by Betty Webb
Otherwise, the décor was pretty much what I’d expected from a white man who thought he represented America’s indigenous people. Navajo rugs on the floor. Leather sofa with cowhide throws (casting couch for future wives, perhaps?). Wooden desk with carved Native American images as authentic as a cigar store Indian. A weirdly out-of-place ergonomic chair behind the desk. Hanging on the wall across from the bookcase, an oil painting of a white buffalo. The buffalo had eyes as dark and depthless as licorice jelly beans.
The room had no windows, just another door to my right, but it was closed, like the door Gabrielle had exited. Executive washroom, or something else? The door gave me a bad vibe, so I skipped the comfort of the cushy leather sofa and stood in front of the bookcase, slipping my hand into the tote. The revolver was still there, its handle nestled against my palm. With a pistol in your hand, you’re never alone.
From the great room below, I could hear laughter as Adam’s followers enjoyed their superb Le Cordon Bleu lunch. I wondered how many of them realized what went on behind Kanati’s closed doors. A select few, probably, because such knowledge was too dangerous for clueless people like Roger Gorsky and Chelsea Cooper-Slow Horse. As for Gabrielle…
My thoughts were short-circuited by the sound of a nearby toilet flushing, then water running from a faucet.
I drew the .38 at the same time the bathroom door opened, revealing Adam Arneault standing there. Up this close he appeared even more skeletal than he had in the big teepee. He had been twelve years old to my four when his homicidal father “married” us, which made him around forty-seven, but he looked older. Participating in mass murders ages a man.
Adam smiled when he saw the .38. “Still the brave one, aren’t you, Christina?”
“Where is she?” I asked, centering the barrel on his heart.
His smile remained in place. “Do you mind if I sit? After my long fast, I feel quite weak.”
“I don’t care if you hang yourself, as long as you answer my question. Where is she?”
“Where is who?”
“My mother!”
Unfazed by the .38, he walked over to his desk and sat down in the ergonomic chair. Sighed. Maybe he had a bad back from carting all those corpses around.
“What makes you think I know where your mother is?”
“If anyone knows, you do. Is she here?”
“I haven’t seen that bitch since the day she murdered my friends.”
“My mother never murdered anyone.”
A moment of rage passed across his face, then disappeared when he remembered he was supposed to be Elevated. “Your mother is a murderess, Christina.”
“Even if that were true, which I doubt, it was nothing compared to the slaughter your father initiated.”
“An unfortunate blunder in an otherwise glorious reign.”
“You’re calling the mass murder of innocent children a blunder?”
“My father was simply obeying the god of his understanding. There was no malice involved, therefore no murder.”
“Killing in the name of religion is permissible, then?”
He shook his head. “Not for religion, for an ideal. And yes, killing in order to pursue an ideal has always been permissible. When governments do it, it’s called war. They even hold parades to celebrate its glory, Christina. Oops, sorry. You’re going by the name of Lena now, aren’t you? Why is that?”
Because at the age of four, with all my injuries, I couldn’t pronounce my real name, that’s why, and the social worker attached to my case thought he heard me mumble “Lena.” Determined not to be lured away from my primary purpose, I skipped the history lesson. “Tell me exactly what happened that day. The last time I saw my mother she was on the old school bus taking us to a new compound.”
“I’m surprised you remember that. You were what, four years old? Five? We thought you were dead, killed by your own deranged mother. But here you are, alive and well, and every bit as beautiful as I remembered.” Bracing himself against the desk, he stood up and took a step forward, closing the distance between us.
With the bookcase at my back I could only move to the side. I didn’t want to kill Adam until he told me everything I needed to know, but I wasn’t going to let him put his hands on me.
“Stop right there,” I told him.
He complied.
“I was four. Tell me about that day, step by step, what happened after…”
“After your mother shot my father and two of his closest friends? Ah. You didn’t know about that, did you? That’s right, you were gone by then, fallen into the street. But even if I tell you, I’ll gain nothing, because you’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you? Like your mother, you are a great believer in revenge.”
“I won’t kill you if you tell me where she is,” I lied.
He chuckled. The chilling sound had nothing in common with the innocent laughter dancing its way up from the great room below. The Kanatians had probably reached the dessert course. The aroma of cinnamon wafted up the stairs. Clafoutis aux Poires?
“Oh, Christina, you always were a bad liar. But all right, because what do I have to lose? Either way, I’m dead. So here’s the way it went. Thanks to your murderous mother, Brother Steve and Brother Joseph were dead, and the rest of the Believers were spattered in blood, wailing at your mother’s display of evil.” He paused, his eyes unfocused as he looked back down the decades.
“Move it along, Adam.”
Snapping back to attention, he said, “Such impatience! Remember what old Ram Das said, ‘Be here now.’ But whatever. Back to the bus. Despite the discord around him, Brother Jonathan drove onto the freeway, speeding toward New Place in California, toward the land of milk and honey, toward…”
The revolver felt heavy in my hand, and I realized what was happening. Adam’s words had fallen into a rhythm designed to lull me into inattention, the same rhythm used by Kanati’s elderly drummer during their meditations. “Skip the travelogue and get on with it,” I snapped.
“You have such marvelous focus! No wonder I loved you.” Admiration gleamed from his lunatic eyes.
Not as patient, I assumed the firing position, one leg in front of the other, both hands grasping the .38. My damaged left arm protested, but I didn’t care. “Adam Arneault, you die on the count of three. One. Two…”
He blinked. “Ah, yes. You want to know what else happened on the bus. Well, of course I’ll tell you, because we are past the need for secrecy, aren’t we? By the time we made it to California, Sister Bonita had taken control, and that’s when I learned a lesson that has guided me to this very day. Never underestimate a woman. Sister Bonita made Brother Jonathan pull into an abandoned rest stop and dump out the bodies of Brother Steve and Brother Joseph, which if you don’t mind me saying, was a disrespectful way to treat fallen soldiers. Women, you know. Always driven by emotion.” He waved his skeletal arms. “As for your mother, she was thrown out, too. Once the mess was off the bus, we were on the road again.”
The mess? Two dead men and my mother were a mess? “What happened to your father’s body? Same thing?”
An odd expression crossed his face. “No one would ever treat God’s holy prophet in such a despicable manner. As soon as we arrived at New Place, we erected a monument to his memory. Where—and I’m certain this will please you—the coyotes sing him lullabies.”
“Lullabies? For a child killer?”
Impatience flickered across his face. “You still don’t understand, do you? Death doesn’t exist. It’s only an illusion. But to an extent, I must agree about the children. Their transition to the next phase of life—especially my older brother’s—was unnecessarily messy.” He shuddered. “All that blood.”
My trigger finger itched. “Where are The Children of Abraham now?”
“In the wind. New Place welcomed us with open arms at first, but Nature abh
ors a vacuum, and soon there was squabbling, people vying for control.” He shook his head. “Then there was more blood and Sister Bonita and many of her followers disappeared. You’ve been around long enough to know how these things go. After that second round of depravity, Brother Gaston, who had been with my father since the days of The Divine Temple of the Holy Cross, suggested that those of us in the original group return to France. So we did. End of story. Today New Place is covered in dust.”
“Brother Gaston?” I remembered the old man I’d seen on my first trip to Kanati. He’d been hobbling around on two canes, but wore a headband loaded with status beads. More recently I’d seen him pounding a drum during the meditation service.
That odd look again. “Brother Gaston reached the highest level of Elevation many years ago, and we all remember that moment with great fondness. The wisdom I gained from him kept me from repeating my father’s mistakes, so at Kanati, there is no forced sacrifice. Children are not even allowed on the property, let alone serve as sacrifices. Are you not proud of your husband’s compassion, Christina?”
“You’re not my husband, you jerk. Marriage to a four-year-old girl isn’t legal, so stop with the bullshit and tell me what happened to my mother or get gut-shot.”
All color left his face. “Your mother probably killed herself at that rest stop!” In an imploring tone, he added, “But how would I know? I wasn’t there!”
One liar can recognize another. I smiled. “Do you know how much a gut shot hurts? You’ll die in agony. Slowly.”
“Please, I…I won’t…”
The bookcase at my back suddenly swiveled open, knocking the .38 from my hands. Before I could reclaim it, one of Adam’s burly bodyguards emerged from the hidden alcove with an enormous Taser X2.
The prongs hit me in the neck.
Once I was down, he kicked me in the head.
I felt nothing after that.
35 years earlier
Helen stands alone at the boarded-up rest stop.
The bodies of Brother Steve and Brother Joseph lie half-hidden in the underbrush, but Helen pays no attention.
Her eyes are dull, unseeing. She cannot hear the passing traffic on the interstate, or the mockingbird that serenades her from a nearby tree. The buzzing of cicadas as they call to each other goes unnoticed. She sees nothing, hears nothing, knows nothing. The world that existed before this moment is no more.
She stands there unmoving for hours, but toward evening, a California Highway Patrol cruiser leaves the highway and pulls up beside her.
“Ma’am, do you need assistance?” the trooper asks.
But Helen can neither see nor hear him.
“Ma’am? Are you…oh, shit!”
Helen’s sins have silenced her.
She does not speak again for twenty-two years.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“…so you see, Christina, while I am not truly of this world, I remain aware of its dangers. Thus the alarm button on my desk. Thus my clever bookcase. Thus the escape hatch in my bathroom.”
A blurry Adam Arneault stood above me.
I was lying on the ground and my head throbbed so badly I had trouble focusing. I ached all over—my head, my hips, my shoulders, my everything. Even my fingers hurt, especially the one on my left hand, which felt as if someone had tied a memory-jogging string around it too tightly and then forgot to take it off. When I tried to pull my hand up so I could see it better, I realized my hands had been tied behind my back.
Blinking away the spots dancing in front of my eyes, I surveyed my surroundings.
I lay in a dimly lit square room built from unpainted cinderblocks. The cement floor was unpainted, too, and had a drain in the middle. The lodge’s basement? I hoped not, because three of the room’s other inhabitants needed immediate medical attention. Two frighteningly thin young women wearing white robes lay unconscious on nearby pallets. Both were brunettes and looked so much alike they could have been twins. A similarly garbed woman, blond but as skeletal as the brunettes, sat slumped against the wall. As Adam spoke, her eyes tracked him with adoration.
“Look well upon these courageous women, and do not fear following in their footsteps.” When he bent down and kissed the still-conscious blonde on the forehead, she moaned in appreciation.
“Behold my love for you, Monica,” he murmured to her. “You are truly worthy to be my bride.”
“Lo…Love you,” she whispered.
My mind was still muddled, but I’d caught the word bride. Was the white robe she wore a wedding dress? Was I here to witness a wedding? But what about the other two white-clad women? Bridesmaids weren’t supposed to wear white, everyone knew that. I looked down, hoping to find myself dressed more appropriately, only to discover I wore a white robe, too. What the hell?
I shook my head, which made it hurt even more but the pain helped clear my mind. Adam Arneault was flanked by two male acolytes so muscular I suspected steroids. Strangely enough, the elderly man I’d seen during my earlier visits to Kanati, was here, too. Instead of propping himself up on canes, he now sat in a wheelchair.
“Do you not realize the great gift you are about to receive, Christina?” Adam droned on in a sing-song voice. “I, the handpicked prophet of the one true God, am awarding you the highest honor a woman can have, and yet you appear unhappy.”
Adam’s self-celebratory words didn’t quite manage to cover the ragged breathing of the other women. My vision had become sharp enough for me to see that all three wore simple gold wedding rings, but unlike me, their hands and feet remained untied. Each bore the gaunt face and swollen belly of advanced malnutrition, yet judging from the response of the blonde, they had done so voluntarily. Starving their way into Adam’s good graces. Was this what Chelsea had let herself in for?
As Adam moved closer, I could see the jaundiced pallor of his skin. He was starving, too, but his eyes were lit with an unholy fire. “This is the final Elevation, my beloved, where you undertake your own personal vision quest. Here you will purify your body and enter a higher plane, as have other brave souls before you. The Cherokee, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne—so many others. They were spiritual warriors. Like myself, they fast, understanding that we must deny the delights of this Earth in order to be worthy of the White Buffalo’s teachings. These courageous women beside you, they understand.”
I know crazy when I see it, and I was seeing it now. “Just to get another plastic bead for their Dollar Store headbands?” I spat. “In two more days they’ll be dead. And by the way, you jackass, the Native Americans fasted for only four days, not weeks. What you’re doing here is murder!”
Before he could respond, the old man in the wheelchair muttered, “Elle ne peut pas être rachetée.”
Adam raised his hand in admonition. “She can’t be redeemed? You give up too quickly, Father. You always did. With my help, my beloved Christina can be redeemed. Love such as mine carries within it the strength of holy salvation for others. All she needs now is to complete her vision quest.”
The old man laughed. “Oh, grow up. The only thing that bitch needs is a bullet in her head.” His English was unaccented, his smile chilling.
Father, Adam had called him. Father.
I jerked my head toward the old man. “What church allowed you be a priest?”
“The same church your apostate mother belonged to.”
For a moment I couldn’t react. This old man knew my mother? I peered at him more closely, studied the shape of his head, saw what appeared to be an old bullet scar on his neck.
He couldn’t be. But he was.
Abraham.
Maurice Abraham Arneault, the deranged prophet who thirty-five years earlier had ordered the killing of all firstborns in Les Enfants des Abraham, The Children of Abraham. The man who had ordered his son to finish off my father and baby brother.
Before I could find
my voice, Adam said, “I must apologize for my father. He is almost ninety now and has been in constant pain for decades, pain caused by your mother’s attempt—a failed attempt, thanks be to the White Buffalo—to shoot him to death.” He raised his eyes reverently to the room’s ceiling.
“Thanks be to the White Buffalo,” his acolytes chanted.
Abraham sneered.
Focusing on me again, Adam said, “You still misunderstand, my beloved. These precious ones,” he made a sweeping motion with his hand, “are in the process of learning that the sensuality of Earthly love is our worst enemy. The love of beauty, the love of a caress, the love of beautiful music, the love of fragrant blossoms, and especially the love of good food—these carnal urges pave the pathways to Darkness. Ah, I see the confusion in your eyes. Kanati provides all these pleasures, does it not? But of course it does! Because what avails a person if he only renounces the things he does not love?”
I thought I heard Abraham mutter “Bullshit.” The old man may have been evil, but he was no fool.
Adam shot his father a withering look, then turned his maniacal gaze toward me again. “And now, my beloved Christina, now that you are returned to me I offer you the gift of Elevation, so that you may join with me on that Heavenly Plain as my One True Wife.” He raised his arms and addressed the ceiling again. “Oh, great are the gifts of the White Buffalo!”
Throughout this bizarre sermon, Adam’s henchmen had been gazing at him with the same adoration as had the woman slumped against the wall. “Great are the gifts of the White Buffalo!” they chorused.
This time Abraham spoke so loudly there was no mistaking his words. “What crap.”
My throbbing head prevented me from feeling worshipful, too. “You’re all crazy.”
Adam bent down and caressed my face. I tried to bite him, but he was too quick.
