We approached a set of double doors, flanked by more security guards, but they were in much better shape than Greg. Also, they were much more heavily armed.
“This is the one.” Greg shoved a thumb in my direction. The man on the right nodded and opened the door.
As I walked through, toward the inner sanctum, I heard people talking loudly. A man sounding firm, and a woman, upset.
“This isn’t good for the church,” he said.
“We know! They’ve gone too far this time. I don’t think we can stop them.”
“Well, you’d better stop them. I don’t know how they’re doing this, but it could ruin everything I’ve built here. I can’t take that chance and you better step in line.”
Some garbled mumbling, then “…thinks it’s our duty to protect Earth, just like you said, at any cost. They’re going after… one at a time. I… I’m afraid, Gardener. She won’t listen to reason. You have to put a stop to this.”
“I never said…” (Mumbling) “Like any good gardener, I will trim away any branch which does not bear me fruit, but I will pray on it. The Lord will give me guidance.”
“Gardener West, people are dying! Even though some are… (mumbling)… The commandments say―” The voice crossed into desperate.
“Shhhh. Shhh. This is different. I’ll figure something out.”
Greg finally pushed past me to pound on the inner office door. It opened, and Gardener West and a young woman stepped out. A little Pele Demon, with the reddish skin and filed-down nubbins where usually there would be black horns like ebony antelope spikes. Some Demons choose to clip their horns as a sign of renouncing their “sinfulness.” She had obviously been crying, and held a wad of white tissue in one hand. She was so small, I wondered if she shopped in the junior Demons department.
“Thank you, Gardener,” she mumbled, glaring at me as she passed. He patted her shoulder and turned to me.
“Ah, you must be Tessa.”
“Agent Reddick, sir.”
He smiled coldly. “Come in.”
“I’ll be right out here, Gardener,” Greg emphasized with a glare. “Just in case.”
“Treesus Christ.” I threw my hands up. “You are the most bigoted, ignorant bunch of jack wagons I’ve ever met. You’re making the Ku Klux Klan look like Bert and Ernie!”
“Listen here, missy―” Greg hoisted his pants up a little higher, his piggy face reddening.
Gardener West put up his hand, and the man was immediately calmed. “Go on about your business, my good man. I am well. Thank you for your service.” Greg nodded and turned on his heel.
West faced me. He was perhaps late forties-early fifties, with gleaming blond hair and intense brown eyes. He wore a tunic and pants of dark green linen and a heavy gold cross, etched with leaves, around his neck.
We stared at each other for a while. I was waiting until he got uncomfortable. He just stood there and watched me, as if he had nothing else to do all day. So then I got uncomfortable, but he broke the silence.
“I am sorry you feel you’ve encountered injustice within our garden.” His voice was like one of those huge wind chimes with the low, low pitch. “We can’t be too careful though.”
“I’m just here to ask some questions.”
He motioned me inside his office, a graceful movement, like a jungle cat on its home turf. The room was done in the same spring grass and earth tones as the rest of the church. Dominating it was a huge desk made of a solid piece of natural wood. A little fountain burbled contentedly on it. “Sit.”
I sat.
“So. You are a Witch. Normally, I would say I harbor no hatred for you. That you are a child of the one true God, born on this beautiful Earth. That no harm will come to you while you are here.” His gazed pierced me. “But you are a cold-blooded killer. And I can barely abide your presence.”
He gazed out the window. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I hadn’t been prepared for that.
He stood back up and came around the desk toward me, bottomless brown eyes meeting mine. All my tattoos went nuts. My skin vibrated and burned. It was as though I’d walked into a den of hungry Original Vampires. I hissed inwardly, kicking myself six ways to Sunday. Why oh why had I waltzed in here without any backup? And what the hell did I have left that I could use for protection besides spells?
“In the name of dearly departed Cara Courtland, I command thee.” His voice was an invitation to drop into a warm, cozy bed with flannel sheets. He took my left shoulder gently and put the palm of his right hand on my forehead, barely touching me, and murmured, “In the name of all the angels in Heaven, I command thee.”
His voice was like a siren call. My vision swam, and suddenly, I wanted to do whatever he said. Whatever he wanted me to do. In that moment, had he asked me to strip and have wild sex on the raw wood desk, I would have done it. Had he asked me to shave my head and become a treevangelist, I would have done it. But my tats kept trying to rip themselves off me, which is never a good sign.
I realized what he was doing and jerked back, West’s expression indignant.
“Your magic voice won’t work on me, buster!” I squirmed out of the chair and his grip.
He stepped back. “I was praying over you, Tessa. Your soul can still be saved.” He reached out for me again, and I slapped his hands away, glaring. By the look on his well-moisturized face, that did not happen often.
“You’re assaulting a federal agent, buddy. So I suggest you sit down and start answering my questions.”
He looked confused.
“Sit down.” I pointed to his desk chair. “So I’m not allowed to spellspeak, but you can? Is that how this works?”
He didn’t look like he was going to do it, but he finally walked around the desk without his eyes leaving my face and sat warily. “It wasn’t a spell. It was a prayer. Besides, you’re in my garden now. You play by my rules.”
“Oh yeah? Well I have a couple rules of my own. First, don’t try to exorcise me. Second, just answer my questions, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
West stared, then nodded. Once.
I lowered myself onto the edge of my chair. “Not that it’s relevant, but I didn’t kill Cara Courtland. Or her crew. I haven’t killed anybody. Ever.”
“Why should I believe you?” Though he was no longer “praying” over me, I still wanted to dive into his voice. It was a struggle to stay on top of things, although my vision had cleared. He was seriously rivaling some Others in his ability to control via his voice. Did he have some powers of his own? Oh, the irony if that were true.
“Let’s start with motive. I am here to question you. Besides, why would I kill a couple of useless Demons and some treevangelists? What reason could I possibly have that is actually logical?”
He frowned slowly and deeply. “You are insane. You are a… you…”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Well, you’re the only one who could… right?”
“How flattering. But no. Not even remotely.” I held up a hand. “Here’s the truth: now that the veil is gone, so much magic shit is flying around, you don’t even know. Is that all you’ve got?”
He looked at me coolly. “You’re trying to make a statement about our church community. Kill our people like it’s nothing. And your own. You don’t value life.”
I rolled my eyes. “And why did I kill the Demons? My own kind, as you say.” Then I sat, letting the silence stretch.
Through his deep frown, he said, “What questions do you have?”
“About your congregants. Specifically, the ones found skinned last weekend.”
“My forest―”
“You call them your forest?” I couldn’t hold back. It sounded ridiculous.
Irritation grew on his face. “Ask your pertinent questions.”
“Okay, as you know, some of your… trees?… were killed early Saturday morning. They were in the home of a Bacchus Demon and in the company of a Demon or three. Do you know who would�
��ve done that? Why they were there in the first place? Together?” I didn’t have my phone, so couldn’t show him pictures or remember all their names.
“I believe those present were part of a Bible study and program that offers hope and encouragement for people to leave the Other lifestyle.”
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He explained patiently. “Sometimes the one true God’s creatures stray from the path. They choose to do magic or give in to their base nature, for example. Or mingle with species different from the ones they were meant for. Our outreach program gently draws them into the garden. So they may live a Christlike life on Earth and be reaped in accordance with the one true God’s will.”
After that comment, it was easier to shrug off whatever mysterious hold he had on me. Focus, Reddick.
“And you think that’s what they were doing?”
“I don’t know. It’s troubling my soul. Cara and the others have been taking matters of this nature into their own hands. Getting a little bit radical, you might say. One of the girls in Cara’s group is a Reform Demon. Her name is Heather. She’s here today, leading the support group for Others wishing to join our forest. She and Cara were very close. They were all good people. Even the Demons. I met them, they were truly trying to let go of their wicked ways.”
“A Reform Demon?”
“People of Otherwhere who have come to Earth and no longer wish to participate in the Other lifestyle. This young woman used to do wicked, horrible things. Now, she’s a regular member of our church. She’s overcome a lot of adversity, and we’ve welcomed her. Talk to Heather. She might be able to help you. Much more than I can.”
My mind was officially blown to bits, so I simply sat.
Finally, West said, “In no way am I connected to the murders of those poor people. Nor do I have an idea of anyone who is. I swear that on the one true God.”
I nodded my recognition of his honesty. He was a lot of things, but he was telling the truth in that moment. That, and he, at least, genuinely bought his own bullshit.
West stood up and went to the window, hands clasped behind his back. The late afternoon sun played on his face. He said almost sadly, “Whoever is not with us is against us.”
A long pause.
“Babylon is falling, Tessa. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” He stood for a while longer then wordlessly went to the door.
Greg had returned and hovered just outside it. West didn’t say a word to me, but to his little lapdog, he said, “She’s ready to leave.”
Halfway down the hall, a figure turned the corner toward us. The Pele Demon again, tears dried and a determined look on her face. “I’ll take it from here, Greg.”
The puffy guard hemmed and hawed for a minute before he let her over. Then he smirked and walked off muttering something about nothing so zealous as a convert.
I was frog-marched along another hallway and down a back staircase. She was surprisingly strong for someone so small. In heavily accented English, she said, “I heard you in there and don’t know who you are, but you’re not a Christian and not an Earther, and you need to tell me right now who you are. And why you want to snoop around a Revelation Bible study.” She stopped on a landing and pushed my shoulder against the wall with rough force. Her strong floral perfume just losing out to the telltale undernote of brimstone.
The frown between her red eyes deepened when I took a second to catch a breath. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” I snarled.
“Heather Mumford.”
“Is that your real name?” I knew it wasn’t. There are no Mr. and Mrs. Mumford somewhere in Hell, hoping daughter Heather stops by for Sunday dinner. She could speak English, but it was tough for her Demon physiology to make the soft rolling sounds of our language versus the loud barks and complicated glottals of her own.
Her nostrils flared, and she growled at me.
“Well, how about you let go of me and we’ll talk?” I finally said. After a very long moment, her face relaxed, but her hand did not. I put my hands up in a surrendering gesture. “Isn’t there a coffee shop downstairs? My treat.” The last thing I wanted was for Heather to alert the world I was here. I had no weapons. No friends. No phone.
She exhaled hard through her nose. “Come on.” She led the way down the stairs. We emerged on the first floor by the café. I got a coffee and she, a hot chocolate. We picked the shadowiest spot, which wasn’t very shadowy but was sort of behind a plant. A guy had set up in the corner and was earnestly strumming a guitar, singing what I assume was Earther soft pop music.
As soon as we sat, she barked, “Talk.”
“Pretty tough attitude from a girl with a mug of cocoa in front of her,” I shot back. She glared at me. (Note to self: work on your delivery and mind your tone.) “Ok. I’m Tessa Reddick. With the FBI. I’m working on the murder investigation of some members of this church as well as some Demons.”
Heather pursed her lips. “I know who you are. Everybody knows who you are. I know the group that was killed, too.”
“How do you know these people?” I asked, wishing they hadn’t taken my notebook and pen.
“Bible study. Well, it started out as Bible study. Then she kind of…”
“Who?”
“Cara, mostly. Cara Courtland. She started the group. She was obsessed with all these questions. We studied the Book of Revelation this time. We did Exodus last time, but Gardener West says we should be very familiar with Revelation. A bunch of the group has gone to the Baptist seminary, back before they found this forest. We started talking about Hebrew influence on the compilation of the Bible, and one thing led to another, and Cara started bringing different Bibles and some books with strange things in them.”
“Wait, I thought you people believed in the one true Bible or something?”
Heather shifted in her seat then nodded. “Pre-Rift, Christian meant something different than now. Now, we have to think about fighting in the coming war. We have to use all the weapons at our disposal.”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes. “The war.”
“Between good and evil. The age-old story, right? But now, it’s really coming. It’s at our doorstep. The signs are all here. That’s part of what this church teaches.”
“Heather, you’re enlisting to fight your family. Demons. You are. A. Demon. These people?” I waved to the Church. “Want to kill all your family.”
It was like darts pinging harmlessly off a steel board. She didn’t appear to register any of it.
“We are all born sinful. It’s only when we reject our sin that we can be fully embraced by the one true God, Tessa. I have repented for my wicked ways. That’s all in the past. I haven’t had contact with my old life in six or seven years.”
I felt like I was just starting to fall down the rabbit hole. “Okay, one thing at a time. Back to this study group.”
“Cara started saying she thinks we can create an army to defend us against the beings from the Other side.” Heather’s voice lowered as Mr. God Guitar fervently sung about being plucked from the garden of the one true God. “She found these books and started talking about being the hand of justice. About being an Earthly army for the one true God.”
“And what would that entail, exactly?”
She shrugged. “She kept talking about building an army. She wanted all the members of the Bible study to bring as many new people in as we could. Fortify the ranks.”
I’m not very familiar with the communication style of Pele Demons, but I had a feeling that she wasn’t quite spilling everything.
“The group must have been pretty big then?”
Heather nodded. “At one point we had about fifty people. But that’s when I dropped out.”
“Go on.” I forced myself to smile winsomely.
“We’re only supposed to invite people to Bible study who we can bring into the forest. That’s how I got here.” At the look on my face, she explained,
“The forest. We are all trees on God’s Earth, to bloom where we are planted. West is our Gardener. He keeps us from harm and fertilizes us, prunes and trims us.”
I choked on my coffee. Probably a good thing since it stopped me from saying something about isolating you from your people and dumping shit on you while cutting out parts of you that make you you.
“Okay. So, bring people in…”
She nodded. “After she got me involved, Cara started seeking out places we wouldn’t normally go to, bars and stuff, to find people. She thought it’d be a test of faith if we could get Mosquitoes… uh, sorry, Vampires and Others to become saved. I won’t lie. It was getting really insane. But I had just started dating a little, and my job… Well, anyway, they started getting together to think of new ways to get people in. They even,” her voice was barely audible, “went to that club downtown, in disguise, to try to pull in the Otherwhere crowd.” Her face was a mix of incredulousness and shame.
It was like hearing a Jew talk about how much she loves being a member of the Nazi party.
But that would explain why Cara Courtland had been wearing a purple wig when she was murdered.
“Heather, do you know anything about how Cara and the others died?”
She looked fearful. “No! I dropped out of the group several months ago. And Cara and I haven’t talked in a while. Well, before she died, that is.”
“So, why did you drop out, again? Sounds like it ended up in a bit of a tiff?”
“Besides there being too many people and not enough studying scripture?” She glanced away, shamefacedly, then back. “It was just too tempting. I’m not into that anymore. I’ve renounced my sins, I’ve picked up the cross of wood, and I am making my way by the light of the one true God. Magic is evil. I was born evil. So were you. The way to Heaven is through Jesus and his prophets like Gardener West, and Others haven’t accepted Jesus as their one true Lord and Savior. I don’t hate you, and I don’t hate them. But I hate your sins. I don’t wish you harm though,” she added quickly. “Not like Cara and them do. Did.”
Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1) Page 10