The Ophelia Prophecy (18 page)

Micah joined her at the top of the stairs. Taking a closer look at him in the light, she decided he was younger than she’d thought—maybe close to her own age. He was clean-shaven, with a kind face and eyes that were a lighter shade of brown than her own. She also noticed tan swirls of pigment marking either side of his neck.

“The worst of the transgressors have been punished,” he continued. “Most of them are dead. Those who survived are prisoners of war, and we see our parents in
them
—exploited, and existing at the mercy of others.”

When she’d asked Zee to help her go after her father, she had never dreamed she’d find Manti sympathetic to humanity. Micah’s words reinforced the decision she’d made to leave Pax. Despite the protective impulses he seemed to feel toward
her
, he was still an enemy to her people and her cause. Eventually he would have learned the truth about why and how she’d come here, and she’d have been in no position to help anyone, including herself.

Afraid their conversation might be cut short by their arrival at the temple, she hurried on with her next question.

“That phrase above your entrance—science will destroy us—is that the basis for your … for your religion?”

Micah shook his head. “Rebelión Sagrada has its roots in the anti-genetic engineering community. It’s been around longer than the prophecy. We view the prophecy more as affirmation.”

“Where did you hear it?” Asha held her breath and tried to mask her eagerness.

He took a few steps into shadow and raised his arm to what looked like a solid wall. But as she joined him she saw there was an opening there. She followed him down a thickly carpeted passage that erased the sound of their footsteps.

He lowered his voice as he continued. “The prophecy came out of Sustainable Transgenics, where babies are
designed
. Our scientists have taken the work your scientists did and elevated it to an art form. You would think we’d have taken a lesson from Gregoire.”

Gregoire was the self-taught geneticist who “designed” the Manti. Some believed it was one of his creations, a creature much like Iris, who had stolen the data that allowed the Manti to engineer the plague that wiped out humanity. Some even believed he’d been so enamored of his creations that he
intended
for them to supplant humans. Gregoire died in a fire that destroyed his lab, shortly before the dawn of chaos, so no one ever learned the truth. No human, anyway.

“I don’t understand why an anti-science message would come from your genetics lab,” she replied.

“Someone hacked into the lab’s system, and the prophecy spread virally from there. It locked up every computer in the city for two days. The official word is it was some kind of hoax. But the symbolism—and the irony—was compelling. It doubled Rebelión’s membership.”

Micah parted a curtain at the end of the passage. A wave of perfumed air slapped against them. The same scent that pervaded Debajo, but
much
stronger. Intoxicating, and cloying.

“The hacker called the virus ‘The Ophelia Prophecy,’” he said as they stepped past the curtain. “We’ve only recently figured out what that means.”

Only someone from Sanctuary would know
. Pax had told her the humans in Al Campo were sometimes examined by the geneticists. Was it possible the genetics computers had been hacked by someone from her home?

“Have you brought us another virus, child?”

Asha’s attention was drawn from her escort—who had frozen just inside the circular chamber on the other side of the curtain—toward the source of the unfamiliar voice.

“I apologize, my lady,” said Micah, bowing his head. “I didn’t know you were using this chamber.”

At first Asha’s eyes failed to interpret what she was seeing. What appeared to be a decorative cloak was in fact a set of wings. The wings were mostly translucent white, but where they pressed together, two green-and-yellow spiral patterns created the illusion of large eyes staring back at her. The wings moved delicately as the creature turned.

“It’s the farthest off the street and therefore the quietest,” she explained, “but you weren’t to know. Now that you’re here, let me see what you’ve brought me.”

She took a few steps toward them, and Asha’s heart pulsed with warning. The woman’s ivory torso was almost entirely mantis-like, and yet maintained its femininity, with gentle curves at her breast and waist. Like Iris she had hands at the end of spiked appendages, but her lower body rested on four legs like the doorman at Debajo. Her arms and legs were scored with bands of orange and green—though it was hard to be sure about the colors, as the crimson fabrics and low lighting in the room created a rosy glow.

Her eyes were large, widely spaced, and a light shade of … purple? Antennae projected from the top of her forehead, striped like her torso and curving gracefully away from her face toward pale, wavy hair. Her thin-lipped mouth curved in a smile above a sharp chin.

She was beautiful, and the most alien of Pax’s kind so far. A lighter sister to Iris, and yet no less suggestive of darkness.

The woman’s lips parted, and she uttered a string of unintelligible syllables:
Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi
. But she continued in Spanish-accented English, “Common name, spiny flower mantis. You may call me Cleo.”

Asha swallowed, pressing her hands against her thighs. “I’m Asha,” she said, feeling unfit to be in such a creature’s presence in her current condition. “Brought here from Sanctuary.”

Cleo moved toward her with slow, precise movements of her lower legs and abdomen. Asha shrank inwardly and fought the urge to step back. As the Manti woman’s body shifted a little to one side, she noticed a man behind her. He had a much smaller, plainer set of wings, spiked forearms, and a well-muscled human body. His eyes glittered fiercely in the dimly lit room. They rested on her face for only a moment before shifting back to Cleo.

Before Asha looked away she saw his wrists were chained to the wall.

“You are not our first visitor from Sanctuary,” said the mantis woman, stopping less than an arm’s length away.

“So I understand.”

Cleo glanced at Micah. “Where did you find this pretty, soiled thing?”

“In an alley outside Debajo, Priestess. Said she escaped from a Scarab today.”

Cleo’s eyes moved slowly over her. Asha flushed at the priestess’s expression of distaste, angry with herself for feeling self-conscious about her mud-stained, hand-me-down appearance.

“This pains me,” Cleo said, frowning. She motioned to a woman standing nearby. “Clean her up. Give her something more suitable to wear.”

“My lady,” Asha spoke up, “I was hoping you might be able to help me. I’m looking for Al Campo.”

The triangular head swiveled on the slender neck, lilac eyes coming back to her. The penetrating gaze was all the communication Asha needed to understand the risk she was taking in getting involved with these people.

“Perhaps I shall,” replied Cleo at last. “That will depend entirely on what you have to offer in exchange.” Again her gaze raked over Asha. “But as you are, you’re defiling my temple.”

“Cleo, enough!” The protest came from the man chained behind the priestess. The links clanked together as he launched away from the wall.

Cleo smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, my mate is impatient. We’ll talk again soon.”

Suddenly Asha understood the chains. And the hungry look in the man’s eyes. She’d seen it before. Cleo moved toward her mate, stopping just out of his reach. Perspiration dripped down his chest and abdomen as he strained against his bonds. She stretched delicate fingers toward him, teasing them through his hair.

The male fell to his knees at her feet, groaning loudly. She raised his bowed head with her hands, and a single word grated out of him. “Please.”

Asha couldn’t help contrasting this picture with the struggle that had taken place by the reservoir. This male looked capable of much worse than Pax. And this female
was
receptive. Though clearly she’d taken precautions. She was in control of the encounter.

“It’s time,” Cleo replied softly, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs as half-choked moans came out of him. “Release him.”

Cleo’s attendants looked to her with surprise. “Shouldn’t we leave him bound, Priestess?” one asked.

Cleo smiled, her eyes never leaving her mate. “Not this time. I want to see what he can do.”

Again his body jerked against the chains.

The attendant drew a key from her pocket and moved toward him.

Asha watched breathlessly, her body so taut she jumped when someone touched her arm.

“Come,” murmured the attendant who’d been ordered to make her presentable.

The attendant guided her toward a door, Micah following on their heels.

She heard the rattle and muffled thud of the chains striking the carpeted floor. There was a low growl, followed by the same hiss she’d heard Iris make. Asha glanced back, but the attendant closed the door between them. A high-pitched cry sounded from the other side.

*   *   *

The priest stood over the fallen disciple looking not at the body, but at his own hands. Pax understood exactly how he felt. He wondered if the priest had ever killed anyone before.

“One of them recognized you,” Pax said to Iris. “We need to get out of here.”

“Agreed.” She glanced around the alley. “Where’s Asha?”

“One of the disciples took her.”

Iris raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

Pax rubbed his lips together and gazed up at the Gaudí Spike. It was no time to start lying to his sister. Not if he wanted her help. “She asked them for protection.”

Iris rolled her eyes, sighing in exasperation. “Bloody hell, Pax. I knew this would happen.”

He glanced back sharply. “No, you
didn’t
.” He overcame a strong urge to remind her she was in much the same boat with the half-feral holy man standing beside her.

“Well, something
like
this. What are you going to tell Father?”

“Nothing. I’m going to get her back. Let’s get out of this damned alley.”

“Pax!” Iris started after him. “We can’t storm that temple. Not the three of us. You have to let her go for now. Help me with Carrick, and then we’ll go to Father together. We’ll figure something out.”

He could hear the edge of panic in Iris’s voice. Her usual approach was to try and shame him out of unreasonable behavior, and the change almost shocked him to his senses. It meant she had all but given up saving him from himself.

But leaving Asha to Rebelión was not an option. His chances of recovering her were much better with Iris’s help, but he’d go after her on his own if he had to.

“We don’t need to storm the temple,” he said. “Put your masks on.”

*   *   *

Asha’s heart still pounded against her chest as she and the attendant reached their destination. The stair climb was only partly to blame.

The smaller chamber they entered was three flights up in the tower. The priestess’s luxurious dungeon had been fully enclosed, but here an arched window let in a rectangle of moonlight, which spotlighted a tub in the center of the room. The steps up to the tub were decorated with the color-shifting mosaic tiles, and the slow, subtle transitions between pink and purple and blue and green had a soothing effect.

The attendant pressed her palm against a disk on one side of the tub, and water cascaded into the basin at both ends. Asha watched as the woman—whose Manti markings consisted of green-tinged skin and creamy wings that hung limply between her shoulder blades—poured in a few drops from several colored-glass bottles. She lifted a series of cups made of the same colored glass, and as she stirred what looked like sand with a small stick, they glowed with light. She arranged these around the edges of the tub.

Asha didn’t feel she had time to waste on ritualistic pampering. But she needed an audience with Cleo, and apparently this was a prerequisite. She peeled Pax’s shirt over her head, then pushed the loose pants past her hips. She stood staring at the pile of clothes, thinking about their owner and wondering what he was thinking about
her
.

Would he come after her? Would he make her pay? She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be so keen about protecting her from Manti interrogators the next time around.

“Your bath is ready.” The attendant smiled and gestured toward the tub.

She climbed the steps, dipping her toes in first. In Sanctuary water was rationed. They had enough for short showers, but no one took baths. Heavy rains sometimes created temporary bathing spots, but nothing that could compare to this. Like so many things, it was an aspect of the pre-holocaust world she understood only through her work at the Archive. It seemed strange to her now that she’d spent most of her life acquiring an intimate familiarity with a world she would never know.

Sanctuary’s elders and the governing council had always emphasized the importance of resurrecting what had been lost. They’d all accepted it would be the work of lifetimes. The idea she might one day travel to a world where modern ways still existed had never entered her mind.

And
this
world in particular, with its richness and vitality. Its whimsy, and its emphasis on pleasing the senses. She alternated between terrified and fascinated, sometimes within the same instant.

Up to now she’d lived in the desert.

She sank all the way into the water, and a murmur of pleasure vibrated through her. The silky warmth of it embraced and permeated her. A light, floral fragrance suffused the steam, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply. The sounds of the revelers outside made their way through the window, covered only by filmy curtains. Here in the tower the sounds were distant and indistinct, nothing to pull at her thoughts as she drifted along in the stream of sensation.

*   *   *

Pax’s hands were on her. Gliding from fingertips to forearm to elbow to shoulder. First one arm, then the other. Massaging. Rubbing. Working their way to her chest, circling her breasts, stroking her abdomen. Down her thigh, outside, then in …