by Scott Hale
Felix raised an eyebrow. “What do you suggest?”
“Send them home or send them into the Nameless Forest to beat it back.”
Felix let the suggestion rattle around inside his skull some. He and Justine had been certain that King Edgar had sent the Arachne to attack them on the Divide to thin the spiders’ numbers. And he had been pretty sure Justine had done the same thing with the Conscription. He didn’t want to send them on suicide missions. He just couldn’t do that. But they couldn’t stay here. And if he had to choose between the Conscription and Narcissus…
“Commander Millicent, give the Conscription a choice: to return home without pay and still the promise of entering heaven, or to go to the Nameless Forest and stop its growth, for which they will be paid and honored at the Gates.”
Millicent bowed her head. “Yes, your Holiness.”
“Look at you, dude,” Gemma said, nudging Warren with her elbow.
“I have my moments,” he said back to her.
“That’s a good plan,” Barnabas said, his lips glistening within his bushy beard. “Good one, sir.”
Not bad so far. God, this really is the first meeting I’ve held, isn’t it? It’s so weird not having the Exemplars here.
“Your Holiness.”
Felix glanced at Sloane. The head of the Compellers had been so quiet, he’d forgotten she was there. But she was one of those people who, once they had your attention, they never let you go. Her presence was like quicksand, and her voice had that strange, shifting, gravelly, almost liquid-like tone to it. Felix could see why Justine had called her the perfect missionary.
“With your approval, I see the Marrow Cabal and the Compellers working closely in the days to come. We are, in our own ways, very similar.” She adjusted her spectacles. “I should like to hear what Hex has to say. I feel god’s grace emanating from her eyes.”
Felix didn’t, but he also wasn’t off his rocker like Sloane was. He needed to do some spying on her soon. On all of them, really, but especially her. She reminded him of Joseph Cleon, the Demagogue. And the last thing they needed was another Winnowers’ Chapter turning against the Holy Order for not being hardcore enough.
Hex hummed. She straightened up in her seat, chewing on a tendril of her blue hair. “James, go on, then.”
“Your Holiness, I speak on behalf of the Marrow Cabal.”
“Well, we want to make him feel included,” Warren said, threatening a noogie.
“Heh. Your Holiness, well, the Marrow Cabal is at your disposal. When you found us at Gallows, none of our people were there. After Angheuawl, we sent them into the Heartland, to every village and town, to continue our mission of disrupting Eldrus’ operations. They were told to send communication to Cathedra.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” Barnabas said. “Messenger birds were coming in by the droves. We couldn’t figure out why.”
“How did you know we’d capture you and bring you back here?”
“Just a feeling,” Hex said.
“Yes,” James said. “So, despite being here, we have fairly up-to-date information from our agents in the field. The Marrow Cabal has eight hundred members. They’re all ready to act. They just need orders.”
“What’s the up-to-date information?” Felix asked, attention drifting to James’ hand, where his fingers were missing.
“The vermillion veins keep showing up everywhere. People were afraid of the Vermillion God at first, but not anymore. They’re getting use to it. Reports are saying that, with the Vermillion God being here, crime has gone down. Communities are more connected. There’s been less violence against members of the Holy Order, too.”
Commander Millicent said, “What are we supposed to do with this information? You’re saying our enemy is good.”
“No, I’m sorry, I, uh, that’s just what’s in the reports. I think we can use that to our advantage.”
“How so?” Felix asked.
“The Vermillion God—”
“Impostor God,” Sloane corrected.
“—seems like it has lulled everyone into a false sense of security. Everyone’s feeling good. Not even Edgar seems like he wants to fight. I think, they think, we’re going to surrender. We could catch them off-guard.”
“Can the Marrow Cabal function without the Skeleton?”
James stammered.
Hex answered. “The Skeleton was a figurehead, nothing more. People joined for him, but stayed for us. He scared them. We kept the Skeleton in the dark about most things. He wanted it that way.”
“But you keep his wife and son around,” Felix said.
“Yeah, we do. They’re good people, even if he isn’t. They’re… lost souls. They’ll help, though, if you give them a reason to. Clementine’s good at raising morale. Will’s good at everything. Just don’t give him a fight to fight. Clementine doesn’t want that life for him.”
“We are all soldiers in god’s army,” Sloane said. “There is much fighting to be done, isn’t there, your Holiness?”
Felix nodded, even though he didn’t want to.
“The Compellers are everywhere where the Marrow Cabal are,” Sloane said. “We have been keeping tabs on them as well. The Compellers can tell the people where they’ve gone astray following the Disciples, but they need a reason to believe again.”
“The Vermillion God’s done nothing but good for them if the field reports speak true,” Hex said. “We all know that Thing isn’t doing anything at all. It’s a boogieman. The Cabal can turn the Impostor against Its followers. Show them It isn’t all roses. We find the suicide bombers, and we detonate them. The veins can be weaponized, so we weaponize them. My brother… if people saw what the Touch of God could really do to them… I don’t think they’d be so willing. Got to make it look like their God’s hurting them. The zealots won’t budge, but everyone else will see the Holy Order and reconsider. Edgar’s backed the continent into a corner. Got to give them a way out.”
Sloane smiled and bit her lower lip. “Yes. Yes, your Holiness, I agree to this.”
“Draw up a plan, Hex,” Felix said, “and, Sloane, coordinate your Compellers with the cabalists.” He paused. “We focus on Eldrus’ military. God does not want innocent lives being sacrificed unnecessarily.”
Hex and Sloane exchanged looks with one another that bordered on disappointment.
“There is one thing,” Sloane said, following up. “You noticed it when you came into the room today.” She pointed to the painting on the ceiling. “Our god sounds like their God.”
Felix made a fist, said through his teeth, “Because their God is an impostor. A dark reflection of the true god. We will not abandon our history. We will not rewrite it. I understand there will be confusion amongst the flock, but this is god’s decree.”
“Yes, your Holiness. There is, of course, the Mother Abbess’ performance on the Divide…”
“Did you not hear my speech?”
“I did, your Holiness.”
We are gods in hiding, Felix thought. We can’t hide anymore. No one wants to say it, but it’s got to be said. If the Mother Abbess didn’t want me to do this, she should’ve been here.
“I am god’s mouth, and the Mother Abbess, god’s hand,” he said. “Not symbolically. Literally. We are p… projects… projections from heaven. We have lived amongst you in many forms.”
Sloane and Barnabas reclined in their seats, their mouths agape.
Commander Millicent’s face filled with the shadow of doubt.
Gemma tightened her lips, so as to not laugh.
James bowed his head.
Hex couldn’t have been less interested.
“Tell the people that. Tell the people we are god. Because we are. No more questions.” Felix steadied his breathing. “That’s all for today.”
Felix remained sitting in a pool of sweat while the others filed out of the room in disbelief and silent reverence. What did he just do? Should he have done that? He looked into his lap,
to ignore the looks of the others. This was so much easier when Justine was around. He couldn’t even remember half the things they’d discussed, and he was pretty sure he just gave Hex the go ahead to hurt a lot of people. God, it was so easy to get caught up in things. And there were so many other things he didn’t understand. Why was he doing this alone? Speedy recovery. Oh my god, what was wrong with Justine?
When he heard the last of them leave the room, he looked up and found Gemma still in her seat, staring him down with those big, green, hungry eyes of hers.
He threw up his hand and said, “What?”
“Nice pep talk, Coach,” she said. She leaned back, propped her legs up on the table. “I hate talking in front of people. Makes me want to puke. You’re good at it, though. You get all fancy sounding. Big words and stuff.”
Felix’s shoulders were so tight. His nose was running, too. And there was an itch at the back of his throat, like he was getting sick. He thought about the contrition knife and how much better it would make him feel.
“You didn’t mention the box,” she said. “You didn’t ask me about the other vampyres, which is fine. I don’t know where my brothers and sisters are. The Skeleton took Camazotz. They’re probably tracking her down.”
“You don’t miss your master?”
“She’s not my master. No one is.” Gemma huffed. “Whatever, man.”
Felix laughed; his shoulders loosened some. “Why do you keep following me around?”
“I’m not,” she said.
“Sure.”
“Alright, I hate adults. Hate them. Will’s… weird. And… Hey, you’re the Holy Child. Not a bad friend to have, right?”
“We’re friends?”
“I haven’t bitten you yet,” she said, flashing her gawping palms. “You haven’t killed me yet for being annoying. Sounds like friends to me.”
“Why do you hate adults?” Felix asked, thinking of Justine.
“They’re stupid. They do stupid things. They turn on people. You can’t trust them. Trust me, man, the list is long. We don’t have enough hours in the day. It’s better being our age.”
“Why?”
“Because we get to be us. You get all stupid and fucking dumb when you’re an adult. Don’t know which way is up. Things make adults do… things.”
“How do you know?”
“I had parents. I had to grow up to deal with them.”
“You miss them?”
“Never.” Gemma shook her head. “Don’t want to. The Dread Clock killed my parents as far as I’m concerned.”
“Is that why you know so much about the Black Hour?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And Exuviae?”
Gemma pointed at him. “Hey, that’s real. Believe me or not, it is. And you know what it is?”
He shook his head.
“It’s Hell. Yeah, it gets worse, dude, than all this.”
Felix didn’t really believe her, but he didn’t want her to know that. He just wanted her to keep talking to him. It was making him forget his troubles.
And then she said this: “I know it’s all bullshit.”
Felix felt god swelling inside him, ready to blast with her a torrent of holy curses.
“I’ve been kicking since before the Trauma. The God out there and the one from before are the exact same. I know about Lillian and all that jazz. That’s okay, though. I’m not going to rat you out. It’s cool.”
Felix, choosing his words carefully, said, “Then why bring it up?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. So you can have someone to talk to besides a Worm of the Earth.”
He glared at her.
“Hey, I’m not dogging on her. I’m a monster. She’s a monster. But… she’s not here. And you make all the speeches. And from what I know about Worms is that once they’ve shown themselves…
“What?” Felix, losing his patience, leaned over the table. “What?”
“They don’t have much time left. Them being around… revealed… makes people go crazy to destroy them. You know, like, maybe she’s done. Homegirl’s been around forever. Maybe she wants someone to kill her…”
Felix shook his head and clutched the necklace through his shirt.
“… or maybe she’s just done. Done what she needed to do. How much do you really know about her?”
Tears welled in Felix’s eyes. Fighting against his quivering mouth, he said, “N-Not much.”
“I never knew much about Mom and Dad, either. Just the crap they put me through. If I could change anything, that’d be it.”
Felix didn’t know why he asked it, but he did, and here it was: “What happens if you bite me?”
Gemma, taken aback, chuckled. “Seriously?”
He shook his head, but she could tell he was.
“Well, normally, you’d just die. But I’m Camazotz’s handmaiden. She gave me a new organ. Usually, we’d have to take you to her to make you one of us. You’d have to drink her blood. But… if you drink mine… You’d live a long time. Hundreds of years. Thousands, maybe, I don’t know. Haven’t gotten there yet.
“But you could stay you. That’s what Justine did, isn’t it? She kept being the Mother Abbess, just changed her name and appearance. That way she was always in control of the Holy Order, making sure it was doing the right thing. If she’s… leaving everything to you…”
The air caught in Felix’s throat.
“I don’t know. Might not be so bad to hang around for a while. Make sure all these adults don’t fuck things up. I’ll keep you company.
“Hey, any idea what’s in that box?”
Felix brushed aside her suggestion. It was the last thing he needed right now to be thinking about. Instead, he stood, almost stumbling, and said, “No idea.”
“Sounded like something was alive inside it. You guys have anything back in Pyra that was alive and ate people?”
Felix laughed and shook his head. “Goodnight, Gemma.”
But on his way out of the room, it hit him.
They did, didn’t they?
They did have something in Pyra.
He should know.
Audra had grown it.
CHAPTER XVI
Under a sunless sky, the Ossuary waited for her. Beneath its bone-white sands, the shadows seeped through, and they were waiting for her, too. They called to her, made promises to her; they sacrificed their own and gave them as gifts to her, to make of them what she could. They were so near that, when she reached out to them, they reached back, and, for a moment, they touched. In that terrifying moment, she knew their pain and suffering, and the depth of their need to destroy the God who’d condemned them. She would do it, she promised them, if only they would show her how.
And show her, they did.
The desert was undone. The Deep opened, and the sands fell into that rotted nebula. Shadows swarmed her and drove her towards it. She resisted, and they bit her out of resentment until she relented. Her fear was laughable compared to their own. She knew nothing of fear. They knew only of it, and it alone.
They brought her to the Deep and oriented her to it, until the Deep was above her, and she was standing where she should’ve been falling. She stood not on sand, but on ruin, amongst the uncountable ruins gathered around her, like the treasures of a demented king. Whole worlds reduced to pieces surrounded her. They went on forever, because this would go on forever.
And then she heard a voice.
It came from behind her.
She turned to find a massive maggot staring her down, an upside-down crucifix burnt into its head.
Audra shot of bed, screaming. Drenched in sweat, she stripped down to nothing and found the nearest corner and shoved herself into it. Sitting, squeezing her knees to her chest, she rocked back and forth, the rhythm soothing her. Shadows crawled down the walls and wrapped her in their frigid embrace. She felt the life leave her body, and that was fine, for now. She wasn’t doing much with it at the moment, anyway.
>
Taking twenty and a handful of Solace, Audra finally got dressed in a fresh set of clothes and, lighting a candle, walked shakily out of her room.
“Deimos?” she cried out, going down the hall towards the front of the house. “Deimos?”
Reaching the living room, she gasped.
Deimos was standing there. Beside him, an Arachne. The spider had Deimos’ hands behind his back, and his sick, swollen, drooling excuse for a mouth latched onto Deimos’ neck.
Behind them, a woman decked out in mail armor. Smiling, showing her cracked front tooth, she stepped forward, swinging the dagger in her hand back and forth. Her face, so severe in the candlelight, was all cheekbones and scars. Her head and eyebrows were shaved, and she wore a crown with a veil that appeared to be made out of spider silk. She held herself like she was the most important person in the room. And right now, yeah, she was.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Audra,” she said. “I’m Lotus. I heard you’ve been looking for me.”
Audra nodded and, gasping at the air, said, “Please. Don’t… don’t hurt him.”
“Don’t hurt him, my lord,” Lotus she corrected. “That’s King Edgar’s son you’re speaking to.”
The Arachne shoved Deimos to the floor, as if it meant for Audra to get a better look at it. The abomination had two sets of arms, two arms to each set. One set, dark and chitinous, with bands of green muscle threaded through, came out of its shoulders, while the other set hung low off its back, past its knees, where webs continually oozed from the pink pores that lined them, from elbows to claws. The beast reared its head and hissed, and beyond the two fangs that jutted out of its black gums was another set of teeth inside its mouth that were broken and pointed, as if they’d been smashed and then jammed in there.
“I came from his mouth,” the Arachne said, “so I speak for him.”
“Well, to the spiders, yes,” Lotus said, “but I’m the Warden. Don’t forget your place, Ikto.”
“Deimos, I’m so sorry,” Audra said. “I didn’t…”
He groaned from the floor. “It’s okay, Audra. We knew this would come.”
