CHAPTER 5: ANGEL IN MY ARMOR
The thickets carry us a long, long way. Ultimately, they deposit us all on the shores of a lake faintly lit by what looks like a rainbow. Or, more accurately, a moonbow.
Then they stand back, forming a semicircle around us. It's not just us three, though. There's another humanoid figure with us. I'm sure he's a man, based on the shape of his body under his tight-fitting clothes, but I can't get a good look at his face because of his impractically long hair. It takes him a moment to notice us, at which point he parts his hair, curtain-like, to reveal a face covered in heavy stubble. Definitely a guy. But is he human? Not with those pretty eyes of his, I'm thinking. Or his overall feline features. I half-expect his ears to be fuzzy, tufty-tipped triangles under his mane.
"Are you an angel?" Leave it to Nikki to ask the obvious questions.
"Something like that, yeah." He shrugs, and I expect wings to sprout from his back, but no such luck. "The name's Bass."
"'Bass?'" Joe repeats. "Like the fish?"
"Or short for 'Sebastian?'" I ask.
"Yes," Bass says, but it's not clear which question he's answering. Especially because he doesn't look at either Joe or me when he speaks.
"So what's your deal?" I ask. "Your friends..." I jerk my thumb at the thickets behind me as they continue to rustle away. "They were none too gentle with us. I know, two out of three of us are dead, we should be a little more...hardy. But still." I raise my arm to Bass' face, allowing him to see the still-bleeding nicks the thickets left on my skin. Tons of them.
"I apologize on their behalf," Bass says, sounding suspiciously formal. "But it was a necessary evil, I'm afraid. I needed to bring you guys here right quick, you know?"
Joe scratches at his own thicket-induced cuts. "For what? Spit it out, man."
Bass smiles, his pretty eyes twinkling. "I was about to. Not literally, of course. That would just wreck my image in your minds, wouldn't it?" He laughs at his own joke, then his cat smile vanishes, replaced by a deep, pensive frown. "No, but seriously...I know what you're looking for. The Church of Atropos, right?" He sketches what looks like an A in the sand. Or, more likely, a Greek letter alpha. "Valiant you may be to take them on," he adds, "but I warn you - without my knowledge, you stand no chance of success."
"Says you," I mutter.
His jaw twitches, then he says, "I know where to find them. I know their weaknesses. I know how to prove to them that the Fate they worship, they worship her wrong."
So I was on the right track with my guess about Atropos' identity.
"What's your deal?" Nikki asks. "I mean, besides being all Bucky-with-the-good-hair."
"You mean, what's my interest in taking down the Church of Atropos?" Bass asks. "Simple. Their very presence insults my mother."