The Scavengers (16 page)

“You better wait your turn in line.” The man who I had been about to walk past reached out and caught my ankle, nearly snatching me to the ground.

“This is a line?” I asked. The scattering of people dotting the hillside in front of the massive stone church didn't appear to be arranged in any particular order. Most of them appeared to have set up small, individualized campsites for themselves. Several were using fire pits to cook breakfast. The smell of the cooking food wafting through the early morning air made my stomach rumble hungrily.

“Darn right, this is a line. And you ain't taking my place.” The man in front of me was old and grizzled, with a hunched back and a filthy face. He needed a haircut desperately, but I supposed I didn't have much room to talk. I was fairly certain I had sticks tangled into my hair. Sleeping outside for the last few days hadn't done my appearance any favors.

“I don't think I even want to be in your line,” I told the man. “I just need to talk to someone. A friend. This is the Church of Chaos, isn't it?”

The man spit on the ground next to my boots. “Of course this is the Church of Chaos. You don't think we'd all be waiting around out here for a blessing if it wasn't, do you?”

“A blessing?” I asked.

“From the high priest,” he said. “He comes out here every Thursday and blesses each and every one of us. He can heal with his touch, if he chooses to and the belief of the person being healed is strong enough.”

“When you say the high priest- wait, what day is it now?” I used my fingers to try to brush some of the sticks out of my hair. I hadn't put much thought into Seth's actual role with the church. I'd spent the last three days focused on finding my way back to the river and then following it upstream. It had been such a relief to actually find the church, I hadn't thought much past that.

I certainly hadn't considered the possibility that I might not be able see Seth when I got here.

“Saturday,” the man replied scornfully.

“I can't wait five days to see the high priest,” I said flatly as I stared at the massive wooden doors that loomed above the front steps of the church.

“You will wait as long as the high priest deems necessary. You cannot rush a god.”

“Seth is many things. A god is not one of them.” I stepped sideways around the grubby man and began walking straight towards the doors. I ignored several shouts of protest as I jogged up the stone steps and knocked politely on the wooden doors.

Nothing happened.

I knocked again, louder this time.

A woman grabbed me from behind and physically threw me back away from the door. I landed hard on top of Kennedy's pack, the tools inside doing no favors for my already bruised spine. I rolled to the side and hissed at her.

“You cannot bother the priests!” She was wearing a long, stained yellow ball gown that was missing more than half its sequins. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head in some kind of a combination of a braid and bun. She was twice my age and missing most of her teeth.

She had inserted herself between me and the doors of the church.

I decided I could take her.

“Sorry, crazy lady, but you're going to have to move.” I stood up and slipped the pack off my back. I pulled Kennedy's knife out of my waistband and waved it in her direction.

“You shall not bother our priests. It is unholy.”

“I never claimed to be holy,” I said as I tried to walk past her. She flung her arms out wide, as if standing spread eagle on the stairs would stop me. I shoved her backwards and then dodged around her.

This time I got in a solid three knocks on the door before she grabbed me. On the plus side, I was ready for her. I grabbed her by her hair and yanked as hard as I could. “I don't have time for you,” I told her as she squealed in anger. I launched her back down the steps.

At this point, the other dozen-or-so psychotic religious campers had taken an interest in what I was doing. I had the time to reflect that I was pretty severely outnumbered and not a particularly talented fighter before the woman in the yellow dress charged me again. She head-butted me in the stomach as I drove my knee into her ribs as hard as I could. The impact knocked the air out of both of us.

I slid onto my butt and she landed on top of me.

“You cannot bother the priests,” she hissed.

“Go away crazy lady,” I hissed back as I pushed her off of me. She rolled down to the bottom of the stairs and didn't get back up. I breathed a very short-lived sigh of relief. The rest of Seth's worshipers had formed a semi-circle at the base of the stairs and they were all looking up at me with pretty obvious malice.

“Crap,” I muttered under my breath as two decidedly scary looking men with long beards and ragged clothes began walking up the steps towards me. I still had the knife in my hand but I really didn't want to have to try to use it.

The doors of the church opened behind me.

“Who dares disturb the Church of Chaos?” A female voice boomed over my head. The men who had been coming up the steps after me retreated so quickly that one tripped over his own two feet and fell the rest of the way down the stairs. The worshipers began backing slowly away from the church, eyes directed to the ground as if they couldn't bear the sight before them.

I twisted around to see a slender girl in a clean, white shift-style dress was standing behind me. She had alabaster skin and long, jet black hair that hung down past her hips. Her eyes were the color of the clearest blue afternoon sky. Her pouty red lips were pursed with disapproval as she stared down at me.

“You will not be blessed,” she informed me.

“I'm not here for a blessing,” I told her as I forced my bruised and aching legs to support my weight once more. “I came to talk to Seth.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You dare to speak the high priest's given name?”

“I suppose so,” I acknowledged with a shrug. “He didn't tell me not to.”

Her eyes narrowed even further. “I should have you thrown down the mountain for your disrespect.”

I hesitated. I needed Seth's help if I was going to try to save my parents' lives. I didn't have the skills or the knowledge to rescue them from Bud the Flesh Broker on my own. At the same time, I wasn't interested in humiliating myself in order to earn the pleasure of Seth's company.

“I don't bow to false deities,” I told the girl. “I've learned my lessons about worshiping gods with the little 'g'.”

“Leave.” The girl began to close the doors in my face.

I shoved them open. They moved far more easily on the hinges than I had expected them to. “I want my gun back.”

“Your what?” The surprise on her face was evident.

“Seth took my gun. I understand and appreciate why he did it, but I need it back. Get it for me and I'll go.”

“You'll go because I told you to go,” the girl replied with a shake of her head. “I don't know anything about a gun.”

“Go ask Seth.”

“He's not here,” the girl replied. “Or I would.”

“Where is he?” I demanded.

“How should I know?” The girl asked. “It's not Thursday.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to scream with frustration. “I thought he was your high priest. You don't know where he is?”

“He's not the most cooperative high priest we've ever had,” she spat back at me through gritted teeth. “I know where he is on Thursdays.” She pointed down at the gathered worshipers in the church yard.

“Did he say where he was going?” I asked.

“He's the high priest. He doesn't have to tell anyone where he's going. As much as I'd appreciate it if he would.” She sounded utterly exasperated. “Last I heard, he'd let himself become obsessed with some Scavenger girl who he'd seen in one of his dreams. One of our followers told me he was trailing her around in the woods. She's probably slit his lovesick throat by now.”

“Oh for crying out loud.” I pushed past her into the church and slammed the doors shut behind me. The room was instantly shrouded in darkness. I had a brief second to enjoy the sudden rush of coolness and silence before she interrupted it.

“I didn't invite you inside!” The girl snapped at me. Her voice echoed loudly through the large stone chapel.

“Sorry, but those people out there were giving me the creeps. I can't argue with them at my back. I feel like one of them is going to stab me while I'm not looking.”

“They don't have any weapons. We don't allow them to own weapons,” the girl I'd been arguing with replied. She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at me. “You're going back outside.”

“No. I'm not.” I shook my head at her. “I need to find Seth.”

“I already told you, I don't have your gun.”

“Seth does.”

“Seth might,” the girl acknowledged. “Not that he would mention it to me if he did. He's an infuriating bastard.”

“Finally,” I muttered.

“Finally what?” She asked angrily.

“Something we agree on,” I replied. “Seth is an infuriating bastard.”

The girl snorted and then shook her head in disgust. “I'm Vera.”

“Nice to meet you,” I lied.

She frowned at me. “Who are you?

“The Scavenger girl Seth was following through the woods,” I told her.

I was surprised by the number of expletives that came out of her pretty red lips. After all, we were in a church.

“Are you sure you're the right girl?” Vera finally asked when she had gotten done damning Seth to hell in at least four different languages.

“I think the options are pretty limited,” I told her. “So yes. Though you're wrong about him being in love with me. I think he just finds it amusing to torture me.”

“He has a sadistic side,” Vera agreed after a moment. “But he has plenty of people to torture right here at home. No need to be trailing you around. You are sure it was you that he was trailing around?”

“You tell me.” I gave her the recap of what had happened to me since leaving the Cube, including all my interactions with Seth.

“I thought you'd be prettier,” she told me when I had finished my retelling. “Gerard, he's one of the followers who helps us keep an eye on the Scavengers, described you as being quite exotic.”

“I looked better before I spent three days sleeping in the woods and running for my life,” I said flatly. “I need a bath and a change of clothes.”

“Well, why didn't you say so?” Vera asked. “All you had to do was ask.”

“You're offering me a bath?” I asked, baffled by her sudden change in attitude.

“Yes. Try not to drown in it. My brother would be pissed if he found out I'd managed to kill you off after he's clearly spent so much time working to earn your trust.” She began walking through the chapel, heading into the depths of the church.

I didn't move. “Your brother?”

She twirled around in front of me, the skirt of her dress swirling around her as if she were some type of exotic flower that had just bloomed. “My brother. Surely you can see the resemblance?”

She covered her right eye with her hand and blinked at me with her left. She had a large chunk of permanently missing flesh on the inside of her right arm, but the intentional disfigurement wasn't what made me curse under my breath. Vera wasn't one of Seth's followers. She was his sister.

She started walking again and this time I followed her. She led me through the chapel and then out a door at the back of it. We moved briskly through a series of dark passageways and darker stairwells until we finally reached a large room with an elaborate bubbling hot spring in the center of it.

“Here you go,” Vera said as she gestured to the tub. “I suggest you get yourself cleaned up. You smell like a hog that's been wallowing in slop for a week. I'll have someone bring you clean clothes. Yours don't appear to fit you very well.”

“Thanks.” I bit my tongue on all the nasty replies I wanted to respond with. After all, this girl was Seth's sister and presumably in charge until he returned. She was offering me a bath, clothes and shelter. It was more than I was likely to get from anyone else.

“I don't see what he sees in you.” Vera eyed me with obvious skepticism. “You're not pretty enough or smart enough to deserve my brother's love.”

“Seth doesn't love me,” I told Vera as I stared into the depths of the hot spring. “He took my gun and left me behind on the riverbank. You did catch that part, right?”

“You don't really believe he abandoned you,” she countered. “He told your friend he was coming back for you. You should have waited for him. My brother always keeps his word.”

“If I had stayed on the riverbank, Drake would have found me and killed me.” My voice still quivered from the strength of the fear that accompanied that memory.

“What a tragedy that would have been,” Vera replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

I wondered what Seth would say if he came back to discover I'd drowned his sister in the bath.

A girl with wavy blonde hair and kind smile arrived in the bath room shortly after Vera got bored with asking me questions I didn't have the answers to and wandered away.

“My name is Miriam,” the blonde said. She was holding a tray of food-type items. Thick, crusty bread, a sliced up tomato and cheese. She set it down on the side of the bath. “I thought you might be hungry.”

I looked down at the food and gagged slightly. I looked away. “I'm sorry. I haven't been able to eat since-.”

“You have to eat.” She slid the plate back to the edge of the thick rock ledge that surrounded the hot spring. She gestured for me to move to the very edge of the pool. I hesitated until I realized she was holding a hairbrush and a bottle which most likely contained some kind of shampoo.

“A Flesh Broker has my parents,” I said. “I haven't been able to look at food since I found out.”

She poked the plate at me again. “It's vegetarian. I promise. Only one tomato was harmed in the preparation of this snack.”

I almost smiled. “I know. I just-.”

“Try. Please?” Miriam smiled prettily at me. She had a gentle beauty to her. I suspected she wasn't much older than I was, but her brown eyes were wise and kind as she held out a piece of bread to me.

“Okay.” I took it because I felt bad for disappointing her. It was dry and felt like a ball of lead in my mouth, but I managed to get it down. The next slice, layered with a piece of cheese and one of the tomato slices, wasn't nearly as difficult.

Miriam began stroking the brush through my tangled, snarled curls. “Vera tells me you're the girl that Seth sees in his dreams.”

“If Seth dreams about me, he hasn't told me the details,” I admitted. I was trying not to think about the dream conversation I'd had with Julie. “Not that I'd expect him to share those kind of private thoughts with me. We aren't close.”

“You told Vera he saved your life when he didn't have to,” Miriam said as she raked the brush rather forcefully through the knots in my hair.

“He did.”

“Then you mean something to him. He wouldn't risk his life for someone who didn't matter.”

I closed my eyes and ignored her implications. Within seconds, I was sound asleep.