The Stars Were Right

by Alexander, K. M.

  Hagen stepped back, grabbing the straight razor in the process. He held it out, awkwardly whipping it back and forth.

  The attacker forced the words of his chant through gritted teeth, "We...are...the... thousand...young... the...childre—"

  Straddling him, I lifted and shoved the attacker's head down into the tiled floor a second time; his chanting stopped. I repeated the motion again a third time, then a fourth. The tiles below his head were cracked and stained with blood. Hagen stopped me before the fifth.

  "He's out. Wal, h-he's out. Wal, you knocked him out!" yelled Hagen.

  I rolled off the man and leaned next to a shelf of statuettes. I kicked the unconscious Child of Pan in the ribs for good measure. Stupid son of a bitch.

  I spoke through tattered breaths, "They won't stop, Hagen. They'll send their assassin. I've seen what she can do. She's dangerous.

  "It's a twisted little game and now you're connected. I wish you weren't—by the Firsts, I wish you weren't—but you are. Their assassin. I saw her. I fought her. Walked in as she was cutting off the hands of the Bonesaw I mentioned. She'll slip in, you'll never see her, by then it'll be too late. Come with me, go on your own, but just go. Lock up shop and leave. Leave until I can sort this out."

  Hagen said nothing. He stared at the straight razor in his hands, and then looked at me.

  "I'm sorry," I said, meaning it. "I really am."

  "How do you plan on sorting this out?"

  I spoke honestly, "I have no idea. I have some thin leads. Ideas mainly. I might know the identity of our Black Goat."

  "You need help."

  "I do," I admitted.

  "If I help you...."

  "I'll do my best to protect you," I said, interrupting. "You and yours. I promise. I've been fighting these assholes alone. Two of us would be stronger. I have to end this. I have to stop them. My name is tarnished, I've got nothing unless I can pin these killings on them."

  "What is a man without his name?" said Hagen, as if quoting my old man.

  "Something like that," I said. "In the end it doesn't matter about me anymore, it's much bigger than that. If Lovat Central locks me away the Children will still be out here. Out here killing innocent people and taking body parts."

  Seconds passed, feeling like hours.

  The assailant breathed deeply, completely unconscious. Blood dribbled from his nose, pooling around his ugly little face. I watched Hagen study the razor he held in his hand.

  "We need to hide," he said. "My shop isn't safe anymore."

  "Any ideas?"

  "Saint Mark's," said Hagen. "I know a priestess there."

  FOURTEEN

  The Reunified Church is as old as anything in our ancient world. According to historians, the Aligning had been disastrous: civilizations had collapsed, governments had crumbled, cities had been destroyed. The pre-Aligning church hadn't weathered the upheaval well, and generations of disputes had weakened its foundations. In the years before the Aligning, the great religions of the world had become more and more fragmented.

  There's an old saying about standing united but falling divided. There's a truth in that. The more and more fractured something gets, the weaker it becomes. I had a road priest once describe it to me as soft ice. It appears solid, but there's so many tiny fractures that the ice shatters when even the slightest pressure is applied.

  It's a good metaphor for the earth, pre-Aligning. A majority of the world's population was decimated, and with it, so too were the faithful. Waters swallowed up cities, fires burned the mountains, and the Firsts themselves supposedly wreaked havoc over their dominion.

  Denominations of millions became sects of thousands. Sects of thousands became fellowships of hundreds, and fellowships of hundreds were scattered like leaves before a storm.

  Legend says Brother Ebenezer Alvord gathered the surviving priests together and sent them out as missionaries to the survivors. They were to traverse the world, reunite the broken, heal decimated sects of the church, and call the faithful home.

  Whereas leaders before him were harsh in their order, Alvord spoke only of peace. The past was forgiven. Old rules that had driven wedges between the faiths were ignored. His kind manner and his tender touch worked, and the Reunified Church formed, uniting under a patchwork banner.

  Saint Mark's was older than all that: older than the Reunified Church, older than Ebenezer Alvord, older than the Aligning. It was a relic.

  It's the kind of building you wish you could see in the sunlight. A massive structure of right angles and sharp horizontal lines. Built on the solid ground of Broadway Hill, it extended from the floor of Level Four and through the roof and up into the floor of Level Five. It looked more like a fortress than a place of worship, standing tall even with the weight of five levels on its shoulders.

  "My father was a priest," explained Hagen as we stood outside the structure. "Joined after our mother died. Raised my sister and me in the church."

  "Is that how you got into the idol business?"

  He grimaced. "My father wasn't pleased. He wanted me to be a priest and follow him in taking to the cloth, but I never heard the calling. Didn't care much for a life of service."

  "Any particular reason?" I asked.

  "Always seemed...ah...tedious. I'd rather choose my own direction." He sighed. "It was my sister who fulfilled his wishes. Took her vows when she was twenty, always the more obedient one. He was so proud, so very proud."

  "So your sister's...?"

  "She's the Reunified priestess I know," He said with a smile. "She's a professor for the seminary, working mainly as a historian—so much was lost during the Aligning. She teaches a few theology classes, 'training up future soldiers' as my father often says."

  I flinched slightly at the word soldier. It wasn't far off, depending on who you talked to. Tensions had cooled between the Hasturian faith and the Reunified Church in the last decade, but I remembered hearing radio reports about battles between the two churches when I was a kid. Bombings. Murders. Assassinations. All-out assaults had erupted in those days.

  The vestiges of a life lived under that constant state of fear still lingered on the cathedral's grounds. We passed through checkpoints and moved past gates built into thick walls under the watchful eye of angular guard towers where black-cloaked, stern-faced monks waited, rifles held in the crooks of their arms.

  "They like their security," said Hagen.

  We walked across a lawn of crushed rocks and passed an open parking lot that hadn't seen a functioning motor coach or fourgon in probably three generations. The front doors loomed before us. Reliefs of lion heads were carved into the facade and their lifeless eyes stared down on us in judgment.

  Hagen knocked, the noise muffled by the massive door. I swallowed. I'm not a religious person. I avoid the Hasturians, don't go in much for the teachings of the Deepers, and I'm not one for all the ritual and the prayers of the Reunifieds. I do appreciate their trail chapels that dot the countryside between here and Syringa. The road priests who run those small parishes are often warm, kindly folk with a hot bowl of soup and a ladle of rustwine for a weary traveler. They don't tend to be the preaching types, and that suits me just fine.

  Hagen knocked again, the taps sounding almost silent against the aged wood.

  "Think they heard us?" I asked.

  "They heard us," he said with a smile. Looking back at the checkpoints we had passed, he added, "They know we're here."

  The big door swung inward silently on its ancient hinges. Standing just inside was a round little dauger priest. Beady eyes stared at us through the slits in his mask as he sized us up.

  His mask was beautiful, not something one often sees among the dauger. Silver-inlaid with a gold filigree, it caught the light from a thousand small candles. Rare metals were uncommon in dauger masks; an expensive mask like this meant the bearer was a child or grandsire from one of the five precious families: the Golds, the Platinas, the Argentums of South Wold, the Osmiyums, or the Pa
lladios of Casement. In all my days, I had never seen a member of the five families in Lovat, never seen a dauger in a mask so expensive, and I was surprised to find one here, a servant to the cloth.

  "Can I help you?" asked the dauger. His voice placid. Almost bored.

  "Yes, actually. Is Mother Samantha Dubois in?" Hagen asked. He shifted his small pack from one shoulder to another. Our rush from his shop had been hurried. Hagen had been grabbing small books and tomes, sticking them in his pockets and locking cases as he stuffed clean laundry atop pages of manuscripts. We had lost a whole hour by the time he locked the cage doors that secured his store.

  "Can I ask who is calling?" asked the priest.

  "Her brother—Hagen Dubois—and a friend."

  The dauger turned his gaze to study my face. "He have a name?"

  "He does, but he likes to keep it to himself," I stated.

  The dauger's shoulders jerked back. He sucked in an offended gasp.

  "Please just tell her we are here."

  The dauger stared at me for a moment longer before he spoke. "One moment," he said, his hushed voice laced with disdain.

  "Think he recognized me?"

  "Perhaps, but he'd inform the other clergy before going to the police."

  "How do you know?"

  He chuckled. "Well, for one, I am in a family of clergy. I can promise you Reunifieds don't relish the idea of Lovat Central mucking around in church business any more than a shopkeep does. 'Bad for business,' as some might say."

  I thought of Thad and smiled. I wondered what he would have thought of this place. Saint Mark's was a wonder, a building unlike anything I had ever seen before. Beautiful glass windows broke up the dark stone walls; above me the ancient wood ceiling—black from generations of candles burning in the nave—loomed like a thundercloud. On the floor was an inlaid tile labyrinth. I watched a few parishioners mill about until my musings were interrupted by the clack of heels on tile.

  I looked up and inhaled quickly. One of the most beautiful dimanian women I had ever seen was walking across the nave toward us. She carried herself with pride and determination, head and shoulders back, chin jutting forward like the prow of a sailing ship. A nest of wild dark curls framed an oval face; at its center was a narrow nose and large dark eyes the color of burnt caramel. Her full lips—tinted a deep red—were curled into a smirk as she glided toward us. She wore the robes of a priest, but had foregone the gold belt; it fluttered behind her, exposing the far more normal clothing beneath. Tight trousers clung to shapely legs, and a white silk blouse was tucked in at the waist. She was definitely dimanian, but her features were subtle; no wild horn grew from her temples like her brother's, but small boney protrusions sprouted from either side of her chin and near each temple just above her cheekbones.

  Carter's cross, she was beautiful. Was it wrong to lust after a priestess? And in a cathedral? I swallowed, feeling the heat rise along my brow.

  "Big brother!" she said, her voice deeper than I had expected, throaty. "It's good to see you! What brings you to Broadway Hill?"

  "Sam!" said Hagen. They embraced. When they broke apart Hagen drew back and, giving her an appraising once-over, said, "You look good. Have you lost weight?"

  She punched him in the arm. "Hardly, you should see the tables the sisters set before us. All cheese, butter, and potatoes. I'm lucky I'm not the size of an ox."

  They both laughed, hugged, and made small talk. Eventually she turned her dark brown eyes in my direction. I swallowed nervously, feeling as if she could probe into my thoughts. My very dirty thoughts.

  "Who is this?" she asked with a smirk. A smirk that could melt ice. A tussle of her dark curls slumped from her forehead and into her face, but she blew it away. "Friend of yours?"

  "Of a sort. Um, Mother Samantha Dubois, meet Caravan Master Waldo Bell."

  "Call me Wal," I said, extending a hand. I could feel my palms sweating.

  She stared at me, eyes betraying nothing. Eventually she placed her hand in mine and shook. Her grip was firm, her hand warm and soft. I noticed spurs of bone—similar to Hagen's but slightly smaller—running along her knuckles.

  "Call me Sam," she said, matter-of-factly.

  "Call me Wal," I repeated.

  "You said that already."

  "Er...right. Nice to meet you," I babbled.

  Sam studied me, her eyes lingering on me a brief moment, leaving me feeling both nervous and giddy. Was I supposed to bow? Kiss her hand? I had no idea how to act with a priestess. After a heartbeat or two she turned back to her brother.

  "What brings you to Saint Mark's?"

  Hagen looked at me and then at his sister. "Trouble. A lot of trouble. Do you have a place we can talk privately?"

  * * *

  Sam's office was small but cozy. The desk she sat behind was dark, ancient, and gleamed with generations of careful oiling. A crucifix hung on a wall above a bookcase filled with various tomes and texts. Statuettes of saints and virgins stood on shelves all around the office in prominent places: silent witnesses to our conversation.

  On lower shelves were glass domes holding bizarre antiques of a darker nature. In one I spied a mummified hand dipped in wax, candles on each finger. In another dome there was a twisted and deformed skull of a dimanian, the bone carved with all manner of occult symbols and strange writing. In a massive glass jar that sat between two dry, old tomes was what appeared to be a cephel hatchling preserved in a yellow liquid, tentacles curled tightly like huge fiddleheads. A menagerie of curios. In a lot of ways the decor reminded me of Hagen's shop, minus the price tags.

  "This place feels familiar," I joked. "You two trade decorators?"

  Samantha looked up at me from a set of papers she was studying on her desk and I deflated a little. "Not really. I do, however, happen to be one of Hagen's biggest clients. I'm a collector of sorts."

  "These aren't Reunified statuary—not all of it at least," I said, tapping a jar holding what looked to be a petrified bok egg. "I'm no church man but I can't imagine the church is keen on keeping this sort of stuff on the grounds."

  "They have all been deconsecrated as required. They're all important to my studies," she explained.

  Hagen interrupted, "Sam is one of the church's leading authorities on ancient religions in Lovat. She also knows a great deal about active cults and sects operating in the territories. Most of these have to do with something in her studies or as an object lesson in one of her lectures."

  I looked at the beautiful priestess that sat across from me with a deepening respect. "Why didn't you call her before?"

  "Before? Before what, Wal? Before all this, you were just a guy who had walked into my shop and asked me to identify some patch. Before all this I had no idea who you were. You could have just been another one of the Children. Your face is all over the monochromes. I wanted to answer your questions and move on. Before all this, I didn't want anything to do with you."

  "And now?" I asked.

  "Now...now for better or worse...we're in this together. You stepped forward and saved me. If there's one thing I took away from the attack at my shop, it's that they tied me to you. I'm drawn in and it doesn't matter if I like it or not."

  "Wait, attack? What attack? What are you talking about?" Samantha asked. Her eyes were wide.

  "Well…" Hagen began.

  Samantha folded her arms across her chest and stared at him coolly. Hagen gave a sheepish grin and then explained the story, starting with the first time I had walked into his shop and ending with us arriving at the door to Saint Marks.

  "Sorry," I said, feeling ashamed. This whole ordeal was my fault. That, I could and would readily admit. There was little sense in denying it.

  "I don't blame you, Wal. There's no way you could have known. You aren't crazy, I know that much. You're as lost as I am. We're now both being hunted and neither of us knows why. If anything, I feel bad for you because you're the one being blamed for these murders."

  "Wait," Sam interrupted
. "You're the guy on the monochrome? The Collector Killer?"

  "The Collector Killer?" I asked, wrinkling my nose at the nickname. "That's the best they could do?"

  "You don't look like him," said Sam. "He had a lot more hair and a—"

  "I shaved. I'm 'him,' but I'm not 'him' if you catch my meaning."

  "You didn't kill those people?"

  "By the Firsts, no!" I swore, catching myself as it slipped out. "Damn. Sorry. Damn, er...darn, sorry for that."

  Sam chuckled; it was warm and inviting. "Swearing by the Firsts means nothing here."

  I looked at Hagen. "Look, if I knew my visit would have drawn them to you—"

  "You didn't. Don't apologize. We have a lot to go over."

  "Tell me your story," said Sam, turning her eyes to me.

  Looking at her, I had to clamp down on my emotions. I felt like I could get lost in the dark pools of her eyes. It was a struggle to speak, but I eventually found my voice and told her my tale, allowing Hagen to interject here and there. She listened carefully as I laid everything out in detail: the murders, the Children, August's betrayal, the mysterious Black Goat. Everything.

  * * *

  I leaned back when I was finished. My mouth was dry.

  Sam studied me and I felt both elated and nervous. She sat in silence for a long time before finally turning to her big brother.

  "Pan, you said?"

  He nodded. "I wasn't sure of the origin. Seemed ancient human from my limited materials."

  "Why didn't you call me earlier? I've helped you out before."

  Hagen smiled. "Didn't want to bother you. It seemed open and shut. Nothing that needed deep scrutiny from the church's lead historian in documented cults and sects."

  She laughed. "Still, I wish you'd come to me. I might have some material we could look at, I'll check. First, you two look like you need a shower, a hot meal, a change of clothes, and a good night's sleep."