Flux (11 page)

“The men are here,” he said quietly. “Have you seen them? So far I’ve spotted four. D’you think they’ll recognize us?”

“No,” said Nellie immediately. “It was too dark.” She’d been spying on the eight men for over a month. Time after time she’d passed them in the street and they’d never given her a second glance.

“But you’re wearing the same clothes,” Deller said dubiously. “And the kerchief.”

“We were at the back of the church and they were at the front,” Nellie shrugged. “I couldn’t tell them apart in all those shadows.”

Deller shook his head. “They might’ve seen us in the fire.”

“That was in another level,” Nellie said. “With their
doubles
. Not these guys.” Crossing her arms, she surveyed him scornfully.
If Deller wasn’t such a heathen
, she thought,
he would know it was the Goddess who’ d saved us last night
. Against the Goddess, mere men could do nothing in
any
level. But how could she expect him to understand something like that? He wasn’t a chosen one. Let him worry his guts over piddling little details if he wanted to, she had more important things on her mind. Rapt, Nellie stood watching candle flames flicker and leap on a nearby prayer table, signs of the Goddess’s divine presence.

“Okay then, we’ll sit at the back.” Deller started toward the nearest pew and Nellie stood thunderstruck, gaping after him. Where on earth had he gotten the idea she’d traded in her
brain
for an empty dried-out Skull? She wasn’t about to start taking orders from
him
.

“You sit at the back,” she sniffed and sailed past him. “I’m sitting at the front.”

Most of the congregation were now seated, and she moved quickly up the nearly empty aisle toward a seat that gaped at the end of the second pew. Slipping into it she knelt on the prayer bench, locked her fingers under her chin and began to whisper fervently. A knee bumped her shoulder and she looked up to see Deller slide into the empty spot on the pew. Annoyance twisted
her lips and she prayed more desperately, trying to shut him out. Why did the pagan have to keep following her around? Hadn’t she made herself abundantly clear?

Abruptly the prayer bench rocked beneath her knees, and she felt Deller’s shoulder press against her own as he knelt beside her.

“This church has a real buzz,” he hissed.

“I am
praying
,” she hissed back, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. “Can’t you feel it?” he whispered nervously, his breath tickling her ear.

Glaring through narrowed slits, Nellie said slowly, “That
buzz
is the presence of the Goddess. Only a pagan wouldn’t know that.”

Deller’s face twitched, and then he said slowly, “You’re really into this stuff.”

“The Goddess,” Nellie sighed dramatically, “is the morning star that watches over all missing mothers and children.”

Deller blinked, his face unreadable. “Sure,” he said. “No prob. But I don’t get a buzz every time I pass one of Her statues. This church is freaky.”

He was right, of course. Tonight the Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess shifted and sighed with flux. The air was dense with it, the molecular field quivering with unusual vibrations.

“Is this the same buzz you felt last night?” Nellie asked suspiciously.

“No,” he said quickly. “Different. Thicker.”

So he was truly feeling it. Nellie studied him with new eyes. Suddenly she realized she hadn’t the faintest idea why he’d been at the church the previous night, spying on the eight men. “Hey,” she whispered, elbowing him for emphasis. “What were you doing here last night, anyway?”

He shook his head. “Not here.” His eyes darted to the front of the church, and Nellie followed his gaze to see last night’s green-robed priest step out from behind the floor-to-ceiling statue of the Goddess, followed by several white-robed priestesses. Immediately preceding them were two small boys, chanting and carrying incense
balls on chains. All across the sanctuary, pews groaned as the congregation rose and reached for their prayerbooks. Unsure of the procedure, Deller glanced to see what Nellie was doing, then got to his feet beside her. Little did he know, she thought grimly, that he probably had more experience at this than she did.

Cautiously she glanced at the open prayerbook held by the woman on her other side, then flipped to the correct page in her own and tried to follow along. A sideways peek at Deller showed him slit-eyed and weasel-tense, looking as pagan as ever. Burying her nose in her prayerbook, Nellie pretended she’d never seen him before. On all sides the voices of the congregation rose and fell in murmured waves, repeating phrases back to the priest. They had everything memorized, Nellie realized in amazement. Even when she squinted, she couldn’t read the prayerbook’s tiny script in the flickering candlelight.

Finally the priest left off chanting and bowing, and the congregation sank into the pews. The priestesses stepped back into the shadows and the two boys walked solemnly down the center aisle, swinging their incense balls. Turning to the altar, the priest began lighting various candles. Arms crossed over her chest, Nellie watched him narrowly. She was beginning to feel a bit fed up with all these fancy goings-on. What did any of it have to do with the Goddess and the suffering of mothers and children? When she’d first entered the church, she’d thought she sensed the deep shadowy thud of the Goddess’s mother-heart, but all this chanting and swinging of incense balls had long since chased the feeling away. Now she couldn’t feel Ivana anywhere.

“Shove over,” she hissed at Deller. “I’m leaving.”

Incredulous, he gaped. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “The priest’ll recognize you for sure.”

She shouldered him impatiently and he shouldered her back.

“Wait until it’s over,” he said quietly. “Then I’ll tell you why I was here last night. Just keep your eyes open and see what you can pick up.”

Muttering savagely, Nellie subsided against the back of the pew and watched the priest move about the altar, bowing in one direction then another, lighting candles and making ritual gestures with his hands. Her eyes narrowed to thinking slits and she turned in the pew, sliding her gaze across the congregation. Why were they sitting there like a pack of dolts, watching this nonsense? Couldn’t they tell the Goddess had already left out of sheer boredom?

From the back of the room came the creaking of chains as the two boys filed back up the center aisle, swinging their incense balls. The organ swelled into another mournful dirge and the congregation rose, opening their hymnals. Standing on tiptoe, Nellie peered sullenly over the shoulder of a woman in the first pew, keeping her eyes fixed on the priest. If she was stuck here, she might as well keep an eye on him—he might have everyone else fooled, but she could tell he was up to no good.

Without warning the priest disappeared. Turning toward the floor-to-ceiling statue of the Goddess, he bowed three times, stepped deeper into the shadows at its base, and vanished. Glancing around, Nellie waited for gasps of stunned astonishment, but everyone continued to stare blankly at their hymnals. Even Deller gave no response.
Maybe they think he just slipped around the back of the statue
, Nellie thought wildly,
the way he came in.
But he hadn’t, she knew he hadn’t. The shadows at the base of the statue were so dense, she hadn’t actually seen the priest disappear, but she’d felt it with her mind—a ripple in the molecular field as a gate opened and the priest stepped through to some other place. Leaning toward Deller she whispered, “Did you see?”

“See what?” he whispered back.

“The priest,” she said, almost fearfully.

“What about him?” Deller asked. “There he is.”

And indeed there came the priest, stepping out of the shadows at the statue’s base and returning to the altar. Once again he circled it, bowing and chanting, followed by the priestesses and
the boys who were swinging their incense balls wildly. Finally the priest turned to face the congregation and made a downward gesture with his hands. As people around her sank into the pews Nellie remained standing, her arms crossed as she glared fiercely at the green-robed figure.
Hypocrite
, she thought at him savagely.
Charlatan. Moron.

The priest’s gaze zeroed in on her and in that moment his face shifted, the features blurring. Suddenly a new face surfaced where his had been, composed of such brilliant light Nellie couldn’t look directly at it.
A doubling
, she thought, flinching under a vivid kick of fear.
Here in the Goddess’s sanctuary, in the Goddess’s servant
. Rooted to the spot, she stood motionless as the thing that had taken over the priest scanned her face, then began moving inward, jabbing fiercely at her mind. With a gasp she jerked back, and its hold was lost. Darkness spun in her head, her brain felt as if it had been split in two. Slowly she forced her eyes open and back onto the priest’s face.

The man’s gaze flicked across her own, bland and indifferent, and then he turned once again to bow to the altar. Whatever had temporarily claimed him was now gone, the doubling ended. As she sank into her seat, Nellie realized she could probably walk up to the priest and he would give her the same generic smile he distributed to everyone. This was the way it was with most people—flux came and went like the blink of an eye, a newspaper blowing down the street. Few tuned into its comings and goings. Even fewer remembered.

But a doubling here, in one of the Goddess’s priests?

The woman seated beside Nellie shifted impatiently as the congregation began filing out of the pews and up the aisles to the front of the church. Kneeling in a long row, adults and children waited as the priest moved along the line, placing his hands on their heads and reciting a few words.

“I’ve seen enough of this,” Deller hissed into her ear. “You going up there to get blessed by the priest?”

“Uh-uh,” Nellie responded vehemently.

Slipping from the pew, Deller ducked into the crowd, pushing his way against the stream that was flowing toward the pulpit, Nellie at his heels and clutching the back of his T-shirt with both hands.

Chapter 8

C
OMING THROUGH THE
church entrance, Nellie felt the evening open before her like a deep-scented susurra blossom. For a moment she stood on the top step breathing it in, releasing the thick weight of incense and candlesmoke and the pressure of closed-in places. Then she was tearing down the stairs behind Deller, hesitating as he veered to the left, but he turned and beckoned so she followed, sprinting along the sidewalk. The Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess disappeared behind a row of doogden trees, and she was filled with a desire to leap, scissor-kicking, into the air, to spin and shriek like a mad woman. Instead she pursued Deller’s quick darting form through a series of back alleys, keeping pace, sensing the test in it, the wordless challenge. As they neared downtown, the festival crowd grew and they were forced to slow their pace. Coming around a corner she almost ran into him, leaning against a corner store, eyes closed and chest heaving. Slumped next to him, Nellie bent double and sucked her own raw air.

“Did you see the men guarding the doors to the rest of the church?” Deller wheezed. “Sure didn’t want anyone wandering off to use the cans.”

With a start Nellie realized she’d been so caught up with gawking at candles and shadows, she’d probably missed half the things the Goddess had intended to show her. Instead it had all been revealed to the pagan Deller. Flushing, she turned toward the crowd and pretended to study it. “They were probably just standing around,” she said dismissively. “No big deal.”

“They were blocking the doorways,” Deller insisted hoarsely. “It was the same men we saw last night. I saw them turn an old lady back. I think she wanted to use the can.”

“Was the Interior agent with them?” Too late, Nellie realized what she’d said. Weasely and intent, Deller’s eyes honed in on her.

“What agent?” he asked slowly.

She shrugged, ducking his gaze. “That extra guy that came to the meeting last night.”

“How d’you know he’s from the Interior?” demanded Deller.

“Just do,” she said lamely, letting her gaze settle on a middle-aged woman standing several feet away, engrossed in a mindjoy. The crowd parted as it passed, paying her no more attention than a fire hydrant.

“You’re an odd one, aren’t you, Bunny?” Deller’s voice was speculative, thinking its way word to word. “With scars like that on your head you should be dead, or at least half-crazy. You think and run like a boy, but you’re always by yourself, messy and dirty, and you smell like you think water’s your worst enemy.”

“I had a bath a couple of days ago.” Nellie scowled defensively. What was she supposed to do when she lived in a shack that smelled like a fart? Without thinking she rubbed at an itch in her nose, then began to slide her finger into her left nostril. Realizing what she was doing, she yanked it out and shot Deller a glance. His mouth twitched, but his eyes kept their weasely look, studying her.

“How’d you learn to get into other levels like that?” he asked abruptly.

“Just did.” Shrugging, Nellie let a calculated boredom slacken her face.

“And I suppose that’s how you learned to pull me from thin air back into my body too?” Deller said wryly.

Nellie shrugged again. If he didn’t shut up about this soon, she was taking off. Some things were private. Besides, she didn’t answer nosy parker questions.

“Okay,” Deller sighed. “So it’s your secret. But at least tell me this much. What were you doing out in the middle of the night, spying on the denerren?”

“The what?” Nellie grimaced at the unfamiliar term.

Deller turned and spat deliberately, then pulled a package of oolaga candy from his pocket and offered it to her. “Denerren,” he repeated, and spat again. “Traitors born of our blood, but sold out to the Elfadden.”

“The what?” repeated Nellie. Warily she took a piece of candy and unwrapped it.

“Kids disappearing,” Deller continued, ignoring her interruption. “Their mothers frantic. Men found dead with the Mark of Silence on their foreheads, and everyone watching their backs, wondering who’s going to get it next. Not knowing where it’ll come from, now that our own are beginning to turn.”