Route 666 df-1

by Jack Yeovil

  Sister Ciccone gave him succour, leading him back to the motorwagon and clapping his hands together in prayer, forcing him down onto his knees and making him bow his head against her belly. She shook with the fervour of her prayer.

  Together on the filthy tarmac of Chollie's, they conjoined in worship of the Lord. Theirs was the Path of Joseph, and the things of the world were as far gone from him as the sinful flesh from which he had been freed. He felt a strange tingling in his amended groin, as if the rejected meat were knitting together in a new, purer form.

  Elder Seth was not in the motorwagon. He must be about the Lord's work in this town. Throughout the nation of Deseret, towns like this must be awaiting news of the convoy's coming. There would be parades and processions and rejoicing.

  Under his vestments. Brother Wiggs's skin squirmed and tightened. Months ago, he had been aswarm with bodily hair; now, only the barest wisps remained. Fasting and prayer had trimmed away the subcutaneous fat. His skeleton, even, was changed by the fire of faith.

  Their prayer concluded, Brother Wiggs and Sister Ciccone stood and adjusted their garments.

  He looked at the magazine rack and felt nothing.

  "I thank thee, Sister," Wiggs addressed Sister Ciccone. "Thou art ever my guide on the true Path of Joseph."

  Sister Ciccone bobbed and curtseyed demurely, eyes downcast. Then she looked up at him. The woman had a spot – it might have been called a beauty mark – at the corner of her mouth. In his backsliding moments, Wiggs had paid especial note to the black mark.

  He reached out with his finger and touched the spot. It came away smoothly, leaving no scar. Sister Ciccone's face was now milky-perfect, lips as colourless as her cheeks, eyes as bright as a doll's.

  He looked at the spot on his fingertip and flicked it away.

  "We become purer," she said.

  For a moment, Wiggs wondered what manner of life the Sister had led before coming to the Path of Joseph. Knowing the worst sinners made the best saints, he suspected she had been mired deeply in filth and fornication.

  "We must venture into the centre of this town and spread the Word of Joseph," she said. "Deseret will rejoice at our arrival. This place must be freed from the rule of sin."

  They walked past the motorwagons towards Main Street. There were people around. Ordinary, sinning people. Brother Wiggs and Sister Ciccone were courteous. Wiggs touched his hat-brim and the Sister averted her eyes whenever they passed a citizen.

  No one stopped to stare but Wiggs fancied a certain hostility from some of the townsfolk.

  A sign identified a large building as the old corn exchange video arcade. Outside stood a battered cross. Wiggs bowed his head to the cross.

  "Arise and rejoice, thou brothers and sisters of Deseret," Sister Ciccone shouted, her voice strong and pure and almost musical. "The day of your deliverance is at hand. Let this be your holy holiday."

  A fat man in dungarees spat a brown stream and looked put out. A small, thin crowd gathered.

  "Follow the Path of Joseph," Sister Ciccone sang, "put away fleshly things…"

  The fat man snickered. Several people, already bored, drifted away.

  "I seen Spanish language cartoons that preach better'n that," the fat man said.

  "This land is blessed. This shall be the Land of Joseph."

  "I reckon you'd do yourself a big favour by reading that there plaque under that there cross before you mention the Path of Joseph again," the fat man said, snidely.

  Wiggs scanned the plaque. It was a pack of blasphemous lies about the Brethren. Deadly drivel, poisoning the minds of all.

  "Lies and filth," he shouted.

  The fat man just laughed.

  The disappointed crowds went about their ways. As the people drifted off, they parted like a curtain. A woman stood still, hands on hips, looking straight at the Josephites. Wiggs recognised one of the she-fiends who had so abused the pilgrims.

  She was tall, dressed in transparent sheaths that indecently displayed her body.

  "Remember me?" she said. "Varoomschka?"

  She was one of the killers. Elder Seth must be told the Psychopomps were in Spanish Fork. He would be interested in recovering his stolen spectacles and cashplastics.

  "We have come to the place of our persecution," Wiggs said.

  Varoomschka strode across to the monument. The fat man snickered as his eyes followed her long limbs and tight bottom. Wiggs again had a twinge of the old sinful urges, but he conquered them with a blast of fiery purity.

  The Psychopomp had a glossy fashion model face, and long, silky hair that looked like an implant. Though tall and powerful, she was dainty, like a dancer.

  Varoomschka cupped Sister Ciccone's cheek with one hand and slipped her long fingers into the Sister's bonnet, unloosing strands of mousy hair with her scarlet nails. Shockingly, the ganggirl kissed the Sister on the lips.

  Sister Ciccone suffered nobly, eyes raised to heaven. She knew that she would prevail.

  "Mmmmm," Varoomschka said, licking her lips with a scarlet tongue. "You taste like a virgin."

  "Thou art forgiven, harlot," Sister Ciccone said.

  She launched a fist at the Psychopomp's chest. Varoomschka was knocked backwards with surprising force. Her immodest garments showed the plate-sized purple bruise on her upper ribs.

  Sister Ciccone was changing. Like Wiggs, she got stronger as she got purer.

  Varoomschka scrambled upright, a butterfly knife in one hand. She made a series of slicing passes before her as she moved towards the Sister.

  "I'll open you, hagwitch," she said. "I'll drink your kravye with cinnamon."

  The Psychopomp struck like a scorpion. The knife slipped against Sister Ciccone's side and slid upwards across her torso. She would be wounded from hip to collar.

  Varoomschka stepped back to admire her surgery.

  The Sister's vestments were rent and sagged apart. White flesh shone, but no red gash. Sister Ciccone's skin was inviolate and featureless.

  "Lady, you ain't got no nipples," the fat man said. "That ain't natural."

  Modestly, the Sister closed the hole in her clothes.

  "And you ain't got no navel neither."

  "What are you?" Varoomschka asked. "Some kind of clone thing?"

  Sister Ciccone bowed her head.

  "I am a Sister of Joseph," she said.

  Wiggs realised his chest was itching and changing, and he felt his own nipples dwindling and receding into smooth skin. He was still flesh, but the flesh was better, stronger, purer. Untroubled by needs, he was fit for the struggles ahead.

  V

  12 June 1995

  The Feelgood Saloon was typical of a thousand other smalltown joints where Tyree had wasted evenings. A couple of gaudy girls were bellying up to the bar, looking for trade. A few old-timers leaned chairs against the walls in the corners, mainlining the poison of their choice. Otherwise, the Feelgood wasn't doing much business this early, so the Cav managed to requisition a table. The Quince sat with his back to a wall and face to the main entrance, a shotgun stowed under his chair. From where Tyree was, she had a good view of the mirror behind the bar and thus of everyone in the room.

  A green-faced waitress with vestigial gills took their orders. Some said the mutations were the legacy of those long-ago Bomb Tests, but there must be a reason they had grown more common these last few years.

  Quincannon laid out kish for the hundred-dollar grill, while Tyree had the vat-grown eggs and Burnside plumped for gristle 'n' grits. Tyree's tasted OK. They had recaff all round. Fake coffee, but real water, a luxury this far into the sand. The Quince even remembered to have the girl send someone over to Chollie's with N-R-Gee candies for Yorke, who was minding the cruiser.

  The green girl was friendly and efficient. It couldn't be easy adapting to an aquatic environment when there wasn't any large stretch of water left in the state.

  The Quince lit up a Premier and offered the pack around. Tyree filled her lungs and had a go
od, healthy cough. She worried sometimes that she didn't smoke enough. Dr Nick said there were no noticeable physical benefits unless you were up to a pack a day.

  It would be hours before the convoy could get moving again – one or two of the motorwagons were a refit away from the auto graveyard – so there was no sense in not taking advantage of the comforts on offer. They had been held up burying Sister Maureen yesterday, so they might well be looking to make camp here for the night. Tyree understood there was a motel outside town, so she might have a shot at a real bed.

  This patrol had gone on way too long. Back at Valens, she would have earned some extra pay and a couple of vacation weeks on credit. After they'd hand-held the resettlers to Salt Lake, they'd still have to trek all the way back home.

  Quincannon was talking ancient history again, not from experience but from books. In his down time, the Quince must be something of a library junkie. Tyree hadn't known that about him. She hadn't read anything except forms, regulations and the odd comicstrip since military school. Burnside asked the sergeant his opinion of the Josephites' chances of making anything out of the Salt Lake valley.

  "The Mormons did it once before," Quincannon replied, "round about 1848, just the same as the Josephites are trying to now. They'd been kicked out of everywhere else 'cause they believed in marryin' more than one gal at a time. I reckon they've given that up these days, along with 'carnal relations'. They found a place where nothing would grow and no one would live, and turned it into fertile land. The Lord knows how they did it. That Church was founded by some fella named Smith who claimed an angel gave him some extra books of the Bible and a pair of magical spectacles to help him read it. The Josephites have some similar story. Different glasses, but the same angel. Something like that. Maybe that's why the Elder's so steamed up about that gal who waltzed off with his shades. You notice how that riles them more than the fellers who got killed. More than the cashplastics she scavved. Hell, I don't know. The Mormons were straight-laced, but this lot are unnatural, if you know what I mean. They're like the Mormons, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Amish, the Moonies, the Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Stone-Crazed Baptists all rolled up into one. Me, I'm a good Catholic. Religion's been downhill since Martin Luther."

  Tyree drank her recaff and ate her eggs. Burnside kept asking questions and passing comments. "You have to admire those old settlers, Quince, making something of nothing like that."

  "Well, Wash, there was another side to the story. A side Elder Seth ain't gonna be too keen on hearin' told again. You can bet they'll remember it here in Spanish Fork, though. While the Mormons were settling Salt Lake, the Josephites were carving out claims for themselves in the Indian Territories. A feller by the name of Hendrik Shatner, brother of the Joseph who founded the Brethren, was their head man, and he had some mighty strange allegiances. In the 1850s, federal troops were sent against the Church of Joseph, and the Josephites had a little war with the US of A. It seems the Josephites weren't so all-fired holy back then. No sir, when a group of regular Christian settlers moved in and staked a land claim right here, when this place was called New Canaan, the Josephites got together with the Paiute Indians, painted themselves up like redskins, and had themselves one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of the West."

  She hadn't liked to say, but as Quincannon was speaking, the swinging doors opened silently and a tall man walked into the Feelgood. Elder Seth. The Quince must see him but he was into the flow of his story. She knew she should say something, try to shut the sergeant up, but somehow she found herself unable to open her mouth.

  With Elder Seth were his two most devoted puppies, Wiggs and Ciccone. They looked different indoors, their faces harder.

  Quincannon kept on talking. "Them Josephites carved up those regular Christians like you'd carve up a Sunday goatroast. The Prezz probably don't know much history or he wouldn't be handin' a state to these fellas. Who knows, maybe one day Seth will take it into his head to make war again against the United States of America. Then we'll be in a pretty pickle, 'cause I reckon any man who can haul a bunch of candy-ass resettlers a couple of thousand bloodstained miles through the Des wouldn't be no pushover."

  Tyree looked from Quincannon to Elder Seth, comparing the Quince's expressiveness, making handsigns as he spoke as if communicating with an Indian, and the Elder's almost mechanical impassivity. If the Josephite was offended, he gave no indication of displeasure. Indeed, Tyree thought that she could make out a real expression on his face, like the ghost of a smile around the very edges of his thin lips.

  …and, in her mind, she had funny pictures. She thought she saw reflections in Elder Seth's eyes, but not the reflections of the saloon and its patrons. Under an open sky, in Elder Seth's pupils, red-smeared savages ran riot, hacking at fleeing men. Flaming arrows struck home, red knives did their work, kids fell under horses' hooves, women's hair came bloodily loose. Tyree thought she heard the echoes of screams and whoops and shouts. And, in the midst of the carnage he had wrought stood Elder Seth, dressed all in black with red on his face, a long rifle in his hands. The ground under his boots was bloodied…

  "Leona?"

  She snapped out of it. "Sergeant Quincannon?"

  "Leona, you were dreaming."

  Elder Seth walked further into the saloon, until he was standing directly across from Quincannon.

  "No, I…"

  The Elder's shadow fell on the sergeant. Quincannon looked up at the man. He held a fork of mule kidney up at Elder Seth, then popped into his mouth.

  "I am given to understand the raiders who attacked us on the road are in this town," Elder Seth said, evenly, "staying at the motel. These people have stolen from the Brethren of Joseph. They have important relics. You will help me secure their return."

  The Quince chewed slowly. "Hold on a moment. How many of these raiders are there?"

  "That's of no matter. Sister Ciccone has already been assaulted by one of their number."

  "It may not matter to you, Elder, but I've got a troop strength of four."

  "My people will help."

  Quincannon swallowed and stood up. He wasn't quite as tall as the Elder but he did his best to look the man in the eye.

  "That's a comfort. If it comes to preachin' the crap out of the 'Pomps, I'm sure you'll be a big help."

  That shadow smile was back. "In the Bible," Elder Seth began, "it says there is a time to every purpose under Heaven."

  "So, now it's fightin' time."

  "If needs be."

  Quincannon shrugged, and hauled up his shotgun. "OK, Elder, lead the way to the motel. I'll call Yorke in for backup with the cruiser."

  Tyree and Burnside stood up, leaving unfinished meals, and unflapped their holsters. Tyree knew her piece was up to standard. She'd cleaned it twice since the patrol began.

  "Sergeant, I said the raiders were staying at the motel. I did not say they were there at this moment."

  Quincannon had been halfway to the door. He turned, looking highly fed up. Somehow, the Elder had made a fool of him.

  One of the gaudy girls turned on her barstool. She had an eyepatch.

  "Hello preacherman," she said to Elder Seth, "come for your shades?"

  VI

  12 June 1995

  So, she was back here again, facing the preachie. She had his glasses on a thong around her neck. She was horribly tempted to look at him through the shades, but terror prevented her. She remembered Herman Katz's shrivelled skull and the bloody hoofprints If inoffensive things were made horrible, what would be revealed of Elder Seth through his magic mirrorshades? The circuits of her optic implant buzzed, and she had the feeling it was too late, that having looked through the glasses, she would forever see more than she should.

  "Hands away from those guns, yellowlegs," she said, pulling the rainbow scarf away from her semi-automatic pistol, "or I'll redecorate the saloon with your insides."

  The sergeant and the two troopers held their hands out in front of them
and looked at each other. The sergeant carefully set his shotgun down between plates of half-finished food and stood away. Jazzbeaux would rather not fight all three, since she knew a little about the Cav weapons training. Everyone else in the saloon was quiet. The jukebox was running down, some Kenny Rogers number slowing to a growl. The barman was backing away.

  "And keep those pretty-pretty fingers off that scattergun you got down in the slops, darlin' dear."

  The barkeep slapped his hands on the bar and left them there. Jazzbeaux nodded appreciation and blew him a kiss. He flinched. She turned back to the Elder.

  "If you want the shades, you'll have to take them, lover."

  Elder Seth walked across the room. Jazzbeaux felt the Psychopomps with her – Andrew Jean, Sleepy Jane, Sweet-cheeks – edge away, leaving her alone at the bar. It was between her and the preacherman. She flipped the safety and chambered a round.

  The Elder stood in front of her now. If she exerted just a hint of pressure on the hairtrigger, she'd fill his chest with explosive bullets. He'd be cut clean in two. She had the unhealthy feeling that his face still wouldn't move.

  She flicked her tongue in and out. "Come on, preachie!"

  He was as close to her as a dancing partner now, the barrel of her gun resting on his sternum. Jazzbeaux felt she was alone in the universe with the man.

  His hands came up and he took the shades. She was sure he would rip them away, but he merely lifted them to her own face and eased the bars over her ears. She shut her eye but felt silly, then looked through the glass.

  The Elder's face changed in a second. The features became liquid, flowed into each other, and became features again. But different features. He had her daddy's face, she realised. Bruno Bonney's face when he was hopped up on zonk, and pulling his studded leather belt out of his jeans, mishkin drool on his chin, pain in his brain, death on his breath.