Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

She said, ‘Answer me.’

‘Yes,’ he sobbed. ‘Yes, I see.’

‘Come with me.’

She took him by the hand, helped him to his feet, and led him out of the small antechamber. They moved through the long shadow down a corridor, then Maeve opened a door insulated with soundproofing material. It was deliberate foresight. Disciples-to-be completed their initiation in the sacristy of the church in perceived silence, and when the Bodhi peaked in their brain they were introduced to the sensory assault of the main space. Having never heard a peep beforehand, they became convinced that the procession had descended from the heavens.

Maeve led the bald man up onto the altar, so he could see the transept and the nave.

A sea of disciples, maybe two hundred strong, filled the pews.

The chant was deafening, every syllable synchronised, the power of their collective voices appearing to shake the room.

‘MOTHER, AWAKEN!’

‘MOTHER, AWAKEN!’

‘MOTHER, AWAKEN!’

The bald man cried more tears than he ever thought he could.

Maeve gripped his throat again and pulled him close so she could speak into his ear. ‘Join them.’

A wide-eyed woman in the front row beckoned. The bald man descended the steps at the front of the altar and walked up to her. He took her hand and lifted his free hand to the sky. He joined the chant, screaming his lungs out.

The faint aroma of body odour seeped through the hall — no one but Maeve noticed. In the grip of ecstasy, ordinary cleanliness falls aside, and she didn’t blame her disciples for their neglect. What they lacked in presentability they more than made up for in raw untamed passion for the cause.

And that, she knew, was all that was vital.

A soft hand pressed down on her shoulder. If it was anyone else it would have been punishable by immediate self-flagellation, but she knew the touch of her husband without having to turn. It didn’t surprise her that he was there, watching from the shadows of the perimeter, refusing to join the chanting. His role in the organisation mirrored what the KGB achieved so effectively in Soviet Russia.

What’s the use of all that devotion if dissidents have the ability to tear belief apart at the seams?

Dane Riordan leant in close so she could hear him above the furore and said, ‘A word.’

She followed him back into the sacristy, sealing them off from bass-rich bellows of, ‘MOTHER, AWAKEN!’

Before they made it to her office, she turned in the middle of the corridor.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Is this important?’

‘I chased up the family situation of the newbie, as you asked.’

‘And?’

‘Parents won’t miss him. The father’s a copper miner and the mother’s an opiate addict. Neither have the energy to worry about anything other than their job and their next hit respectively. It’s backbreaking work in the mines, and it’s backbreaking work selling yourself for another pain pill.’

‘This is all wonderful,’ Maeve said, accentuating the sarcasm, ‘but why’s it made it to my ears?’

‘Because that was only context leading up to the sister. She’s worried sick.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Her name’s Karlie. She’s twenty-four, a janitor in—’

‘Where is she now?’ Maeve said, colder.

Superfluous details had no purpose.

Dane smirked. ‘Taking no shit today, huh? She’s at the motel in Gillette.’

‘Which one?’

‘Ours.’

‘Coincidence?’

‘Yes. She’s not a major problem. She’s just nosy. Quizzing locals for information, putting out feelers. She won’t find anything, and she’ll go south back to Laramie eventually.’

‘If we let her off the hook she might make too much noise. Better if our business model isn’t even discussed in quiet whispers. And if there’s a chain of noisemakers, then there’s a pattern.’

Dane said, ‘I really think—’

She seared him with her gaze. ‘You’re getting soft on me? After all we’ve built?’

‘No.’

‘Get it done. Give Wyatt what he needs.’

‘Okay.’

‘Anything else?’

His eyes said I’d like you to reconsider but his lips remained sealed.

Finally he said, ‘I’ll give the orders.’

‘Good. Send two of our most ardent fanatics. Be sure they make it quick.’

Dane nodded and bled away, heading for the quiet of the office.

Maeve returned to her disciples.

Brandon said, ‘Room 46, right?’

From the driver’s seat of the old Ford pickup he looked at the motel across the street. It was a single-storey number, built half a century ago, maintained by the owner with scrupulous care over the majority of his adult life. Wyatt Nelson ran a one-man operation, handling all the administration and room service himself, figuring if he had the time to take care of everything it’d only be lazy to hire help. It was dark in Gillette, the sun disappearing hours previously, and only two windows blazed in the motel’s facade.

The “Vacancy” sign burned bright neon in the night.

In the passenger seat, Addison said, ‘Yup. 46.’

They glanced at each other.

Brandon was four years her junior — nineteen to her twenty-three — but she’d always treated him like the big brother. He had initiative and she had impulse; he had foresight and forward thinking and she had an unending desire for instant gratification. He’d taken care of her when their parents hadn’t, and six months ago when he’d spoken of a revolutionary movement hidden in the grasslands south-east of Gillette, she’d taken it at face value. Now she wasn’t so sure, but it was far too late for doubt.

Brandon was all-in, and she pretended she was, too, mostly because she had no idea what she’d do without him.

Partly because she was hooked.

When she went a day or so without Bodhi, she became edgy, reactive, riddled with anxiety. Brandon — and the rest of Mother Libertas — told her it was a subconscious desire for further enlightenment. She’d seen withdrawal symptoms before, and there was nothing enlightening about them, but it wasn’t enough to be aware that the stuff was terrible for her. Addicts know they’re destroying their bodies and brains, but they do it anyway.

So she went back for Bodhi again and again, and dulled the side effects with follow-up doses.

The stuff was so damn good that she’d stopped feeling guilty about her silence. She had