Lord of Order by Brett Riley (the reading list book TXT) 📕

my soul. If I can’t, at least they’ll be in hell a few minutes longer than me.

He raised the pliers.

But Clemens caught his hand. No. We’re done with teeth.

Boudreaux tensed. His free hand balled into a fist.

A knock at the door. Benn opened it. Half a dozen armed guards stood in the hall.

Despair clenched Boudreaux’s guts with icy claws. Too many guns to assure the deputy envoys died. Surely even his godforsaken life was worth more than a half sacrifice.

His fist unballed.

Yes? Benn said to the guards.

Message from Mister Royster, said the leader, a man of medium build and middle age and a scarred, weather-beaten face. After you’re done here, you’re to ride straight to his office for debriefing. No stops.

Certainly, Benn said. Have you gentlemen ever seen an interrogation like this?

No, sir.

Well, come and watch. You may need to perform one someday.

The guards entered and crowded around the island. Their body heat, their sour sweat wafted in the close quarters. Half of them grinned. The others showed no emotion at all.

Watch this, said Clemens. He bent over the table and unbuttoned Potrello’s pants and yanked them down, exposing the man’s genitals, which looked as shriveled as the rest of him, the scrotum retreating into a patchy nest of pubic hair, the penis a dead worm on a hot thoroughfare. Clemens grabbed Boudreaux’s hand and fit the pliers around Potrello’s scrotum. Then the deputy envoy stepped back. Now we’ll see how badly he wants to hold on to his sin.

Potrello stared at the ceiling, eyes sunken. His mouth worked as if he were gumming a piece of steak. Perhaps he prayed.

A tear slid down Boudreaux’s cheek.

Potrello found the strength to scream again after all.

21

In the square, the sun blazed on grooms and landscapers, guards and pedestrians ambulating through their prosaic lives. Lisander Royster watched them all through his window. Sweat covered every inch of the envoy’s body, but he had never felt more refreshed. Foul Troubler pollution poured into New Orleans, which would soon become the world’s grandest chamber pot. Moreover, according to Mister Clemens, Gordon Boudreaux had made great strides as an interrogator. When Troublers raise their filthy heads from the globe’s gutters after the coming Purge, Mister Rook will have another loyal man who can make anyone talk or send them to hell knowing what pain really means. Ford and Long had proven their loyalty. Benn had found Troy’s blood at the spot where he jumped. Half the town had seen him run to ground. The other half had no doubt heard of it. Another blow to the Troubler cause, another demonstration of the Crusade’s might. The only danger lay in those who might see the lord of order as a martyr.

We will not make that mistake with Hobbes and Tetweiller. We needed the symbolic value of disgracing Troy publicly, and he took advantage of that, perhaps salvaging some measure of dignity in death. We will neutralize the others quietly and without violence. They can roast in this hellish heat and then drown with their fellows. New Orleans belongs to the Crusade.

The plan for the new Purge had, at first, seemed dangerous, perhaps even insane. Even God Himself had destroyed the world only once. The Scriptures spelled that out, even the ones deemed safe for public study. The original Purge had been the global catastrophe prophesied in John’s great Revelation. Jonas Strickland had simply given the apocalypse a little nudge. Ever since, the Crusade had controlled the earth in God’s name. The Troublers had been marginalized, hunted, purified through pain. Why did the world require a third cleansing? Royster had prayed about it, meditated, consulted the Crusade’s histories and the Scriptures. In the end, he had come to realize what he should have known all along—that Matthew Rook had been chosen for a reason. His will was commensurate with God’s. Questioning him was heresy. Royster had spent three days fasting in his chambers, scourging himself, and praying for forgiveness. And when he emerged, he had been broken anew on the wheel of the Lord’s pleasure.

Now he watched the blessed and the doomed milling together. Father, I pray their hearts are right with You, because most of them will face Your judgment right soon. I will send them to You myself, in Your name and in the name of Matthew Rook.

Had Gabriel Troy faced a similar crisis of conscience? Probably, but he had failed his test. He had pretended to serve the Crusade, but he had loved this city more. Now he almost certainly lay at the bottom of the river, food for fish, flotsam in the currents. Good riddance.

Benn entered. Report, Royster said.

Yes, sir. The crews have completed approximately sixty percent of the wall. Lord Rook was wise to have ordered the sections constructed all those months ago.

Of course he was. What else?

The rest of the Troublers and their guards will arrive as scheduled. No one reports any significant obstacles or delays.

Good. And Hobbes? The old man?

Within the hour, they will be neutralized.

Royster smiled.

Boudreaux stumbled out of the interrogation chamber and through the holding facility. Prisoners jeered or begged for release or simply lay staring at the walls and moaning. Outside, the sky clear and beautiful, the young deputy lord ran to the side of the building and vomited a ghastly stew of bile and water and half-dissolved bread. Then he straightened and stumbled to the hitching post, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He untied his horse and saddled up and rode through the streets, ignoring everyone who spoke or saluted or threatened to kill him if I ever get outta these goddam chains. The horse carried him home through a city buzzing with miserable, gibbering half-life. As the sun set, they reached his yard, where he unsaddled the horse and hitched it. The saddle he dumped on the porch, waving the grooms away. It could sit there all night. Who would dare take it?

He left the door open