“If you say so,” Samson says.
Cyrus laughs. “We ain’t goin’ for a while yet. Not until we get this place up and running. Not until we consolidate. We have people, sure, and they’re good in a fight, but we want to take down Hollywood, we’re gonna need a real army. And we don’t have one yet.”
Samson scratches his chin. “Okay. What’s it gonna take to get it?”
“You let me worry about that,” Cyrus says. “You just keep preachin’ and swingin’ that hammer.”
Samson frowns. “I ain’t a kid, Cyrus. I’m not stupid. I can help with the plans.”
“Of course you can,” says Cyrus. “I just don’t want to distract you with the boring stuff. I know you’re not stupid.”
But Samson knows it’s a lie.
Samson is a lot of things, Cyrus thinks. Insane, idealistic, gullible. But goddamn can he hold a crowd.
“You might think you’ve come to us for different reasons,” Samson says, looking out at the assembled flock lined up in rows in front of him outside the Angelus Temple, his voice bellowing through the loudspeakers.
“But it’s all the same reason. You’re lookin’ for answers. Lookin’ for hope. You came because you saw the Truth and the Light. You came because you know that the way of God through his Prophet James King is the one true way.”
Cries of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” erupt from the crowd. Cyrus stands to one side, scans the crowd, sees rapt attention on everyone’s faces. They’re in the presence of greatness, and they know it. Stupid greatness, sure, but most of these rubes can’t find their asses with both hands. Samson goes with his gut, goes with what feels right to him. Leads with his heart. And that’s just what these people want. Samson throws enough passionate bullshit at them, they’ll follow him anywhere.
And that scares the shit out of Cyrus.
Because he knows, knows as surely as he knows that these people will lay down their lives for Samson, for the gospels of James King, for God and Truth and Light and all that other horseshit, that they will never do the same for Cyrus.
Samson’s always had that certain something, though the man can’t see it himself, that makes women fall for him, makes men want to be his friend or stay well the fuck away from him. Always has. That’s why Cyrus stuck with him, because if you can’t be great then you damn well better stick to greatness like flies on shit.
“Some folks are gonna listen,” Samson says. “They’re gonna let you in with open arms. They’ll come to us easily, willingly. And there are those who won’t. And do you know what you have to do when that happens?”
“Amen” and “Hallelujah” are replaced with “Kill ’em,” “Burn ’em,” and “Eat their fuckin’ babies!” Samson nods to all of these, though there’s a sadness in his eyes when he hears each one.
“They will be cleansed in the fires of God’s love, their souls sent to Heaven with machete and hammer and gun. You will be the instrument of their salvation.”
The crowd roars. They reach their hands out to Samson. Some of them have tears in their eyes. Cyrus cringes. There it is. Love. And not for the church. Not for the message.
For Samson.
Cyrus looks behind him at the Angelus Temple, then back to Samson. He’s more the Church than the Church is him, and that means that if Samson dies, the church dies. And if the church dies, what the hell happens to poor old Cyrus?
Fortunately, Cyrus has some ideas about how to refocus that love, how to make the Church more than Samson, and the best part is, Samson’s gonna be the one saying the words that’ll make it happen.
“So we get our shit together,” Samson says, just like Cyrus told him. “You’re all gonna learn the gospels so you can welcome your brethren with open arms, and you’ll train, all fierce and shit, so that you may meet the Unbelievers with furious vengeance. And so starting tomorrow you’ll all be assigned into ranks, placed into squads and battalions. Some of you will be captains, knights, administrators. We’ll match our faith with discipline. We’ll become the army that God needs. We will be his red right hand.” Samson hammers the podium with his fist, makes the whole stage shake.
The crowd screams amens and hallelujahs. Demands the blood of the Unbelievers. Cyrus smiles. Samson just pounded the first nail into his own coffin. It’s still way too early to move Samson aside. He’s larger than life, more real than reality itself. Right now, the whole thing will fall apart without him.
But soon, Cyrus thinks, once all those captains, knights, and administrators get comfortable in their jobs, once they start realizing their future’s secure as long as the church remains strong, then Cyrus can start thinking about doing something about Samson.
—8—
“The Lord will set you on the path of adversity. Your failures will be many. But they are a test of your resolve and your commitment to His truth.”
To train his troops, Samson finds inspiration in movies with ridiculous titles from almost a hundred years ago found in the King’s studio. Commando, three different Rocky movies, something about a kid who learns karate, and a dozen others. They’re so badly degraded that Samson can’t begin to follow the plots, but they all show men and women fighting against evil and corruption with quick–cut training scenes, the end result of which is always the same—they have become unstoppable killing machines.
And so the Church’s training is fierce and rapid. Every soldier in God’s Militia drills, practices, marches, spars. They are schooled in flashy hand–to–hand, acrobatic sword work, double–fisted gun combat, and a form of battle meditation that focuses on ramming magazines into guns, slamming knives into sheathes.
It is a brutal training regimen, and those who survive know that they are the best of the best, God’s appointed soldiers. Those who can make the cut survive. Those who can’t, don’t. There is no room for the weak. For weakness, as Cyrus’s ever–expanding good book says, is a lack of faith.
With that, the Church’s soldiers go forth to grow their ranks and salt the Earth, certain that they can do no wrong because God, James King, and Luke Samson guide their hands.
They convert scores. They kill hundreds.
They catch the spy in one of the buildings half buried in mud and swamp–grass along Franklin.
Samson looks down at the man on the floor in front of him, torchlight throwing flickering shadows across his face, hands tied behind him. He says he’s just a squatter, one more scavenger in a world filled with them. But he’s too well fed, too clean. Doesn’t have the haunted look of a man who lives by the hour.
Samson’s army has set up camp at the corner of Western and Los Feliz in preparation for their final push into that den of sin, Hollywood. It’s been a long year of fighting and training since they took the Angelus Temple, and Samson feels every day of that year in his bones. The Church slowly expanded its territory north into Los Feliz and Glendale, building and strengthening. Cyrus hasn’t seemed to be in any hurry to make a move on what he had said was their “next” target all those months ago, but all that time James King has been screaming in Samson’s ear about putting the whoremongers and homosexuals in Hollywood to the sword, making his blood boil and his head throb. It was tearing Samson apart, but thankfully Cyrus finally—finally—gave him the go–ahead, and now he’s on the march.