Black and Orange (24 page)

Martin deflated completely. He’d been through too much now to ask a lot of questions, and as always, he knew that he had no say in what happened as far as Halloween went. “Once you bring them to our room, what then?”

“What has it always been?” Enrique watched them, a somber oil painting. “You run like the devil.
From
the devil.”

The Priestess of Morning watched the goldfish a while longer. A tiny man in an archaic diver suit squatted behind a treasure chest that opened and shut with the aquarium’s pump. One fish darted away from the school and went to hide behind a waving mess of plastic seaweed. The Priestess did not move her eyes off this one and brought up her double Bloody Mary. Vodka and tomatoes. They were her favorite discoveries in this world, aside from the tractable males. In her birthplace, men would have spit on easy manipulation, thought it tactless and insulting. She learned their game there long ago. They could be bought through the gift of sacrifice, through power. In this world she took what she wanted and men gave themselves to her will, as though her attention was prize enough. So silly. She wagered men were idiots in both places, though on completely different grounds for idiocy. But they kept her spirits up.

Speaking of spirits, she thought, and picked up the half empty bottle of vodka. The Mary had become a trifle thin on the bite. A
Bloody Mabel
perchance? She took out the celery stalk and dropped it into the aquarium. Goldfish scattered like orange shrapnel. The outsider fish remained hidden in the plastic weeds. The Priestess’s reflection shook with disgust.
Like a Nomad...
They could hide from her sight and have their delusions of safety, but she would find them again. She’d see through the rain. It could flood the streets of this dirty land and create rivers and lakes and seas—back home, this pompous hotel would be sitting at the bottom of their largest ocean,
Olathu
. The krill were so thick it made the water soft and red like...

She tipped back another healthy swallow.

Ringing. The annoying chirp came from the Bishop’s slacks on the divan. She shuffled across the bitterly cold tile floor. She retrieved the slim phone from a pocket containing a small stone, whatever that was for...

“Hello?” She hadn’t lost interest in telephones yet.
An act of power without sacrifice was magnificent magic
. Or perhaps she hadn’t learned what sacrifices in this world actually were.

The man on the other end sounded nonplussed, and inebriated. “Bishop Quintana?”

“He stepped out for some air.”

She went to the sliding glass door. Her face reflected. It looked starker than it had in the aquarium, but there were no bruises, no cuts. Maybe a slight swelling of her lower lip. Amazing. Paul’s strikes had felt like they caused permanent damage. He thought himself so powerful. Now the blonde man huddled next to a few potted lilies. Crouching there, he looked like a newborn ape, body bald and goose-dimpled. What a great hind end he had—skin wasn’t too pasty or browned either. His staff wasn’t too small, or big, or warped. She would share more bedtime with him, without doubt. The urge for children with him drove her mad.

As soon as she slid open the door, Paul bolted upright. His face was flushed from anger and agony and his blonde hair had parted down the center in the downpour.

“Priestess,” he squeaked, shivering, “it’s not raining that hard anymore.”

It wasn’t. Just misting. The clouds were clearing as well.
Soon
. She offered the phone. “We’ll take a warm shower together.”

Paul Quintana followed inside. He stood there, staring at her with boyish fear and hatred. She smiled and ran her fingertips over his cold lips. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

He pressed the phone to his ear and tried to sound controlled. “Yeah?”

She went to the aquarium again and remembered her drink. It was weaker than she liked. She wasn’t much for making drinks or cooking; she always underdid the spirits, always enjoyed burning food rather than making it taste divine. The half-finished drinks and blackened chicken eggs in the kitchen were proof of that.

“Never better.” Paul nodded a couple of times. It was odd to see him fall into formality when he stood there so cold and shriveled. “No, no. Set them up with a room. Yeah... I know, yeah... okay. Yes, call me tonight. Don’t forget.” He
pursed
his chalky blue lips. “You remember? Yeah? Good. Little insurance never spoiled the race. Okay. Good, good.” The phone snapped shut and he tossed it on his slacks. His reddened eyes dragged over to her. “About that shower?”

The Priestess poured the rest of her Bloody Mary into the aquarium and the red spread through the watery atmosphere like a quick toxin. Now she had a small
Olathu
ocean of her own.
Home
, she savored. Paul watched her do this, but not with much surprise. He now saw beyond the ceremonial orange dresses and titles. That was nice. Paul was different than the others. From both sides.

She took his large hand and pulled him toward the bathroom. Her entire body cried out to live and die at the same time. By the time they got into the bathroom, Paul’s body had outgrown the night on the balcony, and he was ready for use.

~ * ~

“Stop!”

Paul smelled blood. It may have started from biting his lip or the side of his tongue.
Hell
, he thought,
it might have been from the children’s voices sawing back and forth through my fucking cerebral cortex
. It could have been a lot of things. The marrow seeds were exploding in his veins like microscopic kernels. Every flower produced more seeds and implantation, and therefore less balance in the dark and light garden. It hurt his chest. The pressure. The love. This needed to end. This needed to begin. Couldn’t go on any longer. Can’t stop the endless hunger.

Cloth’s children claimed the lonesome space behind his eyes.
Thanksgiving!

“Stop!”

Paul smelled blood again. Blood matted his public hair. “Shit,” he cried and began to pull out.

The Priestess swiveled around. “What are you doing?”

“You said to stop...
twice
!”

“My insolence, my weakness, my shame—don’t you
ever
stop!” She forced his hand between her legs. “Don’t ever STOP!”

“But you’re
blee
—”

Her dark look made his mind up for him. Once she came, he tried to reach his own peak again, but found he’d reached too many. Besides orgasmic exhaustion, the chill from a night on the balcony had come back into his bones and there was a rash up his ass.

“You’re cold?” the Priestess asked flatly.

“Getting there.”

“
Eggert
built a fire in the sitting room.” She offered a delicate hand to him like a sophisticate. He pulled her up with him off the bathroom floor.

The thrill of heat caught him. The fire wasn’t exactly roaring, but it was enough to warm his bones. He watched the firelight play on her perfect skin. The shutter to the Old Domain was open.
So
open. Despite the keening of the children and his promise to Cole
Szerszen
, right then nothing mattered besides his Priestess. He was already too wrapped up though.
Have to watch myself or I’m gonna be her next automaton.

“I can’t keep you all day,” she said. “I’m sure you have your duties.”

“No,” he said, more loudly than intended.
Great job playing the game, idiot.
“I don’t want to leave.”

“And I don’t want you to go—but the Hunt is closer. That means the Heralding is at our feet.”

“I find it difficult to care,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve never known anybody like you.”

The Priestess raised a soft, bladed eyebrow. “But I care, of course. Bishop
Szerszen
said Chaplain Cloth needs his soldiers. The Heart will be consumed and the path will clear, for all time. Then I can show you my world.”

“You already have.”

She took a poker down from the rack and stuck it into the fireplace. A golden train of hair cascaded off her shoulder down to a russet nipple. After a couple of jabs under some blistering, glowing logs, she seemed to grow bored and left it there. A loud crack rent a log in two and Paul jumped. “I might have been rasher with myself,” she said, “had I not met you. I don’t like failing myself, you see, but failing others I find more deplorable. A great man gave up his first wife to foresee the Nomads’ location. I thought once I had them in my sight, they’d lead us straight to the Heart and our troubles would be gone. Such foolish dreaming. I should have known better.” She gazed out the window and Paul could almost see the raindrop reflections falling down her face, backlit by the fire.

He said, cautiously, “This man who foresaw the Nomads—you mean the Archbishop of Morning?”

She didn’t meet his eyes.

“What kind of a man is he?” he asked.

“He likes his playthings,” she said. “We had that in common for a time, until he saddled me as church concubine. A Priestess should never be controlled in such a doggish manner, but it didn’t surprise me, not with Archbishop
Kennen
. He does things the way it fits his vision and none else. He will choose to lead the unified Church on his own when the time comes. He and
Sandeus
will be at odds. Wait and see. I can’t imagine
Kennen
taking second to anyone. He’s given everything for the chance.”

Paul extended his palms toward the fire. “Cole and this guy won’t be the best of buddies either.”

“Perhaps not.” She went back to ramming the fire some more.

“Enough with this talk of power games. We’re bigger than that. Don’t you think? Tell me something you want,” he said. “Anything. I want to give you something special.”

The Priestess pulled the poker from the fire. The end was not red-hot yet, but smoke waved off the gray dust at the point. “Kiss my stomach with this. Even if I tell you to stop, even if it burns down to my vitals—this is your gift to me.”

Paul shook his head. “I was thinking a necklace or something...”

“It’s not the pain,” she answered quickly, reading his thoughts. “It’s the absence. Agony clears the mind. It’s a sacrifice that can almost outmatch death itself.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Coat the burn in your seed.” Her mouth pulled back into a shark’s smile. “Soothe and cleanse me. Maybe my sight will strengthen from the offer of torment.”

Paul didn’t care much for it termed as
seed
anymore, not with the tangled jungle cultivating in his chest. He laughed her concept away but she placed the poker’s handle in his palm and aimed the point at her abdomen. “I don’t really—”

Her stomach drew closer. Paul could imagine the poker first creating a red blister that popped and blackened and then the iron sinking through soft muscle tissue. He was too selfish; there could be no ugly terrain in his wonderland.

The Priestess jumped to her feet and Paul thankfully dropped the poker on the tile before the fireplace. At first he thought he’d made her upset and that she’d press the issue, as she had with the balcony, but that wasn’t it. There was something else.

“Priestess?”

She ran out of the retreat area, a naked blur through the living room. Paul vaulted after her, but remained distant once he saw her near the balcony; he’d had enough of that location. She put her hands on the glass and began heaving. Sunlight sliced through the sky and the living room filled with color and dissolving shadows. Her amazing lips parted for something sweet.

“Are you okay?”

Something was discovered in those wild amber eyes. She was breathless. “Oh I’m splendid!”

It felt easier on his soul to be released from the Hearts. Not that Martin wouldn’t miss them. Uncontrolled love and devotion for the little ones would be dialed up until November. There was no getting around that, like it or not.

He shut the
Quadravan
for the last time. “Bye, old girl.”

The only thing left inside was the passenger door. He’d miss the crackling speakers and the faint mildew and clove scent: they were the van’s signs of life. Maybe he was getting softer as he approached his middle years, but he couldn’t see the point in switching for a newer vehicle.

Teresa and Enrique were loading the shiny black JK Wrangler Unlimited with supplies. All and all this new vehicle would be a faster, more streamlined transport with less room than the
Quadravan
. Had to be dealt with. The wooden crates of dry goods and bottled water had to be cut down to a week’s supply. The assorted ammunition, concussion and incendiary grenades had to be reduced to a fourth. They only retained their M-16 rifles and their personal handguns. The Messenger had freshened their plastics and detonator kits—couldn’t have enough of that stuff in Martin’s opinion.

The leftover freight would be left with Enrique. Teresa hefted one last crate on top of another and a cough echoed through his dusty garage. After the coughing passed, her shot, watering eyes found Martin. “Everything out?”

He lifted up his toy aquarium and shook it before reaching through the passenger window and sticking it on the Wrangler’s dash. “The important stuff, yeah.”