'We have come to the place of our persecution,' Wiggs said.
Varoomschka strode across to the monument. The fat man snickered as his eyes followed her long limbs and tight bottom. Wiggs again had a twinge of the old sinful urges, but he conquered them with a blast of fiery purity.
The Psychopomp had a glossy fashion model face, and long, silky hair that looked like an implant. Though tall and powerful, she was dainty, like a dancer.
Varoomschka cupped Sister Ciccone's cheek with one hand and slipped her long fingers into the Sister's bonnet, unloosing strands of mousy hair with her scarlet nails. Shockingly, the ganggirl kissed the Sister on the lips.
Sister Ciccone suffered nobly, eyes raised to heaven. She knew that she would prevail.
'Mmmmm,' Varoomschka said, licking her lips with a scarlet tongue. 'You taste like a virgin.'
'Thou art forgiven, harlot,' Sister Ciccone said.
She launched a fist at the Psychopomp's chest. Varoomschka was knocked backwards with surprising force. Her immodest garments showed the plate-sized purple bruise on her upper ribs.
Sister Ciccone was changing. Like Wiggs, she got stronger as she got purer.
Varoomschka scrambled upright, a butterfly knife in one hand. She made a series of slicing passes before her as she moved towards the Sister.
'I'll open you, hagwitch,' she said. 'I'll drink your
The Psychopomp struck like a scorpion. The knife slipped against Sister Ciccone's side and slid upwards across her torso. She would be wounded from hip to collar.
Varoomschka stepped back to admire her surgery.
The Sister's vestments were rent and sagged apart. White flesh shone, but no red gash. Sister Ciccone's skin was inviolate and featureless.
'Lady, you ain't got no nipples,' the fat man said. 'That ain't natural.'
Modestly, the Sister closed the hole in her clothes.
'And you ain't got no navel neither.'
'What are you?' Varoomschka asked. 'Some kind of clone thing?'
Sister Ciccone bowed her head.
'I am a Sister of Joseph,' she said.
Wiggs realised his chest was itching and changing, and he felt his own nipples dwindling and receding into smooth skin. He was still flesh, but the flesh was better, stronger, purer. Untroubled by needs, he was fit for the struggles ahead.
V
The Feelgood Saloon was typical of a thousand other smalltown joints where Tyree had wasted evenings. A couple of gaudy girls were bellying up to the bar, looking for trade. A few old-timers leaned chairs against the walls in the corners, mainlining the poison of their choice. Otherwise, the Feelgood wasn't doing much business this early, so the Cav managed to requisition a table. The Quince sat with his back to a wall and face to the main entrance, a shotgun stowed under his chair. From where Tyree was, she had a good view of the mirror behind the bar and thus of everyone in the room.
A green-faced waitress with vestigial gills took their orders. Some said the mutations were the legacy of those long-ago Bomb Tests, but there must be a reason they had grown more common these last few years.
Quincannon laid out kish for the hundred-dollar grill, while Tyree had the vat-grown eggs and Burnside plumped for gristle 'n' grits. Tyree's tasted OK. They had recaff all round. Fake coffee, but real water, a luxury this far into the sand. The Quince even remembered to have the girl send someone over to Chollie's with N-R-Gee candies for Yorke, who was minding the cruiser.
The green girl was friendly and efficient. It couldn't be easy adapting to an aquatic environment when there wasn't any large stretch of water left in the state.
The Quince lit up a Premier and offered the pack around. Tyree filled her lungs and had a good, healthy cough. She worried sometimes that she didn't smoke enough. Dr Nick said there were no noticeable physical benefits unless you were up to a pack a day.
It would be hours before the convoy could get moving again – one or two of the motorwagons were a refit away from the auto graveyard – so there was no sense in not taking advantage of the comforts on offer. They had been held up burying Sister Maureen yesterday, so they might well be looking to make camp here for the night. Tyree understood there was a motel outside town, so she might have a shot at a real bed.
This patrol had gone on way too long. Back at Valens, she would have earned some extra pay and a couple of vacation weeks on credit. After they'd hand-held the resettlers to Salt Lake, they'd still have to trek all the way back home.
Quincannon was talking ancient history again, not from experience but from books. In his down time, the Quince must be something of a library junkie. Tyree hadn't known that about him. She hadn't read anything except forms, regulations and the odd comicstrip since military school. Burnside asked the sergeant his opinion of the Josephites' chances of making anything out of the Salt Lake valley.
'The Mormons did it once before,' Quincannon replied, 'round about 1848, just the same as the Josephites are trying to now. They'd been kicked out of everywhere else 'cause they believed in marryin' more than one gal at a time. I reckon they've given that up these days, along with 'carnal relations'. They found a place where nothing would grow and no one would live, and turned it into fertile land. The Lord knows how they did it. That Church was founded by some fella named Smith who claimed an angel gave him some extra books of the Bible and a pair of magical spectacles to help him read it. The Josephites have some similar story. Different glasses, but the same angel. Something like that. Maybe that's why the Elder's so steamed up about that gal who waltzed off with his shades. You notice how that riles them more than the fellers who got killed. More than the cashplastics she scavved. Hell, I don't know. The Mormons were straight-laced, but this lot are unnatural, if you know what I mean. They're like the Mormons, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Amish, the Moonies, the Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Stone-Crazed Baptists all rolled up into one. Me, I'm a good Catholic. Religion's been downhill since Martin Luther.'
Tyree drank her recaff and ate her eggs. Burnside kept asking questions and passing comments. 'You have to admire those old settlers, Quince, making something of nothing like that.'
'Well, Wash, there was another side to the story. A side Elder Seth ain't gonna be too keen on hearin' told again. You can bet they'll remember it here in Spanish Fork, though. While the Mormons were settling Salt Lake, the Josephites were carving out claims for themselves in the Indian Territories. A feller by the name of Hendrik Shatner, brother of the Joseph who founded the Brethren, was their head man, and he had some mighty strange allegiances. In the 1850s, federal troops were sent against the Church of Joseph, and the Josephites had a little war with the US of A. It seems the Josephites weren't so all-fired holy back then. No sir, when a group of regular Christian settlers moved in and staked a land claim right here, when this place was called New Canaan, the Josephites got together with the Paiute Indians, painted themselves up like redskins, and had themselves one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of the West.'
She hadn't liked to say, but as Quincannon was speaking, the swinging doors opened silently and a tall man walked into the Feelgood. Elder Seth. The Quince must see him but he was into the flow of his story. She knew she should say something, try to shut the sergeant up, but somehow she found herself unable to open her mouth.
With Elder Seth were his two most devoted puppies, Wiggs and Ciccone. They looked different indoors, their faces harder.
Quincannon kept on talking. 'Them Josephites carved up those regular Christians like you'd carve up a Sunday goatroast. The Prezz probably don't know much history or he wouldn't be handin' a state to these fellas. Who knows, maybe one day Seth will take it into his head to make war again against the United States of America. Then
