False Idols (After the Apocalypse Book #3)

Prologue

I'd never meant to start a war and yet, as I sat at the edge of the small clearing that separated the Cube from the outside world, Seth had made it impossible for me to deny the nightmare I'd helped set into motion.

"How does it feel to come home?"

"I don't have a home anymore." I glanced over my right shoulder to see Gauge standing a couple of steps behind me. He studied the massive concrete block structure in front of us with obvious curiosity. He didn't look scared. Good for him. I was terrified. "Home died with my mom."

Gauge sighed and sank down in the soft grass beside me. "You've got to forgive Seth eventually, Pilar. Killing her was the most merciful thing he could have done for either one of you."

"I have forgiven Seth." I stared down at the laces of my heavy, steel-toed black leather boots. "You asked about my home. The Cube isn't home without my parents. I don't have a home anymore."

"I gotcha." Gauge looked like a sheepdog with his too long, floppy blonde hair and wide-set hazel eyes. "The Underground was the closest thing I've ever had to a home. It's a pile of ash now, so I guess we're kind of in the same boat."

"Seth's boat."

"Seth's boat," Gauge confirmed. "Never in a million years would I have thought I'd wind up throwing my lot in with the High Priest of the Church of Chaos."

"Or pledging your loyalty to the Church?"

"Or that." Gauge held out his forearm and stared at it unhappily before reaching to the knife sheath at his ankle and pulling out a small blade. "Seth wants me to mark myself before we go into the Cube."

"Are you scared?" I asked.

"Terrified," he confirmed.

"It's not too late for you to change your mind," I said.

"Seth says I might already be Changed and not even know it." Gauge held the blade of the small, wickedly sharp knife just above the soft inner skin of his forearm.

"Is that possible?" It was a scary thought.

Gauge pressed the tip of the knife down into his skin. Blood welled up from the wound as he drew a long, deep line through his own flesh. "He told me to make sure to cut deep. He says shallow wounds will still heal even if you are Changed. Evidently its the deep wounds that tell the truth."

I watched the blood continue to pour of the cut. It ran down his arm in streams.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"I don't think Seth feels pain," I said.

"I don't think that particular quality is part of the Change itself. I'm more inclined to say it's part of Seth's act." Gauge nearly smiled as he used the knife to make a second cut on his arm. This one was perpendicular to the first cut. He'd turned the cuts into the symbol of a cross. The mark of the Church of Chaos.

"Seth's act...yeah. That." I turned away so I didn't have to watch Gauge bleed. "Do you really think he's a god?"

"Hell no." Gauge actually laughed. "I used to think he was the boogeyman, but that was before it got personal between us. Seth's not a monster. He's just terrifyingly practical. Survival is his main goal. He doesn't really care much about how he survives."

"His lack of respect for human life is pretty much my least favorite personality trait." It was hard not to think about how calm Seth had been when he'd decapitated my mother. I'd forgiven him, yes. Forgotten? Not so much, no. I highly doubted that I'd ever be able to forget the way the blade of Seth's sword had cut so neatly through my mother's neck at the base of her spine.