Tommy cultivated a dangerous bad-boy image: the black bandana, the tank top that showed off his muscled arms, a corded leather bracelet, knobby jungle boots, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Even the way he lit the cigarette seemed menacing and cool. How did he do that? Did he practice when he was young or was it somehow just ingrained?
And did he have a tail?
Olivia fought her curiosity to keep her eyes off his butt. The jeans he wore weren’t tight enough to make it obvious, although the front suggested that the man was well endowed.
“Jonnie Be Good,” Aiofe was saying into her phone. “Tall. Blond ponytail. He had some kind of crop job done to his ears so they’re pointed.”
“His real name is Jurek Beiger,” Tommy said.
“You got to be kidding,” Toad said.
A dark look from Tommy sent Toad climbing into the back of the cargo truck with the marines for protection. The marines greeted Toad with enthusiasm, pelting him with questions about his loud Hawaiian shirt and plastic flip-flop sandals. (She hadn’t noticed Toad’s footwear but based on the marines’ exclamations, apparently the sandals looked like red lobsters.)
Aiofe repeated the name. “2208 East Street, Pittsburgh, 15212? Okay, thanks!”
“Is there more than one East Street?” Gaddy murmured as she checked her map. “No. Okay. That’s odd.” She pointed down the street that they were standing in. “Well, at the end of this street turn left onto North Avenue, go over I-279 and turn left onto Madison Avenue. Madison becomes East Street.”
“We’re that close?” Olivia asked as she climbed up into the truck’s driver’s seat.
“Maybe,” Gaddy continued to frown at her map. “I’ll go ahead on my hoverbike and check house numbers — if I can find any.”
Tommy pointed at another hoverbike tucked into a narrow alley between two row houses. “I’ll follow you.”
The barn cat was coming too? That surprised Olivia and made her happy.
Olivia nodded, trying not to look pleased. Tommy might find her joy alarming; it would be like rushing the barn cat before it was actually willing to trust her.
Olivia had assumed Gaddy’s “if I can find any” to mean that most of the homes in the area were abandoned and thus without house numbers. As they turned onto East Street, it became apparent that Gaddy had meant “if I can find any houses” as the street seemed utterly devoid of buildings. It made the address of 2208 odd, considering the area was empty.
“Oh, I’ve heard about this,” Aiofe said from the seat beside Olivia. “An old geezer that grew up near here said that there used to be a neighborhood here until the middle of last century. They decided to put this highway in and needed to bulldoze all the houses that were in this valley. He said that when he was growing up, this area was covered with basements left behind after the houses above them had been torn down.”
Half a century had been long enough to erase all evidence of a once-thriving neighborhood. Maples grew thick on steep hillsides, dressing the valley with reds and brilliant yellows. As they headed north toward the Rim, the trees slowly changed from maples to ironwoods. In the distance, the top of the hill had been cleared and windmills churned in the afternoon sun.
“Is that where Tinker domi razed the area?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah, it was a complete hames! No one even knew that she and the Viceroy were back in the city as they hadn’t been in town before Shutdown. She was out at the crack of dawn, swooping down on construction crews with a sekasha at her back, saying that they had to come help her build infrastructure. I got a dozen calls telling me to grab a jo maxi and hurry out to the job site before someone got beheaded.”
The road rounded a curve, revealing a large, beautiful, pale limestone cathedral. Gaddy was coming back toward them; she had scouted ahead. The woman pointed at the cathedral and turned into the parking lot.
“Oh, he didn’t.” Olivia growled in anger, slowing down. “Oh, the bastard! He squatted in a cathedral?”
“St. Boniface — technically — isn’t a cathedral, it’s just a church,” Aiofe said. “It was never the seat of the Pittsburgh bishop.”
“It looks like a cathedral,” Olivia murmured in defiance, still angry that a slimewad like Jonnie Be Good had taken over holy ground.
As she slowed, she noticed that there was a driveway between the church and a second pale limestone building that seemed to be some kind of office or residence for the priest. She pulled to a stop where she could peer down the drive. It led to a small enclosed courtyard with a two-stall carport. She recognized the truck parked in the second stalclass="underline" it was the pickup with a lift kit that Jonnie had driven to Toad Hall. He’d obviously hidden it from anyone who might drive past the church.
“He’s here.” She pulled into the driveway to block the pickup in.
There seemed to be a third building behind the church. It was made of red bricks, not limestone, but from its shape and bell tower, it seemed to be a religious school or a secondary chapel. She couldn’t tell from the driveway how the three buildings were connected or where the entrance to the red structure was. She had already spotted six different doors to the church and office building. There were sure to be more, not counting all the windows.
Even with twenty marines, it was going to be difficult to keep Jonnie Be Good from rabbiting. She made sure to pocket the cargo truck’s keys. The royal marines had been waiting for orders. Seeing her, they spilled out of the back, surprisingly quiet and tense, like bird dogs before the start of the hunt.
“We’re trying to find a human male,” Olivia said. “He’s tall and blond. He…He…” What was the word for “surgery”? “He cut his ears so he could look more like an elf.”
The marines fingered their pointed ears with various expressions of uncertainty, confusion and horror on their faces. She understood their feelings; it was how she felt about the idea of being transformed into an elf.
“He may not be alone here,” Olivia said. “Your main objective is to stop anyone from fleeing this area.” Olivia pointed at the door from the office building to the courtyard. “Break into teams. Go quietly. Circle the…” What was the word for church? “Circle these buildings.” She pointed at the sprawling church and its various outbuildings. “Make sure no one can escape out a back door. We need whoever is inside alive to question them. Try not to break anything — this is a holy place.”
Maynard’s warning flashed through her mind. She added, “Be careful as there may be traps.”
Dagger took command, splitting the warriors into teams to the four quadrants of the map. “Go, go, go,” the female commanded quietly.
Olivia checked the nearest door, which seemed to be a handicapped entrance into the church. It was neither trapped nor unlocked. She swung around to the front of the church where three sets of double doors faced the street. The middle set were unlocked.
The doors opened to a shadowed narthex with another set of doors leading to a huge nave. She slipped cautiously through both sets of doors. The pendant lights were off. The only illumination came from the high stained-glass windows, filling the space with light and deep shadows. It was at once comfortingly familiar and yet disquietingly strange. It was a massive nave, much bigger than her grandmother’s Presbyterian church. It had a huge domed ceiling inset with stained glass windows. The floor was tiled instead of carpeted. With its randomly colored square pieces of stone, the wide aisle reminded her of stained glass. The altar was heavily adorned with gold leaf. A massive painting of a crowned Jesus, belted in gold, holding a solid gold scepter hung above it. This was a princely Jesus — not her poor carpenter turned rabbi. A phrase in Latin ran along the top of the wall behind Jesus. She didn’t know what it meant. The ceiling was a vast dome covered in mosaics. Saints with gold halos gazed down at her. It was the twelve apostles although Judas the Betrayer had been swapped out for Paul. Somehow the addition of the word “saint” before their names made the disciples distant and unknowable.