Chapter Text
at the shrine of your lies
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
My name is Marco.
And I was getting really sick of the smell of bars.
I avoided the front entrance entirely, because despite my incredible wit and dashing good looks, I was still pretty easily identifiable as a teenager. No point in making the cops think I was actually trying to get inside for some juvenile delinquency.
Man, I wish my life had time for run-of-the-mill juvenile delinquency. I would be such a good delinquent.
As it stood, though, I was just one lone kid shivering from the brisk January air in the middle of an alley that had definitely seen better days. I knocked on the green metal door and waited, eyeing a rat huddled next to some soggy pizza boxes.
After a few moments, the door creaked open, and Julius poked his head out. “Eh, Marco,” he greeted, giving me a familiar nod. “Here again?”
“I’ll just be a minute,” I answered.
“Alright,” Julius said, opening the door a bit wider and ushering me in. Julius was a pretty big guy, with shoulders that resembled a mack truck more than most people. His eyes and skin were both darker than Cassie’s, and he kept his hair cut short in a military cut. “But I’m not letting you go out there tonight. I’ll go get him.”
“It’s no big deal—,” I began, glancing around him to see if I could see into the bar.
“No,” Julius said. His tone made him sound way more serious than our previous, easygoing conversations had been, and I gave him a weird look. He sighed. “Look, there are a couple of real lowlifes hanging around tonight, and I don’t want you near them. I can get your old man.”
I stopped trying to get around him, recognizing the warning for what it was, but I had to ask, “Have they been hanging around my dad, too?”
“They’ve been trying to hang around everyone,” Julius answered vaguely, turning around and walking toward the swinging door that led out into the bar. “But I’m less inclined to be worried about him.”
He left before I could reply. I sat down on a chair beside a tattered folding table, which seemed to be serving as an interim break room, and tried not to feel insulted by Julius’ casual dismissal of my father.
Like I said, my name is Marco. I wish I could tell you my last name, or where I live, but I have a whole double life when I’m not picking my dad up from the neighborhood bar, though it seems like I’m doing that every other day now. My secret life is much more interesting and dangerous, but both seem to be equally as depressing sometimes.
So, cliff notes version: aliens exist, and some of them are trying to take over Earth. These particular aliens are called Yeerks, and they look like nasty garden slugs. They can infest people and control everything they do – it’s like invasion of the body snatchers, but weirder and way scarier.
Luckily, some other alien was on the human side, and he decided to help us out before he was brutally killed. He gave my friends and I the power to change into animals to help fight the invasion. We turn into tigers and bears and gorillas and attack the Yeerk operations. With our claws. Against their many guns and ships and laser weapons.
Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds.
Unfortunately, it’s also exactly as dangerous as it sounds. But we’re not really spoiled for choice.
And in the time I have remaining where I’m not actively trying to die via alien warfare, I get to track down my dad. Who has somehow gone from bad to worse when it comes to dealing with his grief.
See, my mom disappeared almost three years ago, and my dad took it pretty hard. He lost his job, and we had to move into this pretty crappy apartment. For a while, he was like a zombie. He worked part-time jobs and made just enough for food and rent, and spent most of his time camped out on the couch. I spent most of my time doing all the chores and wishing he’d snap out of it.
About six months ago, Dad tried to pull it around. He contacted his old boss, but he’d been out of the field for too long and they didn’t have a position for him. A week after that, the company he contracted with for his janitor job had to terminate his contract. They had been bought out by a bigger company, which apparently didn’t have any custodial needs.
Dad took the loss of his job way harder than any of the others he’d lost in the past few years. For awhile, it looked like he was going to fall back into his zombie ways, but somewhere along the line, he seemed to have realized that he wasn’t being a good dad by collapsing on the couch all day.
So instead of collapsing on our couch and drinking a little, now my dad collapsed on a bar stool and drank a lot.
Not really an improvement.
“Okay, let’s go,” I heard Julius say as he nudged the swinging doors open with his hip. My dad stumbled along after him, squinting in the light of the kitchen. His eyes looked more bloodshot than usual, and he seemed confused.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. Dad was always decently drunk whenever I came to get him, but he was usually overly emotional and weirdly affectionate. Right now he just looked kind of spaced out and shaky.
“I’m… not sure,” Julius said, trailing off. His brow furrowed. “Maybe he had too much. Those guys aren’t the best drinking buddies.”
I frowned, stepping forward to touch my dad’s shoulder. “Hey, Dad. It’s Marco. Are you… okay? Dad?”
It took a few moments, but Dad slowly blinked and focused down at me. His eyes had dark bags underneath them, from weeks of fitful sleeping, and the florescent lighting in the bar kitchen only made him look ghastly and pale. But for the first time he seemed to focus, and his lips twitched in a partial grin. “Marco?”
“Yeah, it’s Marco,” I said, more relieved than I anticipated. I hated it when he had weird nights; it was hard enough just dealing with my dad’s normal drunken routine, but at least the sloppy drunk act was predictable.
“Marco,” Dad repeated, sounding dreamy. His eyes started drifting again, focusing on the back wall. “Yeah, Marco.”
Sighing, I shifted my grip and pulled Dad toward me, so he slumped against my narrow shoulders instead of leaning on Julius. Better to get him home while he was responding to me, rather than seeing if he’d snap out of it. “All right, come on, Dad.”
“Kid,” Julius said as I began dragging my father toward the back door. I paused, glancing back, and he started to say, “Look, if you need—”
“Thanks, Julius,” I said sharply, turning away and pushing the door open with one hand. My other hand wrapped around my Dad’s back as he leaned against me. I pulled Dad outside into the chilly weather without waiting to listen for Julius’ reply. The light spilled out into the dark alley, highlighting the scattered trash and making the rats scurry hurriedly behind the dumpster.
I really didn’t want to deal with his pity tonight.
So instead I adjusted my grip around my dad and started the slow, lumbering walk home.
--
My dad was still passed out on the couch in the morning when I woke up. That, at least, was in keeping with his norm. He’d go on a bender at the bar, sleep until mid-afternoon the next day, and then have a few days of bleary sobriety before succumbing to the bar yet again.
Sometimes it’s kind of depressing to realize how well I have my dad’s patterns down.
I grabbed a bowl of cereal and paged through my history textbook, trying to will up the urge to care about the quiz I knew we were having in third period. After two minutes of fruitless skimming, I couldn’t even remember what event the quiz was supposed to cover. It all blurred together in my head.
I gave up. It’s not like my grades had been particularly stellar even before I started fighting in a secret guerilla war against aliens, so it’s doubtful my teacher would notice when I bombed the quiz.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts, and I hurriedly shoved the textbook in my backpack, grabbed a hoodie and opened the door.
Jake stood on my front steps, looking as broad and serious as he always did these days.
“Oh no,” I greeted, giving him a dark look.
Jake didn’t laugh, but his eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Marco,” he said, “Good morning to you, too. You look exhausted.”
“Don’t ‘good morning’ me,” I said. “You’re at my house before school.”
“I thought we’d walk together.”
“We never walk together. You live a mile closer to the school than I do. What’s going on?”
“You’re so suspicious nowadays,” Jake accused lightly, a small smirk on his lips. “Maybe I just want to hang out with my friend.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’m the newest member of the Mickey Mouse Club,” I snapped back without thinking. I shut the door behind me and locked it, shoving the keys into the pocket of my jeans, and turned to follow Jake down the walkway.
“Is that a big dream of yours?” Jake asked, grinning like he’d won. “Y’know, all the boy bands got their start there.”
“See, I know you’re trying to make fun of me, but the members of those boy bands are ridiculously rich and famous, so you’d better believe that’s a big dream of mine. I could do without the singing and dancing part, but whatever works, right?”
Jake laughed, and the feeling of dread that had been lingering in my mind since I saw him began to lighten a little bit. For a short while, we walked down the street like normal, and it almost felt like the old days.
But I haven’t survived this long by ignoring the obvious.
“Jake?” I asked as we waited for at a crosswalk for a green light. “Why’d you go a mile out of your way to walk me to school? I know I’m pretty, but it’s a bit ‘clingy boyfriend’ for you. What would Cassie think?”
Jake grinned at the joke, but soon his expression grew serious again. “Do you want the bad reason or the worse reason?”
“Just spit it out.”
“I saw you last night,” Jake said, sounding awkward.
I froze. My voice sounded strange as I asked, “What?”
“At the bar, with your dad,” said Jake. “I followed you there as a rat.”
The light turn green and the little “WALK” symbol lit up white, prompting both of us to start walking across the street. I focused on the ground in front of me, thinking back to the night before, and I said, “You were that rat in the alley.”
“Yeah,” Jake confirmed. Then, in the same level tone, he asked, “Why didn’t you say it had gotten so bad?”
For a long moment, I didn’t say anything. We were making our way through an empty field rather than following the main roads, so no one was around to hear us, but it still seemed incredibly exposed.
“It’s not that bad,” I finally replied. It sounded weak even to me.
“Marco, I was there last night,” Jake said. “You’re on a first-name basis with a cook at a bar you can’t even get into. Your dad—”
I stopped walking, looking Jake straight in the eyes as I said, “My dad is going through some stuff. It’s fine.”
“Marco, it hasn’t been fine since the funeral and you know it.” Jake’s voice got that tone he used when he was trying to sound responsible, which was especially annoying because it actually worked. He grabbed my shoulders and leaned in, matching my gaze. “You shouldn’t be out at midnight in your neighborhood at all, much less to grab your drunk dad off a barstool.”
I shoved Jake away, squirming out of his grasp. Even though I knew he was right, anger burned like fire in my stomach, and I glared at him. “Look, it’s none of your business—”
“Really? What happens when some jerk tries to mug you both and your dad’s too drunk to even stand up?”
“I’ll morph gorilla and kick his butt,” I snapped back, knowing how dumb it sounded. To be honest, there had been a few times that worry had crossed my mind, but the worst we’d encountered so far was a particularly aggressive homeless man wanting some change.
“Oh yeah?” Jake countered. He crossed his arms and gave me a skeptical look. “What happens when your dad wonders how the hell his son is able to change into a gorilla?”
“Please. You said you were there last night. The last thing I’m worried about is my dad having a clear memory of what happens if I ever have to pull the morphing card.”
Jake’s expression only grew darker, and he quietly said, “That’s kind of my point, Marco.”
As much as I wanted to keep fighting about it, my willpower gave up under the weight of Jake’s concerned stare. Sighing, I said, “How exactly did you want this conversation to end, Jake?”
“What do you mean?”
The wind picked up as we stood there, blowing a few dead leaves across the empty field. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I could be anywhere else right now. Jake didn’t say anything else, but just stood there and waited, comfortable in his warmer jacket.
“I mean exactly that,” I said, shrugging and staring at Jake like he was an idiot. “You talk to me about how bad my situation is, which trust me, I know. You think I like going to the bar and seeing him like that? But how is this conversation supposed to help? Do you think if we talk about our feelings my dad will suddenly figure his life out, stop drinking and get a steady job?”
“No,” Jake said reasonably, looking a bit abashed by my straightforward response. “But at least you could have someone to talk to.”
“About what? Like you said, man, this has been going on for almost three years now. I’m used to it,” I said.
“It hasn’t been this bad for three years. Like I said,” Jake mimicked, “You didn’t used to have to go get him from a bar stool at midnight. He was distant, but he had a job. He was getting better. Now it’s like he’s given up completely.”
I looked away from him, gazing across the field at the buildings in the distance. I could just barely see the bright yellow line of school buses that lined the back of the school in the mornings. We were probably going to be late at this point, and standing still out in the cold wind wasn’t exactly helping the matter.
Finally, I sighed and said, “Don’t you think we have more important things to be worried about right now?”
“More important than your life?” Jake asked.
“Oh, stop being melodramatic. At least, not about this. We have plenty to be melodramatic about, we really don’t need to add my terrible home life to it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Besides, it’s pointless.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I reiterated. “Because there’s no solution to my problem, Jake. I can’t make my dad get a job or stop drinking. The best I can do is make sure he gets home safe and doesn’t get arrested. What else can I do? If he gets arrested or someone decides to call CPS on him, I get taken away and sent to a group home or something. And I hear they’re a lot stricter about sneaking out, so you’ll be down an Animorph. Is that really something we need right now?”
I hated throwing that card in his face. Jake didn’t like being the leader of our little superpowered rebel group, even if he was the best candidate for the job, and I didn’t like reminding him that our friendship now had the added burden of tactical warfare. But it was the truth, and he knew as well as I did that our group was too small and desperate to afford taking on any additional issues.
Jake stayed silent as he stared back at me, expression unchanging. In the distance, I heard the familiar sound of the warning bell, which pretty much confirmed that we would be late. After a long moment, during which Jake was clearly conflicted about his response, Jake finally sighed and let his arms drop down to his sides in defeat.
“This isn’t dropped,” he said, which only confirmed my success. “Because I really don’t like it. But there is something else.”
Any pleasure I might have taken from my victory immediately vanished upon hearing his tone. That wasn’t a happy tone. It was definitely a you-might-die tone. I’d heard that tone way, way too often over the past year.
“Oh no,” I said, almost wishing we could go back to the horrible personal questions.
“Oh yes,” Jake replied, digging into his jacket pocket and pulling out a folded sheet of paper. He began walking across the field again and I followed, grabbing the sheet from his hands. “I found this in Tom’s backpack this morning.
I unfolded the paper, feeling my stomach drop as I saw the symbol for The Sharing emblazoned in bold letters at the top of the page. It was a proposal paper for a joint initiative between The Sharing and some of the local religious institutions, discussing the positive benefits of working together on charity drives and other similar activities. Of course, the potential for a whole new flock of hosts wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but it didn’t take much of a leap to make the obvious connection.
“The Sharing is out recruiting again,” Jake explained as I continued scanning the proposal. “Only this time they’re focusing on the local churches.”
--
That afternoon, I found myself in the disturbingly familiar confines of Cassie’s barn. I sat cross-legged on a hay-bale near the door, ostensibly standing watch but really just trying to stay clear of the scent of manure coming from the horse stalls. Cassie was busying herself shoveling out said manure, and Jake was trying to show off his muscles by helping her. Between the two of them, it was pretty obvious which one actually knew what she was doing.
Rachel was standing near the back of the barn, looking up as Tobias flew in. She grinned and waved to him, which had the added benefit of making her look like a crazy bird-lady for a brief moment. Shortly after Tobias landed, Ax peeked his head into the barn, wearing a pair of loose-fitting jeans and an old basketball t-shirt Jake had procured from the floor of his closet.
“Oh, good,” Cassie said, stepping back from the pile of horse crap and setting her shovel down. “My dad’s going to be coming back in an hour, so we have to make this quick.”
<Sorry we took so long,> Tobias said. He preened himself as he continued, <Ax couldn’t find his pants at first.>
“Well, I for one appreciate the extra effort,” I joked half-heartedly. Jake and I had talked about the possible dangers of this mission enough that anxiety was already building in my stomach. The added smell of the barn wasn’t making it much better.
Jake grinned. “All right, we’ll talk fast.” He brought out the same sheet of paper he had shown me this morning, reviewing the highlights of the potential operation. He finished by saying, “Now, this is just a proposal, but we can assume they’re going to start setting the stage now, if they haven’t already.”
“Well, what’s Tom going to think when he goes through his stuff and finds that you took his paper?” Rachel asked, eyeing the form with a frown.
“I only made a copy,” Jake explained, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Dad finally got the machine working.”
“Even if they haven’t started yet, we have to assume they’re going to go through with this,” said Cassie. “If they’re able to get a lock on the religious crowd, that’s a lot of new hosts for them. Not to mention a really good cover. Churches are always recruiting new members, and any changes to schedules or attitudes can easily be explained away as ‘finding the Lord’ or something like that.”
There was a long pause after Cassie spoke. Then Rachel said, “Kind of makes you wonder why they didn’t just start with churches in the first place, really.”
“Would probably have made it easier than making up The Sharing,” I agreed, shrugging. “Doesn’t sound as obviously dumb. Well, for most of them, at least.”
“Is a ‘church’ not what The Sharing is?” Ax asked, tilting his head. “A church is a group. Oop. Of people uniting under similar social values and traditions with the intent of bolstering the community. Munity. Tee. Is that not true? It is what my book said.”
<Not exactly,> Tobias said. <Religion isn’t a social club. Or, well – not entirely. It’s a lot more ritualistic and, uh, meaningful, I guess. I don’t know, my aunt and uncle were never big churchgoers.>
“It’s a ancient set of beliefs,” Jake explained further, looking a bit uncomfortable about having to clarify this particular topic. “Like, believing in a certain higher power, and following rules based on that belief. There are a lot of different reasons people believe in their specific religions, but it’s pretty widespread, and belief in a higher power is one of the key ideas across most of the religions. The Sharing isn’t the same thing – they don’t have the same way of promoting a belief system. It’s more like a community charity club.”
“Or a cult,” I added darkly.
“It does make a little sense why they wouldn’t use churches right away,” Cassie murmured. She had taken the proposal paper from Jake and was staring down at it, brow furrowed. “This way they don’t exclude any potential hosts by promoting one religion over another. See, they’re talking about targeting four different churches, and they’re all different branches.”
“Which ones?” I asked. I hadn’t bothered to read into the body of the paper after reading the opening paragraph this morning, but Cassie had flipped the sheet over to the backside and was scanning the details.
“Um, it looks like… All Saints Lutheran Church, Congregation Beth Israel—”
“I think our cousins go there,” Jake said, glancing at Rachel, who looked distinctly more irritated than she had previously. “It’s a bit further north of us.”
“Um, Aku Ba—Bakr Mas…jid? Aku – the Islamic Center,” Cassie stumbled on the foreign name, looking flustered as she reverted to its alternative name. “My mom has worked with them a few times to sponsor weekend trips to The Gardens for their youth groups, but I’ve never seen their official name.”
<What’s the last one?> Tobias asked, fluttering over to a different crossbeam to read over Cassie’s shoulder. <‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’? Where’s that?>
“About a mile from my house,” I said, heart sinking. I couldn’t help but remember my mother’s face, grinning down at as she pulled me toward the white stone building, where nicely-dressed people streamed in through the big mahogany doors. “I used to go to mass there on Sundays.”
“You? Mass?” Rachel asked, a playful sneer on her lips. “Please don’t try to tell me you’re religious.”
She was clearly waiting for me to snap something clever back at her about being Jewish or whatever, just to cut the tension, but I couldn’t quite will up the desire to spar with her. Instead, I just said, “It’s my mother’s old church. I haven’t been back since the funeral.”
And that pretty much killed any teasing energy left in the room. Funny how mentioning death can have that effect.
Jake was the only one who made eye contact after I made my comment, looking concerned. See, while everyone else was just undergoing the normal ‘he-mentioned-his-dead-mom’ discomfort, Jake was the only person besides me that knew the truth: my mother wasn’t actually dead. Rather, she was the host body for Visser 1, the main leader of the Yeerk forces. The Yeerk had faked her death, most likely to allow her to move about more freely, in a way she couldn’t do when she had a husband and son to fake-love.
I knew my real mom was still there, and saving her was the main reason I kept on with this crazy alien war. But given everything that was going on with my dad, it made sense that Jake would be worried. He had to be concerned that I was going to snap under the strain of dealing with too many personal problems. I understood, of course, but come on – which one of us didn’t have a mound of personal problems? It was considered a strange night if we didn’t wake up screaming from a nightmare, which really said it all.
I just looked at Jake and subtly shook my head, glancing away when Tobias stared down with a piercing look. The last thing I needed was another person getting on my case about my home life, especially considering that Tobias’ own home life had been so crappy he actually got the better end of the deal living as a hawk rather than stay with his uncle any longer.
“Well,” Cassie said awkwardly, shooting me an apologetic smile, “I hate to say this, but starting at Our Lady of Guadalupe might be our best bet. It’s the nearest to us, and if you have experience there, we can probably scope it out a little easier.”
<Not to mention, it’s the closest to The Sharing’s headquarters,> Tobias added. <If they’re going for a test case, it would be the easiest for them to start there, too.>
Rachel stayed uncomfortably silent, eyeing me. I could tell she wanted to just decide on a course of action and be done with it, but I had made the whole mission personal by talking about my mom. Jake stayed quiet too, though his posture seemed much less impatient about it. Ax, for his part, mostly just looked confused.
After a few moments of the tense atmosphere, wherein everyone was either looking at me or obviously trying not to look at me, I rolled my eyes and asked, “Are you guys waiting for me to give the go-ahead to scope out my old church?”
“You’re the one who brought up your mom,” Rachel quipped back, somewhat defensively. It was better than her trying to be sympathetic to me, which I’m sure Rachel knew wouldn’t go over well anyway.
“Fine,” I said, smirking at her despite the growing pit of anxiety churning in my stomach. “If Xena wants me to say it, I’ll say it: let’s do it.”
Sometimes I really hate my life.