Messiahs Read online

  Alexis said, ‘It sounds too good to be true.’

  ‘Maybe because it is,’ Maeve said. ‘For something to be “true” or “acceptable” it must coexist peacefully with a functioning society. But our society is broken. People are torn between the useless see-saw of the political spectrum. They’re fat, tired, overworked, undernourished, chemically addicted, broken in the soul. We offer something purer. We offer hope.’

  “Chemically addicted,” Violetta thought. That’s rich.

  But the scary part was Maeve had a point.

  The movement made sense. There was something romantic and poetic about detaching yourself from the world, starting anew in an exotic location, stripping yourself down to your basic instincts so you could change your automatic habits. Violetta knew King and Slater were masters of the concept. It worked. They made the hard choices in every moment, and it had carried them to where they were today. But sometimes concepts are so appealing that they’re ripe for exploitation. That’s what Maeve was doing.

  Speaking some fundamental truths about the world, sucking in her audience, and then using that initial devotion to make them servants to her every whim.

  Hell, Violetta thought, every salesman does it.

  She was taking the practice to its extreme.

  And succeeding.

  Alexis broke the silence. ‘I’m in. I guess it takes courage to admit you’re lost. And I’m lost. I’ll try anything.’

  Maeve looked at Violetta.

  Violetta said, ‘I was in from the moment you started talking.’

  Maeve smiled. ‘I’m thrilled to hear it.’

  Alexis said, ‘What now?’

  Maeve waved a hand dismissively. ‘Nothing. You’ve been here half an hour. The first step is understanding our way of life, integrating with the community. I assure you it won’t be difficult. Everyone here is accepting. You’ll feel right at home. So I’ll get Brandon to show you to your room, and then over the next few days we can practice some of the strategies I’ve discovered about how the human mind really works.’

  The women nodded.

  Maeve jutted her chin. ‘Go on, then. You’ll find Brandon at the bottom of the hill. I instructed him to wait.’

  Alexis said, ‘You knew we’d accept.’

  Maeve shook her head. ‘You’d need to be shown to your rooms anyway. It’s a common courtesy.’

  ‘If we refused,’ Alexis said, ‘you wouldn’t have kicked us out?’

  ‘Of course not, darling,’ Maeve said. ‘Do you think I’m a monster?’

  Yes, Alexis thought. Yes, I do.

  36

  In one of the outbuildings on the other side of the commune, Elias practiced close-range elbow strikes.

  The sequence was part of Biu Ji, “Thrusting Fingers,” the third form of the traditional Chinese martial art Wing Chun.

  He slammed an elbow into the mu ren zhuang, a wooden dummy designed specifically for Wing Chun practice. As he threw the strike, he made sure he was aware of every atom in his muscle chain, using the supreme control of his body to harness his ki, his energy.

  Elias had practiced Wing Chun his whole life. An outcast in his home town of Cheyenne due to social awkwardness and lack of conversational timing, he’d retreated into a shell at the age of fourteen and never really left. He’d spent hours every evening after school watching videos on the martial art, practicing on a wooden dummy he’d built himself. That first dummy had been a cheap imitation of the real thing’s craftsmanship, but it did the job. After school he’d drifted from manual labour job to manual labour job, which helped harden his thin, tall frame. He continued to devote his life to Wing Chun, mastering each of the forms in turn, working on his close-range strikes until he achieved a breakthrough at the age of twenty-five. It was then that he was able to tap into his ki at will, giving him the strength of ten men in brief bursts.

  Elias had never been in a fistfight before.

  It had simply never materialised. Here in the commune he’d been forced to use his talents in macabre ways, but he’d never come up against a resisting opponent. He feared for his adversary on the day he did. Devoting his entire life to a single focus had sharpened him in ways he could barely fathom.

  That’s how the Riordans had found him eight months ago.

  He rarely trained in public, but on one of the occasions that he brought his mu ren zhuang to the local park in Cheyenne, a couple of passersby had spotted him and watched his hand speed and dexterity in awe. As chance would have it, one of those bystanders would go on to join Mother Libertas, and one night they mentioned what they’d seen to Maeve. She’d sent a couple of scouts to Cheyenne to track him down, and they’d found him easily enough.

  Then she’d approached with an offer.

  The rest was history.

  He hadn’t left the commune in eight months, and he relished the role of “enforcer” for Mother Libertas. It charged him with a true purpose, something his past life distinctly lacked. Modern times create soulless, socially inept shut-ins, and that’s what he’d been until Maeve had set him free.

  It had been difficult to shake his conditioning at first, considering his social ineptitude and inability to hold a conversation with a stranger. But over time he’d come out of his shell as he got to know the Riordans better. It’d have to be enough — he couldn’t get close to any of the disciples, for they came in with increasing frequency and the few that wanted out obviously couldn’t return to society and spill their secrets, so Elias was tasked with silencing them.

  Which reminded him of the work he had to take care of tonight.

  He charged his ki and delivered ten more consecutive strikes to the wooden dummy. It was built with expert craftsmanship, but it nearly splintered all the same. His power was becoming frightening, each ounce of muscle serving a kinetic purpose. He’d recently passed the ten thousand hour mark that symbolised mastery — an average of three hours a day training Wing Chun for the past nine years. Now twenty-eight, he had the physical abilities of a man in his athletic prime, and would doubtless become better and better with time as Mother Libertas expanded into its new role.

  He was more than ready.

  Sweat soaking his traditional Chinese outfit, he stepped away from the dummy and conducted fifteen minutes of transcendental meditation in the corner of the room that served as his training facility, lowering his heart rate to baseline. Then he rose, padded barefoot to the door, and opened it to survey the commune.

  He spotted two newcomers.

  They were following Brandon toward one of the bunkhouses on the opposite side. He caught their side profiles as they passed by. They were women in their early thirties, jaw-dropping to look at, carrying themselves with a grace that meant they were athletically gifted and took exceptional care of their bodies. After devoting his life to the same practice, Elias knew disguised power when he saw it. He made a mental note to find out more about them — by studying their movements and their anatomies as they walked past, he concluded they could hold their own in a fistfight against most of the male followers of Mother Libertas.

  That was impressive, and might reveal more about who they claimed they were.

  It was Elias’ job to sniff out liars.

  Which, again, brought him back to the job that awaited him tonight.

  He closed the door, sat back down in the corner, and returned to his meditative state.

  He needed all his energy harnessed for the evening.

  37

  Brandon showed Violetta and Alexis to their room.

  Everyone they passed was polite and respectable, but kept their distance. There was a clear understanding amongst the followers that the newcomers hadn’t been initiated yet. Until then, the followers would be wary of the invisible bubble. They wouldn’t get too close, wouldn’t grow too attached. They were devoted to the tribe of Mother Libertas, and nothing else.

  They were a mixed bag. En route to one of the bunkhouses, Alexis nodded a wordless greeting to four Caucasia
ns, an Asian-American couple, and an African-American woman. They ranged from their twenties to their forties, but no older. That was clearly a result of the screening process for potential victims, and revealed that eventually Maeve would put her devotees to use in ways that the elderly wouldn’t be able to manage.

  Like a violent revolution, for example.

  But that was a long way off. If Mother Libertas was a start-up company, it was currently going through one of the early stages — the accumulation of capital. More followers were more hands were more resources. And if all of these people gave Maeve and her husband their money under the guise of being “reborn” out of their old lives … well, that was a nice nest egg to fall back on.

  That wasn’t to mention what Maeve could get from the outside world in exchange for Bodhi…

  Wherever the drug was made, it wasn’t here. There were no facilities for lab work, unless they were somewhere else in the grassland, but purchasing those quantities of equipment would raise red flags. The more likely option was a pre-established lab in one of the major cities, paid gross sums of money under the table to manufacture and bottle.

  Brandon reached the bunkhouse furthest to the east of the commune and said, ‘Through here.’

  They went inside and found themselves in horrid conditions.

  The air reeked of unwashed clothes — stale sweat and the hint of tobacco. Wet garments were strung up on coathangers in doorways, people moved in and out of their rooms like silhouettes in the poor lighting, and the walls smelled of damp rot, only adding to the disrepair.

  Alexis didn’t mind.

  In fact, she felt great.

  She didn’t know why.

  Brandon said, ‘Here’s your spot. It’s your lucky day, girls. You’ve got your own room.’

  He pushed a door open and gestured for them to step inside. The bedroom was practically a closet, claustrophobic in design, with a twin bunk bed frame nailed to the opposite wall. There were thin cheap mattresses on each bed, and fitted sheets folded neatly on top of their pillows.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Violetta said, and it seemed she genuinely meant it.

  Brandon nodded. ‘No problem. I’ll leave you to settle in. Come find me if you need anything, yeah?’

  ‘Will do,’ Alexis said.

  ‘Anything at all,’ Brandon said. ‘I mean it.’

  He gazed at them for a little too long.

  Again, Alexis didn’t care.

  Which was odd.

  Brandon nodded to himself, stepped out and walked away. He left the door open — closing it might highlight how small the space truly was.

  Alexis wouldn’t have cared either way. She didn’t think anything could ruin the mood she was in.

  Violetta put her bag on the bed and said, ‘Let’s take a walk. Get some fresh air.’

  Alexis said, ‘Really?’

  ‘The scenery’s stunning,’ Violetta said. ‘We might as well look at it.’

  Because the room’s bugged, Alexis realised. She scolded herself for being so stupid, but she couldn’t stay frustrated. Instead she found it funny.

  She masked a giggle and said, ‘Sure, why not?’

  They went out through the same door they’d come in, leaving their phones in their bags. The devices were useless, anyway. There was no service this far from civilisation. Their building marked the very edge of the commune, and out back it surveyed the endless landscape, like an alien planet of grass and dirt.

  Violetta walked a few dozen feet away from the building, until they were out of earshot of any eavesdroppers, at the tip of the vast emptiness.

  She turned to Alexis and said, ‘Do you feel it?’

  ‘Feel what?’ Alexis said.

  Violetta said, ‘Inside you.’

  Alexis cocked her head, confused. ‘I feel good, I guess. Maybe we needed some fresh country air after all.’

  Violetta said, ‘Are colours brighter?’

  Alexis hesitated.

  She looked all around.

  The prairie was magnificent. It was so empty it practically glowed, a well-preserved frontier, a world away from the chaos of modern city living. It was how humans were supposed to live. It was glorious…

  Violetta said, ‘Alexis.’

  She snapped out of it. ‘Yeah. Colours are brighter. Do you think—?’

  ‘The tea.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It was a tiny dose,’ Violetta said. ‘But holy shit, I feel good.’

  Alexis fought through the dopamine spike and used an iota of common sense. She said, ‘This is how it works.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Alexis stared into Violetta’s eyes. ‘Right now, my brain’s telling me to listen to whatever Maeve says. If life feels this good out here, why put on a cover? Why not actually live out here? That’s what’s going through my head right now…’

  ‘You don’t honestly—?’

  Alexis said, ‘No. I can detach myself from it. But if I was any weaker … maybe all those months ago, before I met Will, maybe I would have fallen for something like this. I was still a smart woman back then. I had my head on my shoulders. I wasn’t gullible. But this — the setting, the chemicals, the words Maeve uses — it’s a different level of persuasion. It’s incredibly good.’

  Violetta said, ‘I know.’

  Alexis looked into her eyes.

  They were twice as blue. She wasn’t sure whether it was her own perception, or the Bodhi in Violetta’s system.

  Then something broke through the elation, and Violetta’s face went dark and she said, ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s how good this stuff is,’ Violetta said. ‘For an instant, I forgot I was pregnant. The baby…’

  Alexis’ own joy fell away. ‘Oh, shit.’

  Violetta shook her head. ‘It’s a microdose. Barely perceptible. Just a mood elevator. That’s not enough to harm the child.’

  All went quiet.

  Violetta looked out across the plains and said, ‘If Maeve slips me some again, I’ll cut her throat.’

  Alexis listened to the determination in her voice.

  She was telling the truth.

  38

  That afternoon, Dane rapped his knuckles lightly against the wood of the farmhouse’s office door.

  Even though his wife had requested his presence it still didn’t feel right. These were her “deep focus” hours, early in the afternoon between congregations, when she locked herself in the office and let her grandest visions spill onto the page. He’d seen the aftermath of what had to be a hundred sessions by now. Every time, the result was pages and pages of handwritten scrawl, written in the loose style of her free-flowing train of thought. They were notes for her eyes only, and sometimes Dane’s. Plans for the future, broader aims and goals for the movement, and ideas for new nefarious methods of infecting the disciples with feverish hatred and devotion.

  She’d been doing these isolated brainstorming sessions ever since she’d morphed into a destructive charismatic

  “Destructive charismatic,” he thought. Giving your soulmate a label like that…

  But it was true. He’d stumbled upon the definition online, sitting up late one night. A destructive charismatic bent followers to their will with a bombastic, unabashed personality. They were masters of persuasion, refusing to recognise their flaws and doubling down whenever anyone criticised them. It created an aura of achievement and accomplishment, like it was effortless, like the world fell into their lap the moment they opened their mouth and spewed their rhetoric.

  That was Maeve Riordan, through and through.

  That late night Googling session had been a rare moment of self-reflection, when Dane finally realised what his partner had become. In those moments he realised what they were, who they were. They didn’t come often, but when they did they hit him hard.

  He’d always known he was a monster — his childhood had made that inevitable. Universal qualities of empathy and compassion come from t
he correct development of a baby’s brain. An infant needs love, care, nurturing. Dane had received exactly the opposite of those three things, and had identified himself as a psychopath in his early twenties after giving it a couple of minutes’ thought. He’d spent most of his life dangerously paranoid, but he figured it was unique that he was able to acknowledge it instead of vehemently ignoring it like Maeve did.

  But just because you understand why you’re conditioned the way you are, doesn’t mean you can change it.

  He’d certainly changed Maeve.

  Morphed her into what she was now.

  She used to be a normal, easygoing woman. He’d given her a life of her own, then let her stoke her own fire.

  Now he entered the room. She was hunched over her desk, closer in resemblance to a crazed philosopher than the straight-backed omniscient deity she pretended to be. She looked up from the pages and fixed him with a stare.

  He said, ‘I don’t want to disturb you.’

  She said, ‘It’s fine. We have to talk.’

  ‘Is it about the new girls?’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘I can’t see what else it’d be.’

  ‘Besides you and I, they’re now the most important people in this commune.’

  Dane hesitated, thrown off. ‘What?’

  ‘Did you not hear me?’

  ‘That’s … not what I was expecting to hear. I thought you’d have a problem with them.’

  ‘Why would I?’ Maeve said. ‘I mean, just look at them. I’m sure you want to stick your dick in both of them, preferably at the same time. Am I right?’

  In his early twenties, Dane thought psychopaths were devoid of all emotion. That’s how it seemed for him, years ago. But it’s not true. Psychopaths are indifferent to anyone other than themselves, but they can worry about their own thoughts, their own emotions.

  Like he was doing now.

  He’d never felt more uncomfortable.

  There was a dark glint in Maeve’s eyes.