He drove through, but he didn’t make it far. A robed man with an automatic weapon stepped in front of us, forcing dad to slow to a stop just inside the gate.
“Looks like The Church has changed their mind about violence,” Mom said under her breath.
“You surprised?” Dad muttered as he rolled the window down.
“State your business,” the man with the gun barked.
“Axl and Angus James,” Dad said. “Here to see the priestess.”
The man hunched over so he could get a look inside, his gaze sweeping across the four of us so fast that I doubted he’d be able to describe us even if a gun was held to his head. Then he said, “Weapons?”
“Always,” Dad replied firmly.
The man’s gaze held his for a moment. “We do not allow guns in the Temple. You will leave those in your vehicle. Do you understand?” When Dad nodded once the man stepped back. “You may proceed.”
Dad rolled up the window and did as he was told.
None of us spoke as we drove through the city. I’d only been back once since the night Star was killed, two days later so I could go into the Biosafety Level four lab again, this time with Dragon. The Church had been in a hurry to demolish the building, but we’d known that we needed to get every vial of bacteria out of there before they did it. It was the only way to ensure that the zombies were wiped off the face of the earth in a timely manner.
After I’d broken that first vial, the zombies in the area had started dying off quickly, more of them dropping every day. But logic told us that if we waited for this thing to spread on its own it could take years to reach the rest of the country. The original virus had spread fast because people traveled a lot back then, but these days it was rare, meaning we were going to have to take matters into our own hands.
So Dragon and I had put on suits and gone back into the lab of death. My family hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of me going in a second time, but with Helen gone, I had been the only one who’d had any knowledge of how to maneuver the lab. So I’d gone, and together Dragon and I had gotten every vial of the failsafe out of there safely.
We’d done it just in time too. We’d heard reports that The Church, led by the High Priestess, had blown up the CDC only two days later, and now that we were in the city I could see the proof of it with my own eyes. There was nothing but rubble where the building had once stood. Chunks of concrete, twisted metal, and glass were all that remained of the building where Star had plotted to destroy the world, but nothing about the sight was satisfying. Not when I knew the rubble symbolized something much bigger than the death of Star. The Church had destroyed it for a reason. That pile of rubble symbolized the death of science in New Atlanta. Faith now reigned here. Faith in what, I wasn’t sure. The Church had held my uncle in high esteem for nearly two decades, but now that they were no longer waiting for his return, I had no clue if they were still worshiping him or if they’d moved on to something else. I just knew that things inside these walls had changed drastically in the seven weeks since Star’s death.
I was used to seeing the red robes of The Church, but this was a whole new level of crazy. Every single person over the age of eighteen now wore one, and those who were still considered children all wore red as well. Red dresses, red shirts, or red pants. It didn’t matter as long as they were sporting the color in some way. The sidewalks of New Atlanta were now a sea of crimson, and it was so disturbingly unreal that I felt like I’d been sucked into another world.
“Did they force out the people who didn’t want to join The Church?” Mom asked as we passed a group of kids who were kicking a ball across a small patch of grass.
“They must have,” I muttered.
The truth was, we were pretty clueless about what had been happening. We’d moved to Senoia and started over there, and for the past seven weeks all of our time had been devoted to healing and learning to be a family again. The Church and New Atlanta had been in the backs of all our minds, but we hadn’t returned. Hadn’t checked on what was happening. Hadn’t planned to. Not until the High Priestess had summoned Dad and Angus here.
We knew it had something to do with the James blood, which was why we’d intentionally left Margot and Glitter back in Senoia. The Church had no idea that Glitter existed, and as far as they knew Margot had died nine years ago. That was how everyone wanted it to stay. With Angus now alive and The Church in the middle of reinventing itself, I had no trouble imagining them grasping onto my innocent younger sister as the new object of their obsessive insanity.
Dad pulled up in front of the Temple and put the car in park, but for a second none of us moved. The same statue that had always been out front was there, which I took to mean that they still revered Angus to some degree, but that hunk of cement wasn’t what drew my gaze and I doubted it was what anyone else was looking at either. No. I was focused on the bodies hanging on either side of the door. They were rotten now and even more grotesque than the zombies that had formerly ruled our world, but I knew who they were the second I saw them. Jackson and his father.
“That who I think it is?” Angus asked, his voice making me jump in the silence that had settled over us.
“Gotta be,” Dad muttered.
Mom turned her face away. “It’s sick.”
“All this is sick,” Dad said as he shoved the door open. “Let’s get this over with so we can get the hell outta here.”
We climbed out and headed to the front door together. I did my best not to look at the bodies, but it was impossible to avoid the smell. I thought I’d been around the stench of death enough in my life to at least be over gagging from it, but as we neared the bodies and the stink hit me, I discovered I’d been wrong. My stomach convulsed and without my permission my eyes flipped up, focusing on the way the corpse’s throat had been ripped open. The knowledge that this was Jackson, a man I’d been close friends with for years, only made the twisting inside me more intense. He’d deserved to die, just like his father had, but displaying their bodies like this was beyond twisted.
Thankfully, I managed to make it inside without losing my lunch, and once the doors were shut the smell faded away enough that I was able to regain control of my body.
The room was no different than it had been the last time we were here. It was still empty of furniture and the statue of Angus still stood front and center, and it still looked nothing like my uncle—not that anyone affiliated with this freak show seemed to care.
There were no robed figures in the room to greet us, so Angus and I led the way across the room to the priestess’s chambers. We found her alone, sitting on one of the red couches. For the first time she wasn’t wearing a red robe, but instead had on a pair of simple black pants and a black sleeveless shirt. Against the dark fabric of her clothes, her skin looked even more ghostly pale than ever before, and without the flowing robe covering her body I was able to see just how thin and frail she was. She had spots from the sun and age dotting her arms, which were so bony that they gave off the impression she might be ill with some debilitating or terminal disease. She didn’t look as imposing, didn’t look nearly as capable of taking over as she had within the protective folds of her crimson robe.
That impression didn’t last long, though. She stood when she saw us walk in, and even her frail frame couldn’t hide the wild expression in her impossibly pale eyes. They focused on the two men in our group, taking in Angus first before sweeping over Dad and then returning to my uncle. Mom and I were invisible, or at the very least too useless to be acknowledged.
“You came,” the priestess said, and then she swept her arm across the room toward the second couch, motioning for us to take a seat.
We didn’t move.
“We only came ‘cause we wanted you to know that this is it for us,” Angus said. “We done our part. We took out Star and I took out the dead like you wanted. That’s it. I ain’t a part of this no more. I’m done lettin’ people use me.”
“We have no wish to us
e you, Angus James.” The priestess shook her head in a way that reminded me of a mother reprimanding her child, but the smile on her lips was slightly mocking at the same time. “We want to offer you sanctuary in our city. You and your brother—” Her pale eyes flitted past my dad and uncle long enough to acknowledge that there were other people with them. “—and the rest of your family. We have safety and serenity inside these walls. Here you can live out the rest of your days in peace.”
My uncle’s mouth scrunched up and I held my breath, waiting to see if he was going to spit or throw words in her face that might have her calling for her guards. When he said nothing, I let the breath out, but the tension in my body didn’t ease with it.
“We’re good where we are,” Dad said after a few seconds of heavy silence.
The priestess nodded, and despite the disappointment in her eyes, I could tell she wasn’t surprised. “Very well.”
She turned her back on us and I braced myself for a fight. By the way Dad’s hand moved to his side, he did as well. We’d been told no weapons inside the Temple, and I’d done as I was told, but based on the bulge at my dad’s side, he hadn’t been nearly as obedient.
The priestess didn’t go for a weapon or call for backup, though. Instead she swept her robe off the hook where it hung and pulled it over her head.
Without turning to face us she said, “Know that your refusal means you will no longer be welcome inside the walls of our city. We have sent members out and have taken over the production of oil, as well as electricity and water.” She turned then, still adjusting her robe. “As a gesture of goodwill, we will continue to provide your settlement with these items, but there will be no trading of goods. We wish to remain separate from the outside world and have no desire to mix with the sullied.”
“Sullied?” I said, unable to keep quiet, not with the way she wrinkled her nose at us.
“Times are changing,” she replied. “We have new laws. From here on out our people will treat their bodies like the temples they are meant to be. There will be no more tattoos. No more piercings. No alcohol or tobacco. We will remain a healthy people, and as long as we are left alone, peaceful as well.”
“What about people who already have those things?” Mom asked. “Do you allow them to join your church?”
“Every member of The Church must be baptized in the blood of Angus.” The High Priestess lifted the hood of her robe as walked past us, headed for the door. “Come. You will see.”
I hesitated, unsure of whether the rest of my family would follow or if I wanted to witness the ritual I’d heard so much about. It was something people had whispered about in the streets for as long as I could remember, but something no one outside the highest members of The Church had actually seen. Before now, only the elite had been baptized in the blood of Angus, but it seemed that like almost everything else I’d become accustomed to, that had changed.
Angus was the first to move, and even though I could tell by the tightness in his jaw that he wasn’t excited by the prospect, he must have been as curious about the ritual as I was. Dad followed, and then Mom, who reached out and took my hand as she passed me. Whether it was for me or for her, I wasn’t sure, but I wrapped my hand around her bony fingers anyway because it helped me feel more secure about what we were walking into.
We’d arrived at the Temple no more than ten minutes ago, but when we stepped back into the main room it was a different world than it had been before. It was packed with people in red robes, all of them on their knees and facing the statue of my uncle. My family stopped dead in our tracks just outside the High Priestess’s chambers, but The Church’s leader continued forward until she was standing in front of her people.
Not a word was uttered. Not even when the door at the other end of the room opened and the bulky guards that usually flanked the High Priestess walked through. They were carrying a pig that had been hog tied and was now secured to a metal pole. It wiggled and squealed with each step they took, but the men didn’t slow or seem to care in the least as they moved through the crowd and headed for the front.
While they did this, four people materialized from the sea of red figures. They weren’t wearing robes, but instead wore white one piece outfits that looked like something an infant would wear. They consisted of shorts that ended several inches above the knees and a top that was sleeveless, and the material was so thin that nearly every inch of them was visible.
There were three men and one woman in the group. The oldest man, who was probably in his fifties, had a scraggily beard that was dotted in gray and arms that were covered in tattoos, while the other three appeared to be free of marks or piercings. The youngest man and the girl were both just teenagers, probably barely over the age of eighteen, and the boy trembled so much as the men carrying the pig neared the front of the room that I started to wonder if he was going to faint.
When the men with the squealing pig stopped in front of the High Priestess, she stepped forward and lifted her arms. She held a knife in her right hand, and the blade glinted in the flickering light of the candles.
“Welcome, my children,” she said, her voice booming enough to erase the frail impression I’d had of her when we’d first arrived in her chambers. “We have come today to baptize four new followers. For twenty years we had nothing but faith, but the return of Angus James has brought us to a new era.”
As the High Priestess spoke, Sabine seemed to materialize from the shadows at her mother’s back. In her hands she held a large golden chalice, which she placed under the pig’s head. In the blink of an eye, the High Priestess had sliced the blade of her knife across the animal’s throat. It let out one final squeal as blood poured from the cut, filling the cup and dripping onto the floor and Sabine’s hands and arms. It was as dark red as the robes these people wore, so dark it almost looked black in the shadows that the High Priestess and her guards cast across the dying pig.
When the cup was full, the priestess took it from her daughter who once again stepped back. Her head was down, her eyes cast to the ground just like they always seemed to be in her mother’s presence.
Cup in hand, the High Priestess approached the four initiates kneeling at the front of the church. She stopped in front of the first, the older man with sleeves made of tattoos.
“Do you renounce the ways of the old world and embrace the saving blood of Angus James?” she asked loud and clear.
“I do,” the man replied, his voice not nearly as loud despite the firmness of the words.
The priestess nodded, and then she poured some of the blood over the man’s bent head. It ran down the sides of his skull and over his forehead before trickling into his eyes. My stomach lurched as I watched the red make a line down his face to his chin where it pooled for just a moment before dripping onto the floor.
She moved to the next man and repeated the process, and then to the girl who was just as sure and confident as the two before her had been. The fourth and final person, the teenage boy, watched all of this from the corner of his eye, which was barely visible with his head bowed. He seemed to tremble more and more with each passing second, and when the priestess finally stopped in front of him, I didn’t miss the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed.
“Do you renounce the ways of the old world and embrace the saving blood of Angus James?” the priestess asked again.
The boy lifted his head long enough to look her in the eye, and then quickly lowered it. “I do,” he mumbled, his words as shaky as he was.
The High Priestess didn’t notice or didn’t care, because she tipped the goblet over and poured the remainder of the pig’s blood onto the boy’s head. He squeezed his hands into fists as it ran over his hair and down his body. Just like all the others, it made streaks of blood down his face before dropping to the floor, but unlike the recruits before him, this boy didn’t relax even after the priestess had turned back to face her people. He stayed tense, his hands clenched at his sides, and I couldn’t help wondering why he�
�d decided to take this step if he was so obviously conflicted by it.
“Behold,” the High Priestess said, holding her arms up with the chalice still clutched in her hands. “The saving blood of Angus James.”
A chant started then, and it was the same one as before. The same one I still heard in my sleep.
“…you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.”
When the chant had faded away, the family or friends of those who had been baptized came forward to present the new members of the church with their robes, no doubt congratulating them on their wise choice. Two people who I could only assume were his parents joined the boy, and the smiles of delight on their faces said it all. They were the reason he’d done this.
“He didn’t want to do it,” I mumbled to my mom.
She nodded and gave my hand a squeeze, which was still clutched in hers. “Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”
It wasn’t long before the crowd gathered in the room began to disperse, and when that happened the priestess turned back to face us.
“We accept everyone who is willing to renounce their old ways,” she said as behind her the room emptied.
“Do you force people to join?” I asked, the uncertainty on the boy’s face fresh in my mind.
“At the age of eighteen, our citizens must make a choice. Be baptized into The Church or leave the city. Everyone is free to choose their own path,” she replied. “But if they leave, they are not to return. Ever.”
I didn’t point out that being forced from the only home you’ve ever known and leaving your family behind wasn’t much of a choice for most people. Like that boy, who’d most likely been born inside these walls and not only had no clue how to take care of himself in the outside world, but probably didn’t know a soul out there.
The High Priestess focused her gaze on my uncle when she said, “You have made up your mind? You do not wish to join The Church?”
Angus pressed his lips together and glanced across the room, over to where the statue that was supposed to represent him stood. “You still prayin’ to me?”
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 98