by Arden Powell
“Hey, Kris. You need a ride?”
Kris squinted and pushed his hair back to make sure he wasn’t looking at a mirage. Tom smiled at him from inside the car, leaning over to wave as Kris panted in the sun.
“Fuck, please. It’s an emergency.”
Kris stumbled into the car and slammed the door shut behind him, gulping down his now-lukewarm water while Tom watched in consternation.
“You okay?”
Kris wiped his mouth, shook his head, then nodded. “I need to get back to the festival. My brother’s sabotaging my career and Rayne thinks I hate him, which I don’t, but he might hate me. I don’t know. I need to fix everything. Can you drive me back?”
Tom looked taken aback, but he adjusted the rearview mirror and set his hands back on the wheel. “Sure, of course.” He pulled onto the road and Kris sank into his seat. Tom glanced at him before cranking the air-conditioning. “Tough day, huh?”
“Understatement. But I’ll make it work. I’ll talk to Rayne—everything will be fine. Or, at least—almost fine. Manageable, anyway.”
“That’s a good start,” Tom said encouragingly. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Honestly, just being in the right place at the right time like that was the most I could ask for. If you hadn’t picked me up, I don’t know where I’d be.”
“It’s dangerous to hitchhike. I always want to believe in the best in everyone, but you hear stories about girls— Well. I’m sure you’ve heard them.”
“Lucky me it was you, then.”
They drove in silence for another mile.
“So is Rayne your boyfriend?” Tom asked eventually. “I only ask because what you said earlier— Well, it sounds like relationship troubles. I don’t mean to pry.”
“Seems Rayne’s love life is all anybody wants to talk about.”
“Sorry. Forget I asked.”
“No, it’s okay.” Kris took a deep breath, scrubbed his hand over his face, and confessed everything in a single exhalation. “You’ve seen our shows. You know what we do onstage. Up until last night, that was all we did—and then I pushed for more because I got tangled up in feelings for him, but I didn’t have the balls to say it without a drink first, so he didn’t take me seriously. He’s fake-dating somebody else for the publicity but now he’s talking about doing it for real, and if he does, I’ve lost my chance to convince him I’m not just messing around. Everything’s fallen apart, and I don’t know how to fix it. I wouldn’t know how to fix it even without my brother interfering. God knows what he said to Rayne.” He sucked his next breath in with a gasp of relief. It was easier to talk to a stranger than a friend, and anyway, wasn’t that the whole point of a priest? “And now he thinks I’ve pulled the same shit on him that his heroin-addict ex-guitarist did earlier—fucking around and then quitting the band—which is the furthest thing from the truth!—but I need to tell him that so he believes me.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you imagine,” Tom offered. “Things rarely are.”
“I’m in love with him, you know.”
“I guessed,” Tom said. “I’m not blind. I hoped you might— But I guessed.”
“I should have told him I was bi right from the start, but it’s so stupid—I was scared, you know? For no reason. It’s not like anything would have happened to me. Even my parents . . .” His parents would be fine with it. They’d always been decent about that stuff, if not necessarily vocal in their support. “When you get ordained and you start preaching and stuff, promise you’ll never say anything to make people scared of coming out? Not even accidentally. Because it gets right inside your head, man, so that even when you know nothing bad’s going to happen, you’re still nervous to do it, years later on the other side of the country. And it sucks.”
“I promise,” Tom said, and crossed himself with a painfully earnest expression. “No, I would never. No one deserves that.”
Kris stared out the window. The desert stretched on and on, like a green screen on a loop in a cheap movie. “I don’t know about God, but somebody’s been playing a hell of a joke on me since I touched down in New York.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways. What else can I say? I feel like I should have more answers if I’m going to be a priest and offer guidance, but I don’t. I’m not sure what that says about my calling.” Tom shrugged helplessly. “All we can do is our best.”
Kris tapped his fingers against the door. His nail polish was chipping; he should fix that when he got back to the bus. There was something soothing about dragging the brush over each nail, one by one. Angel had been right about the calm a makeup ritual could bring.
“I’m not a girl,” Kris said.
Tom blinked.
“Since we’re confessing shit,” Kris added. “I thought you should know.”
“Okay,” Tom said, after a minute. “You just said you were bi, and I didn’t realize—now I feel a bit silly, but okay.”
“You seriously thought—”
“I met you in the White Rabbit. I assumed you were one of those, you know, punky androgynous girls. I was tipsy. You never corrected me.”
“Sorry. I found it kind of flattering at the time. I was figuring some stuff out. Are you mad?”
“I wish you’d said something sooner, but no. Getting mad never makes anyone feel better about anything.”
“I like that,” Kris said thoughtfully. “That’s a good philosophy. Sorry if I, like, embarrassed you.”
“Oh, I’ve had worse. I can absolve you though, if you like,” Tom offered. “Not officially. I’m not sworn in yet. But I think, as far as misdeeds go, your brother’s outstrips yours by a long shot. There’s no sin in wanting to feel loved.”
“I hope not,” Kris said. The highway in front of them shimmered in the heat, and he held his breath, waiting for the festival grounds to roll into sight.
Kris threw himself from the car before Tom had it in park, and made a beeline for the buses. He’d make it up to Tom later—a bottle of wine, the really nice stuff, or expensive chocolates or—something. A house, maybe. He’d figure it out later.
The buses were empty.
He tried the stage next, anxious but not alarmed yet. When the stage was empty too, his anxiety started to solidify into a rock in the bottom of his stomach, and he had to tell himself in no uncertain terms that Brad hadn’t convinced both bands to pack up and leave altogether. He poked around the back of the stage, peering into the shadows and skirting the edges of the dressing room, when he heard Angel from outside, her voice unusually raised, shout, “You kidnapped us!” Kris wheeled around to follow the sound.
“You held us hostage like a bunch of thugs!”
“I’m sorry.” A second voice, softer—Rikki. “They said— I didn’t know how to stand up to them. They just want the Avatar back.”
“It’s a bird,” Angel said flatly. “Get another one.”
“That’s not—”
“Nope. You telling me one bird is worth all our lives?”
Kris rounded the next tent, trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about.
“I’m getting security if I have to drag them here kicking and screaming, and this is all going to be over,” Angel said. “No birds, no hostages—”
Kris caught sight of them by a tower of scaffolding between two empty stages a few yards off and veered toward them.
“You can’t call the cops!” Rikki blurted. “We’ll all get arrested.”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t send me to jail.” Rikki was still, his eyes downcast except to sneak glances up every now and then, shining and hopeful and full of regret. Angel opened her mouth to reply, but Kris interrupted before she got the chance.
“Angel!”
“You!” She smacked his arm as soon as he came into reach, then grabbed his hand and gave him a relieved squeeze.
“Me. Where is everybody? And did Rayne get a weird text from me earlier saying I quit the band?”
“Sorry, what part of that requires less explanation than a text?”
She took him by the arm and dragged him along through the tents, intent in her direction. “The peacock. They want it. Badly. They call themselves The Worshippers of His Serene Majesty, the Incandescent and All-Seeing God. That peacock? That’s their god. And you went and stole the thing because you thought Rayne would think it was pretty. Which he did, and it is, but oh my god. And Rikki defected and helped me escape, which is the only reason I’m not throwing him to the wolves right now.”
“Okay,” Kris said. “Awesome. Hi, Rikki. And I didn’t steal the peacock—I just picked him up and carried him around for a while. It’s not like he was locked up on private property.”
“He likes to wander,” Rikki said. “Leif said it would be degrading to keep Him in a cage, since He’s a god and everything.”
“Uh,” said Kris. “Do you believe he’s a god?”
Rikki shuffled uncomfortably.
“He’s still thinking about it,” Angel supplied.
“I mean, I know He’s not literally a god,” Rikki said. “But Leif and the others were always really sure about it . . .”
“Crisis of faith later,” Kris decided. “Where are they? It’s three against three now, right? We can bust them out.”
Angel looked skeptical, but nodded anyway.
“They’ll have noticed we’re missing by now,” Rikki said, “but they can’t do anything about it if they want to keep guarding the others. Do you have any weapons?”
“What? No, I don’t have any weapons. Just— Take me to the tent, and we’ll try to bluff them into giving up. Unless you think we can fight them,” he added. He didn’t know how to fight, but he could try.
“Let’s try to avoid that, if possible,” Angel said. “They’ve got knives.”
“They have knives? This is insane. This is a terrible plan.” Kris’s voice pitched higher, and he tried to tamp down on it before it evolved into full-fledged hysterics. “Rikki, I’m sorry, but I’d rather you get arrested than anybody get stabbed.”
“That’s okay,” Rikki said. “I have a knife too, if that helps.”
“Rikki’s right, though,” Angel admitted grudgingly. “Cops aren’t the best idea. They’ll want to do things by the book: bring in backup and a hostage negotiator, the whole nine yards. That gives Leif and his friends too much time to get stabby if they panic. Besides which, the cops will take too damn long to get here.”
Kris pushed both hands through his hair, aware he was exuding stress all the way into outer space. We’re not going to die at the hands of a bunch of stab-happy bird enthusiasts, he told himself sternly. Who even needs cops? Or backup? Fuck. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go. Aim for minimal bloodshed.”
Angel led them through the festival to the tent in question. The cult’s motorcycles were parked outside, hulking like shiny black beasts awaiting their masters’ return. Boar stood outside the entrance, apparently watching for any passersby who strayed too near. Angel, Rikki, and Kris crept up from the side, ducking behind whatever cover they could find.
“We got out there,” Rikki said, pointing to the slice in the side of the tent. “We can get back in that way, unless you want to fight Boar.”
“His name is Boar?” Kris asked. “Jesus Christ. No, I’m not fighting a skinhead named Boar. Let’s sneak in.”
They slunk up to the side of the tent and Rikki crawled through first, his muscles bunching as he fought to keep quiet. Angel slipped through after him, with Kris following on her heels, wondering how the hell his life had come to this.
Red was waiting for them, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
“Ah, shit,” Kris said.
“Kris?” Rayne said. Kris couldn’t see him around Red, but Passionfruit, The Chokecherries, and Cal were huddled around the center pole, sitting on the floor, tied up and looking so ridiculous that Kris did a double take.
“Hey, Rayne,” he said. “Bad timing, but we have to talk later.”
“No talking,” Red growled.
Rikki pulled his knife.
“No!” Angel shouted. “Nope. No knives. Rikki, put it down.”
“You little punk,” Red said. “You think you can pull a knife on me? I’ll take you apart with my bare hands.”
Angel jerked Rikki’s arm down. “Nope. Nobody’s pulling any knives or fighting anybody. Rikki, stop it.”
“But we have to—”
“No,” she stressed.
Red smacked the knife out of Rikki’s hand like a bear swatting a fly. “Traitor. You can join the others.”
“Wait!” Kris shouted. Everyone stopped. “Wait. This is about the peacock, right? I’m the one who stole him; it’s me you want. Let everyone else go and I’ll get him back for you.”
“That’s not good enough,” Red said. Boar lingered in the tent entrance, near enough to hear the conversation while still keeping a lookout. Leif watched them, weary looking and exasperated. “If you’d returned Him after an hour, maybe we could let this affront go, but it’s been days. The All-Seeing God deserves a sacrifice to right this insult.” Red glanced at Boar and Leif. Boar nodded enthusiastically; Leif very deliberately shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What?” Cal cut in. “We’ve never sacrificed people!”
“We do now.” Boar frowned. “The All-Seeing God needs to know these people are sorry.”
“We’re sorry!” Kris yelled. “Jesus, don’t— It’s just a fucking bird!”
That was, of course, the wrong thing to say, Kris reflected as Red dragged him to the pole and knotted his hands behind him. Diplomacy had never been his strongest suit, especially not when people were threatening to sacrifice him and all his friends to a glorified feather duster. Maybe that was something he should work on, now that he was living in the public eye.
“Hey, Rayne,” he said glumly. He was tied up in between Rayne and Cal. It was sweltering in the tent, pressed up against so many other bodies, all of them sweating from stress and making the enclosed space more humid than the desert had any right to be.
“Hey, Kris,” Rayne returned, his tone carefully unemotional. “You came back.”
“I never left. My brother—”
“Stop talking,” Leif ordered.
Kris obeyed, but leaned his shoulder against Rayne’s in a silent bid for understanding. After a second, Rayne leaned back.
It was a start.
There were few things worse, Kris decided, than listening to three giant skinheads discuss whether or not they were going to kill you, when you were tied up with no hope of escape. The prospect of dying without knowing how Rayne felt about him was one of those few things.
“We need to talk,” Kris repeated under his breath, while the cultists argued back and forth about whether or not to kill them.
“I’m listening,” Rayne said. “It’s not like I have anywhere to be, after all.”
“Whatever that text said, it wasn’t me.”
Rayne tilted his head. They were trying not to look at each other in case their conversation became obvious, but the tension between them was palpable.
“It said you regretted everything, you should have stopped me before we went so far, and you were leaving the band,” Rayne said.
“That was Brad.”
“Why was Brad texting me from your phone?” Rayne asked, his tone suspicious but his face bewildered.
“He stole it and kicked me out of the car. The point is, it’s not true. Did you seriously think I was just going to run out on you guys like that?”
“No? But the things he said—”
“He made them up, because he’s a lying bastard who lies!” Kris said, louder than he meant to. The cult paused in their conference and stared at them. “And you guys,” Kris continued. “I thought my biggest challenge today was going to be stopping Brad from imploding my career, but you really blew it out of the park, didn’t you?”
“Don’t antagonize them,” Cal muttered.
“Fuck antagonizing them! I’ve had a shitty day since I got up. I didn’t need to be kidnapped on top of that. Fucking peacock cults, what the fuck? Why didn’t you warn us when you saw I brought the bird back? You were all vague and unhelpful—how was I supposed to guess the peacock was from a goddamn cult? You never said a thing!”
“I didn’t think they were going to do this!” Cal protested. “I couldn’t know for sure about the peacock, and if it was a different one, I didn’t want to cause trouble for no reason, not with the label already taking a chance on me—”
“Cults are more important than your music career! Jesus. I’m out. If they want a human sacrifice, fucking kill me already, man. Put me out of misery. I’m ready. I’m done.”
Leif shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not human sacrifice. It’s—”
“Justice,” Red cut in. “The All-Seeing God needs justice, so it’s only right—”
“That we give Him an offering worthy of His Serene Majesty,” Boar explained.
“And you’re not,” Red added.
Kris felt irrationally offended. “Then who is?”
The cult turned to Rayne.
The tent broke out in a cacophony of shouts from the hostages, all at once.
“You can’t sacrifice him!” Kris shouted above the din, grappling desperately for any excuse, no matter how outlandish. “He’s the chosen one!”
The tent fell silent like someone had pulled the power cord.
“That’s why I took the bird,” Kris said, talking slowly as he tried to invent a story out of thin air. “Because your god chose Rayne as the next . . . prophet.”
Cal and Rikki stared at him with huge eyes.