Read Online Idols by Margaret Stohl - Free Book Online Page B

don’t know anything about you Grass Belters except a crap map drawn by a Virt and the fact that we share no love for Brass.”
    “Agreed.”
    A man in a dark green military jacket—not Embassy, not anything I’ve seen before—materializes in front of us, stepping forward from the bright lights of the mountain perimeter. I try to get inside his head, but I’m panicking. I can’t focus my thoughts.
    Brutus growls from behind Tima’s legs.
    The man drops his weapon as we watch, and starts to walk toward us, the crust of frozen ground crunching beneath his feet. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of us. He doesn’t seem to be particularly afraid of anything. Still, I notice the rest of the Belters keep their weapons trained on us.
    They don’t take any chances, the Belter Grass.
    As the man approaches, his face seems familiar. Broad bones and strong features, a bit of red in his cheeks. Not a Merk, I don’t think. Not scruffy enough, not slick enough. This man is something else entirely.
    He’s close enough now that I can see the buttons glinting on his jacket. A silver commendation on each side of his collar marks him as some kind of officer, only I don’t know what the symbols mean. They aren’t like the ones Colonel Catallus wore. They’re shaped like three deep Vs—one above the other. If I didn’t know how strange it sounded, I could swear they were birds.
    “They call me the Bishop. Welcome.”
    “You don’t look much like a bishop,” Ro says.
    “And you don’t look much like the Merk known as Fortis,” the man answers, in a lower voice. “Which is a problem. Seeing as that’s who we heard was coming. And that’s who we were expecting.”
    “Yeah, well, he ran into a little trouble.” Ro raises his face to meet the Bishop’s, eye to eye. “And not the kind with a face.”
    Neither one of them looks away. None of the guns move any lower. I find myself holding my breath.
    “Sorry to hear that,” the Bishop says, finally. “Trouble followed that Merk to The Day and back, but he did right by the Grass. Good death to him.” He nods, looking at the rest of us. A salute of sorts.
    No such thing , I think.
    Ro shrugs. “That’s up to the No Face now. Shoot us if you want, but gone is gone, and there’s no bringing Fortis back. No bringing the Merk back, now.” He jams his hands into his pockets and waits, as if he has all the time in the world.
    As if any of us does.
    The Bishop holds out his hand and Ro takes it. They clasp hands, supporting the right arm with the left. A very old-fashioned, very traditional Grass greeting. A compact has been reached, an alliance made.
    Gone is gone. This is all we have now.
    “Sorry about that, but we’ve gotten word of Sympa patrols in the area, down the river. You didn’t bring any friends this way, did you?”
    Yes , I think.
    “No,” Ro says. He’s impressively blank. “Don’t got any.”
    “Probably for the best,” says the Bishop with a smile.
    Out of the corner of my eye I see Lucas, stepping backward behind Tima, almost into the shadows. Of course. He’s Ambassador Amare’s son. There’s no one here who wants to shake his hand. Better to be out of sight, not get involved . That’s what he’s thinking, anyway. I can feel it, the way his warmth dies out to a flicker, even this close to the Belter Grass. Feel him.
    Lucas , I think. There’s a whole world out there. You’ve got to trust it, sooner or later.
    But then I feel the creeping warmth, and I realize exactly what he’s doing.
    He’s working them still, even from here. He’s working them for me.
    It’s probably not a coincidence that, just then, the Bishop waves his hand—the quickest of dismissive motions—and the guns behind him instantly disappear.
    Finally.
    Except the one trained on me.
    “One small thing.” The Bishop looks me over, searchingly, until I wish I could disappear.
    Still, the light and the gun stay targeted on me.
    It’s me. I’m the small thing.
    And