Fate's Edge

disappear for a week or two, until my business is concluded. So now we know where we stand. Let’s try this again. Do you work for Magdalene Moonflower?”
    “Yes.” The woman said.
    “Did a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman come to see her in the last five days?”
    “Yes.”
    Karmash smiled. He would deliver Kaldar Mar to Helena on a silver platter. It would cement his position and shake Sebastian from his comfortable perch.
    “Where are these people now?”
    “I don’t know,” the woman said.
    Karmash frowned.
    The woman’s words came in a rush. “All I know is that Magdalene made some sort of deal with them. Something that has to do with Ed Yonker.”
    “Who is this Ed Yonker?”
    “He is a preacher.”
    “A priest?”
    “Yes, like that. He has a place in the Edge, a big wooden church in a camp. That’s where he does his magic. That’s where your man must be. I can show you where it is. It’s not far. It’s north of here.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Jennifer.”
    “You did very well, Jennifer. I will cut you down now, and you will show us this church.”
    “And then I can go?” she asked, her eyes full of tears.
    Funny how, in desperate times, people will believe anything. “Yes. And then you can go.”

TWELVE
    THE Wooden Cathedral was large and full to the brim. The mass of people should have made Audrey feel safer. The best place for a thief to hide was in a crowd, especially a crowd like this: well dressed, nicely groomed, seemingly law-abiding, and above reproach. Except that the gathering put out a strained, odd vibe. From the moment the Church of the Blessed people had ushered them into the bus, which had taken them to the Edge, the congregation was unsettled. Now, as they took their seats on the uncomfortable benches of the Wooden Cathedral, their agitation had reached the boiling point.
    The church had only one center aisle, and Audrey had an aisle seat. People passed her, walking to their own seats, and their anxiety rolled off them like sweat. They spoke to each other, but no lasting conversations sprung up. Their faces were haggard, their eyes haunted. They fidgeted impatiently in their expensive suits and pricey dresses, grasping at their seats, searching with their stares the front of the church, where a lonely pulpit sprouted from a raised stage. Like a crowd of starving beggars who’d heard a rumor that someone was about to give out bread, the congregation waited, gripped by nervous tension.
    She glanced at Kaldar, sitting on her left. His face seemed carefree, but his eyes, cold and alert, searched the crowd, evaluating it.
    Armed guards waited by the door and near the pulpit. Nobody seemed to pay them any mind, as if being in the presence of men with rifles was the most natural thing in the world. Seth, their handler, explained to them that the guards are there because they had been seeing mountain lions in the area. The explanation seemed half-baked, but the guards made an effort to be cordial. They smiled, opened doors, waved at people. Most of the congregation, probably Yonker’s regulars, didn’t care, and if the few newcomers had any second thoughts, they kept their doubts to themselves.
    Hell, if what George’s book said was true, the people probably didn’t see the rifles, as if the guards weren’t even there. According to what they’d read, the gadget was designed by the Cult of Karuman specifically to convince its followers that Karuman’s priests were avatars of their god. Followers of Karuman willingly sacrificed themselves to their deity; sometimes entire families burned themselves alive. The cult was now outlawed. How Ed Yonker had gotten ahold of a hundred-year-old relic was anyone’s guess, but nothing good had come from it.
    With each passing minute, the tension in the church grew thicker and thicker, electrified with anticipation and hysteria.
    Audrey kept scanning the crowd, looking for the boys. They’d both heard a slight thud when the bus took off—Gaston landing on the roof—so he was here somewhere, but neither George nor Jack were anywhere to be seen.
    She glanced back to the stage. Ed had spared no expense. The pulpit was rich mahogany. A heavy purple fabric embroidered with a golden cross draped the edge of the stage. Above it, pictures hung suspended from the ceiling in frames, all showing Yonker with various world leaders. She seriously doubted that there was a single un-Photoshopped image in the bunch.
    “Is this your