The Acolyte

by Nick Cutter

  “Know what it is?” she said to the whimpering zealots. “A gizmo that reacts to the sweat on your palms. Plastic and wires; costs eleven shekels to make. You’re all heading to Reconditioning Centres—for what? Playing with a toy.”

  “Don’t listen to her.”

  That willowy Scientologist staggered up. Blood flowed down the sides of his nose. His busted spectacles hung from one ear.

  “What we do here, we do for the good of the human race.”

  Garvey grabbed the fugitive by his lapels and jammed a forearm under his chin.

  “Hate to break the news, but your whole faith is a cash grab. That guy”—a disgusted nod at L. Ron—“lived in the middle of the ocean on a yacht staffed by young boys, a pedophile perv, his crimes funded by morons like you.”

  The Scientologist gagged but his eyes were bright and pure, filled with the zealous mania you tend to see a lot in my line of work.

  “Do you actually believe,” Garvey went on, “that there are aliens living inside you?”

  Garvey and Doe were simply executing directive 46.23 of the Faith Crimes charter: Expose the gross inadequacies and inconsistencies of all false prophets and/or faiths.

  “Do you know how utterly moronic your religion is?” said Garvey.

  “No more moronic than a saviour who dies on a cross and rises three days later,” the Scientologist said.

  Garvey brought his shotgun’s stock down into the guy’s mouth. Teeth pelted the wall. The Scientologist went down twitching.

  None of us paid attention to the lone Scientologist near the door. Tubby and pimpled in a purple angora sweater, displaying signs of life equal to your average houseplant. Nobody caught her hand moving under a table for the pistol duct-taped there.

  The first slug drove into the wall behind Doe’s head. Purple Angora shot again: the slug shattered a ceiling tile. Then she was out the door. My head snapped to Doe—wide-eyed but unhurt—before I turned to trail her.

  Purple Angora streaked down the hallway. She spun and fired. Plaster and wood chips flew. I hipped my shotgun and pulled the trigger. Boom. The centre of her body turned into red mashed potato. Tatters of purple fabric blew out in a starfish pattern.

  I backtracked to the room. Doe hadn’t moved. I clocked the slug’s trajectory: it had missed her skull by an inch.

  I touched her shoulder. “You alright? Hey. Hey.”

  Doe’s short-clipped hair reeked of cordite. The ends were frizzed as if they had come close to an open flame. I leaned close. Knowing I shouldn’t—not now, not in front of the fugitives, not at all, not ever. My lips brushed her forehead.

  “Angela, I’m sorry. She was my cover.”

  Doe gave me a forearm shiver. I rocked back on my heels. She jammed her knee into a Scientologist’s spine and cuffed him.

  In the hallway, I radioed in a Fire Team. Pie-eyed tenants occurred in doorways. One of them asked what was the rumpus.

  “Gather whatever’s precious to you and clear out,” I told all of them.

  Doe’s shotgun barked. I poked my head back into the room. Doe had blown a hole in L. Ron’s face.

  The landlord wore a gigantic crucifix on a chain round his neck.

  “This isn’t Christian,” he said. “My livelihood. All I’ve got.”

  “Same as cockroaches,” I told him. “Harbour them, you pay the extermination fee.”

  “How could I know they were philistines?” Jesus Christ dangled and swayed from the landlord’s neck. The guy was sweating like a hog; that cheap metal crucifix would oxidize. Our Saviour would turn green before long.

  I shrugged. “Conducive environment. Screen your renters more closely.”

  The Fire Team arrived. They donned flame retardant suits, shouldered their flame-throwers and double-timed it up the stairs.

  “I go to high mass three times a week!” the landlord shrieked. “When the collection plate passes, I give more than my share—I support The Prophet with my entire soul!”

  Fire ripped through the suite. The window trembled, warped, blew outwards. There was a sound like fine linen tearing as air vacuumed through the breach. The Fire Team’s tanks were filled with a jellied gasoline/holy water mix: scourging and sacramental. We all watched. The fire mesmerized. Perpetual motion, twisting and ravenous. There are some shapes that live only in flame. Oily black smoke poured from the window. The landlord was on his knees on the sidewalk, howling, beating his breast. We cleared out.

  Old black magic

  Station house.

  Incident report. I’m team leader—i.e.: head paper pusher. Doe will never make team leader; as a woman, she’d already hit her mandated ceiling. Our pay scale was based on Leviticus 27: And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver. And if it be a female, thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.

  I typed up the incident report and dropped the carbons in Deacon Hollis’s mail slot. I crossed the bullpen and scanned the Ongoing Investigations corkboard:

  Unlawful Worship/Animal Sacrifice. Wiccans operating in East Seraphim Park and environs. 20 to 25 fugitives, Caucasian M/F 16–50 yrs. Threat: low. Priority: low. Investigating Acolytes: Henchel/Brewster.

  Unlawful Worship/Conspiracy/Danger to Public Peace. Muslim cell loosely centred in Hollis Heights/Kiketown adjacent. 6 known fugitives, Islamic M 15–35 yrs. Possible Hasidic sympathizers at Demsky’s Kosher Meat Mart. Threat: high. Priority: high. Investigating Acolytes: Applewhite/Mathers/Palmer.

  I tuned in the local feed of Republic Public Radio. The news was out over the wire:

  “. . . A daring police sting netted seven faith criminals this evening. The fugitive Scientologists were practising in a condominium complex in the Underdocks neighbourhood. Though heavily armed, they quickly surrendered and were taken into custody without incident. Blessed are those who walk with the Lord. Blessed are those who follow His Prophet. At the tone, RPR news time eleven o’clock.”

  The shop front was tall and narrow, wedged between a soup kitchen and a blood bank. A large wooden ram’s head hung on two chains above the door. The windows were darkened but a neon sign blinked 24HRS.

  A single aisle split the shop. Animals were penned in chicken-wire enclosures on either side: lambs, goats, hares. Caged birds hung on the walls.

  “Officer Murtag. So good to see you again.”

  The shopkeeper: tall and narrow, like his shop. He smelled of alfalfa.

  I said, “I need an offering.”

  “Whole offering or blood offering?” Then, in answer to his own question: “I suppose that depends on the nature of the offence, does it not?”

  I thought about Purple Angora. Her stomach blown out. Tatters of purple wool. I pointed to the nearest goat. “How about that one?”

  “That’s a good goat,” the proprietor said without much conviction. “Yes, that one would make a fine whole offering. But—”

  He grabbed a wooden pole and slid its hooked tip through the eyelet of a wicker birdcage.

  “Luzon Bleeding Heart doves,” he said, bringing the cage down to eye-level. “Beautiful creatures. Your soul will leave without a smirch upon it.”

  “It wasn’t really a dove offence.”

  “Understood.” The proprietor rubbed his jaw, considering. “Well, if you’re dead set on a goat, may I suggest this younger one instead?”

  “How much?”

  “Seven shekels, thirteen gerahs.”

  The proprietor clipped a collar around the goat’s neck. Its horns had been sanded down to nubs.

  “This way,” he said, beckoning toward a curtained aperture at the back of the shop. “The priest will be waiting.”

  The altar was the size of a supply closet. Portraits: one of Jesus Christ, another of The Prophet. The priest was snoring behind the dais. The goat chew
ed on my trouser cuff.

  “All apologies, my son,” the priest said, waking. “Quiet night.”

  The priest was haggard in the way a lot of these old shrine-tenders could be. Years ago he probably had his own church, his own diocese, his own admiring flock. He donned a vulcanized rubber apron and a leather belt strung with glittering knives. He rinsed out the tossing bowl and set it beside the sluice grate.

  The goat flicked its ears. The goat chewed the priest’s robe.

  “Your name, my son?”

  “Murtag.”

  “What is the nature of your offence, my son?”

  “Deliberate injury.” A beat. “Resulting in death.”

  The priest nodded. “Did you attempt it in anger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it out of duty?”

  “Yes.”

  “In service to our Lord and our Prophet?”

  “Yes.”

  The priest looped a noose around the goat’s hind legs. He pushed a button on a control box, winching the animal into the air. The goat thrashed and bleated.

  “Lord, behold this offering from thy humble servant.”

  The priest removed a long-bladed knife from its leather sheath.

  “Accept this gift, O Lord, given freely and with open heart, that it may cleanse the stain of sin from his soul. We ask this in thy name, amen.”

  The priest set a hand upon the goat’s chin, below the tufted beard. The goat’s eyes were bulging black bulbs. The priest drew his knife across its neck in a practiced slice.

  The animal made a breathless noise. The priest gripped its muzzle, collecting blood in the bowl. He flung blood upon the wall. He spoke the words.

  The priest again filled the bowl. He flung blood upon the wall. He spoke the words. Next he unkinked a hose and began to spray down the wall.

  “You may go now, my son. Your sins have been expiated.”

  On my way out, the proprietor asked what I’d like done with the animal.

  “The priest is a licenced butcher,” he told me. “Five shekels to have it drawn and quartered, wrapped in waxed paper and delivered to your door.”

  I told him no. My freezer was already full of goat.

  The view out my apartment window was beatific.

  Lit crosses topped every building, every condo complex, every factory, every house whose owners could afford the expense. Neon crosses, Plexiglas crosses, huge wooden crucifixes bound in blinking Christmas tree lights.

  A blackout hit the east side. The crosses all went dead, blackness like a wave rolling across the city. My fridge motor cut off. The red numerals on my bedside clock winked out. I sat in the sweltering dark. Every night a blackout: energy must be conserved. Yet the halo of spotlights ringing the Stadium SuperChurch still burned.

  I lay in bed and tried to fall asleep. No luck. How many goats over the years? How many doves, rabbits, sheep? I felt like an alcoholic who’s got to the point his cells crave the sauce so bad there’s no enjoyment in drinking anymore; he boozes to keep himself on an even keel.

  Make an offering. Purge thyself. Eat of my body. Drink my blood.

  Repeat after me: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died to absolve the sins of mankind.

  As a child, one morning I’d come downstairs to find a man in a white suit talking to my mother in our kitchen. He told her that our church had been closed but there was a new church, a better church. The man in the white suit said he would be positively delighted if she and I would consider attending.

  I remember other things, little things, but this is essentially where my memories begin: the man in the clean white suit.

  I am just one man. I am just one woman.

  People used to say that all the time. One man cannot stand in the path of tomorrow. And so tomorrow came. Tomorrow became today. Tomorrow just kind of . . . happened.

  The man in the white suit. The Republic. The Prophet. The Immaculate Mother. The One Child. The Quints. Crucifixes hanging in the night sky. The Acolytes.

  That old black magic.

  Squad Room Shakeup

  The first thing I heard when I walked into the squad room the next morning was Garvey, thronged by his fellow Acolytes, recounting the shakedown.

  “The alien-worshipers were rat-holed near the wharfs. I shotgun the lock, Murtag boots the door, we barrel on in. This one freak show gets in my face”—his voice rose to a fey contralto—“‘Our faith benefits mankind!’ So I drilled him. They better serve banana-mush where he’s headed because he won’t be taking solids for a while.”

  The others laughed appreciatively. Most of them were ex-Brethrens, Lutherans, Southern Baptists. The hardcore faithful. Garvey himself had been a snake handler.

  I sat at my desk. A portrait of Jesus Christ cradling the Lamb of God hung on the north wall. A portrait of The Prophet cradling the same Lamb adorned the south wall. Our squad room stood separate from the main station. Nine Acolytes total, divided into three-man teams presided over by Deacon Hollis. Subtle differences distinguished us from the rank and file: their badges were silver, ours gold. They wore traditional dress blues; ours were fashioned in the style of Christian missionaries: ankle-length dusters, black vests with whalebone buttons.

  Eight Acolytes made roll call. No Doe.

  Chief Exeter’s voice came over the intercom: “Gentlemen, everyone to the muster room. Pronto.”

  Deacon Hollis exited his office. Early fifties with a hard flat face. His features didn’t quite mesh, like an apple cut in half and put back together off-kilter.

  “You heard our fearless leader,” he said, fingering the beads of his wooden rosary. “Fall in line.”

  I grabbed my casebook. Chief Exeter stepped through a pebbled-glass door and cut a path into the bullpen. He was lean and muscular with carved-out cheekbones and teeth like elephant toes.

  We Acolytes settled into the muster room, flapping the hems of our oilskin dusters. Exeter stepped up to the dais; Hollis sat to his left.

  “This is a general debriefing on the department’s ongoing investigations, prioritized according to threat,” Exeter began. “Top priority: a 254—homicide/suicide bombing—last week in Matthew’s Square, during the Up with God minstrel show. Death toll stands at seventeen. Our sketch artist has produced an updated rendering of the jihadist, provided by a survivor who recently regained consciousness.”

  The bomber was the classic Islamic fanatic: cheeks sharp as busted saucers, vulpine nose, eyes dark and unfeeling as rocks. Approx. 5’10”, 145 lbs. I was amazed his frame could handle the 100-plus pounds of explosives he must have been packing.

  Rage rippled through the bullpen as the composite circulated. Garvey spat on his copy and ground it under his heel.

  “The CSI division has been working to determine the makeup of the bomb. Preliminary data based on blast radius indicate a fertilizer-based explosive with a manual incendiary igniter, possibly a road flare. This is based on CSI’s on-the-scene eyeball data.”

  Before the Republic, CSI was an acronym for Crime Scene Investigation; it presently stood for Christian Sciences Investigation. Forensics was now outlawed as a heretical discipline: it proved the existence of dinosaurs and the like. The Christian Scientists hunted around with magnifying glasses, making deductions.

  “You cannot purchase ammonium-nitrate based fertilizer without providing a Republic ID,” Exeter reminded us. “Any transaction should be recorded at the store. Every home and garden store in the city will need to be canvassed.”

  A collective groan from the rank and file.

  Exeter acknowledged the obvious. “Needle in a haystack, gentlemen. Lieutenants Toppenger and Paulsen are in charge of canvassing; officers are to work in two-man teams and report their findings to the stationhouse. Every man shall make this his primary focus until such time that a significant lead develops—”


  Hollis cleared his throat and trained his slightly amused gaze upon Exeter. The Chief returned Hollis’s stare, adjusted the bridge of his black-framed glasses, and turned back to the men.

  “—at which point it will be remanded to the Faith Crimes unit, who, as protocol dictates, will head up the investigation. But they’re going to need our assistance. Shake every tree at your disposal: every rat, every heathen lowlife. Interrogation rooms will be available all hours. Pakitown, Little Baghdad, and Kiketown scum. Rule nothing out.”

  Exeter asked Hollis if he had anything to add.

  “No, you’ve summed things up very well . . . chief.”

  Everyone could hear the lower-case c in Hollis’s chief.

  Exeter said: “Dismissed, then, gentlemen. And Prophet’s blessings.”

  Plainclothesmen filed out. Exeter leaned across the dais, regarding Hollis coolly; Hollis was tipped back in his chair, just about rubbing the shine off his rosary beads. Body language told the tale. Exeter: never upstage me in front of the men again. Hollis: your tin-badge sheriff’s act doesn’t scare me.

  Hollis held up his hand. “Acolyte Murtag—a word with you.”

  “Exeter is a damned fool,” Hollis said once we were settled back in his office. “Canvassing the city with a charcoal sketch of a fanatic—a fanatic who’s already blown himself to bits, I don’t need to remind you—asking, ‘Did this swarthy bastard purchase bomb-making material at your shop?’”

  He pulled a bottle of wine from his desk drawer and poured measures into water-spotted glasses.

  “Did you know Exeter used to be an Episcopalian? I’d as soon blow my brains out as follow an Episcopalian into battle. And slippery: Exeter’s the only man I know who could enter a revolving door behind you and step out ahead of you. Mind him, lad. You mind him, hear?”

  I sipped Hollis’s wine, so acidic it stung my gums.

  “Dispatch sent word. Acolyte Doe won’t be in today.”