"As it was in the beginning, before sky-dark and long winter, is now and ever shall be. Our world, never ending. Amen!"
"Amen," came the echoing chorus from the huge congregation that brimmed along every bench and pew in the Temple of Snakefish, formerly the Rex Cinema and Video Palace.
One of the twin guardians, Norman Mote, had just finished the introductory call-and-response part of the a.m. service. Marianne sat at his side, with their son Joshua, the apostolic apprentice, next to his mother.
At a rough count, Ryan reckoned that virtually all the adult population of the trim little ville was there, crammed together, cheek by jowl.
It was swelteringly, sweatingly hot inside the building.
Ruby Rainer had shouted up the stairs, a few minutes after six, asking if they wanted some fresh-baked cornbread with eggs and grits before coming along to the service. They had all accepted, though Rick made heavy weather of the meal.
The freezie was looking better, like someone who had been through the fire and come out the other side purged and cleansed by the experience.
He'd walked with the others along the bustling main street to the church, helped by an old bamboo cane with a curved handle, which had been a gift from their landlady. "It was my late husband's," she'd said. "He got it from his uncle, who found it in a ruined shack up beyond the north-forty well. You're welcome to take it, Mr. Ginsberg."
Ryan had rarely seen so many people gathered together in one place.
Baron Edgar Brennan sat in the front pew, on the right with his brother Rufus. An enormously fat young man sat next along. Ryan figured he must be the nephew, Layton, pilot of the air wag. He was dressed in a suit of dark blue leather and was so large that it looked as though the bench seat might tip up if anyone else stood. The last of the worshipers in that privileged pew was Carla Petersen, who had changed her riding breeches for a pleated skirt, but was otherwise wearing the same clothes as when they'd met her in the town hall. She had turned around as Ryan led his group in, favoring them with a smile. A smile that seemed, to Ryan, to be directed rather more at J.B. than at the rest of them.
There were no children in the congregation. No one showed undue interest in the outlanders as they were shown to a bench on the left, about halfway from the front.
Zombie and his biker brothers acted as stewards, marshaling everyone into their seats, making sure that there was no smoking. They eventually lined up near the altar, looking like sec bouncers at a particularly unsalubrious gaudy house.
Ryan had been particularly interested in seeing what the Mote family looked like. Before the festivities had begun, during the period of waiting for their arrival, he had studied the inside of their strange church.
There was a large balcony toward the rear, which had been extended more recently to run around both sides of the old theater. The altar was on a dais, between old and faded curtains decorated with huge, golden tassels. The chairs for the members of the Mote family were more like thrones, covered in gilt and crudely carved in ornate, writhing snake shapes. The rear wall, behind the platform, was obscured by a bright mural.
"Delicate, isn't it, lover?" Krysty whispered, seeing where Ryan's eye was focused.
"Sure. Like having a war wag run over your face is delicate."
The painting centered on an absolutely massive mutie rattler. Bigger by far than the one that they'd butchered out in the desert, it had a silver collar with the name Mote blazoned across it in scarlet. In its jaws was a diminutive figure that was kicking its legs. There was a 3-D holo effect built into it that made the head swing hypnotically from side to side and the tiny feet wave helplessly.
Around the edge of the picture were a number of oil-drilling rigs, vanishing away into a distance that was blurred by a poor perspective. At the very edge there was a crude version of the Sierras, snowcapped, tumbling out of the mural.
The colors were extremely basic glaring greens and crimsons, with sickly yellows and a sky of an eye-blinking and unreal blue.
Ryan's ruminations stopped suddenly when he realized that the prayers were over and Norman Mote was about to speak.
He stood a little above average height and weighed about two-forty. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, the mane of sculpted hair a uniform silver gray. His suit was also in light gray, skillfully cut to conceal his spreading waist and stubby legs. He had the puffy eyes of a regular and long-time drinker. The hands that gestured from behind the reading stand were soft and white, with manicured nails.
Norman Mote's voice was calm and friendly, warm and welcoming. Ryan immediately disliked and mistrusted the man.
"Mah dear, dear friends," he began, smiling broadly around the packed building. "Welcome to our little morning get-together. Blessed is the worm!"
"And blessed are the scales thereof," responded the congregation.
Jak was sitting to Ryan's right. He put his face closer and whispered, "Fucked if find chilled their double-best god, huh?"
Ryan nodded. There hadn't been any choice in chilling the giant mutie rattler, but that might not go down well if anyone in Snakefish found out about it.
Mote continued to smile around, rubbing his hands together in an odd washing motion. Ryan heard Doc whispering something about the perfumes of Arabia, but he didn't get the reference.
"We have new brothers and sisters to welcome to our humble gathering," Mote continued. "I will ask them to introduce themselves to us, one by one. Perhaps, Mr. Cawdor, you would care to begin to do the honors for us?"
"Sure, Reverend. Name's Ryan Cawdor and I'd like to thank the kindly ville of Snakefish for helping me and my friends."
"I'm Krysty Wroth and I'd like to back up what Ryan said. Thanks."
Norman Mote held up an imperious hand. "Such thanks do credit. But there are those in the ville who think that generosity begins at home. Too much kindness to those from outside means less wealth for those within Snakefish."
"Wealth isn't all," someone countered from the front of the congregation. Ryan was sure it was Baron Edgar Brennan or his brother, Rufus.
"Some say, some say," Marianne Mote called from her golden throne.
It was the first time she'd spoken, but the co-guardian of the temple made a big impression, just by sitting there.
She was short, struggling to make four-ten. Marianne was also struggling, by the look of her, to keep her waist down under forty inches. She wore very heavy makeup, which made her look like an aging gaudy queen. She was dressed in a loose, rustling gown of what was either snakeskin or a very clever imitation of it. And her belt was silver, like the collar that Ryan remembered all too clearly from around the throat of Azrael. She wore shoes with totteringly high heels. The piled-up hair was of a shimmering blond color obviously a wig. Marianne Mote was one of the finest bits of mutton dressed as lamb that Ryan had ever seen.
Her eyes had the flat, incurious dullness of a killer shark.
Norman turned to her and gave a slight bow, moving to face the congregation once more. "I must apologize to everyone here in the name of the Great Worm for the interruptions. Pray carry on introducing yourselves, outlanders."
"John Dix. Good t'be here."
"Jak Lauren. Same."
"Richard Neal Ginsberg. I'd like to say that I appreciate the kindness shown to me personally. Good to see strangers treated so well. Thank you."
"Lori Quint."
"Theophilus Algernon Tanner." Doc bowed deeply to everyone around him and glanced up at the people in the balconies. "I've been to a lot of places and have seen a lot of things, which is better than seeing a lot of places and being a lot of things. I guess." The old man shook his head disappointedly. "Not tuned in for my kind of humor. Well, let it pass. So it goes. I'll simply add my own gratitude to those of you who've been kind to us."