The Unseen (30 page)

“Nature doesn’t care about us.  It makes us hungry, cold, sick, and old, then it kills us.  Along the way, we get to enjoy plenty of suffering thanks to these bodies and their huge capacity for pain.  So thanks a lot, nature,” he said sarcastically, drawing laughs.

“
Society doesn’t care about us.  There are billions of people out there,
billions
, who would watch you struggle and never help, who would watch you starve and give you nothing, who would not raise a finger if they saw your life was in danger.  The world out there is full of people who would lie to you, cheat you, hurt you, and never have a second thought or a moment of remorse about it.”

More heads nodded along.  One boy, about fourteen with long green bangs and angry, sullen eyes, gave a thumbs up and muttered, “Fuck, yeah.”

“Our creator doesn’t even care about us,” the preacher said. “Why would he cast us helpless into this ocean of pain if he cared about us?  Why not give us a
nice
fucking place to live instead of this bug-infested shithole where everything sucks and everybody hates us?”

“
Yeah!” someone shouted from the audience.  Several people clapped.  Peyton was so startled to hear the preacher yelling profanity that he laughed out loud, but nobody seemed to mind.  Reese smiled at him and took his hand.

“
This is wild,” he whispered to Reese.

“
All of this can change, though,” the preacher said, looking thoughtful.  He didn’t use a microphone or an amplifier system.  The acoustics of the amphitheater brought his voice out to everyone as if by magic. “We don’t have to be powerless, and we don’t have to be alone.  That power is out there waiting for us to take it.  It
wants
us to take it.  We can each be filled with more power than we ever imagined.  Fully initiated disciples out there, you know what I’m talking about.”

“
Woo-hoo!” Reese called out, which encouraged more people all over the room to clap and whistle.

“
When you are initiated, you become one of us forever.  It is a bond between spirits that transcends death.  You are no longer alone or powerless.  We call this process of gaining power and working together by a very special name: discipleship.”

This brought applause from everywhere. 

The sermon went on for a few minutes with the same theme—humans are weak, humans can gain power through discipleship.  Peyton kept thinking about the dark things he’d seen in the graveyard, and the scattered chorus of the muttering dead.  He knew he wasn’t crazy, wouldn’t even entertain the idea.  These people had learned to access unseen levels of reality.  Peyton had seen it for himself.

He felt tantalized by the idea that some deep mystery remained in the world, far beyond the reach of science, and these people seemed to have the keys to it.

When the sermon was over, Reese took Peyton down the last steps and introduced him to the preacher.  Up close, Peyton could see the young man’s ears and nose were stippled with old piercing scars.
Crap, that’s how my chin’s going to look when I take out this labret stud
, he thought.

“
Peyton’s interested in pursuing discipleship,” Reese said.

“
That’s great to hear,” the preacher replied, pumping Peyton’s hand. “You should meet Director Ferguson,” he added as the balding, sixtyish man walked up to them.

“
Peyton, this is Mr. Ferguson—a great leader and a great boss, too.” Reese smiled at the old man, who took her elbow, pulled her close, and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Mr. Ferguson, this is Peyton.  I think he’s ready to join us.”

“
Is that right?” Ferguson’s grip tightened on Reese’s elbow as he looked Peyton over. “Why is that, Peyton?”

“
Reese has shown me some incredible things,” Peyton said.

“
Has she?” Ferguson’s voice had a small note of jealousy, Peyton was sure of it. “And what did you think?”

“
I thought that your group must know things that nobody else does,” Peyton told him.

“
You’re interested in knowledge, then.”

“
Yes.”

“
Hm.” The balding man nodded his head. “Discipleship is rigorous.  It requires a sponsor who can give you personal attention.  An
initiated
disciple.”

“
I will sponsor him, sir.” Reese turned toward her boss, casually slipping her elbow free.

“
You will?  This is a serious responsibility, Reese.  It’s not a weekend project.  Or an excuse for a
fling
.” His bland face turned sour on the last word.

“
I understand that, sir.”

Ferguson looked between them, then snorted and turned away. “Do it, then.  Teach him.  Get him ready for his initiation.”

“I will, sir,” Reese said to Ferguson’s back.  Ferguson approached a fairly cute brunette woman and kissed her on the cheek, then shook her young husband’s hand. “That’s Deena and Matt from youth outreach,” Reese whispered.

“
What’s this big initiation?” Peyton asked.

“
It’s when they put the power inside you,” Reese said. “After that, you won’t be the same.  You’ll be on top of everything, all the time.”

“
Like you?”

“
Just like me.” She took his arm and led him up the stairs with the rest of the departing congregation, smiling at him nonstop. “I’m so proud of you, Peyton.  We’re going to have so much fun together.”

Peyton hoped so.  He didn’t want to take the cult seriously—he just wanted to learn whatever secrets they knew and get the hell out.  And maybe sleep with Reese along the way, if the girl would ever do it, before he inevitably got back together with Cassidy.  Peyton and Cassidy had broken up three times in the past, and it never lasted more than a few weeks, usually not more than a weekend.

After her shower, Cassidy collected Ibis from the living room, where he’d been passing time by helping Allie take her sculpture apart in anticipation of a new, bigger tree.

“
Maybe we should drive, Ibis,” Cassidy said. “My leg’s cramping up.”

“
You said it was just around the corner.”

“
It’s a long corner.”

Ibis laughed, helped her down the front steps, and escorted her to his car.  The driveway stretched along one side of the house, then widened to a big parking pad in back to accommodate so many roommates and their guests.

Ibis approached a black BMW sedan, crammed in alongside Barb’s twelve-year-old Plymouth Breeze, Allie’s pink Jeep Wrangler, and Stray’s Vespa scooter.  The BMW had a rental license plate.

“
Don’t tell me you rented this to impress me,” Cassidy said.

“
This is what I have.  I’m between cars.” Ibis opened the door for her. “Just moved into town, you know.  Didn’t need a car in New York.”

“
Sounds awesome.” Cassidy took his arm and eased herself down into the seat, and he closed the door gently, keeping an eye out for her bad leg.  Her fingers found a row of buttons on the side of the chair and she pushed them at random, until the chair was giving her a back massage.

“
I figured I’d practice driving on a rental until I got used to it again,” Ibis told her as he backed out of her driveway. “I’m pretty rusty.”

“
Maybe we should have walked,” Cassidy said, as the car lurched backwards into the road.  A rusty pickup truck blew its horn and swerved around them.

“
Dumbass redneck!” shouted the driver, a scruffy man in a denim vest and Confederate flag cap.

They survived all the way to Ali Baba, the little restaurant tucked into a wing of the Variety Playhouse, a popular neighborhood bar and music venue.  Cassidy sat across from Ibis and studied his handsome face while they ate tabouli full of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, hummus with warm and crispy pita bread, and dolmas, rolled grape leaves stuffed with rice and herbs.

“These are the best things in the world.” Cassidy held up a dolma. “If I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be these.”

“They’re good,” Ibis agreed. “Perfectly made.”

“What about you?  What food would you pick?”

“Just one for the rest of my life?” Ibis acted as though he were giving it serious thought. “Dates, stuffed with almond paste and rolled in honey, with a pinch of cinnamon.”

“Whoa, can I change my answer?” Cassidy asked, and he laughed. “So where else have you lived?  You’ve said Mali, Morocco, and New York.” She was deeply curious to find out—he seemed to grow more exotic and interesting the more she learned about him.

“I studied in Cairo for a while, and in Constantinople a few years later.”

“You mean Istanbul?”

“Right.”

“I’ve never gone anywhere like that,” Cassidy said, feeling jealous. “It must be amazing to see all those ancient places, all that history.”

“Most of it forgotten now,” he added with a sad smile. “The Mali Empire, for example—six centuries ago, it was larger and wealthier than any kingdom in Europe, with beautiful cities like Gao and Timbuktu, the southern port of the Sahara caravan route.  You would go into the market and see great piles of sweet melons and cucumbers, meat roasting over fires.  Mosques, schools and libraries grew in the cities.  Thousands of manuscripts from across the world were collected and copied in Timbuktu.  Knowledge was treasured, preserved, and cultivated.”

“This is where you’re from?” Cassidy asked.

He nodded. “The cities are small today, wrecked by wars and swallowed by desert, the caravan trade lost to ocean shipping.  More than one great city has vanished and left nothing behind.  Timbuktu and Mali were once words spoken in awe in the capitals of Europe and the Middle East—today, who knows anything about them?”

“So you grew up in the ruins of the old cities?”

“In the ruins?” He looked confused for a moment, then smiled and shook his head. “It must be past your turn to speak.  Where are you from, originally?  Tell me about your travels.”

“My travels?” Cassidy snickered. “I was born in the exotic realm of Doraville, not far from the ancient ruins of the old General Motors factory.  I have walked the distant shores of the Florida panhandle, and once Barb and I drove to New Orleans.  As far as I know, that’s the western edge of the world.”

“There’s more beyond that, I promise you.”

“I don’t believe it.  You’ll have to show me.”

“I’m ready.  When do we leave?” Ibis asked.

They smiled quietly at each other for a moment.  He touched her hand, and she let him take it.  His touch was warm and strong.

“After a life like that, how did you end up here in Atlanta?” Cassidy asked.

“Who says anything has ended?  I’m here now.  The rest of the world will still be there tomorrow.”

“Oh...” Cassidy began to worry. “How long do you usually stay in a place?”

“A month, a year, several years, a lifetime.  Until it’s time to move on.”

“What do you think about a lifetime in this city?” she asked.  “Seems like a boring place for someone like you.”

“No city is boring.  Some are more pleasant than others.  It depends on the people you meet.”

“How are the people you’ve met here?”

“So far...” Ibis looked her over. “Impressive.  Fascinating.  Very pretty.”

Cassidy laughed. “What’s fascinating about me?”

“Does your family live in this city, too?”

“Yeah, my brother, my mom...and that’s about all there is.  Dad died a long time ago.”

“You have no grandparents?  No cousins?”

“Not that I know of.  I guess I have grandparents in Ireland, if they’re still alive.  All I really know about them is that my mom’s mother was insane and my dad’s parents hated my mom, and so my mom and dad ran away to America to be together.  It’s kind of a beautiful story.  But then he died, so it’s not really beautiful at all.”

“Your mother says her own mother was crazy?” Ibis asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “In what way?”

“In a way that she never said, but it must have involved some pretty intense abuse, the way my mom hates her,” Cassidy said. “Not that my mom ever talks about it much.”

“And your father’s family?  Why didn’t they like your mother?”

“I guess because they were kind of upper class, at least for the middle of Bumblefuckenny, Ireland. And Mom’s family weren’t, they were like social outcasts compared to Dad’s family.”

“Why would they be social outcasts?”

“I don’t know!  You try getting details out of my mom.  Kieran and I have only been trying our whole lives, so good luck.” Cassidy pulled her hand from his.  She didn’t want to talk about her family. “I don’t really have to be at work for another hour, but we can walk over there and get started on Count von Wildcat.”