She snatched the coat from him.
“I’ll hold onto that Baggie for a while,” he called. “In case you change your mind. But I can’t wait too much longer for the rent. You tell your old devil-man I said so, okay?”
She hardly knew she was going down the steps; her kitchen was empty but she flew on past it. Somehow she got off the driveway and into the bushes, where she had to fight her way through tangles to the Cutlass. The Cutlass was unlocked. She got in and started the engine, put the heater on high, and sat there shaking as if with cold, though really she just felt numb. Same deal as last time, he’d said. What last time? Why couldn’t she remember? What had she done last time? What the fuck was wrong with her mind? She closed her eyes and felt herself spinning as if the car were out of control on a patch of black ice. She put her head down, gripped the steering wheel, and held on tight.
3
The Sisterhood of Incarnate Light had paid Derek’s flat speaking fee up front, before the program. Only now that the show was over, his lecture delivered, did he discover they wanted to cheat him out of his part of the take. That wasn’t quite how the Sisters put it, but Derek knew their scam, time-honored no matter how New Age.
“Your talk was certainly valuable, Mr. Crowe,” one was telling him now, trying to lubricate his goodwill with her buttery Southern tones while another Sister went to enlist the aid of a superior, “but we’re a nonprofit organization. We’re all volunteers here.”
Derek, while seething, was unwilling to waste his rage on an underling. “You might have volunteered to bake cookies and tear tickets,” he said, “but I’m the one who filled this hall tonight, on the strength of my research and hard work, and I did not volunteer.”
Fill was an exaggeration, but one he did not linger over. The only reason the hall had come even close to capacity was because the Sisters had wisely rented a smallish auditorium, something suited to the showing of a midnight movie. Even so, he had no doubt the Sisters had never drawn such a crowd.
“I appreciate that but—”
“You took ten dollars a head and I expect my cut.”
“But that was a donation—it goes toward development of the Incarnation Institute.” She shook her head and changed her tack, as if shame would work better than a bid for sympathy. “None of our other speakers asked any kind of fee.”
Derek had to laugh. “You mean Dr. Spondle doesn’t charge through the nose for his endless discourses on Atlantean astrology?”
The Sister looked slighted. “Everett Spondle is a very popular speaker here. His wife is one of our founders.”
“You work it out.” Derek turned away.
Two old women stood nearby, smiling in his direction and waiting to be noticed. He practiced a form of tunnel vision while wondering how to turn their irritating presence to his advantage. They’d been chatting about him for several minutes, just within his hearing: “Should I?—no, you go first—oh no, I’m too shy—he looks just like his pictures—oh, he doesn’t look at all like I imagined—you can almost see the mysteries in his eyes.”
Such women, all alike, were a redundant human type replicated endlessly across the continent, right down to their pride in how unique they were.
My fans, he thought.
He normally despised such creatures, but tonight they provided a welcome opportunity to demonstrate why the Sisters had attracted any crowd at all. They had come not to gather Atlantean wool but to glean the wisdom of Derek Crowe, occultist and author, direct from the source.
Both women carried books under their arms—books he’d once cringed at the sight of, despite being their author. He was used to them now. They were his stock-in-trade, the secret of his success—such as it was.
“Would you ladies like an autograph?” he said, snubbing the whining Sister. She went off, presumably to help find the superior who had yet to materialize.
“If you would, Mr. Crowe/’ said one, leaning forward as if to offer her wattles for inspection. She held a stack of his books. He reached for the sculpted silver fountain pen he kept in his shirt pocket—a gift from Lilith, with a small crystal ball mounted in a taloned claw at one end.
The other said, in rather harsh mountain tones, “We loved your talk, Mr. Crowe, it was so penetrating? Lately I do feel the—the ones you spoke of—or I think I do… the mandalas? I believe they’re watching over us, you know, like guardian angels?”
Every stammered phrase was open-ended, hesitant. He didn’t think this was entirely the product of the local inflection, which twisted up the last word to make even the plainest statement sound like a question. No doubt this sad woman was used to meeting ridicule or contempt when bringing up these subjects. But Derek smiled sublimely, her instant confidant.
“I understand you perfectly,” he said. “It’s not easy to be open to such perceptions, is it? It can be a tremendous burden on the chosen one, the sensitive soul. But we must accept these gifts and put them to work for the spiritual improvement, and not the impoverishment, of humanity.”
The second lady turned to the first. “Isn’t that marvelous? I find such beautiful messages in your books, Mr. Crowe. So many of the mystics these days are concerned with darkness and evil and casting out everything they don’t understand?” She reached out and lightly tapped him on the wrist. “But I think you must be blessed. You’re a channel for the higher things.”
“I’m not even that,” he said with all humility. “I am merely their secretary.” He pretended to jot on the air with his pen. “I take notes.”
The women’s eyes widened. “Now, that Miz A? The one who channeled the messages? Has she spoken any more? Do the mandalas ever get back in touch?”
Derek put a finger to his lip. “Some things shouldn’t be spoken of. I hesitate to upset a delicate balance…”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“…but yes, they do continue to speak through her occasionally, and they have hinted there may be more revelations in the future. More teachings.”
“Another book, you mean? Oh, how wonderful!”
“Well, I hope so. Their visits have meant a great deal to me. More than I can ever put across in words. Thank you so much.” He finished signing off the last of her copies and cleared his throat to interrupt her before she could start in again. He turned his full attention, and an apologetic smile, to the meeker woman.
“Now, to whom should I inscribe these?”
“Oh, goodness, to Opal,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“That’s a lovely name. Very charming.”
He scrawled “For Opal” across one of her books, a dog-eared copy of Your Psychognostic Powers! That exclamation mark still made him wince whenever he saw it. As he closed the book, his reflection swam up through the coils of a silver-foil spiral embossed on the fluorescent orange cover. It was his first book, and he could never regard it without a tiny prick of shame, no matter how callused and scabbed.
“I can’t help noticing that you have all but my latest,” he said.
She turned away, one hand to her mouth, blushing like a schoolgirl. “I’m so embarrassed. I’ve been meaning to buy a copy, it’s just—”
“Never fear, it’s on sale near the door. I’ll give you a special dedication.”
She looked even more embarrassed now. At forty-five dollars for the deluxe edition—all he had carried—he couldn’t blame her. Neither could he resist rubbing her nose in her foolishness.