The Tenth Circle by Jon Land

himself reigns. Each circle’s sinners are punished in a fashion befitting their crimes. Each sinner is afflicted for all of eternity by the chief sin he committed. People who sinned but sought forgiveness and absolution through prayer before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory, where they labor to be free of their sins. Those in Hell, who inhabit one of the nine circles, are people who tried to justify their sins and seek no penance.”
    A clap of thunder boomed, as if to echo the message of his words. The wind picked up to a steady, howling gust. The drizzle became a light rain that left the attendees reaching for the hoods on their jackets or sweatshirts. But their wide eyes never left Rule, waiting to scream and shout their affirmations of his word.
    Rule stopped and rotated his gaze about the crowd that had refused to budge, undeterred by the elements. True to form, the crowd had gone utterly silent, hanging on his next words, many with hands raised high for the heavens. Only the reverend’s professional security personnel stood out, their expressionless visages rotating from left to right and back again, the intentions held in their eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.
    “But then, one day, I realized. I realized, brothers and sisters, that the craven heathens who would besmirch and defame the word of the one true God have a circle of Hell all to themselves where they live for eternity among others just as vile and without compassion or regard for human life. A residence reserved for the most damned who seek nothing but death and destruction during their wasted time as interlopers in the world of our Lord.
    “The tenth circle,” Rule finished to the wild cheers and impassioned cries from the crowd. “Home to the hopeless!”
    The crowd’s blustering response bubbled McCracken’s ears.
    You think you know what hell is? McCracken thought to himself. Not even close… .
    “Residence of the reviled!”
    The response grew louder.
    “Destination of the damned!”
    Louder still, so loud it nearly swallowed the next clap of thunder that sounded like a tree splitting.
    “Brothers and sisters,” Rule continued, as the fervor approached a crescendo, McCracken feeling it like an electronic wave or pulse charged with energy that radiated from person to person, “let those who have brought offerings to the pit come forward so they may be returned to the tenth circle, where they belong, for eternity. Let us begin with the cursed word that has justified so much wanton death and destruction!”
    And with that the reverend yanked a tattered book from inside his jacket. The rain intensified, drenching his hair and clothes, making him look even more wild in the bluster of a storm that rivaled his own. McCracken couldn’t see the book from where he was standing, but knew it could only be a copy of the Koran, watching Rule raise it high for all to see before dropping it into the flames before them. Close enough to tempt their reach. Much of the crowd now sank to their knees as they hooted and hollered and cheered amid the spiraling winds and quaking trees. More Islamic radicals about to be inflamed and inspired, this man of hateful rhetoric not caring at all about the loss of more innocent lives like Andrew Ericson’s.
    The body hasn’t been found yet, McCracken reminded himself. The boy’s not dead. There’s still hope… .
    Another clap of thunder roared, followed by something else.
    Pop, pop, pop …
    Even amid the deafening roar, McCracken knew gunshots the moment he heard them. And he could tell Rule’s professional security detail recognized the sound too, converging on the reverend with their own pistols already drawn. One of the guards went down and then another to more gunshots, Rule himself never wavering from standing shrouded by and aglow in the flames, hands held high with eyes closed as if to welcome his fate until his security detail tackled him to the ground.
    McCracken heard another pop,