Guns of the Temple (The Polaris Chronicles Book 1) (33 page)

For a moment, Taki considered shooting himself and trying to bleed all over everyone before he died. Hopefully, he’d make Hadassah throw up and Draco slip and break a rib. He wasn’t Lotte—he couldn’t simply beat them all to death—so suicide was the only alternative. He raked his fingernails against his scalp. “Oh, fine! This will definitely get me knouted, but fuck it. I’ll open the box and show you all, if you stop trying to murder me.”

“But I wanted to check!” Lotte said. Her fingers gleamed stickily in the torchlight.

Taki ignored her and holstered his gun. He knelt down, grasped the brass handle of a worn wooden chest, and dragged the chest over the stones until it was in full view of his squad. Then he reached into his leggings, grimaced, and produced a tarnished old key.

Hadassah gasped. “Was that in…in your
bung
?”

Taki shot her a vitriolic glare and turned the key. Slowly, he opened the lid.

“Damnation.” Draco tossed his rope away.

“You all owe me an apology!” Taki’s voice cracked, but his scowl held firm. The balding felt interior of the chest was completely bare. He slammed the lid shut. “I can’t believe you all tried to brutalize me! You
know
I can’t show you lot what’s inside!”

“All right, we’re sorry!” Draco looked at the others.
“Why am I the only one abasing myself here?”

Taki crossed his arms.

Draco flinched. “You want me to kowtow to you? I’ll do it, so long as you stop looking at me like that.”

“That’s enough,” Lotte said. “I’m very sorry, Natalis. I shouldn’t have let things get to this point. But the issue still stands! We need funds. We’re hungry.”

Taki sighed and sat back on the paybox. His expression softened, if only slightly. “Captain, you know the answer.”

“Right. I’ll sell Emreis to a cathouse.”

“
No.
We have to find and talk to
Mezeta
.
Without her, we starve.”

Draco’s eyes widened. “Wait a second. Let’s not do anything rash! Leave her lordship out of this, aye? We can all get by for a bit longer. After all, these are blessed times. We’re no longer in the kitchens, and most of all, that woman’s gone and fucked off to God knows where! My virtue is a small price to pay for it. I’ll make a
fine
courtesan. You know how good I look in a dress. I’ll call myself…Dulcinea.”

“Draco’s delusions aside,” Karma said, “didn’t Mezeta vanish because of a promotion?”

“Yes, and it’s just like her,” Draco said. “She’s the opposite of human decency! An ungrateful hag! Her Grace the Basileus appoints Mezeta the exarch’s direct successor and what happens? The woman deserts!”

“Wait.” Hadassah chewed a nail. “You’re saying that being nice to Hecaton Mezeta makes her vanish? We’ve been going about this all wrong for
years
.”

“No, and I’ll tell you exactly why you’re wrong,” Draco said. “We’re just stupid barbarians to that woman. We’re not her loyal Polaris of the Temple. We’re just shit-flinging monkeys she uses to troll the higher-ups for the sake of her ego. And even after we singlehandedly repulsed the Imperial horde while flying
her
standard, her way of saying thanks is to neglect to pay us. If trying to screw her and trying to appease her yield the same result, then I’d rather keep plotting her death.
If for nothing else, then for the sake of my dignity!
”

Hadassah cuffed Draco’s cheek. “You’re turning purple. And did you really just call me what I think you called me?”

“If she’d only dubbed our squad ‘The Dung-Chucking Gorillas,’ we’d all have been spared blasphemy charges and wouldn’t have had to do nothing but peel potatoes for two whole years.”

“So you
did
call me a poo-toucher! I
demand
satisfaction!”

Taki winced at the memory of punishment duty. Hecaton Mezeta was the squad’s commander, but she acted more like its owner. She led in a style that was equally mean-spirited joke, blatant sedition, and part of a greater, if completely incomprehensible, plan. “Captain,” he said, and shot Lotte a warning glance. “Enough dithering. Tell us what to do before we all resort to cannibalism.”

Lotte groaned. “Do you have to always be so forthright?”

“Yes. I’m a commissioned officer of the Polaris of the Temple. Aren’t
you
?
”

“More sass, and I’ll spank you.”

“Go ahead. You’ll all starve in the end, anyway.”

Lotte looked wounded for a moment. “Fine. I think I know where Mezeta is. Come with me?”

Taki glared at her. “Is that your order, milord Captain?”

“If you’re going to be that way, then yes,” she said. “It’s an order. Mikkelsen, come with us. Gillette and Emreis, go round up dinner. Here’s the last of my funds.” She took out her revolver, swung out the cylinder, and held out an unfired cartridge.

“Captain,” Karma said, “I mean no disrespect, but there’s a reason we’re so poor right now. We’ve been eating market meat and fresh eggs at
every meal
. If we just restricted ourselves to the mess hall once a day, we’d save—”

Lotte mashed the lead nose of the bullet against Karma’s forehead and twisted. “I’ll kill us all before I eat another potato.”

Karma shuddered, latched on to Draco’s arm, and dragged the man away.

“Captain,” Hadassah said, “did you have to be quite so flirty with the man? And are you sure old Hecaton hasn’t just abandoned us for real?”

Lotte shook her head. “I’m afraid not. There’s a stench coming from her quarters.”

“I’m
not
toting her body.” Hadassah crossed her arms and spat.

“It’s not corpse flowers,” Lotte said. “Now move along.”

Hecaton Kheiris Mezeta, formerly a major but now a lord principality of the Cloud Temple, had hung a cheery “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of her office. The office was not only barred from within, but also protected by a retribution mandala. Taki discovered it when he attempted to force the door open with a shoulder check and ended up unceremoniously sprawled on the floor.

“Milord Principality!” Lotte shouted. “Open up! We know you’re in there.”

There was no response.

“You weren’t kidding about the smell,” Hadassah said. She scrunched her nose up at the smoky, cloying odor wafting out from the doorframe.

Taki groaned and slowly rose to his feet. He wiped away a thin stream of blood from his left nostril and reached out to cast a sutra. Before he could follow through, Hadassah kicked him in the back of a knee. He stumbled, lurched around, and pushed her. She riposted with an elbow to his gut, and the two wrestled.

“Out of my way,” Lotte ordered. She knelt with palms upturned in supplication and started to invoke a sutra. “
The mind commands the body, and it obeys. I am become Walking Death. I eat the hearts of my enemies, wear their skins, and become cuter.
"

Hadassah looked up from her efforts to drive her thumbs into Taki’s nostrils. “Captain? What are you doing? We can’t—”

Lotte inhaled and let out a roar before she lurched face forward at the door. Light lanced out from the wood to reveal a previously hidden mandala that blurred and dissolved under the assault. The door buckled and shattered like plate glass struck by a juggernaut, and Lotte careened in before coming to a stop in the center of the office.

Someone cackled.
“Om mani padme hum.”

Taki extricated himself from Hadassah’s leg lock and limped into the office after Lotte. When he saw what lay within, his face scrunched in horror.

Hecaton sat atop her desk, cross-legged, with the tops of her feet flush against her thighs. A circlet of desiccated clover blossoms rested loosely across her brow, and she wore a robe of dirty, sweat-yellowed linen with a wooden begging bowl balanced in her lap. Before her, melted stumps of candles pooled wax across the wood and over the edge to form a stringy, multicolored waterfall.

“Milord Principality,” Lotte said, out of breath, “I apologize for the intrusion and the door, but we were all concerned for you.”

Hecaton smiled magnanimously. “My child, are you ready to shave your head and become a nun?” she asked.

“No. What’s all this about?” She motioned with her head to the rest of the office. Stolen laundry lines crisscrossed above with deep-ochre-stained undergarments hung haphazardly in the fashion of prayer pennants. Books and scrolls were strewn around the floor unopened, their pages ripped from the bindings and spit-glued into lewd sculptures attached to the walls. Incomprehensible red squiggles danced across the walls, as if children had been given buckets of paint and promised protection from their parents’ wrath.

“An offering, first.” Hecaton pointed to a large, pewter spittoon overflowing with ash. A handful of fresh joss sticks pierced the gray mound. “I
am
a twice born, you know. I’m one who’s entered the stream. If you give up your worldly desires and meditate every day, you can too.”

Lotte looked at the other two. “Natalis, use your power.”

Taki hesitated.

“Well, go on,” Lotte said. “Eastern gods
eat the smells
.”

“You’re sure, Captain?”

“Don’t question her orders,” Hadassah snapped. “Just do what she says! Wanna fight again?”

Taki shook his head. He edged closer to the spittoon with his arm stretched out, as if trying to avoid contamination. He flicked his fingers at the end of a joss stick but shook so much that the summoned flames missed their target entirely. The stick glowed feebly after a few more tries.

Lotte sighed. “Milord, there’s your offering.”

Hecaton nodded sagely. “Now, all of you clap twice and keep your hands pressed together. Bow at the waist and hold for ten seconds. I won’t make you kowtow, since you’re nonbelievers.”

“Enough sacrilege!” Lotte said. “
You
answer
us
now. Why have you refused all contact, even from the exarch? What are you
doing
here? Have you fed
Babu
?”

Hearing his name, a rotund, tiger-striped tom half leapt, half pulled himself onto the desk next to Hecaton and let out a yowl. Hecaton shot an imperious glare at the tom, and he responded by flopping down in her lap. “The basileus has offended me greatly. So I will not see her cronies until she kowtows to me and retracts what she has done.” She scratched Babu’s ears, and he nibbled the folds of her robes.

Lotte frowned. “You are a principality of the Temple. You are the next in line to guide the flock, and you lord over even the Agia Triada. How in the hell does that displease you?”

“I didn’t want it. I just wanted an egg—”

“Whether you wanted it or not is irrelevant. Besides, an increase in rank means more pay, more prestige.” Lotte stepped forward around the repurposed urn and put her forehead to Hecaton’s. “It means Her Grace wanted to
reward
you.”

Hecaton merely licked the tip of Lotte’s nose in repose. “That tastes like a lie!”

Lotte planted her hands on her hips. “Are you done playing dress-up? Can we move on?”

“You’re insulting my people.”

Hadassah waved. “Isn’t a promotion just the kind of thing you want, though? You know, to be in control so you can piss around with people’s lives and such?”

“All I wanted in life was to bake bread,” Hecaton said. “My father and brother were bakers, you know. They were making scallion dumplings the day I went to the bihara
.
And now…
I don’t remember how they tasted
!”

“Scallion dumplings are easy,” Hadassah said. “I’ll even be cute and teach you how. Does that make you happy?”

“No! They’re made in a specific way, and none of you barbarians could possibly appreciate their refinement.”

Lotte jabbed a finger at Hecaton’s nose. “You’re being rude.”

Hecaton clasped Lotte’s finger in her hands and peered at the tip while sucking her teeth. “Lieselotte, child, listen to me. I’m sorry, but you have leprosy.”

“No one has leprosy!” Lotte snapped her hand back. “Now, with all due respect, shut the hell up and listen to me! You’re acting like a godrotting child! If you’re so unhappy with Her Grace’s esteem, you can just
leave
! No one’s keeping you here against your will. Go ahead and resign right now
so we can get paid
!”

Hecaton blinked. “But I don’t want to. I like being around you dumb kids. Sometimes I think of you as my own.”