Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,46
leaned in, breath puffing as white mist between them. “If something’s the matter–”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’m fine.”
He searched her face a long moment – a wasteful moment. “I trust your instincts.”
“My instincts are saying we need to get a move on.”
He sighed, another boiling puff of vapor, but nodded, and pressed forward.
Thankfully – and she hated the way she’d gone cold and clammy inside her borrowed clothes; the way her breath was unsteady and her legs wobbly – they didn’t have to go down into the mine. Lights glowed from inside the office: a mud-spattered double-wide trailer, outside of which the citizenry had heaped offerings: wilted bouquets, waterlogged stuffed animals, snuffed candles in glass votives.
“Damn,” Gallo murmured. “It’s like a shrine.”
“A false idol,” Lance said, darkly, and started up the short, wooden stairs.
They knocked, because they were playing ambassadors here. A moment later, the door was opened by a young woman in a flowing cream dress, her hair in loose, frizzy waves down her shoulders. She wore a massive silver cross on a cord around her neck, and her pupils were dilated.
Cult, Rose thought, immediately, a surge of assuredness. This conduit was running a damn cult out of this town.
Lance introduced them, flashed his credentials quick enough to impress, but not long enough to reveal that he was a Rift Walker sergeant, and after a long moment of consideration, the girl nodded, and stepped back, opening the door. “You may come in.” Her voice had a low, dreamy quality to it, and Rose realized just why when they stepped in and were assaulted by the cloying scent of opium.
All resemblances to a mining office had been cleared away from the interior of the trailer. Sad, upholstered furniture had been crammed into all the corners; Rose spotted bookshelves, and a small dining table, crystal decanters that looked pilfered from the mayor’s house. Steamer trunks, and wardrobes, and rugs layered one atop the other across the whole floor, once-white shag, and modest woven rope, and faded Persians. Young people dressed in cream and brown, men and women, sat cross-legged on the floor, a haze of smoke above them, passing a hookah pipe back and forth. And beyond them, sprawled elegantly in a wingback chair, watching, was a conduit.
Even above the fug of opium, and body heat, and damp, Rose picked up on the conduit buzz; she clenched her jaw against it, and fought not to reach for her dagger, because this man? This heaven-sent body stealer? He was powerful.
Morgan was powerful, too, she reflected, but the energy lifting off of her had never set Rose’s teeth on edge like this.
“Steady,” Lance whispered.
The conduit who called himself John spotted them, tilted his head in mild interest, and unfolded himself from the chair with quiet poise. He skirted his – followers, they could only be called followers – and approached them with a serene smile pinned to his otherwise unremarkable face. His beard was brown and shapeless; his short hair was all that prevented a Jesus comparison, but even this close a resemblance felt like heresy.
“Hello,” he greeted, and his voice was so – soft. The aural equivalent of rubbing just-washed skin with fine velvet.
Rose fought back a shudder.
“Sybil,” he asked, inclining his head a fraction toward the girl. “Do we have new friends?”
Definitely a cult.
“They’re ambassadors,” the girl, Sybil, said. “From Washington, they said.”
“Oh.” John’s brows lifted a fraction. “We don’t usually have visitors from quite so far away.”
Lance offered a smile – and his hand, for a shake. Rose nearly grabbed him. No, she thought. Don’t let him touch you. She wanted to insert herself between them, dagger drawn.
Lance said, “I’m Dr. Lancet, and these are my colleagues: Dr. Rosings, and Dr. Galway. We’ve heard about you, Mr…?”
“John, please.” The conduit took Lance’s hand – Rose bit her lip – but it was only a handshake, harmless and unremarkable, though her own palm burned as if she’d been the one to touch him. “Though I confess I’m not sure what to make of that: you having heard of me.” His brows went concerned, his smile questioning. An innocent look – calculated innocence. Conduits didn’t react like humans, and the perfection of his human façade was unsettling. To say nothing of the high-as-a-kite young people strewn about his living room.
“Well,” Lance said, smiling like a politician, with lots of teeth and too-obvious polite enthusiasm, “as you can imagine, most of the stories of – well, higher authority – that make it back to