Listening close by, Rowena looked both shocked and hurt by these words but she recovered quickly.
If that's some kind of big honor he just bestowed on us, I thought, he can keep it.
Felicity slipped her hand into mine and gave it a squeeze. She was obviously just as scared by this turn of events as I was.
“Rowena, please show them to my quarters and stay with them,” Bryan said. “I will be along after I have a word with Darren.”
“As you wish,” she said, then turned to us. “Follow me.”
We were marched back out at gun point and across the yard to another entrance. On our way out I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of Darren sulking in and kneeling before Bryan Crowe.
Chapter Nineteen
“So what's the deal with that guy Darren?” I asked, picking at the edges of the hem of my new clothes.
“He was kinda like my first boyfriend,” Felicity said.
“You sure know how to pick em,” I replied.
We were sitting in a large waiting room full of sofas and chairs. There were crosses on the walls and a Bible in the corner, but nothing else. No television, no reading material, nothing to occupy us except ourselves and our own thoughts.
After we were led off to Bryan Crowe's private mansion and guest quarters, we were separated and treated to our own private tour of the immediate grounds. My guide was a kid about a year younger than me named Jonah. He was perfectly brainwashed to give the most banal sort of answer to any question I could come up with. He rattled off the great history of their leader, talking about his trials in the desert and how they mirrored the tales of Christ in the Bible. Jonah told me that Crowe was drawn to this special land by an angel of the Lord, that he settled here and prepared for the end of days as instructed by God. I did my best to follow along, but I was pretty bored after ten minutes. I started asking questions about the way things worked and what they thought the rest of the world was doing, trying to catch Jonah off guard and get him off topic, but he didn't budge.
“You can't trip me up with your worldly questions,” Jonah patiently explained. “I am a child of God now.” I hated him with an unnatural intensity after that. I half wished a zombie would come along and bite him so I could do the honors of sending him off to his redeemer.
“I see,” I answered, “but aren't we all God's children, no matter what religion we practice?” He glared at me. I was certain that it was only a matter of time until I was escorted to a mass grave site where troublesome visitors were disposed of. Instead I was taken to a private showering area and left to get clean, despite my numerous protests that I didn't need another shower. I wasn't really comfortable so I just splashed some water on myself and washed my face.
When I got out I found all my clothing gone. Instead, a neat new pile of bright white sheets that had been stitched into garments awaited me with my katana sitting on top.
Smooth move, I thought. Sneak in and snatch my clothes but leave my weapon. Smarter than you know. I would have torn this place apart to get it back.
I picked the garments up and held them out in front of me.
“What are we going to, a Klan rally?” I mumbled.
They fit well enough and since I didn't have any other options, I put them on. It felt like I was wearing a cheap Halloween costume.
“Where are my clothes?” I asked when I came out of the bathroom to find Jonah patiently waiting for me.
“Civilian clothing is not appropriate for tonight's festivities,” Jonah replied with a smile. “Your street clothes will be returned to you in the morning.”
I was tempted to say something smartass like don't forget to use starch but I held it in. I just stared at him instead, trying to make the moment as uncomfortable as possible. They were keeping us as prisoners but kept acting like we'd actually chosen this. It was the least they deserved.
Jonah led me to the waiting room where I found Felicity wearing an equally disastrous pair of bed sheets stitched into the shape of an ugly dress. If this had been an episode of Project Runway the designer would have been cruelly excoriated, then sent home weeping. I tried not so successfully to stifle back a giggle. Felicity shot me a nasty glance for a warning.
“Hey,” I said, turning to Jonah. “When are we going to eat? I am starving and you've separated us from our resources.”
“Someone will be along shortly to take you to the feast,” Jonah said. “Have a blessed night.”
“Oh and you too, buddy,” I said flashing him a fake smile. “Mahalo.”
He retreated out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I could hear the lock click into place.
Great, I thought. Once again I'm locked up like a caged animal. How do I keep getting myself into these situations?
After some time had passed and we realized we were probably alone, I took up the subject of Darren with her. She hadn't seemed to want to talk about him much, but I had lots of questions. She tried her best to answer my inquiries in single word replies but I wasn't backing down.
“He seems a lot older than you,” I said, referring to Darren. “That's all.” A little voice in my head reminded me that just a few hours ago I thought Darren looked the same age as me. I promptly invited that little voice to shut the hell up.
“He was a senior in high school and I was still in junior high,” Felicity said. “It was before my acting career took off. It feels like forever ago.”
“Creepy,” I said. “What kind of guy goes for a girl that young?”
“He is actually one of the sweetest, most genuine people I've ever met,” Felicity fired back sounding annoyed by my persistent line of questioning. “It's a small town with small town values. There was nothing creepy about it.”
“If you say so,” I said, trying to fight off my obvious jealousy. “He just seems a little weird.”
“Besides,” Felicity said, ignoring my taunt, “all we ever did was hold hands. We never even kissed.”
“Never?”
“Not once,” she said. “Are you satisfied? Can we stop playing Spanish Inquisition now?”
“No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition,” I said in a high falsetto voice but instead of laughing, she just smirked. I was really under her skin today.
Does that mean she wishes she had kissed him? a little voice in the back of my head asked. I shouted it down yet again. I was disgusted with myself. Less than a week ago she didn't exist and all that mattered was getting Benji to the safety of the base. Now I had no idea where Benji was or if he was safe and I was thinking about Felicity way too much for my own good.
“What do you know about this Bryan Crowe guy?” I asked switching gears. “He is supposed to be the Messiah according to my new best friend, Jonah, but I don't recall the Bible saying anything about Jesus holding people against their will at gunpoint.”
“He may not remember me, but I remember him,” Felicity said, shaking off a tremor that ran through her. “I was six years old and my friend Caley was having a birthday party. It was a big deal since her family was what we used to call wealthy back then. What?” She had turned to me when I made a face.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “It's just hard to think that there was a time in your life when you weren't rich and famous.”
“I grew up dirt poor out here,” Felicity protested. “My mom and my sister and I didn't have much after my dad left. We moved out here because it was cheap and we lived in a rented mobile home for the first year after the divorce. I remember my only toy was a half melted Barbie with no clothes that I found abandoned in the sand lot. My mom cleaned her up and sewed her some new outfits. They weren't much better than what we are wearing now, but they meant the world to me.”
“That must have been tough,” I said.
“It was,” she admitted, looking up and making eye contact with me. “Anyway, most of my grade school class was there. Bryan Crowe showed up to do magic tricks and make balloon animals for all the kids. It was a perfect day with a piñata and cak
e, but it ended strange. There was some commotion and then my mom came to get me and all the kids left at once.”
“What happened?”
“One of the kids had gone missing for over half an hour,” Felicity said. “They found her out near the stables with Bryan Crowe. Her dress was torn. She was eight.”
“So why didn't they put him in jail then and there?”
“They tried but they didn't have any proof of wrong doing,” Felicity said. “The girl didn't have any signs of abuse. She said she went to the stables on her own to look at the horses and he found her there. She said he just talked to her but she couldn't remember about what. She didn't know how her dress got torn. The police questioned the rest of us but nothing ever came of it. That was the end of his career as a kid's party entertainer though.”
“I'll bet,” I said. “I'm sure word got around pretty fast after something like that. I’m surprised that he wasn't at least run out of town.”
I expected her to argue about how easy going and permissive Ojai was, but her brow furrowed instead and she looked really upset.
“I started having nightmares about him,” she said. “I couldn't close my eyes without seeing him waiting for me in the dark in a clown costume. It got really bad. One day I begged my mom to tell me about him. I thought if she made him seem more human to me, I could get past my irrational fear.”
“What did she say?”
“At first she wouldn't tell me anything,” she said.
“That must have been frustrating,” I offered, trying to move the story along. I wanted to know as much about this guy as I could. What were his weaknesses, aside from young girls?
“She told me it wasn't appropriate for kids. But I stuck with it, bugging her the way only a child can, and eventually she caved,” she said. “She told me that he was a drifter. She said she didn't know where he was originally from, that no one did, but everyone knew he arrived from Vegas as a failed magician. He'd gone there to show his act on the strip and had fallen flat on his face. Shortly after the incident at Caley's party, he reinvented himself again.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “he became the Chosen One?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “He set up in the old Jehovah's Witness church and began preaching about peace and love.”
“I can't believe anyone would even show up,” I said. “I'm going out on a limb since I've never seen him pull a rabbit out of his hat but I'm guessing his second coming routine is only slightly worse than his card tricks.”
“Are you kidding?” A fiery spark shone in her eyes as she recalled details from her pre-celebrity childhood. “This is Ojai, land of burnouts and hippies. He had an immediate following. They loved him! He stopped wearing black clothes and trying to look like Cris Angel and started looking more like a Biblical prophet with that ridiculous beard.”
“So what happened?”
“He set up a commune in the woods,” she said. “People came from all over the world and lived there. You would see them dressed in white rags like the ones we’re wearing now, coming and going by foot into town. They were always smiling these big creepy smiles like they were loaded out of their minds.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “it didn't last. Something went wrong.”
“Sort of,” she answered. “At first it was quiet up in their commune. Everyone kept expecting something to happen, a sex scandal, a mass suicide, just something . . . but it never did. Eventually we just accepted them. They were another strange part of our crazy little town. Weird but harmless.”
“And then?”
“And then the kidnappings began,” Felicity said.
“Gee,” I blurted out, looking around the room, “why am I not surprised to hear that?”
“No,” she said, “you've got it wrong. It's the other way around. People began kidnapping his followers.”
“Who would want to do that?”
“Friends and family members of his devotees,” she explained. “It was in the national news. A rich heiress came to hear him speak one night and refused to leave. She gave everything she owned to him and became a true believer. Her parents were mortified. They hired a team of cult deprogrammers to kidnap her and undo the brainwashing.”
“Did this happen a lot or was it just the one incident?”
“That was the tip of the iceberg,” she continued “The heiress eventually went back to him. After that, it started happening all the time. Then Nightline did a special on it.”
“That's crazy,” I said. “I’m surprised I've never heard of him before.”
“So am I,” she said. “He was pretty famous for a while. I remember being on location in Mexico and watching a repeat of a program about him on the crime channel on satellite television. It all seems like a strange dream now.”
“Or this is,” I said. “But I know what you mean. So what happened then?”
“It got to the point where any time you'd see a white van in town you got to wondering if there was a paid team of exit counselors hiding inside,” she told me. “Some of the people rescued starting telling stories about devotees being forced to take drugs and about group marriages conducted by the prophet. They said he had several brides.”
“So why didn't the government step in and do something?”
“They did,” Felicity said. “They came in with armed SWAT and raided the compound. They hauled Bryan off to jail, practically parading him around town like some kind of martyr. The only problem is, they didn't find anything.”
“Did someone tip him off they were coming?”
“Maybe,” she mused. “Who knows? All I know is that they questioned his followers and in the end they didn't have anything to hold him on except a few misdemeanor permit violations that got dropped. All it did was make his faithful all the more devoted.”
“That's probably when they started arming up,” I said.
“Makes sense,” she replied. “But that was almost ten years ago. I can't imagine how much artillery they'd have by now.”
“Enough to keep us in line,” I offered. “So what do we do?”
“We could fight our way out,” she suggested. “We might not be able to get the SUV back but we could find Benji and head out on foot.”
“Don't think it didn't cross my mind,” I said. “They would cut us to pieces, starting with that chick Rowena. Plus we have no idea where Benji is or what state he’s in. For all we know, they’re holding him hostage to get us to behave. I think it's strange he's not here now.”
“Well we can't just stay here forever,” she argued. “Who knows what he'll do to us, to me?”
I realized for the first time that she was truly scared of him, of what he might try to do to her as a young woman. If he liked young girls ten years ago chances are his habits hadn't changed much.
“We're going to have to go along with whatever he has planned,” I said. “At least for the time being until we can figure out an escape plan. Try to blend in, I guess.”
“Xander,” she said with big pleading eyes. “I can't.”
“I'm not saying you should offer yourself to him,” I said quickly. “That's not what I meant at all. I'm just suggesting we start to give him the impression that he is winning us over to his freaky religion long enough to figure out how we are getting the hell out of here.”
“That's like playing with fire,” she cautioned. “You know that right? A guy like Bryan Crowe can't be reasoned with. You can't cut a deal with him. In the end, all Bryan cares about is twisting and distorting reality until it fits the way he wants the world to be—his own.”
Before we could argue, the door was opened and Rowena came in toting her automatic weapon.
“It's time,” she spat in disgust at the sight of us. “Get up and get moving.
Chapter Twenty
We were marched out back across the main entrance again. I noticed right away that our vehicle was gone. Great, I thought. Any chance of jumping in and escaping was now long gone. I knew it wouldn't be th
at easy but still it sucked to have my suspicions confirmed.
Rowena led us to a large outdoor area with cooking pits. There were six banquet style tables nearby that looked like they had been hewn out of large trees, then sanded down and made into tables by a master craftsman. The ground was comprised of soft, dusty brown dirt with not a single rock or pine needle to catch your foot on. It was as level as the tables. The sun had set and at first the only light I could make out was coming from the pits. Then, as my eyes adjusted I saw that there were low level lights on all the trees and structures. I squinted, trying to make out what they were when I heard Bryan's ominous voice wash over me like a bucket of ice water.
“Bioluminescence,” he said. “It's a natural, chemical reaction similar to the kind found in fireflies, only we use a special kind of concentrated bacteria that we cultivate ourselves. It's called Luciferase, ironically enough. It's taken from Satan's original name when he was an angel—Lucifer, which means light bearer. He was the most beloved of all the angels once upon a time. Then things changed. I see you are dressed for a night of festivities.”
Bryan stepped forward into the light to greet us.
“Where is Benji?” I asked gruffly. My rudeness didn't throw him off a bit. He was in good spirits.
“He is around,” Bryan said. “He's been playing a fierce game of capture the flag with the other kids. They've really taken to him.”
“Benji has that effect on people,” I said. “He's a great kid.”
“I agree,” Bryan replied. “Come now, join me at my table as my honored guests.”
Rowena fell back as we willingly followed Bryan to the middle table and sat down. There were six young girls seated with him. I looked to Felicity to see that her features had hardened. She glared at Bryan. Before we could say anything, he let out a laugh that seemed to set Felicity more on edge.
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