“I don’t have anything else to do,” he said mildly. “I’d love to join your circle,” he added to June.
“We’d be glad to have you.” June sparkled in that special way petite, pretty women have. With her bangs and pink braces, she could have passed for fourteen. “Have you joined our circle before?”
“I’ve attended a time or two.” Theo was polite but not too friendly.
I butted in. “I really think you should be going now, Theo. I’ll call you later.”
June, focused completely on him, didn’t even glance at me. “Our circle is open, Theo. Feel free to join us before you go.”
He was looking at me instead of at her. “I think I will.”
I didn’t try to hide how angry I was. I should have kicked him out sooner, before June came, but who knew she would interfere? I thought it would be easier to send him on his way if we were both on the move.
As we walked through the hallway to the elevator, June chatted brightly about the Fellowship, explaining how it had transformed her life. Two years ago, she had decided to move to New York from Washington to devote her life to the truth. But the expert way she told her story indicated she wasn’t as green as she appeared to be. People probably trusted her instantly, figuring she was as defenseless as a kitten. But she couldn’t have survived as Dread’s assistant unless she was sharp and on her toes.
June addressed her remarks to both of us, and Theo responded nearly as infrequently as I did. But I noticed that June caught his eye a few times, smiling a little longer than necessary. It was done so deftly that she thought I didn’t notice.
The Evergreen Chapel was hung with sheer green draperies on every wall. On the far wall, a large gold cross was mounted in a niche much like an altar. The upright spindle was thin and pointed, but the arms flared like a Greek cross.
There was no sign of the concrete floors and exposed ducts that characterized the rest of the Prophet’s Center; instead, the recessed lighting cast a warm glow. Plush carpeting surrounded a dark green marble slab in the center. It was knee-high, vaguely coffin-sized, with rounded, polished edges. Many Fellowship circles were held without the altar, but in the very heart of the church they upheld tradition.
The distinct scent of incense seemed designed to subdue the clash of expensive perfumes in the room. There must have been two dozen people dispersed in small groups speaking quietly with one another. They were of various ages, a few nicely dressed couples, a clutch of employees and their families, and several young hipsters from the neighborhood. There were no other demons present, except for Dread, who was decked out in a very expensive charcoal suit.
When Dread saw us, he raised one hand, beckoning us over. I could sense his intense interest in me, even stronger than yesterday when I had connected with him. He ignored Theo as he greeted me. Did that mean he hadn’t seen what we did last night? Or had he seen us and was so coldly arrogant that he felt compelled to treat Theo as insignificant?
After all that, I was no closer to finding out if I had privacy in the loft. I needed to find a way to call Michael without anyone listening.
Dread immediately ushered me forward to the center of the room to stand next to the altar. In his sonorous prophet-voice, he announced, “I would like to introduce Emma Meyers, the friend I’ve told you about. She is very close to the spirit, so we must all encourage her devotions.”
I tensed up, feeling trapped in the midst of so many curious eyes, including Theo when he heard my real name. What was Dread doing? I tried to smile, but I must have looked alarmed.
June smiled and called out, “Welcome!” along with the others. I was soon surrounded by people greeting me and shaking my hand. They were excited to meet someone new who had been singled out by the prophet himself. Some were too eager, smiling too fiercely, talking too intently, and when I touched their hands, I could tell they were trying to woo me for their own purposes. I didn’t mind—greed and selfish desire were energy just like other emotions, only they didn’t taste as good.
My smile was rather fixed, and I kept my replies short in answer to their questions of where I lived, what I did, and what my bar was like. One of the younger, nice-looking men assured me that he would come by soon to check out the Den.
Theo shifted away to the outer edge of the room, keeping a low profile. June joined him, fingering the Fellowship cross at her throat. She asked him something, but they were too far away for me to overhear. She seemed to be flirting with him, moving her hips, leaning forward to touch his arm in emphasis.
Soon enough the circle was called and everyone joined hands around the slab of marble. I was even more shocked when Dread took my hand. I almost jerked away, but I didn’t want to completely alienate him.
It was a test. He didn’t try to feed from me, and I didn’t want to feed from him. He felt my wariness, my spike of anger at being forced to touch him, unable to refuse in front of everyone. He was taking his time searching me out, to see exactly what I was made of. A couple of times I almost called it quits and let go, but I had nothing to hide. I was suspicious of his motives, yet I needed his help. I also felt a deep sympathy with his need to rekindle himself; on the most basic level, we were in the same boat, and he couldn’t help but see that.
I consoled myself by absorbing the fanaticism pouring off the woman next to me. Cherie was a former supermodel, now in her mid-forties. She was rarely seen in print ads anymore. Cherie had found the Fellowship to great fanfare two decades ago when she was on top of the world, and she had been a celebrity fixture of the church ever since.
It looked like she’d had work on her face, and her makeup was too overdone, especially the foundation. Her arms were painfully thin, and I held her hand very gingerly as I skimmed off her devotion. She had plenty to spare. She was practically boiling over with faith.
The circle started with the chant. Each person said a word in turn, going clockwise around the circle, letting the different voices meld into each sentence. “Through freedom lies truth; through truth lies freedom.”
Theo and I alone were off a few beats. It went on for quite a while, changing in content but not substance, as I picked up the rhythm. Many of them became tranced by the circular speaking, rocking in time, their eyes rolling up into their head. It was classic group manipulation, reaching for the ecstatic, and right up Zeal’s alley. Zeal must have been attending a different circle.
I let Dread have the full brunt of my boredom as the circle wore on. He knew I was tolerating the proceedings like a circus horse being put through my paces. I would do whatever I had to in order to protect Shock, and if that meant I had to be polite and pretend to please his fanatics, so be it.
The one thing I really didn’t like was that Theo was across the circle holding hands with June. She appeared to be in rapturous delight. Theo met my gaze occasionally, letting his eyes crinkle. I kept telling myself to stop, that I was supposed to drive him away from me. But he was the only one who seemed to feel the same way I did.
I tried my best not to think about him, so Dread wouldn’t pick up on my feelings.
When the chanting stopped, we continued to hold hands through the truth-speaking. Not everyone spoke, but those who did dwelt on the freedom they had gained through the Fellowship to be themselves, to express themselves without fear. I knew they were proselytizing to me. They said they felt accepted in a way they hadn’t been before. One man described his life before he joined the church, when he worked long hours to give his family whatever they wanted. But his health deteriorated, he hardly knew his kids, and he hated his job. After finding the Fellowship, he quit work and went back to college to get his degree in social science, intending to fulfill his dream of helping people. He admitted it had been a struggle and his marriage had been destroyed, but he was finally grappling with personal issues that he had ignored for decades.
One young woman spoke about how she used to let boyfriends push her into doing things she didn’t want to do. She thought she had to always say yes in order to be loved, and through the church, she realized she had the personal responsibility to set limits for herself. Her voice broke a few times as she described the violence she had suffered, but she had been “uplifted” by the church and it had changed her. Now she was the one who decided what she did or didn’t do, and her life and career had blossomed as a result.
It seemed more like group therapy than a religious service, except for the mindless chanting. Even worse, I got the feeling they were trying to outdo one another to impress the prophet.
Then Dread asked if anyone needed to be sustained. One woman stepped forward, letting the circle close behind her. She had spoken earlier about her estrangement from her daughter, and had seemed miserable, unable to articulate a bright side to her troubles like the others. She went to the marble altar and lay down on it, her head at the end near the gold Fellowship cross on the wall.
Dread finally let go of my hand to step forward. It was such a relief. Now I could feed off both Cherie and the woman next to me, who was in a lot of pain from her lower back. Pain was a good thing to take, so I sucked it down, hoping to give her some relief, as well.
At the altar, Dread placed his hands palm down, one on top of the other, on the woman’s forehead. Quietly the group chanted in unison, their voices melding into a continuous drone. The woman’s face twinged with each indrawn breath. Dread drew off her agony as hard as he could without hurting her. They stayed frozen in that tableau for what felt like a long time until the woman sighed and indicated she was ready to get up. Her aura wasn’t as poisonously dark now. But it was depleted more than I would have dared.
With a final benediction from Dread, the circle finally split. I didn’t have to hold Dread’s hand again. And Theo let go of June’s hand. I tried to shake off the vaguely sadomasochistic fog of absorbing at the same time Cherie’s rapturous devotion and the pain from the other woman.
Now that the worst was over; it was much easier to talk to everyone. I tried to ask questions about the church so they wouldn’t keep probing me; this was my old bartender’s trick. Since Dread was feeding from them, clasping everyone’s hand reverently, I did the same, freely soaking up the euphoria created by the circle. Touching people in the right way created intimacy, very compelling for the demons who learned how to do it properly. Vex had founded this church on touch, relying on the circle of hands to inspire closeness among the fellows.
But that didn’t account for the almost-worshipful way they looked at me. They, including their celebrity, Cherie, gathered round as if they didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to me. My casual touches seemed to encourage them.
I had lost sight of Theo in the crowd, when Dread finally appeared to extract me from their admiring embrace. Lowering his voice so only I could hear, Dread said, “Vex won’t be back for another few hours. But he asked me to show you around.” He steered me to the inner door.
“You talked to him?”
“Early this morning. He’s flying back now.”
June appeared behind us with Theo in tow. Dread nodded in approval. “Come on, I’ll show both of you around the Fellowship complex.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of game he was playing. He was fooling Theo and June—and all of these other people—about who I was. But why?
I wanted to get rid of Theo before Vex came back. But I also wondered if Dread’s little act had something to do with the wild sex I’d almost had with Theo last night. I needed to know for sure. If there were no prying eyes in the VIP loft, then I would be able to call Michael before I saw Vex.
So I agreed, and Dread proceeded to give us the grand tour. The Prophet’s Center had dozens of finely decorated meeting rooms and reception halls, along with offices for the senior staff. The third floor had an airwalk linking the center to the building on the next block that housed administrative offices. The church also had a large publicity firm, dedicated to creating educational programs about their philosophy. Recruitment was well organized with banks of cubicles that mobilized truth-speakers to direct action in their communities. Local chapels could apply for monetary support for infrastructure and marketing materials to expand their circle.
Then we went outside and walked down to another white building that had a towering gold cross with flared arms painted on the side facing Manhattan. We stepped into an expansive lobby with an indoor playground for the community. It housed the Fellowship’s law library and legal assistance program that served grassroots and national campaigns against a variety of “big brother” laws—from the radical, such as eliminating penalties for recreational drug use and supporting the right to assisted suicide, to the socially conservative, such as backing the National Rifle Association’s stance on assault weapons, and the Southern Baptists’ attempts to abolish separation of church and state.
Some people protested the apparent contradictions in such causes, but there was a simplicity at the heart of the Fellowship; it was all about personal responsibility. Dread explained that their impact on America had been significant and was growing. They advocated drastically downsizing government and waste by setting up a system of “pay for what you use.” Their ideas included a citizens’ tax to pay for firemen and policemen; property tax to pay for water and sewage; businesses to pay for schools, local streets, and public areas; cars to be charged via wireless devices to drive on highways and across bridges to pay for maintenance. They also called for the abolishment of income tax and the draft. The popularity of the church had surged during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and again more recently during the Middle East wars and economic recession. Dread pointed to welfare and health-care reform as two of their most successful projects.
