Chapter 18

The tall man sighed as he pulled out of the naked woman's mouth. She quickly swallowed his spend and gently kissed the crown of his manhood before removing her hand. As he zipped the fly on his pants, he asked, "Well, Sister Cynthia are you through playing with our sacrifice to the Great Spacer?"

Cynthia blushed a deep red. "Yes, Father Bobson. I have studied our offering, and his soul is pure. He is as good an offering as we have ever had." In her mind Cynthia felt sad that she would be losing her boy toy, but keeping the leader happy was more important than keeping herself happy.

"You have given him the drug?"

"Yes, Father, I have."

"Good. There is no need to bring pain and stress to a human sacrifice. That would be barbaric. I am sure you treated him well in his last hours. The church must be a good and kindly shelter to all her children, even those who will only be a part of her for a short time, like this lucky young boy.

"It is a shame that the holy blood from the other sacrifices was lost in the explosion at the Forester complex. It will take time to harvest innocents to replace what was lost. You did excellent work this weekend with this young man, but we need another way to get our subjects. I don't want you exposed like this. The police are watching for runaways at the bus stops and our other usual hunting grounds. The problem is that, without a trinity, the miracle will not work for the valley. Still, we have to deal with what life gives us."

Cynthia had no idea what he was talking about, but chose not to display her ignorance. In an effort to change the subject, she asked, "Father, may I ask a question?"

"Of course, my child, please ask. I am not only your leader, but I am also your teacher. It is important that you fully understand The Octagon Church before you are accepted to the inner circle later this year. The more you learn now, the greater asset you will become in the future."

"Father, I'm afraid that we are losing too many of our local flock. How do we fill in the ranks to accomplish our missions?"

"What do you mean, Sister?"

"Well, we have lost the Foresters. Brothers Herman and Willard are in jail and will be closely watched if they can even get out. Sister Rachel is locked up in the hospital and under guard for the Dear knows how long. Brother Pinkston will no longer be with us after this weekend, and Samantha Jackson, who was our best potential recruit, seems to now be heading in a different direction than that of the faithful. As much as we try to get around it, that Barton boy seems intent on keeping the holy valley from us. We are not growing as well as we should."

"Sister, I am glad that you have brought your concerns to me. We, indeed, are facing problems, but the Great Spacer will help us through these times of uncertainty. You must have faith in me and my ability to guide us through these bleak times.

"You did not hear of our latest setbacks because you were fulfilling your current mission. Brother Smoke was killed last night in an effort to destroy the unfaithful who interfered with our plans to get our holy valley. When he came to us for sanctuary and conversion, I thought we had found a true "Hammer of Thor," and the work he did for us was significant. His shoes will be difficult to fill.

"We are also asking Judge Phillip Charter not to expose himself to any more of our activities until the flap about Judge Jolly's death is settled and he can work without threat of exposure. He will be sorely missed until he returns.

"And to make matters worse, our attorney, Poindexter Calhoun is refusing to work for us any longer. He will be dealt with when we replace Brother Smoke, but this leaves Brother Barrington without secure legal support. My mother will try to help until we can find appropriate counsel, but since she is no longer a member of the Bar in Nevada, she cannot be seen to be openly working for us."

Cynthia breathed deeply enough to start a fit of smoker's cough. As she fought for her breath she commented, "This is worse than I thought. The pressure on you must be tremendous. Is there anything else I can do to help you? You know that I'll do anything I can for you."

"Be not in despair, Sister. The Great Spacer provides many ways for us to complete his work. For example, the delegation sent by our allies in Detroit arrived yesterday. Our source at the hospital overheard a group of our enemies talking about a trip to the holy valley this morning. They will be met there by our friends. They will not come back from this trip. This will go a long way in settling the score.

Morning came very early after the late night that we had spent at the hospital. A cold shower helped shake out the cobwebs that had taken control of my head. I dressed, weaponed myself up and was leaving the room as Sal walked through the door of the bedroom. She gave me a quick kiss, rubbed my crotch and started undressing.

"JD, don't forget to turn on the Keurig and make sure it's full of water. I need lots of coffee in the worst way. Then I need to clean up and change clothes."

"I thought Mary brought you clothes last night."

As she grabbed a robe, she replied, "She brought Mamtha clothes from the ranch. I'm on my own. Oh, by the way, Thomas Eagle-feather showed up at the hospital as I was leaving and gave me a ride home. I told him you'd pick him up at The Spoon. We need to get that boy a new car. That POS he's driving is held together by rust and dirt. I can't believe it. I could see the road through the floor boards. Can you imagine it's like a car with 'Fred Flintstone' brakes! The damn thing looks like it came out of a dozen Wisconsin winters or something."

"I guess I'd better let everyone else know about the change in plans. Marilyn, can you please do that for me?"

Marilyn's reply came back in an old southern slave accent. "Yassuh, Massuh, Sur! Y'all's slightest wish is lit'll old me's most important command! Oh Massuh, don't be angry with your slave!"

"Marilyn! Where in the hell did that slave shit come from?"

In a huffy, but, normal voice, well normal for her, Marilyn replied, "Well you treat me like a slave. Who stood watch over you all night long? Who kept track of your case and followed up on all the details while you slept? Who didn't get any sleep last night while you snored to high heaven?

"Me, you ungrateful self centered M A N! Yes sir-re, I slaved all night, and what was my thanks? Not a 'good morning, Marilyn, did you have a nice evening?' Not a 'thank you Marilyn for watching over me.' You didn't even acknowledge me until you wanted me to do more of your work for you. If you're going to treat me like a slave, I might as well act like one.

"Sal, I really don't see what you see in this barbarian, but there you go and say "yes". A woman of your class and breading can certainly find someone to marry higher on the evolutionary chain than a baboon."

Sal and I looked at each other in mutual shock. I shook my head. "I don't snore."

Sal leaned over my shoulder and whispered, "Actually, JD, yes you do."

"Well, I certainly don't treat anyone like a slave."

Marilyn answered, "What do you think I am, a machine? I'll have you know that I have feelings too. You can't treat me like I'm a machine. I just won't stand for it."

"Marilyn, I'm sorry if I don't praise you enough for your help. You're becoming an important part of our team. I didn't mean to take you for granted. Thank you for all you do for us."

"Okay, that's better. I can see where Mamtha gets upset with you. Not everyone has the capacity to let little things go like I do. Be more aware of your surroundings, and adjust yourself to be a little more open with your feelings."

"I can do that, Marilyn. I want to say just one more thing. Marilyn, system reboot."

Sal looked at me. "What in the hell was that all about?"

"I have no idea, but I have a feeling some of her subroutines may have been programmed by Microsoft. There is a diagnostic in the startup phase of the reboot process. She should be back with us by the time we get some coffee.

We'll find out more then."

As we were getting coffee, Lola Hutten almost bounced into the kitchen. Sal looked up from her coffee fixings and asked, "Where in the hell did you get all that energy this early in the morning?"

"Barrington came by last night and gave me a check for an entire year of back child support. I can get the car fixed and replace the fridge without having to put it on a credit card."

I interrupted, "I hate to rain on your parade, but how did your husband know you were staying here?"

"I told him of course. Barrington has a right to know where his children are, doesn't he?"

"He certainly does," replied Sal. "JD doesn't trust your husband after our little trip to the Federal Courthouse this week."

"Normally, I'd agree with JD, but he does love our children. Except for his attention to anything without a dick and an occasional lack of financial support, Barrington is an excellent father. I try to give him as much access to the girls as I can. It's hard on little girls not having a father, but I I'm not stupid. I still have to watch him like a hawk."

Sal looked lost in thought for a moment, and then replied, "Yeah, it's hard on girls not having a father. You're doing a good thing allowing him access to the girls even when he gets behind on his child support."

Les and Karina walked into the kitchen. "Have you seen Hill and Millie? We've been looking for them all morning."

Lola looked at her daughter with the pride of a single parent doing a good job of raising responsible children, "Did you look in the pool area?"

Karina replied, "Yes, Mama. We looked everywhere we could think of. We even looked in the extra storage closets."

I kicked into cop mode and asked, "When and where did you see them last?"

Les answered, "They walked Mister Hutton to his car last night while Karina and I got in the hot tub. We just assumed they went to bed before we did."

I asked, "Karina, why didn't you go with your sister to say goodbye to your father?

Karina drew herself in like a cat about to get into a fight. "He may be my father, but I don't have to have anything to do with a cheating charlatan. I've heard things about him that make me ashamed. I don't think he's a good man. Hill thinks the sun raises and sets around him. She'd do anything he told her to do"

A cold chill ran through my body. "Lola, did you put the girls to bed last night?"

"I told them to go to bed after they said goodnight to Barr. I fell asleep on the couch after Barrington left. When I woke up, I checked on them. When I opened the bedroom door, I saw two humps on the bed, but I didn't tuck them in as I normally would. Hillary was so excited about Barrington's visit, I was afraid that if I woke her, we'd never get her back to sleep." With a growing sense of urgency, she continued, "I may have just seen what I expected to see."

"Where is Barrington staying?" I inquired. "I think I'd like to know what he knows about this."

Sal shook her head. "I don't think Barrington has anything to do with two innocent missing girls. He may be a scum ball, but he loves his girls.

"Marilyn," Sal continued. "Is your reboot complete? We need to look for some missing children."

There was no reply.

"A system reboot on Marilyn takes several hours," Charlie said as she and Steve walked through the door. "What happened to cause you to reboot?"

"Marilyn was going nuts and verbally attacking JD. We didn't know what else to do."

"No harm done, but she won't be back with you for a while. What you describe, though, doesn't sound like a programming only problem."

"Well," I interrupted, "we could certainly use her now. We have missing children to find."

Steve looked at me with concern as Charlie replied, "Who's missing?"

"Millie and Hillary, we can't find them anywhere," replied Leslie.

I added in a restrained voice, "I'm just about ready to visit the father."