The Violet Hour (6 page)

ALL THE WAY TO CHINA

My tongue tasted like dry lint, and it felt like my teeth were wearing tiny individual fur coats. Anxiety crawled across my skin, then receded by an inch. I turned away from the mirror, rubbing my hand over my eyes. I was only sleepwalking. It was just a bad dream.

My mind turned first to Adam, then to the General. I needed to sort things out with both of them. After the way I’d been ejected from the temple, I was surprised I wasn’t already on a one-way express back to Twin Falls. Or worse.

Would the Patriarch sever his own daughter? Ministry children had been made dead in the eyes of the Fellowship before, but I always assumed those rules didn’t quite apply to me. But last night, my father was genuinely afraid of me. Like I was a mortal threat. It was almost as if he could see Her inside of me. As if he knew Her somehow.

I popped the top off my new stash of extra-strength Subdueral and crammed a handful in my mouth. Falling apart wasn’t going to get me out of this. I reached for the cell on my nightstand to call Dora. The screen was black, battery dead. Freaking perfect.

A sharp rap at the door bolted me upright. I looked around for someplace to hide, the insane thought that I could still find a way out of this mess scrambling my brain.

“Get up, lazy!” Dora yelled. She had the gravely tone of an absolute angel.

I leaped to answer the door.

Dora had chopsticks stuck through the bun in her hair and eyeliner swept dramatically out from the corners of her eyes. Her faded red T-shirt said
China: a really big country with a lot of people
.

She surveyed my disaster of a room.

“Dude, the China express leaves in fifteen minutes and you look like moo goo gai poo. Did you oversleep or what?”

She pushed past me and started to slam things into my suitcase haphazardly. I looked left and right down the hallway, expecting a Watcher to show up any minute.

Nothing.

After Tokyo, the next stop on our tour-de-force was Beijing. China was VisionCrest’s closest ally in the East, where with few exceptions the Fellowship was regarded with reverence and respect. Three decades earlier, an anonymous man simply called the Unknown Rebel had stopped the advance of a column of Chinese military tanks following a bloody massacre of government protestors. That event was the tipping point that ultimately led to the downfall of an oppressive dictatorship; China became the most democratic country in the world, and one of the most welcoming to VisionCrest. The fate of an entire country once rested on that silent rebel’s delicate shoulders; it was easy to imagine that in some parallel universe, it could have turned out very differently.

In exchange for their support of the Fellowship, China’s highest-ranking government officials were ordained as Sacristans and shared in VisionCrest’s profits. Many other eastern countries followed suit, but China remained the most powerful of all Ministry satellites. While no country could boast a VisionCrest compound to rival the headquarters in Twin Falls, Beijing came close.

The crumpled itinerary on my nightstand said we were leaving at 11:30 a.m. sharp. Was it remotely possible I wasn’t going to be punished?

“Some help here, Messy Marvin?”

“I didn’t think I would be coming,” I said, dazed. I wasn’t sure if it was disbelief or the Subdueral working its black magic.

“What do you mean, you didn’t think you were coming?” Dora countered. “We’ve only been talking about pork buns non-stop for, like, the past week. This is our time, baby! Get moving!” Then she gave me a sharp look that said
I know something’s wrong, but you want me to pretend everything’s normal, so I’m playing along. For now.

She was right. This wasn’t the time to question my luck. I grabbed a pair of jeans and threw them on, along with a hoodie covered in sewn-on patches of punk bands I loved. Adam had made it for me back when things were normal. Maybe it would make him remember who I really was.

“I saw the General after we came back last night,” I said.

A steely glint of determination flashed in Dora’s eyes. It said that I was not going home if she had anything to say about it.

“I don’t want to know what happened.” She waved her hand in the air. “I just want you to pack up and get your butt down to the lobby. You’re not going anywhere but China.”

“But—”

She put her hand up to my mouth. “But nothing. I cannot do this trip—this
life—
without you. I refuse. So until you’re not, you’re here. Now let’s go.”

There wasn’t really any arguing with that. I stuffed the last of my things into an oversized handbag. Dora put my Jackie O glasses on my face.

“There—VisionCrest royalty, ready to rock.”

It was impossible to be morose around Dora. I held my breath as we exited the elevator into the lobby, half-
expecting Watchers to descend on me as we entered the crowd of Ministry kids. My classmates were buzzing like hornets ready to flee the hive, looking more motley than usual since our VisionCrest uniforms (gray slacks, oxford shirts, ties, and official sweaters for the boys; navy-and-green tartan skirts, oxford shirts, and cardigans for the girls) were optional on travel days. There were Watchers milling around looking bored, but none of them took any more note of my presence than usual.

True to form, Queen Mercy was right at the center of the action, ordering her consorts around. The way she acted, you would think she was the Patriarch’s daughter, not me. She gestured toward the matching set of Louis Vuitton luggage at her side as the scrawny son of a lower-rank Sacristan scrambled to collect it under his arms.

Through the crowd, Adam appeared. His hair was messy and he was wearing an Operation Ivy T-shirt under a fitted gray blazer. My heart clenched. His eyes met mine for a split second. Then he looked away and walked straight to Mercy, leaning over and whispering something in her ear. A smile graced her face that would have made even Mother Theresa weep with jealousy. Then he leaned down and kissed her. He looked up at me, making sure I saw. It was a clear message—
stay away
.

Dora saw it too. “Darling, the world is your oyster. You’re going to pry it open and steal its pearl, and no silly boy is going to stop you,” she said. It was the Dora version of a pep talk.

I watched Adam and Mercy for a moment longer, unable to tear my eyes away from the train wreck. Mercy tucked her arm inside Adam’s and snuggled up against him. He smoothed his hand over the back of her hair. I struggled not to let my knees buckle beneath me.

Dora pulled me along behind her, dragging me toward the waiting buses.

Sayonara
, Tokyo. You sucked.

The flight to Beijing consisted of me scrunching between Dora and Stubin, the unlikely lovebirds, and trying to disappear. There was no sign of the General’s Learjet in the hangar when we boarded our private plane. He must have already headed to China.

Dora insisted on the window so she could keep an eye on the engines “for air safety,” and Stubin insisted on the aisle because of his “claustrophobia disorder.” No amount of protesting could convince either of them that putting me in a teen-crush sandwich met the standard of cruel and unusual punishment.

I was in no mood to argue, so I succumbed and melted into the thirteen square inches that separated me from a complete mental breakdown. I suspected that Dora was distracting me from what was happening five rows in front of us. Namely, Mercy and Adam sitting with their heads tipped together. As if I wasn’t tracking their every move from the corner of my eye.

I considered what it would be like to spill the details of the past day to Dora, in a world where Stubin wasn’t butting in every five seconds. Secrets are the ultimate tricksters—they beg not to be kept, promise to behave, but then, let loose upon the world, blaze a trail of mischief and misery. I decided I couldn’t do it. The momentary relief of unburdening myself about the Rite would only lead to questions I was too afraid to answer.

On the upside, none of the adults on the plane so much as blinked an eye at me the entire flight. When we disembarked after landing, Brother Howard approached me. He was acting all chummy, the way he always did when he was trying to pump me for information about my father. He was a notorious social climber; if he spent half as much time on our lesson plans as he did on Ministry gossip, I would have my PhD in biochem by now.

“Hi, Harlow. So the Patriarch’s attending to some unexpected business, eh?” he said.

“Unexpected business?” My entire body seized up at the mention of the General. I had been waiting for the other shoe-bomb to drop all day.

“I guess that must be why we’re changing accommodations at the last minute. It’s highly unusual for us to stay in the home of a Sacristan. Don’t you agree?” he pressed.

We were supposed to be staying at my father’s megamansion in the VisionCrest compound on the outskirts of Beijing. The Patriarch had his own place there, as he did at every compound. Sacristans would never normally be asked to entertain houseguests, especially high-ranking Ministry children from the Twin Falls headquarters. Brother Howard was right—it was strange.

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” I played along, eager to get him off my case. It was a common assumption that I knew what the General did and why, but as usual I was as in the dark as everyone else. I had no idea what was going on.

“Excuse me, Brother Howard. I need to talk to Harlow alone for a minute,” Dora interrupted, pulling me away by the arm. She looked back at him apologetically and stage whispered, “
Lady business
.”

Brother Howard turned five shades of prune and slunk away.

Where had my father gone? Did his unexpected business have something to do with what happened last night? Why were we staying in the home of a random Ministry official?

A shiver of dread whispered down my spine as we piled into a swarm of industrial-strength, unmarked molester vans. There were more reasons than just my personal ones for being afraid. Many Sacristans were fear-mongers grappling for greater power, and those in China were rumored to be the most corrupt of all. Without the Patriarch and his protections, I wondered if we were safe.

I’d strategically avoided being marooned in the same van as Adam and Mercy, so at least I had that going for me. If I saw another tender moment, I might scratch my own eyeballs out without any help from the crazy voice in my head.

The drive from the airfield to the compound was like traversing a maze. We drove quickly through side streets on the margins of Beijing’s urban sprawl, block after block of high-rise apartment buildings that wore pollution like a funeral shroud.

At last, a snaking black driveway leading to the VisionCrest compound came into view through the front window. The complex was guarded by a massive wrought-iron gate and two surly Watchers with earpieces. We passed through and wound our way up a lush hillside. The occupants of the increasingly massive houses were standing at the ends of their drives, solemnly watching and dropping on bended knee as we passed. It was unsettling.

Near the top of the hill, we reached a sprawling, white marble monstrosity surrounded by a massive wrought-iron fence with giant W’s on it. The gates parted and we pulled in. There was only one house bigger than it, perched atop the hill. I figured that was my father’s residence, where we ought to be staying.

Dora looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Is it just me or is this super creepy? I liked the hotel in Japan way better.”

All I could do was nod. Attendants ushered us into an entryway that was basically a five-story marble mausoleum. If Chairman Mao, former dictator of China, wasn’t so busy being a wax sculpture entombed in Tiananmen Square, he would be chilling somewhere inside the hallowed halls of this house.

“The venerable Sacristan Wang welcomes you to his humble home,” an elderly man in a tuxedo announced as we crowded through the doorway.

It was anything but humble. Of course, people who
lived
in Patriarchs’ estates shouldn’t throw stones. Sacristan
Wang
was impeccably dressed, with upturned sausage lips and
tight-clipped bangs. I didn’t recognize him, but he fit the Ministry part. A gold pin gleamed garishly from his lapel: the All Seeing Eye with a ruby pupil.

Ruby—the gemstone matched the level. Diamond was for Patriarch, emerald for Eparch, sapphire for Prelate, ruby for Sacristan. The All Seeing Eye pins were creepy in general, but the red ones seemed the most forbidding. It was the color of blood. The color of those who’ve tasted power and are ravenous for more.

The Sacristan’s diminutive wife stood behind her husband’s equally tiny frame, her eyes like two white marbles with black-pool centers. They were set deep in a catlike countenance that had endured more than one surgical experiment. Her pink Chanel skirt-suit perfectly offset the midnight line of her husband’s tailored suit, and she seemed to be looking through our shifty VisionCrest herd rather than at it.

Cowering in their shadow was a slight girl of indiscriminate age. She could just as easily have been eight as twelve. She wore a bell-shaped dress the color of driven snow, which made her look like a tiny letter A, and there was a white satin blindfold across her eyes. Either it was a fashion statement for the blind or her parents were even more twisted than I feared. The General’s missing eye had prompted more than one zealot to blind himself in imitation, but surely no one would inflict that upon their child. I immediately thought of my dream from the night before: an army of followers with dry socket eyes.

Brother Howard attempted a bow and said something in muffled Mandarin. He quivered visibly as Sacristan Wang fixed him with a contemptuous stare.

“
Xie xie
.” His wife beckoned to us, her voice as cultured as a petri dish.

“Welcome. This is my wife, Madam Wang, and my daughter, Mei Mei. I am Sacristan Wang, but you may call me Sacristan.”