable to join the fun.
    Juliana couldn’t believe how long the preacher continued.  The sound of rain battered
     the tent top, and people drenched from the downpour pushed their way into the packed
     tent.  Soon the crowd was twice as large, and the air in the tent turned steamy and
     foul with the odor of so many bodies.
    After a long, long time, and much more speaking in tongues, the first preacher finally
     staggered offstage, exhausted, while the audience cried and clapped. 
    A tall, gaunt man carried a woven basket onstage, followed by three other men.  From
     their look and their ragged clothes, Juliana thought they might be mountain people. 
     The gaunt man addressed the audience while the other three lingered behind him.
    “The Lord says, if we have faith, we may take up serpents without fear,” the man told
     the crowd. “For even the sting of the serpent is nothing next to the power of God.”
    The audience chattered excitedly.
    “We have come to show the power of faith as a testimony.” He lifted the lid from the
     woven basket, and the crowd pushed forward to see. “For the tempter comes in the form
     of a serpent, hissing lies into our ears...But we show him that only the Lord is our
     master!”
    From the basket, he lifted out a pair of thick, long rattlesnakes, one in each hand,
     both of them shaking out a warning with their tails.  Screams erupted from the audience,
     and a number of people near the front tried to push their way back, by they were trapped
     in place by the rest of the crowd.
    The gaunt man stalked slowly across the front lip of the stage, holding out his arms
     while the deadly rattlers coiled around him.  The crowd gasped and shrieked.
    Behind him, his three cohorts approached the basket one by one, each taking one or
     two rattlesnakes and letting them wrap around their arms and necks.
    Juliana’s heartbeat raced as she watched, waiting for one of them to suffer a fatal
     bite.  In the carnival, the show would have been a fraud—the snakes would be a harmless
     species that only looked dangerous, most likely, or their venom would have been removed—but
     she’d heard that the snake-handling preachers used fully lethal wild snakes.
    The children stopped playing at flopping and fainting, and they watched quietly, eyes
     wide open.  The whole tent had gone from boisterous to silent.  In the silence, the
     gaunt preacher’s voice seemed to echo back from the canvas walls.
    “Faith is not some small thing we do once a week,” he said. “We must hold faith inside
     of us all times.  With faith, there is no danger, for there is no door through which
     Satan can enter.  Close your hearts against evil, and open them to the Lord!” 
    Voices whispered throughout the crowd as the largest rattlesnake nosed its way up
     the preacher’s neck and cheek, its forked tongue tasting his ear.
    “We have no need to fear,” he continued. “God has already vanquished the devil, and
     He will do it again, and there will be a final Judgment.  If the Lord chooses to take
     us today, or ten years from now, or a hundred years from now, it’s all the same...we’re
     all going to face Him, we’re all going to answer for our sins...and there will be
     a reckoning!” He thrust a fist into the air to make his point, startling the rattlesnake,
     which drew back and opened its jaw, poised to bite his face.
    The preacher fell still and quiet, looking right back into the snake’s eyes.
    “Go ahead,” he said in a loud stage whisper. “Go ahead and try, Satan.  God is with
     me.