by Arden Powell
Cal hesitated before finally nodding, dropping off the stage to take his place at Leif’s side. Leif kept his grip firm around Cal’s arm and set off through the festival without looking back.
“Slow down,” Cal hissed, stumbling in his efforts to keep up. “If you’re trying not to look suspicious—”
“I don’t care why they’ve stolen it,” Leif said as he walked, ignoring Calloway’s protests entirely. “I don’t care what they were thinking. We need the Avatar back; I don’t have to tell you its importance. Once we have it, we’ll let His Serene Majesty decide their fate.”
“I’m sure this is all a huge misunderstanding,” Cal said, trying in vain to pull his arm from Leif’s grasp. Leif tightened his grip until Calloway’s bones shifted under his fingers, and Cal stopped struggling. “Maybe the bird just wandered off on its own.”
Red and Boar scoffed from behind them, and Leif paused long enough to level a truly fearsome glower in Cal’s direction. Cal shrank back and shut his mouth.
“We’re going to The Chokecherries. If you try any tricks, I’ll make you regret them.”
Cal nodded, eyes downcast, and pointed in the direction to go. Leif nodded stonily. They walked in silence, and whenever Calloway looked like he might try to lead Leif astray, Leif tightened his grip until Cal got back in line. Calloway might have left the order, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew the All-Seeing God’s power, and he knew Leif wasn’t so easily fooled.
“What are you going to do to them?” Calloway asked in muted tones.
“Whatever His Serene Majesty dictates, as always.”
Truth be told, Leif had no interest in punishing those who had stolen the Avatar any more than would mollify Boar and Red. He was growing tired—not of his god, nor of caring for the Avatar, but of the never-ending parade of festivals and acolytes, spreading the word day after day to countless unbelievers. It was exhausting, and after so many years, it was beginning to take its toll. He wanted to retire, and care for the Avatar in peace. Maybe he would rent another little trailer, somewhere he could sleep every night and call home, eating ramen and drinking beer and letting someone else preach about the wonders of the universe.
But Boar and Red were still fervent in their faith, and they would demand retribution for this slight. All Leif wanted was to keep them content so they would leave him be.
Unfortunately for The Chokecherries, what kept them most content was violence.
Calloway led Leif and his ragtag order to The Chokecherries’ bus, and there he stopped, digging his heels into the earth. “I don’t want any part of this. I never wished you any ill will when I left, Leif.”
Leif inclined his head. That was true, despite the hurt he’d felt at the time.
“I have a career now,” Cal continued, his voice pleading. “I have the chance to really make something of myself. I can’t— I’ll do anything to keep that alive. Please, just—”
“You’ll be fine,” Leif interrupted, “as long as you do as I say. You’ll find a lot has changed since you left; I have far less patience than I did. But you were a good one; I’d hate for anything to happen to you as a result of this . . . unfortunate incident.” He gestured to the bus. “Get your friends.”
Calloway tugged his arm free, and this time Leif allowed it. Cal crept to the bus door, standing open in the desert heat, and paused to peer up the steps while keeping out of sight from the bus’s occupants.
“I don’t see the peacock,” he whispered.
“Find out where He is,” Leif returned. “Maybe they’ve hidden Him in one of the bunks.”
Calloway put one finger to his lips and turned all his attention to the conversation within the bus. Leif followed suit with his arms crossed, waiting one pace back.
Rayne Bakshi sat on the bus couch like he’d been shot, staring at his phone with an expression somewhere between shock and heartbroken bafflement. The last time Leif had felt either of those emotions was when he’d woken to find the peacock gone, and it was doubtful the rock star had ever lost anything half as important. He watched as Angel scooted in beside the man and leaned into his shoulder to look at the phone.
“It’s fucking Fink all over again,” Rayne said.
Angel frowned and took the phone. She read: “‘I’ve finally had the chance to think things over, and I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m sorry I have to do it this way, but I feel it’s my only chance to get out. I never should have let you do the things you did, or let things get as far as you took them. Sorry I couldn’t give you more notice, but this is best for everyone. Please don’t try to get in touch.’”
“He’s gone,” Rayne said.
“You have a show in four hours. He wouldn’t bail on that, no matter what happened.” Angel twisted around to sit cross-legged on the couch and face him. “But something did happen between you two. You finally hooked up in private, didn’t you? He was practically glowing when I saw him this morning.”
“We hooked up,” Rayne admitted. “We were both so, so drunk. It should never have happened. God, why didn’t I listen to Brian? He’s going to have a fit when he finds out.”
Calloway winced in apparent sympathy, and Leif dropped his hand on Cal’s shoulder, wordlessly ordering him to focus.
“Kris didn’t look like he regretted it. He looked pretty damn happy about it, from what I could see,” Angel said.
“That was before we talked.”
She fixed Rayne with a stare so unimpressed that he flinched.
“I told him I didn’t want to be his experimentation project,” he said. “Which, if I’d been halfway sober the night before, I would have said in the first place and we could have avoided all this.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because I got distracted by him kissing me when he didn’t have to just for the show,” Rayne said miserably. “I was so fucking happy he wanted to, I didn’t stop to think it through.”
“I’ve seen the way that boy looks at you,” Angel said. “If you think he’s using you to experiment, you’re fucking blind, honey.”
Rayne seemed unconvinced.
“Call him if you don’t believe me,” she said.
“His phone’s turned off.” He pushed his hands through his hair, bleeding distress.
“Then talk to Cassie. She must know where he went.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Leif told Cal in an undertone. “They haven’t mentioned the Avatar once. If you’re just stalling—”
“I’m not!” Cal insisted, his voice pitching up.
Rayne and Angel froze, looking first at each other and then to the door.
“I’ve had enough,” Red growled, shoving forward to take his place at Leif’s side behind Calloway. “This is a waste of time. We can make them tell us where the Avatar is.”
“Don’t—” Cal started, but before Leif could intervene, Red drew his hunting knife from the sheath at his hip.
“Red—” Leif began warningly, but it was too late: Cal broke away from the others and bounded up the bus steps to slam into the driver’s seat.
“I’m so sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t want to bring them here. You have to get away—”
Red’s shadow stretched up the steps and into the bus ahead of him, the knife’s blade long and glinting dully in his fist. “Rayne Bakshi,” he said, the sun reflecting off the knife and his shaved skull like a twin spotlight. “You’ve stolen something important from us, and we’re going to take it back.”
Leif rubbed his hand over his face and took a fortifying breath. Things were escalating very quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” Calloway repeated. He had Rayne by the arm, guiding him quickly through the grounds as Leif and the rest of the order followed behind. Rikki held Angel in a similar way, and Leif watched her in case she chose to launch another handbag-based assault, and Rikki in case his fraying loyalty finally broke and he abandoned the order once and for all. Leif saw the way he looked at the woman, like she had hung the stars and the s
un. It was how he should be looking at the Avatar.
But Angel didn’t seem to like her chances against the entire order at once, not now that they had their knives out, and let Rikki guide her, however begrudgingly.
“They found me,” Cal was saying in a strained whisper Leif chose to ignore. “They knew you had the bird, and they said— I couldn’t risk it. I’m not with them anymore, I swear I’m not, and I never told them anything, but they knew.”
“What are you even talking about?” Rayne asked.
“We’re getting the rest of your band,” Red cut in. “We tried this your way,” he added, turning to Leif, “using Calloway as a negotiator, and he betrayed us. So now we do it like this.”
“I didn’t betray anyone!” Cal snapped. “You pulled a knife! Everything would have been fine—”
“Am I being held hostage?” Rayne demanded.
“No!” Cal said. “Well, technically, yes, a bit. Please cooperate. I don’t like this any more than you do.”
“This is insane,” Rayne said, but no one paid him any attention.
Festival security had all but disappeared, presumably converging on the north side of the grounds where Travis was providing his distraction, leaving Leif, the order, and their hostages to move through the festival unimpeded. When they encountered Rayne’s personal security guard, Rayne asked him through gritted teeth to fetch something from the far side of the festival grounds. Though Rayne was clearly banking on him to see it for the wild-goose chase that it was, the guard ambled off agreeably. Leif took it as a sign that luck was still on his side, despite Red’s mutiny, and smiled grimly to himself. It was the kind of smile that made other people back away nervously and avoid eye contact.
After that it was a simple matter of rounding up the remaining Chokecherries and their opening act. The order steered them at knifepoint with unerring finality into an empty tent at the southernmost border of the festival, as far from Travis and the security personnel as possible. Red had Cal by the scruff of his shirt, his knife held up warningly the entire time, while Boar took up the rear, looming mountainously as he shepherded the captives along. Rikki kept his hand on Angel’s arm, and no matter how she glared at him, he ducked his head and refused to meet her eye.
The order deposited them in the tent and herded them into the center, where a large pole was erected like something out of an old Western, and tied their hands behind their backs, tethering them to the pole in prisoners-of-war style. Calloway was tied up alongside them; he would never rejoin the order, especially not after this debacle, and Leif had no further use for him. By the time the order was done securing everyone, both bands were accounted for, with the exception of Kris Golding, Stef Morganstern, and the new girl with Passionfruit.
“I feel like we’re missing some really important context here,” Billie said, his voice slightly strangled despite his calm words.
“We are the Worshippers of His Serene Majesty, the Incandescent and All-Seeing God,” Leif said, drawing on every ounce of his poetic theatricality as he wrestled control of the situation back from Red, “and you have stolen His Avatar.”
“Um,” said Billie.
“What the fuck,” said Jay.
“Rayne,” said one of the captives, in a deliberately calm voice, like the sea before the storm, “can you explain?” He was the only one Leif didn’t recognize: middle-aged, beleaguered, and obviously not a performer. He must be Bakshi’s manager, Brian.
“Oh my god,” said Rayne. “It’s the fucking peacock.”
Red and Boar visibly bristled, and Leif raised his hand to hush them.
“You don’t speak of His Serene Majesty in those tones,” Red hissed, ignoring him.
“The bird,” Brian repeated. “The one Kris found the other night.”
“That’s the one,” Rayne confirmed.
“Well, give it back so I can return to civilization and press kidnapping and unlawful confinement charges.”
“I don’t have it! Do I look like I have a peacock on me right now? He’s probably wandering around outside somewhere, like he was when Kris found him.”
“You should try keeping your Serene God on a leash next time,” Jay suggested to the order. “Since this seems to be an ongoing problem.”
Boar glowered and Red stepped forward, brandishing his knife as if he intended to gut his captive then and there. Jay flinched back even as he curled his lip in a snarl, and the rest of the hostages went rigid.
“You shut your mouth, boy,” Red warned, the blade dangerously close to Jay’s throat. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”
“Jay, shut the fuck up,” Billie whispered frantically.
Leif wondered, not for the first time, whether he could actually hold Red and Boar back if they decided to kill their hostages. They had never killed anyone before—not in the time Leif had known them, at least—but then, no one had ever stolen their Avatar before, either. The Avatar gave their lives meaning, and Leif realized, watching them loom over the hostages, just how far they were willing to go to protect that meaning. He sighed and wished again that he had never told anyone about the peacock at all.
“Rayne, I swear to god, if I die in here, I am holding you personally responsible,” Angel hissed to her companion.
“Nobody’s dying!” Brian said loudly.
“How is any of this my fault?” Rayne demanded.
“Kris brings you a peacock and you don’t question where he got it?”
“Are you saying I should have assumed it was attached to a cult? And you,” he added, twisting in his ropes to face Calloway. “You knew! Why didn’t you warn us?”
“There are lots of peacocks in the world,” Calloway said under his breath. “I couldn’t be sure it was the same one. I told Kris to be careful—”
“Where is Kris, anyway?” Brian interrupted.
Leif and the order frowned.
“He left,” said Rayne.
“For brunch,” Brian said slowly.
“The band.”
Brian’s face went white, then red, and a vein in his forehead throbbed like it was going to burst. For an instant Leif was less worried about the hostages meeting their end by Red and Boar’s hands, and more worried about the health of the band’s manager.
“He has a contract,” Brian said, still speaking with deliberate slowness, as if he could put the universe back in order through sheer force of will alone.
“I’m sorry,” Rayne said, his misery evident in his voice. “I know you warned me—”
“We’ll talk later,” Brian said.
“This Kris is the one who stole the Avatar,” Leif said, hauling the conversation back under control.
“He didn’t know it was the avatar,” Calloway said quickly. “He just thought it was a fancy bird. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Leif silenced him with a look. “Then why did he steal it?”
“He wanted to show me,” Rayne said. “He thought I’d like it. And he was high as balls, but, uh.” He glanced at Brian. “I don’t think that’s a legal defense.”
Brian shook his head.
“This is insulting,” Boar said. “His Serene Majesty the All-Seeing God should smite you for this.”
“Let him fucking try it,” Jay said. “You’d think he would’ve done it already, though. Since we stole his avatar and everything.”
“Please stop antagonizing the cult,” Billie said.
“They ain’t shit.”
Red stepped in and dealt Jay a vicious backhanded blow across the face, snapping his head to the side as the rest of the hostages burst out in yells, struggling against their ropes. Jay glared and jutted his chin out like he was actually going to fight the order from the floor with no hands.
Leif rubbed his temples and wished he were high enough to deal with this calmly. When they got out of this, he was going to try switching Red and Boar from psychedelics to sedatives for a while.
As Jay and the others continued to bait Red and Boar, shouting increasi
ngly derogatory things about their god, Brian cleared his throat and Leif circled around to him to begin negotiations. After a few minutes it became apparent that the man had no concept of the peacock’s importance to either the order or the All-Seeing God, so Leif dismissed him to turn his attention back to Rayne.
“Ah,” said the rock star. “Yeah, you missed a bit.”
Leif stared. There was an empty space beside him where Angel had previously been sitting, and she and Rikki were nowhere to be seen. The ropes had been hacked away—Rikki’s switchblade, Leif realized belatedly. No one had thought to disarm him, despite his obviously wavering allegiance. A long slice in the side of the tent’s canvas confirmed their escape.
“Yeah, you dumb fucks,” Jay crowed from the other side of the pole. “That was worth a black eye, right?”
Red aimed a kick at him but Jay just laughed. He sounded slightly manic.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Leif.
Kris kept up a steady litany of curses under his breath as he trudged back toward the festival, his shoulders set and his jaw squared. The sun was deathly hot and the highway stretched bare, disappearing over the horizon into the eternity of rocky orange desert on either side. It would be pretty if he weren’t so fucking furious. He tried to calculate the distance in his head—over half an hour by car, on the highway—and when he might reach the festival grounds. Whatever fuckery Brad was causing, The Chokecherries had a show at four, and it was already half past one.
Kris didn’t like his chances.
Also, his math was telling him it was going to take eight hours to walk back, and that didn’t sound right, but he couldn’t check the numbers because Brad had stolen his fucking phone.
He was going to throttle Brad with his bare hands when he finally caught up to him.
A car engine rumbled in the distance, and he flung himself into the road in his haste to flag it down. It slowed to a crawl as it drew up alongside him, pulling over to the shoulder and rolling the window down.
