by J. D. Oliva
"So, sunglasses at night?" She tried making conversation. "You like Corey Hart?"
He probably wouldn't get the joke, but it's a nice icebreaker.
"I hurt my eyes," the passenger said without looking up from his phone.
Not much for conversation. That's okay. It is a twenty-minute ride from the airport to the address, which she assumed is someone's house or apartment near the lakeshore in the Edgewater neighborhood. She did notice that the passenger had a tattoo on his face. That's something she'd never understand. Here was a good-looking guy who decided to ruin his face with some stupid cursive lettering right under his eye. He'd regret it when he hit forty for sure.
"Ello," the rider said, answering his phone.
Valerie couldn't help but look into the rearview mirror and eavesdrop.
"Okay then." The man hung up his phone. "Change of plans, can you turn down this way, right here?"
"No problem." Valerie turned the Fusion down an alleyway behind a Walgreens on Canfield Avenue.
"Are you just going to meet someone—ahhh!"
From behind, the passenger wrapped some kind of steel cable around her throat. Valerie tried to pull at the wire already stretched tightly across her neck. Her thick digits couldn't slide their way into the binding. Instead, she reached forward to lay on the horn and get someone, anyone's attention. But as soon as her hands moved for the wheel, the man's incredibly long arm wrapped around her body and grabbed hold of the door. The grip around her throat never loosened, not even a little. Jesus Christ, is he strangling her with one hand?
Struggling to find the horn, Valerie kept trying to push forward. She had to fight.
Had to fight.
To fight.
Fight.
Fi—
ILII
A red 2016 Kia Sorento pulled up to an expansive building that looked more like an arena or a building you'd see at a college than it did a church. Growing up a semi-practicing Catholic, Dana was used to old stone buildings with gothic architecture, marble statues where people sang hymns made with words you only heard at Church. It's not like you can work Gloria in excelsis Deo into regular conversation. Church was a solemn, formal experience, at least it was the three times a year her family went.
As she watched hundreds of people pouring into what would derogatorily be called a megachurch, she got the feeling this was going to be something much different.
"Ms. O'Brien?" An unfamiliar voice said.
Dana turned toward the entrance and found a young man around her age dressed in a white polo shirt and tight Dockers with a neatly trimmed beard that accented his crystal blue eyes. He was good looking in a nerdy kind of way.
"Me?" She said dumbfounded.
"Yes. Hi, I'm Michael," he said, firmly shaking her hand.
Nothing drove Dana crazier than meeting a guy and having him daintily shake her fingers with that weird underhand grip with the thumb on top. It's so meek and delicate that she instantly lost respect for whoever pulled that move. If they can't shake your hand like a real person, then don't expect them to treat you like a real person. Another of her father's dadisms, but this one always seemed to be accurate. Guys who shook like that viewed women like precious little creatures who needed protecting. She's not a kitten and didn't like being treated like one. This is different. It was strong and stable, also a bit unexpected in this environment. His grip felt firm, but not like a vice. It took her back a little. Why was she here again?
"Hi."
"You're here to speak with Reverend Julia, right?"
Oh yeah.
"Yes, that's right," She was back to reality. "We have a meeting."
Strong handshake and gorgeous eyes or not, this is a business trip. And possibly the end of the world. Maybe.
"Yes, the Reverend is giving a special guest lecture tonight. She sent me out here to find you. Reverend Julia asked that you watch the service and, then the two of you can speak immediately after."
"Oh, great," she said, trying to hide how much she didn't want to listen to a church service. "Um, if you don't mind me asking, how did you know how to find me?"
"I'm Reverend Julia's personal assistant. She wanted to make sure you were escorted in right away."
"But how did you know it was me?" She asked, pointing to her face. How did he know what she looked like? It creeped her out a bit to be spotted in a crowd.
"Google."
Duh. Google made so much of her job, and pretty everything else, so much easier. But the fact that her face was floating out there for anyone to find is creepy.
Michael escorted her into the foyer of what's supposed to be a church, but looked more like some Broadway play. The entryway was full of well-dressed people who greeted each other with warm, glowing smiles and hugs. She'd never seen so many people this genuinely excited to go to Church. Shouldn't surprise her, considering Julia was the one who approached her at the airport. Dana always assumed that was just to try to sell another book and collect a royalty check, but looking around, maybe she's just that nice. It seemed like everyone here is a little like that.
"Follow me," Michael said, ushering her past the crowd and into a back elevator. "This way you can kinda see how the soup is made."
That is a terrible analogy, but he delivered it so sincere and with such a dorky smile that she let it slide. She should've made fun of him for it, but smiled back. She couldn't tell, but her smile probably looked just as dorky.
Typically, Dana would be asking a thousand questions, trying to understand what made a place like this tick. Questions like: how much money does a church like this pull in a year to keep this operation running? And wouldn't that money be better spent by investing in the community? But she didn't. Instead, she just stared at the elevator door as they moved up. Something about everything here threw her off.
The elevator beeped three times and opened. Michael allowed her to exit first into a nicely decorated hallway with gray carpeting. He opened a door labeled control room, and the two of them stepped through into mission control. The closest thing she could compare the room to was the college television studio back at Cornell. There were two 20-something men behind a lighting board. Another guy with a gray/white beard and a headset adjusted audio levels. An Asian kid, who couldn't have been more than sixteen, readied some visual graphics on a Mac, while a college-age blonde next to him fired up the Final Cut Pro video editing system. Controlling everything was a woman in her thirties with frizzy auburn hair and thick glasses. She was neatly dressed in the same white polo and khakis as Michael. She didn't notice it before, but there was a logo on both of their chests. It was a willow tree with a cross on the inside of a yellow circle.
"Ready to roll up here," the director said into her headset.
"You guys making a movie?" Dana whispered.
Michael smiled back. "Every Wednesday night and three times on Sunday."
The audio tech slid the fader upward, and the sound of drums and guitars filled the arena below. She looked out onto the massive stage, which had a ten-piece band playing some upbeat tune, while the crowd clapped along, a little off-time. She turned her attention to the thousands of people already swaying in their seats. This isn't a church; it's a concert hall. The singer's voice caught her by surprise. The singing itself didn't surprise her, it was how good she sounded. The whole band sounded great. These guys aren't some half-ass geeks. These are legitimate musicians playing a song that... well, not her thing, but it sounded professional. More importantly, the people in the seats, and in the balcony, sang along. They loved being here.
Growing up, going to church was like visiting the dentist. It wasn't fun, but it was something you had to do. Even if you hated it, you only went a few times a year. This is completely different. These people want to be here. Even Dana found herself caught up in the whole thing, slightly bobbing to the music.
Michael smiled back at her, and though she maybe should have been a little embarrassed, she wasn't. She had no reason to be. The band
finished their song, and she half-expected the people to cheer, but they didn't. They just took their seats, ready for the next event.
"Please welcome Pastor Wilson!" A disembodied voice echoed over the crowd. She would have jokingly referred to it as the voice of God if she didn't know how bad it would have gone over.
A man who looked more than a little like Beto O'Rouke walked out on the stage. He was wearing the apparently standard-issue khaki pants, but opted for a blue blazer and salmon-colored shirt. She couldn't tell if the same logo was embroidered on his shirt. The pastor waved to the crowd like a politician standing before his supporters.
"Graphic," the director said.
The kid on the Mac punched a few keys, and a huge graphic with the name Pastor Will McReady, set against the tree/cross/yellow circle, appeared on the screen behind him. This is a multimedia event.
"Good evening!"
The crowd shouted the message back.
"Thank you for joining us on this Wednesday night. I'd love to talk more with you guys, but I'm sure you get tired of hearing from me every Sunday!"
The crowd laughed at what was supposed to be a joke.
"Now, we are fortunate to have one of our church elders with us tonight. She's a woman of many hats. Not only is she an author, but she's a scholar, a Ph.D., and a reverend who's here to speak to you about how to apply the good word in your everyday life. Most importantly, she's back home after an exciting book tour, speaking at churches and universities around the globe. Ladies and gentlemen, my mentor, the Reverend Julia Summerville!"
"Ready video. Ready lights. Take video," the director said.
The girl at the other Mac pressed the space bar. As the lights dimmed, the screen filled with a motion graphic of Summerville's name. Fast-paced music with the Reverend's own voiceover played over a video. Dana stopped watching the show at this point and started paying more attention to the crowd. They were entranced. This new church experience did a much better job selling the message than where she grew up.
The screen showed a montage of videos taken from the Reverend's book tour. They made it seem like the most fun experience a writer could have. Is that the experience that was waiting for her whenever she finished her book on the Pentagram Murders? That crowd would be a lot different than the happy religious types in this video. Regardless, this motivated her to write more than anything.
The video finished with an overhead view of the church filmed by a drone and some final thoughts from Summerville herself. Dana wasn't sure what she was talking about, having been lost in the show and her own thoughts.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Reverend Julia Summerville!"
ILIII
Zion released his grip on the Uber driver’s throat. He didn’t have to kill her, but the last thing he needed was this driver to call in the theft of her car. He just needed to borrow it for a bit, but doubted she’d just hand it over. This is easier.
Opening the front door, he let the driver’s husky frame spill out of the front seat onto the pavement. He patted her body up and down, not for any type of thrills. He already got those. No, he had to make sure she didn’t have any identification on her. When the police found the body, the extra time it’d take to figure out who the Jane Doe was would help him. Figure that gave him a couple hours, not that he needed them. They’re just a little cushion in case he ran into any problems. He found something in her front pocket. A cellphone. Cheap Android model. He’d keep the phone for now. It’d be easier to dump it with the car later tonight.
For now, he needed to map the route from this Walgreens on Canfield Avenue to a place called Holy Name Cathedral.
ILIV
Julia Summerville walked out on the stage. Her small frame was almost engulfed by the staging. When she was younger, they probably would call her petite, but today she had a motherly look that played into her charisma. Dana saw it firsthand at the airport bookshop. She had a presence that made people stop and listen, but there was also something comforting about her. Compassionate is the best way Dana could describe her aura.
"Thank you all very much for the lovely welcome home. My name is Julia Summerville, and I want to talk about how we bring faith into our work lives. Faith is a tricky thing. It's not something you can see, or you can touch, or something you can taste. Faith is something you have to trust, and trust is an even more difficult concept for most people to understand. Especially in this crazy world we live in.
"I was just speaking to my husband about this the other day. He and I have very different views on faith and trust, but we both have faith and trust in each other because the two go hand-in-hand. Without faith, what is trust? Without trust, how can we have faith? When we apply that faith and trust into our everyday lives, they become more manageable. When we accept the important people in our lives have trust in us, things become more manageable. It's like that with God, too.
"We've all heard the phrase ‘Jesus take the wheel,’ and it's kind of silly when you think about it, because I'm not actually expecting Jesus to grab a steering wheel and point us down the road. That doesn't make sense. What it really means is we need to trust our beliefs and our faith in Jesus and God, something more than ourselves will direct us where we need to go.
"In the publishing world, I have a controversial reputation, as I tend to study things that make people uncomfortable. Especially people who share our faith. But I study this disturbing subject so I have a firmer understanding of what we do and why we possess our faith. The truth is, these groups I study, these, quote, Doomsday Cults have no problem applying this trust to their everyday lives. They trust their leaders are sending them in the right direction. What they're doing is stealing their money and stealing their identities. They're taking everything these people hold dear, and that's if they're lucky. Often these charlatans steal their followers' lives.
"These people opened their hearts. They trust and are willing to die for their faith. A false faith. An evil faith. What is commonly called blind faith. Blind faith is scary, because no good minister, no good preacher, no good pastor, or priest, whatever you want to call him, would ask his parishioners to have complete faith in them. That's not the goal. You know what's right and what's wrong, what works and what doesn't. But that doesn't come from the heart; it comes from the mind. These people completely abandon their rationality, their thought, for blind faith.
"What I think we could learn from these unfortunate people is opening our hearts in trust can be a scary thing, but it can also lead us to something great because we as leaders, need to be the ones steering the ship. Yes, Jesus take the wheel. Jesus is still God, and the way to Jesus is through the heart, but if we're sitting up here telling you the wrong message, steering your heart in the wrong direction, who are you allowing to take the wheel? The worst thing we can do is turn to our left and see the driver is something far worse than we thought. These people don't join these cults because of reason. They join because they desperately want to believe in something. The needs of the heart can crush the thoughts of the mind. A heart without a mind can be exploited. A mind without a heart can be cold and unfeeling.
"There's an old saying that goes, ‘an eye for an eye will make the world turn blind.’ What we have right now is a world full of the blind people opening their hearts and letting whoever they think is inside to drive. People need to ask themselves, is this who I want driving the vehicle? Is it really Jesus I'm letting drive, or is it something far more sinister?
"Don't just trust your heart. Open your mind first. When the mind is open, then the heart can follow. When they work together, we discover truth. Christ never asked us to be dumb. He doesn't want the blind. He wants our best, not drones. He wants us to open our mind before we open our hearts. Or else who is driving behind the wheel of a car? Thank you."
The masses at the Willowbrook Church erupted in cheers. Julia Summerville tried to hide a warm and motherly smile as she raised her hand to the crowd, thanking them one last time. She gently hugged Pastor McRead
y as she headed backstage.
Dana understood why they had a sellout crowd tonight.
ILV
Michael led Dana through the staging area after the service. With music blaring in the background, it seemed like Dana had backstage passes at a concert more than a church service. She couldn't get over how different Willowbrook was from the church she attended growing up. Or how different it was from Holy Name, the revered Cathedral she and Mr. Ishikawa, visited that morning, which almost felt like a lifetime ago.
Reverend Julia Summerville sat in what Dana could best describe as a green room. Julia took a small sip from a bottle of water, letting the adrenaline come down as Wilson and Dana made their way in.
"I've been on more book tours than I can count. I've been on talk shows, news programs, spoken in front of colleges and dignitaries, but there's nothing like a church service. The power you feel from the congregation, the pure energy and love that flows from those people, I can't explain it."
Dana, almost beaming, grabbed Summerville's hand like a fangirl meeting her hero.
"That was incredible. It really was."
"Thank you, Dana. I appreciate it. Now, you didn't travel all the way here just to share the Good News with us."
"No, I think I'm here to spread some bad news." Whether she was trying to make a bad joke or not, she wasn't even sure anymore.
The expression on the Reverend's face shifted. The elation faded, replaced with a heavy scowl. It may have been fear etched across her face.
"Tell me about the Devil's Prayer, Dana.”
"I know about the Codex Gigas, the monk, and the deal with the Devil. I know it's kept in Prague, but there's a bunch of missing pages. What I don't know is how those pages wound up inside of a picture frame hanging in a museum in the Netherlands. I also have no idea, quite frankly, why this is all happening. I also don't know what this Church of the Sun is and why they're involved."
