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“Indeed,” said Mather, impassive. “Would anyone else like to act out of turn?” Cold eyes surveyed the line. “No? Very well.”

He nodded—Buckeye assumed to the other priests or guards, since the gesture meant nothing to her—and began to speak.

“My name is Elijah Mather,” he said, “and I’ve brought you to Virtue for a very specific purpose.”

Virtue? The fucking capital of New Covenant? Buckeye was feeling lightheaded, and not just because she hadn’t eaten in over a day.

Sharp tugs came to the back of her jacket. She glanced to the activity at her side and saw the priests were working at buckles and straps all down the row.

“The vices always sell,” he went on. “Isn’t that what you sinners like to say? It’s a shame you happen to be correct, on this one point, at least. The Devil is always at work in the world, is he not?”

Wait, Elijah Mather?

The straps came loose, and Buckeye’s arms fell, aching like they never had.

The head of the church in Virtue. Even in the VT, people knew that name. Knew it and said it with a shudder. Titles escaped her, but if anyone had the last word in the functioning of New Covenant, it was a man named Elijah Mather.

This man.

More fabric yanking between her legs before a relief of pressure. It was no relief at all. The priest at her back came around and began pulling sleeves off limp arms.

“And yes, the Church is well aware we have citizens sneaking under the wall in pursuit of their own earthly imperfections. These are the realities of the sinful nature of Man with which we must contend.”

Now the gag, picked apart at the back of her skull with little care. Buckeye worked her tongue and jaw when it came free. The man she’d heard nightmare stories about began to stroll along the line of Vicers.

“But some of these are men of the cloth,” he continued. “ ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’ We cannot have this.”

He stopped in front of Buckeye and made pointed eye contact with the priest behind her. She could swear she heard the man swallow. Mather moved on in his slow pacing.

“The wages of sin is death,” he said. “We will not have our clergy, our most holy beacons of righteous behavior, caught smuggling themselves into your godless waste. For our flock to see them fouling their minds with herbs. Fighting. Fornicating.”

At the last word, he turned to face them once more. “But again, we are all too familiar with humanity. When our ordained brothers are tempted, they will purge themselves here. Not where their transgressions may be caught out and damage the Covenant.”

A cloud had been building from the moment Buckeye had figured out they were all lustworkers. All but her. The first few raindrops spattered.

“You are here to serve the Church in this capacity,” he said.

Lightning. Black rain.

“Most of you”—he eyed Buckeye—“have experience in this manner of service. The difference will be purpose. And payment.”

Mather faced them in silence for some time, eyes stopping on this face or that to take some interest known only to him. Buckeye shifted, bitterly glad of her plain clothes for once. She was far more covered than her peers. Some of them exchanged looks.

Unless she misunderstood, the church wanted VT whores … to use as sex pressure valves? The memory of that mint-acrid drug, the rampant lust in the back of the truck, came spiking into the base of her skull, tensing her jaw.

As though he’d cleared away some minor item of business from a list, Mather nodded and moved on, indifferent to the carnage he’d left in his path.

“Your given names are irrelevant,” he said. “The Church will know you as servants and will address you as such. If I require you to speak, you will address me as ‘Father’.”

Like hell, I’m ever gonna call this sonofobitch ‘Father’.

His eyes narrowed, and his head swiveled in her direction. As if he’d heard her thoughts.

“In New Covenant, we serve the Church. Obedience is service.” He took a pointed glance at the guards and their batons. “I believe we’ve seen what disobedience looks like.”

A squeaking hiccough came from one of the women to her left. It sounded like a sob.

So. It was fuck or be fucked. And not in the fun way.