You're reading Daughters of Men, the second season of the Sons of God series. This is Episode Six.
Last time, Mae ran to the church for refuge, where she and Sue had a long talk and Mae laid all her cards on the table.
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Season two picks up with Mae fleeing to the Windy City after making a deal with the mysterious and otherworldly entity she not so affectionately calls Ziggy, with Special Agent Chance Davies in hot pursuit. With only the ghost of her late husband to guide her — you know, the one she killed in self-defense before dumping his body and getting out of Dodge — she wastes no time making new enemies, and a precious few friends, as she works to untangle the web she’s gotten herself into and discovers just what, exactly, Ziggy wants her for.
There were three other women staying at the shelter, two of whom had small children with them. Mae did her best to keep out of their way. Truth was, she was in no mood to hear their tales of how their men done them wrong. Or if she was being totally honest with herself, she didn’t want to hear how they mustered up the courage to leave. Leaving instead of staying until their husbands’ rage and violence seeped into them like black oil, filling them up to the eyeballs until all they could see was darkness and futility and no way out except a weapon in the hand and a pure white hot burning determination that by God this time would be the last.
All things considered, she figured the less they knew about her, the better.
Their muffled voices eased through the cracks around her bedroom door, drifting from English to Spanish and back again, soft enough to tune out without much difficulty. She lay on the single bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling and mulling over the mess she was in.
Mulling over a way out of the mess.
She had enough money left from her initial payday to get out of the country. That’s assuming her wigs and fake IDs were good enough to keep her under law enforcement’s radar. But while hightailing it to somewhere that’s else might keep her out of the clutches of the Feds, she doubted she could hide from Ziggy.
Wade had said that walking away from Ziggy was as good as a death sentence. That he, or it, or whatever, owned her soul. And Wade had already demonstrated that he could find her wherever she was, any time he wanted. She couldn’t run, and she couldn’t hide.
But Ziggy wasn’t God. She didn’t know what Ziggy was, exactly, but there had to be a way to back out of this deal. She hadn’t yet done anything that couldn’t be taken back, and she could always pay back the money she’d spent.
Her mind replayed everything that had happened with the psychic. Wade said she’d been sent there to kill the demon. Didn’t that imply that Ziggy was one of the good guys? Did demons go around killing their own kind? But assuming it was that Gregor dude who had killed her, that suggested that yes, they did. It didn’t seem to get much more demonic than that guy.
Anyway, Jenna wasn’t a demon. She had just been taken over by one. Maybe voluntarily, but maybe not. Either way, Mae didn’t sign on to kill more people.
Killing Wade fell into this gray place between self-preservation and vengeance, although it wasn’t like Mae had really thought about anything when she’d picked up that hammer and swung, as if she’d been possessed herself. Possessed by rage. Big Al, on the other hand, had been all self-defense, although Mae would be fooling herself if she didn’t admit there had been a lot of rage and satisfaction wrapped up in his killing.
Maybe it had been Ziggy’s plan all along that Mae would end up killing Jenna in self-defense. Or maybe she’d been meant to kill the girl in cold blood.
Mae didn’t have it in her to be that kind of killer. If that was what Ziggy wanted, then Ziggy had to know they’d pegged her wrong. And hopefully once they knew that, they’d be reasonable and let her go.
But then, what about Delia?
Mae squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “She’s not my kid,” she whispered on the exhale.
So she wasn’t actually responsible for the girl. So what? Delia was a helpless kid stuck in an obviously bad situation and Mae might be the only friend she had in the whole world, apart from Sue.
How could she just walk away?
She couldn’t. And she suspected Ziggy had kept that in mind when selecting her lodgings.
Speaking of Sue, the minister’s voice cut through Mae’s reverie, growing louder as she exchanged greetings with the other residents on her way to Mae’s door. Mae was already sitting up by the time she knocked.
“Come in,” Mae called, appreciating that Sue actually waited for an invitation before opening the door and poking her head in.
“Good morning,” Sue said cheerfully. “How are you this morning?”
The way she asked made it clear she was really asking, and not just following the social script. Still, Mae shrugged, declining the invitation to talk. “Better than yesterday.”
Sue nodded, and didn’t press. “Have you had breakfast?”
“I had coffee. I’m not real big on breakfast.”
“Well, then.” Sue opened the door wider, but didn’t come inside. “Since you’re dressed, I wondered if you might come with me. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Mae got up to go with her. Sue led her out of the shelter and through a breezeway connecting it to the church building. Once there, she led her down the same hallway as before, past the utility closet with its hidden guest room, to a basement door.
Sue put her hand on the door handle, but paused to look at Mae. “I need to know I can trust you.”
Mae blinked, taken aback. “Can you trust me?” She laughed a little. “You want to hear exactly what happened to me the last time I went into a strange basement?”
A wry smile crept across Sue’s lips. “I suppose, then, that we both need to trust each other. But you can’t tell anyone about what I’m about to show you.”
Mae slid her hands in her pockets, fighting a sudden urge to fidget with them. “I can’t promise not to tell anyone until I see what it is you’re showing me. But, I mean, who could I tell?”
Sue seemed to consider this. Then she nodded. “Good point.” She opened the door and started down a set of brightly lit stairs.
Mae stood at the top, watching her descend. The stairs were carpeted, the walls below richly paneled, a stark contrast to Big Al Stimpson’s stereotypical creepy serial killer basement. Nevertheless, Mae wished she hadn’t spent her can of pepper spray on Jenna as she climbed down after Sue.
The basement itself looked benign enough, just a combination of storage and office space. Sue kept walking past a pair of desks that sat across from one another and stacks of bins and boxes that, according to their labels, held things like holiday decorations and communion supplies and Sunday school materials and old hymnals. Nothing struck Mae as sinister or out of place, and she began to relax.
Sue walked all the way to a far wall and knelt next to some kind of access panel. She slid it aside, putting Mae on edge again. Sue reached in to flip on a light, revealing the top rungs of a ladder leading down to some kind of sub-basement, then looked up at Mae.
“This is the point of no return. If you want to go back and remain ignorant, we can both forget you saw this much.”
Mae looked behind her, strongly considering taking her up on the offer. She didn’t know what she was about to walk into, and she was getting really tired of this cryptic stuff that forced her to go off of nothing but instinct. But her instinct told her that, as Delia had said, Sue was good people.
“So, is this like a red pill, blue pill moment?”
“That’s exactly what this is.”
Mae laughed. “I’m pretty sure I already swallowed a red pill of some kind. I can’t go back now.”
Sue smiled, not unsympathetically, and then she backed through the panel and descended the ladder. Hoping like hell that she wasn’t making yet another horrible decision, Mae followed.
When she reached the bottom and turned around, she was surprised to see what looked like more boring old office space, with several unmanned desks scattered around a large, white-walled room under bright fluorescent lights. A couple of the desks held phones and computers, but the rest were empty. On one wall hung a huge white board, covered with pictures and writing, too far back for Mae to make out any details.
“What is this place?” she asked.
Sue stood next to Mae and folded her arms. “My husband was a police detective before he became a minister. After he got his ordination, he served as a police chaplain.” She waved a hand as if to indicate that it was neither here nor there. “Anyway, he spent years getting up close and personal with evil. True evil, not petty crimes and plain old sinful people being sinful. The otherworldly kind of evil and corruption you’ve recently become acquainted with.”
Mae looked at her, but didn’t say anything. Sue went on.
“When he realized how deeply that corruption went, and that it had infested the force and other branches of law enforcement, it was too much for him. He retired and became a pastor, but he never felt at peace about walking away. So he and his old partner got together and started an independent investigation unit, working with the state police and members of Federal law enforcement whom they felt they could trust.”
She waved her hand around at the office. “Chicago’s full of these old sub-basements.” She glanced at Mae, whose blank stare must’ve prompted her to explain. “The city was built on swampy ground. A lot of the original buildings sank. Somewhere around the middle of the 1800s, most of the city was jacked up to make room for sewer tunnels and more solid foundations. But not all of the buildings were, and some newer buildings were built on top of the old sunken ones.” She shrugged. “Anyway, when Jack discovered this hidden room beneath the basement, he thought it would be the perfect place for their headquarters, and that the church would be a good front for their operation.”
“Why all the secrecy?”
“Because they were investigating law enforcement, for one thing, along with some very powerful people. And some of the things they uncovered…” Sue pressed her lips together and shook her head. “You don’t want to know the things these people are doing to children.”
That was all Mae needed to hear to know that she didn’t want to know. What she could imagine was bad enough. She thought about the kids she’d heard in Jenna’s apartment and felt sick.
“What has all of this got to do with me?”
Sue regarded her for a moment, then walked over to the white board. She motioned for Mae to come closer. As she did, its contents became clear. There were photos tacked to the board, some with faces Mae recognized. Gregor. Jenna. Delia.
And her own, stuck up in one corner with a big question mark next to it in red marker.
Mae looked at Sue and waited for an explanation.
The woman backed up to lean on one of the empty desks, suddenly looking like someone who was exhausted from carrying too big a load for too long. She still smiled, but it was a weary smile.
“A couple of years ago, my husband’s work led him and his partner to a child trafficking ring. But the more they looked into it, the more threads they pulled at, the more it became clear that this went far beyond black market kiddie porn or child prostitution, as if those things aren’t bad enough.”
Sue paused, seeming to repress a shudder. Gathering herself, she pressed on. “Do you remember the Satanic Panic?”
Mae’s brow furrowed, but she nodded. “Vaguely. I was pretty young. But I’ve seen and read stuff about it since. How those poor pre-school people had their lives turned upside down by twisted accusations of satanic abuse.”
“Those poor pre-school people.” Sue’s voice dripped with sarcasm, causing Mae’s eyebrow to go up.
“They were exonerated. Weren’t they?”
“They sure were.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “A couple of years after that, tunnels were discovered underneath the pre-school building, along with evidence that corroborated the children's testimony.”
Mae snorted. “Why wasn’t that in the news?”
“I can’t tell you for certain. I can only tell you that, a few years ago, the FBI released documents in response to a FOIA request that detailed their investigation into a child breeding and trafficking cult that was linked to the McMartin preschool. It seems that a senior member of the CIA was a member of this cult, and they shut down the FBI’s investigation. The tunnel excavation is detailed in these reports.”1
Mae opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her muscles grew taut around her neck, and a pinprick of pain began in the center of her forehead. She closed her eyes and massaged the spot.
Sue stood up and came over to her. “I’m only telling you this so you’ll understand the sort of thing my husband was dealing with.” She tapped the board. “And these people--” Her voice broke up, and she choked back a sob. Concerned, Mae reached for her, but Sue held her hands up and gave a little shake of her head. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and then pressed on, her voice calm. “My husband kept digging, going deeper and deeper, uncovering more and more corruption and… and this group. He and his partner put all of their evidence together and then reached out to the FBI. Someone in the local field office whom they believed they could trust.”
She levelled a gaze at Mae. “Two weeks later, my husband, a fit and healthy man of fifty-four, had a heart attack. A week after that, so did his partner.”
Mae stared back as the implications sunk in. “You don’t think…”
Sue shrugged. “I can’t prove anything. Autopsy reports found no drugs in either of their systems. But medical examiners can be bought. Or blackmailed.”
“I have to admit, it’s a strange coincidence.”
Sue managed a wry smile. “I’m afraid I’m not a coincidence theorist.”
“So what is your theory?”
She let out a nervous little laugh. “I wouldn’t tell anyone this if I didn’t know they had experience with this sort of thing. As you do, based on everything you told me.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Witchcraft. Sorcery. Something demonic.”
Mae felt her eyebrows creep upward. “You’re serious?”
“I’m dead serious. After all you’ve seen, don’t tell me you’re skeptical.”
She had a point. Mae shook her head in wonder. “It’s just a lot to take in. So, you’ve continued your husband’s work?”
Sue nodded. “I had been helping. Mostly in an administrative capacity. There are others, too. Volunteers. A mostly hidden network of people quietly working to rescue and minister to the victims of these blood cults and expose them for what they are. So I’ve had help.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t bring you into this, but…” She looked at the board. “I think you’re already in it, and you need to know what you’re dealing with.”
Mae turned to the board as well, and her gaze landed on Delia. Her stomach twisted on itself. “You’re saying she’s mixed up in all this?”
“I believe she’s at the center of it.”
Mae looked back at her. “How?”
“I believe she’s been selected-- no. She’s been bred for their breeding program. But there’s something special about her. Her so-called step-father is really her keeper. They’re protecting her because she’s set apart for someone important. Or more like some thing.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Sue squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “It’s too much. I think you’ve probably heard enough for one day.”
“No, ma’am. You’ve brought me this far. Don’t hold back on me now.”
Sue squinted up at her, then smiled. There was something approving in the look she gave Mae. “Okay, then,” Sue said. “Have you heard of the Nephilim?”
Mae’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Well, it’s not surprising you wouldn’t know. Most Sunday school classes skip the part in Genesis where fallen angels took human wives and fathered giants with them.”
Mae’s mouth fell open a little. She shut it, then opened it again to ask, “Come again?”
Sue recited from memory. “‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.’ The part a lot of people miss is, ‘also afterward.’ After the great flood, that is. This sort of thing has apparently been going on ever since, and it’s still happening.”
Mae realized her mouth was catching flies again. She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Are you saying they want to make this girl a child bride for some fallen angel?”
Sue nodded gravely. “That’s what I think. Either that, or they plan to ritually sacrifice her. Possibly both. We’ve been keeping an eye on the situation and trying to devise a way to get close enough to her to stage a rescue.” She looked sideways at Mae. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“You’re closer in proximity than we ever hoped to get. Not only that, but Delia likes you. She’s stopped in to visit with me, and we’ve talked about you. I think she’ll trust you.”
“What do you expect me to do, exactly? Did you forget that these people busted into my apartment and threatened me?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. We’ll have to be careful. I don’t want to put you in harm’s way. But for now, if you can, keep as close to her as possible. Just talk to her when you see her, be her friend. And let me know if you think she’s in any immediate danger.”
Mae looked back at the girl’s photo. Even as every reason to tell Sue to shove her mission flitted through her mind, she knew she wasn’t about to abandon Delia -- my girl, her mind whispered, but she silenced that voice -- to these sick sons of bitches.
She also wondered exactly where Ziggy fit into all of this. With all this new information, she no longer possessed any doubt that she hadn’t been placed across the hall from Delia by accident.
With a long, weary sigh, she nodded. “I’m not going anywhere ‘til I know Delia’s safe. I just wish I had some way to defend myself against these people.”
Sue smiled. Mae detected satisfaction, and maybe a little smugness. “I’m pretty sure we can do something about that.”
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