“But don’t I want people to take ownership of the church, to feel like they helped build it?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I know you’ll hate to hear this, Jessica, but your church needs you at the center. Everyone must believe that it will crumble without you. At least at first, when it’s still small enough to control.”
“And what happens later, when it grows beyond me?”
“You must end it.”
“Like you’re doing?”
He grinned and leaned back in his flimsy chair. “No, like you’re doing. My followers don’t believe I have anything to do with the end of the world, other than being the messenger of its arrival.”
She hated to admit it, but he was good at this.
He tapped a pensive finger to his lips. “You’re doing the ‘girl power’ thing, right?”
“We don’t call it that, but yes.”
“Then you’ll need priestesses. Put them in long flowing dresses. Not white, obviously—they’ll look like virgin sacrifices, and then you’ll have people sacrificing virgins in no time. The menfolk will be able to think of nothing but sacrificing virgins after your services. No, put them in muted colors. A soft rose, an autumn orange. But all different colors. Not blue, though. Too calming. You can’t let people relax if you want them to follow you. You must make sure they leave every ceremony you perform with more energy and vigor than when they came.”
“What if I serve coffee at the services?”
Jimmy opened his mouth, then shut it again and stared down at his own coffee for a moment. When he looked up at her again, there was something not unlike respect in his eyes. “That’s brilliant. You’ll need to form a ritual and narrative around it, but it’s so simple.” He narrowed his eyes. “You might be better at this than I thought.”
“And these priestesses, how do I train them?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Find a threat—that’s always a cinch—then you unite them against it. What do you think the biggest threat to your priestesses is?”
She didn’t have to think about it. If she were recruiting from Nu Alpha Omega, she already knew. “Men.”
Jimmy jerked his head back. “Men? You can’t unite against men.”
“Why not? Religion has been uniting against women for literally millennia. It’s just been pretending it’s all about protecting us. And if that’s the case, it’s done a shit job of it.”
“No, no. You can’t unite against half the population.”
“Slightly less than half.”
“It’s too large, too powerful. You’ll be crushed immediately. You must go after a smaller group, and one with fewer privileges. Jews or immigrants or scientists or something fashionable like that. Not blacks, though. That one doesn’t work as well as it used to.”
“Hmm … big nope to all those. I’m sure I’ll think of something suitable, though.” There was a thoughtful pause before she changed the subject. “What’s happening with the pig sex stuff? Is it really as widespread as the news is reporting?”
He didn’t seem especially bothered by the topic. “As bad? It’s worse than they’re reporting. Much worse.” He took a sip, then swirled the ice around before enjoying another.
“Will you at least admit that maybe your gospel had something to do with it?”
He chuckled. “It had everything to do with it. That’s why I told you not to make your girls look like virgin sacrifices. Generally speaking, people only act in despicable ways if they think something powerful supports their behavior, and nothing is more powerful than religious beliefs. I admit that when I founded White Light over two decades ago, I underestimated the power of my message. That was my only fault. But to be clear, I don’t think that it turned anyone on to bestiality. I think it simply attracted those who sought moral permission for it and were able to easily pervert my message.”
“Pervert is definitely the right word.”
“I think I’ve helped you enough for one day. I need you to tell me everything you know about Dolores Thomas.”
“I know a lot. What specifically do you want to know?”
“How did she do it? How did she get your bakery and your personal brand right out from under you?” She didn’t appreciate the tone of admiration in his voice.
It was a question she’d rolled over and over in her mind since, until she had managed to boil it down to a simple explanation, an easy one-two punch she never saw coming. “She hit me when I was weak and desperate. I still needed a sizable chunk of money to start the bakery after the food truck burned down, and I ran into her outside a taco shop. It just seemed like a coincidence, but now I realize it wasn’t at all. So I took the money she offered. You’re right, I guess. It’s the spending of money that’s power. And she got power over me when she made me that offer and I accepted, and I didn’t feel like it would seem very grateful to read the contract closely. It would look like I didn’t trust her, but I felt like I owed her my trust. Or that I owed her something, which, now that you’ve explained it in such an eerily succinct way, I see that I did. I owed her more than I could repay her, and I should never have taken that loan.”
He waved his hand impatiently for her to get on with it.
“Right, so then I got a little behind on payments, but I thought she understood because she knew I was behind but still suggested I go to this leadership retreat for women. She even offered to pay. Why would she have done that if she were mad at me? Other than being the Devil, obviously. But clearly I didn’t consider that. So, I went to the thing out, way the hell out there in New Mexico, and on the way back from Carlsbad, I—”
Jimmy sat up at attention and blinked like he was waking from a trance. “Wait, you were in Carlsbad?”
“Yeah. The retreat was just outside of there.”
“And who did you say was the woman who led it?”
“I didn’t. But her name was Caren Powers.” Jessica scoffed, asking amusedly, “Why, you know her?” There was no chance in hell a galru like Caren would spend even two seconds around a man like Jimmy. Why he was suddenly interested was beyond her.
“How do you spell that?”
“C-A-R-E-N.”
Jimmy’s hand flew up to his mouth, and he stared wide-eyed at a stack of paper towels along the wall behind her. Finally, he looked at her and said, “I think our paths might be more intertwined than we previously believed, Jessica.”
“Ew. I hope not.”
“Go on, then, tell me about how exactly the Devil revealed herself.”
Jessica told him everything, right up until the moment when her car broke down and Trooper Gabriel Michaels came and gave her a lift back.
“And did you really smite a man?” he asked. “I heard about it, but I understand you faced no charges for it.”
“I did. Believe me, I tried to get them to press charges. I still see him explode like a blood-filled balloon when I close my eyes at night.”
“Considering I just saw my last true ally crushed to death beneath a decorative typewriter, I can understand your pain.”
“You know he was going to screw you over, right?”
“I don’t believe it for a second.”
“God told me. Eugene Thornton was in league with the Devil. He had our whole conversation recorded. He would have handed it over to her.”
“So you smote him?”
“No, not me. That was all God.”
Jimmy rubbed his chin. “That sounds like the hog I knew. He threatened to smite me multiple times on the night we met.”
“Maybe He should have done it.”
“But He didn’t. He spared me. And here we are. God’s messenger and His daughter uniting at last.”
She had a lot to say about that, but one question stood front and center: “Tell me straight, once and for all. Do you genuinely believe that? Do you believe I’m God’s daughter? That I can perform miracles and smite people?”
“I’ll give you the straightest answer I can, but
you’re not going to like it. Here it is: I don’t believe in anything outside of my ability to accomplish what I set out to do. Beyond that, belief only exists where there’s a lack of solid information. Faith is the hallmark of uncertainty, and if one wishes to remain powerful, one must be certain of things.”
“And yet here you are. Asking me for information about the Devil because that uncertainty exists.”
“And I believe in my ability to fill in the blanks.”
“But you have the information for this! You spoke to God directly the morning I was born and he told you all these things. How do you still not believe I’m the daughter of God?”
“Because I don’t have to believe it. I know it.”
“Oh.” She fell silent, scanning his expression for any hint of how that lined up with his past behavior at all. “You know I’m the daughter of God, and yet you tell your congregation that I’m …” She sighed. “Jimmy, I just don’t understand.”
“That’s because you’re letting your emotions get the best of you. Not uncommon with women. But if you think about it logically, it follows as thus: I met God face-to-face. He chose me as His messenger of your nativity. In all His infinite wisdom and with all His foresight of what was to come, He did not smite me. Thus, He saw some purpose for me down the line. So, until that purpose is fulfilled, I’m free to do whatever benefits me the most, and so far, it’s been founding a church that generates me more power than I could’ve ever dreamed possible. And sometimes, yes, that does mean convincing thousands of people that you are the Antichrist, the harbinger of the Apocalypse, and so on. But He hasn’t smote me yet, and as far as I’m concerned, the longer I go without serving a clear purpose for the benefit of you or mankind, the longer I live.”
“You call that logic?”
“I do, and most men would.”
“Are you … are you trying to make a case against men? Where do morals play into your logic?”
“Morals are and have always been flimsy things presented as fact to control the masses. Right, wrong, it’s all the same. It’s just actions. How many times have you meant to do the right thing but hurt someone instead? You would say your intentions were good, but we both know that’s just to lessen your guilt over the results of your actions. If you stop worrying about right and wrong, you don’t experience that guilt to begin with. It clears out a lot of the mental clutter that weighs down the mind and leaves no room for clear thinking.”
“Are you sure you want to take on the Devil? I think you and her might get along.”
He chuckled. “I only get along with moral people. Much easier to control.” And then he finished his drink, got up, and walked out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
339:21:53:30 until Doomsday
* * *
Jessica had stress-drunk three more cups of coffee at Bat-Ass Brew after Jimmy’s departure, one of those being the triple-shot threat Bat Outta Hell.
And now it was 2 a.m. and she was nowhere near being able to sleep. She’d thought the phone recap of the conversation with Wendy might have helped her process enough to fall asleep, but not so, even though her publicist did sound quite pleased with the outcome.
During those over caffeinated hours at Bat-Ass Brew, she’d ordered herself a chicken salad sandwich and thrown together a priestess application form. A quick check from Wendy, then it was live on her website and Cash sent it out in a precisely branded email to her entire subscriber list.
Eight hours later, with her eyelids feeling like they might never shut again, she made herself some hot herbal tea, opened up her laptop on the kitchen island, and checked to see if any applications had come in yet.
They had. More than she would ever have time to go through. She would need to hire a team just to sort through the applications. She wished she could forget about it and go to bed, but since that wasn’t happening …
She began randomly clicking on the names, most of which she didn’t recognize, and up popped the full application on her screen.
A disturbing trend began to emerge. These people were highly educated. Harvard Divinity School? What would she even do with a person like that? Besides feel inferior, obviously.
What would Jimmy do?
He wouldn’t hire especially intelligent or educated people for this, that was for sure. He would make sure his side of the scales was higher.
As she mindlessly scrolled down the spreadsheet with the rundown of each application, a name caught her eye.
But no. Just no way.
Could there be two Courtney Wursts running around? It was possible.
But would the other one be applying for priestesshood?
Would the one she knew be applying for priestesshood?
She clicked the name and pulled up the full application. There was nothing spectacular about it, but it was clearly the Courtney she knew. First Nu Alpha Omega, and now this? Why was Courtney so intent on following her?
She would be an idiot to give a Wurst a position of power within her organization.
Unless …
Unless she was just thinking like herself. She needed to think like Jimmy. Jimmy would definitely give a Wurst a high role in the church. He already had. Maybe she could repeat his success.
And when she thought about it, the Wursts, every last one of them, were born for this shit. And Courtney was arguably the best of the Wursts. She’d followed the rules in NAO, even gone on, according to Kate, to help found the Sam Houston State University chapter.
Jessica finished reading through the application, and when she got to the bottom, it clicked.
Maybe there was a plan for Courtney Wurst, too. The woman just kept coming back for more, anyhow.
She scrolled to the top of the page, hovered over the green checkmark for only a moment before clicking it.
And so it was that Jessica accepted her first priestess into her church.
GOOD JOB, SWEETIE. SO PROUD OF YOU.
Chapter Thirty
311:12:31:09 until Doomsday
One month and five priestesses later, Jessica was feeling confident about her prospects. So confident, in fact, that the thought of visiting Waverly Hills Retirement Center for her obligatory community service didn’t even bother her.
And it was her lucky day, too. None of her favorite residents had received visitors all week, so she was free to check in and enjoy their presence and wisdom. The overpowering smell of stale urine in the hallways became hardly more than an afterthought.
It was after her visits had concluded, as she was on her way toward the front desk, that the day took a turn for the strange. Rosemary Heathrow’s room was drawing nearer, and she considered the merits of sprinting by it so that if the bitter woman did spot her, she wouldn’t be able to make sense of it before Jessica was already out the front door. Unable to find any flaws in that plan, Jessica committed herself do it, creeping closer to the door, ready to spring.
She sprang.
And she ran straight into someone exiting Mrs. Heathrow’s room.
The collision knocked her back and she apologized before realizing that the man she had just run into was one of two people on earth who never deserved an apology from her.
Jimmy Dean put his back to her quickly, as if he still stood a chance of going unrecognized. But no. She’d recognize him with her eyes closed. Jimmyness hung all around him like smog.
“What? she said, her mind trying desperately to put together the not-so-subtle clues. Jimmy Dean had just left Rosemary Heathrow’s room. “Do you know her?”
Giving up his attempt at veiling his identity, he grabbed her tightly around the arm and dragged her down the hall and around the corner, until they were alone and out of sight next to one of the emergency exits. “You tell no one,” he said.
“Tell no one what?”
“You know what.”
She didn’t know what. Not until that moment, at least. Her top suspicion had been that Rosemary was a member of his church, but if that were the case, he was
unlikely to have any problem with people knowing about it. After all, visiting a sick old woman in a stinky retirement home when he had no obligation to would only bolster his reputation as a man of God.
But that clearly wasn’t the case here. She knew that now. His shame tipped her off because she recognized that particular brand of it.
“She’s your mother.”
“My miserable mother, yes.”
A surprising rush of sympathy nearly knocked her over, but she adjusted her stance and wouldn’t let it happen again.
“You have to promise me, Jessica, that you won’t tell anyone about her.”
She stared at him silently because every moment she did so was a moment she had power over him. And, yes, it did feel pretty good. His side of the scales was almost touching the tabletop.
“Rosemary Heathrow is your mother.” She’d read enough of his memoir Railed to the Cross to know that he had a mother, but that didn’t erase her subconscious belief that Jimmy had merely crawled out of the mud one day, a fully-formed adult, spitting out chunks of bullshit and hellfire.
He glanced nervously over her shoulder. “If you could not say that again, that would be much appreciated. I don’t think I need to remind you that you need my help, and if this gets out, I’ll know exactly who spread it around.”
“No one else knows?”
“Well, of course someone knows. The owner of Waverley Hills is aware for next of kin purposes, but to everyone else, she’s just a sick member of my congregation … who believes I’m her son.”
“Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
“Have you met the woman?”
“Ah. Right. She swore I was the Devil and started throwing things at me.”
Was that a hint of pride angling the corners of his mouth?
His gaze darted around again. “She could be used against me by my enemies.”
The End Is Her Page 17