I jerked away from his outstretched hand as if he were about to burn me. “Don’t push it, Revel. Just take care of Shock.”
Without another word, I marched down the spiral stairs and through the vast reception room. Theo followed silently while Revel trailed along behind us. In the stained-glass gallery, I ran up the flight of marble steps and stopped in front of the elevator doors.
Theo stood very close to me while I warily watched Revel. My aura was pulsing a dull red, like emergency flashers warning of danger ahead.
Revel glanced up at a camera and jerked his chin. The door opened as if by magic. I stepped inside, turning outward to face Revel. I stared him down until the door closed on us again. Even then, I didn’t move, very aware of the cameras in the tiny space. Revel was such a voyeur, he would probably replay the tapes he had made of me later. The old ones, made back when I trusted him, and these new ones he’d gotten today. It made me feel sick.
The unobtrusive doorman had a taxi waiting for us by the time we crossed under the short green canopy to Park Avenue. Once we were in the cab and I’d given the driver my destination in Brooklyn, I sat back with a sigh.
Theo must have recognized the address. “The Fellowship of Truth. That’s where you’re going?”
I nodded. I knew I shouldn’t take Theo with me to the Fellowship complex. It was too dangerous. But he had been useful with Revel, and I had Shock’s life in my hands. Sad to say, I had to use every tool I could to save her.
Theo took my hand in his, startling me. I could feel how he admired the way I had stood up to Revel, refusing to back down. He was also confused about the suddenness of his own protective feelings about me. I skimmed off the edge of his strong emotions. I hadn’t tried to provoke him into feeling more for me, so it was all the sweeter.
“Don’t you hate not being in the driver’s seat?” I asked, gesturing to the cabbie with my chin.
He grinned, abashed. “Yeah, I’m not used to the backseat.”
I could feel that driving determination under his other emotions, and knew he would be going even faster than this driver, zipping in and out between cars as if he owned the road. There was something a little heady about so much tightly wound energy, and I fed from him with a rare abandon.
At one point during the long cab ride back downtown, my phone buzzed with a text message. It was from Revel:
See Dread at PC.
I told him to stay out of it!
If I had wanted to forewarn Vex that I was coming, I would have called him myself.
I leaned forward and said, “Take us to the Prophet’s Center instead.” To Theo, I explained, “Fortunay got me an appointment with the prophet. I had wanted to speak to his nephew, Tim, first. I know Tim.”
Tim Anderson was Vex’s persona, not Dread who wore the guise of the prophet. What if Dread was responsible for the attacks on Shock? He could be running interference between me and Vex.
I dialed Vex’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. “It’s Allay,” I said, mindful of Theo sitting next to me. “I’m on my way to the Prophet’s Center to see your uncle. I hope you’ll be there soon, because I’d much rather talk to you.” I hung up, hoping Vex would get back to me quickly.
As our cab crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, I looked back at my neighborhood in Manhattan. The redbrick towers of the projects thrust up from the treetops, blocking the view of my bar. But I knew exactly where it was. I briefly toyed with the thought of calling the bar. Darryl would be worried, but I didn’t have anything reassuring to tell him.
As I looked into Brooklyn, the biggest building to the north of the bridge was a hulking white cube called the Prophet’s Center. It was an old factory, seven stories high with rows of enormous windows spangled with tiny panes. A fuzz of green on top proclaimed that most desirable of New York real estate, the roof garden.
The Fellowship had taken over six other large buildings on the surrounding blocks, mostly former warehouses that had been transformed into offices that administered the church and its various businesses—real estate management, an investment firm, even a biomedical research facility. There were also apartments for some of their employees, including Vex and his closest demon companions.
Vex had moved his headquarters into Williamsburg in the early seventies when he was the original prophet. With his support, the neighborhood had eventually blossomed into one of the trendiest places to live in the city. I didn’t know much about the religion, just what everyone else knew. Fellows (or truth-speakers, as they were also known) were required to take complete responsibility for their own actions and feelings, empowering themselves in order to achieve their life goals. They were pioneers of biofeedback where they learned how to control the autonomic functions of their bodies, and they were one of the first to offer EST-like workshops to build leadership skills.
The cab curved down and around too quickly, back under the bridge to get to the Prophet’s Center. I paid the driver before we stopped, and looked at Theo. His eye was black underneath and slightly swollen on his cheek. The tumbled curl of hair on his forehead mostly hid the white butterfly bandages. I felt it necessary to ask, “Are you sure you want to come with me?”
“This guy owns your bar, doesn’t he?”
“So I’m told.”
“Then you should have some backup. Someone on your side.”
He was right. “Okay. But stop telling people you’re my bodyguard. I can’t afford you.”
“I come cheap.”
He said it so fast, I had to grin. So did he, a little embarrassed. We really didn’t know each other, but in a strange way we did. I suddenly had a sharp craving to make love to him again, slowly and properly. What would one more time hurt? He was too tempting to let pass by.
“It’s nice to see you smile again,” he said.
“It’s been a rough day.” I squeezed his hand, then let go. “Let’s hit it.”
We were so close to the river that a murky, fishy smell wafted down the few short blocks. Up above, the constant rush of cars speeding over the metal roadway of the bridge drowned out all other sounds.
A plain double glass door served as the entrance to an industrial-chic lobby with painted ducts and exposed conduit lighting on the ceiling. The acoustic tile on the walls barely damped the echo off the concrete floor, painted dark red. There were groupings of low benches and tables, adhering to the church’s civic-minded philosophy of including public space in commercial buildings. This lobby was cramped compared to the other buildings in the complex—on my first meeting with Vex, I had waited in the conference center’s atrium, which had trees three stories high inside. Vex didn’t seem as eager to have a lot of loiterers in the building where he and Dread actually lived.
Still, there were a dozen people around drinking coffee, reading, and working on their laptops. Since they were mostly locals from Williamsburg, the place could be considered trendy.
I couldn’t sense Vex in the building, and I hadn’t sensed him in the other church buildings we passed. Barely within range, I could tell Dread was on an upper floor on the south side of the building; he had a slippery, sliding signature that made me feel off balance. On the north side, there was another demon signature, but it wasn’t Vex’s. The pressing, squeezing sensation made me draw in my breath, as her name came to me—Zeal. When Shock talked about Vex and Dread, Zeal’s name was most often mentioned. She had a prominent role in the church as the minister of action, interfacing directly with their followers, feeding off their devotional frenzies. But I’d never met her.
I went to the desk by the elevators, cordoned off with a filigreed bronze enclosure that looked extremely strong. Demon-proof, one might say. I gave my name to the security guard. “I have an appointment with Prophet Anderson.”
The guard checked his screen, quickly clearing us. We each had to stand in front of the computer cam so our picture could be taken. When we approached the bronze gate, it opened automatically. The guard explained that a face-recognition program would allow us access to certain parts of the building, and the doors we weren’t supposed to go through wouldn’t open for us.
The elevator also pinged open at our approach. It was sort of creepy, as if our every move were being watched. The Fellowship of Truth approved of modern technology, especially advances in medical science. They agitated for laws that improved the quality of life and they placed no restrictions on medical advances, including abortion, gene splicing, cloning, and stem cell research. Vex had run the Catholic Church under the Borgia empire, taking on the role of various notorious popes with Dread by his side. But I couldn’t reconcile that history with this permissive religion. The Fellowship was all about free choice.
As we walked into the waiting room on the fifth floor, a small woman of Asian ancestry was there to greet us, smiling. I was surprised to see she was wearing pink braces—she was in her mid- twenties, at least. But with her bangs, upturned nose, and tiny, graceful hands, she exuded vivacious charm. I wondered if Dread made the poor girl work every Saturday.
“Hello, my name is June. I’m Prophet Anderson’s assistant.” June directed Theo to a comfy chair with magazines on the table next to it, and said, “You can wait here while Ms. Meyers sees the prophet.”
“Allay,” Theo asked quietly, “do you want me to come with you?”
“No, you can wait.” I was glad when he didn’t protest, even though he probably wanted to meet the notorious prophet of the church-of-anarchy. But Theo couldn’t hear what I had to say to Dread.
“Let me see your phone,” he said.
I handed it over, and he keyed in his number, waiting to hang up until it rang. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll be right back,” I promised.
He handed over my cell, letting his fingers brush against mine. I took in the bright spark of his attraction, savoring it. Was it the girl or the demon inside of me who wanted him? I couldn’t deny that I thought about pulling him against me, pressing my eager mouth to his, wrapping my legs around his hips. . . .
I forced myself to walk away as Theo remained standing, watching after me. I was lucky he had saved me from Pique last night. Shock was also lucky, or she wouldn’t have had me to stop the demon who attacked her this morning.
Leaving him there exposed and vulnerable felt wrong. But I had Shock to worry about. If something happened to him, then I should find the nearest exit. I had already pin-pointed the location of the stairwell in the corner farthest from both demons as the one to take if I needed to escape.
As I approached the double doors at the end of the corridor, Dread’s signature was more distinct than Zeal’s. Close proximity made me stagger a bit as if the floor of the hall tilted downward. I felt as if I were sliding, about to lose control. It was uncomfortable, and I struggled to dampen the effects, to block it out as I did with Shock. I wondered if sensitive humans could also sense it, and if they were unnerved by the sensation.
June opened the door and announced, “Ms. Emma Meyers, Prophet Anderson.”
I stepped into the big corner office while June left, shutting the door behind me. Through one wall of windows, I could see just over the top of the roadway to the huge, flat-topped Prophet’s Arena south of the Williamsburg Bridge. The East River made a big curve there, with the piers and towering loading cranes of the Brooklyn Navy Yard clustered around the small bay behind it. In the distance, the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges spanned the river to downtown.
The other wall of windows looked directly at Manhattan, with the thick, blue-gray torrent of the river rushing by in front of us. We were higher than the old Domino Sugar refinery on our side of the waterfront, and beyond the river were the East River Park and project towers. That was Alphabet City, my neighborhood.
“Nice view.” I was glad the towers of the projects blocked my bar. I’d never considered that they might be able to see me from over here.
Dread, aka Prophet Thomas Anderson, stood behind a desk made of clear Lucite, with only a phone, laptop, and a leather pen case on top. The long wall had a built-in display trimmed in black, with white interior squares that held awards, citations, and photos of the prophet with important people. The shrinelike centerpiece was a photo of Dread with his arm around the shoulders of the original prophet, Dale Willams. That was Vex’s former persona. Right now, Vex was off somewhere being the new prophet’s wayward young nephew, Tim—or maybe someone else altogether.
From the black shiny floor to the careful lighting and sparse office equipment, I guessed this was not where Dread actually worked. This place was for show.
“Nice to see you again, Allay.” Dread’s persona was an urbane, Ivy-league man in his late fifties; tall, strong, with silvery short hair and the lightly bronzed skin of an out doorsman. There was something both warm and dignified about him, but all I could feel was his slippery signature that put me off balance.
“Actually, I want to see Vex.”
“Vex is out of the country right now. He’s not due back for another few days. Perhaps I can help you?” He didn’t sound too encouraging.
A few days! I couldn’t wait that long. “I need to speak to Vex. Can’t you get hold of him by phone?”
“No, I’m afraid that’s impossible. He’s deep in some rough country. You’ll have to make do with me.”
I tried not to shuffle my flip-flops as I crossed the vast expanse to his desk. I had met Dread only a few times in the company of Vex, usually when he gave me orders on code words and procedures for my job. Other than that, I dealt directly with Vex whenever I needed something, which was rarely.
What if Dread was lying to me about Vex? He was far too smooth to be trusted. He was wearing a very expensive suit, and his white shirtsleeves were closed with cuff links. But he didn’t have a tie, and his shirt was open a couple of buttons, showing off a few curly silver chest hairs. Shock had laughed once about how Dread had created his current persona with premature gray hair to help establish his authority within the church. She said his personas were always rigidly correct—the perfect knight, the devout monk, the finest courtier—but he had never assumed the leadership role until recently when he became the Fellowship’s prophet, while Vex had taken a minor role as his nephew.
