Dominion

NINE

Ruppert lay awake in bed the rest of the night, twitching at every car horn and barking dog. Madeline had come home from church and regaled him with the intricacies of the power struggle surrounding the selection of a new chairlady for her gardening group. He couldn’t follow exactly what made her so angry, but she was too wrapped up in the subject to notice his extreme nervousness, or that he didn’t even ask his usual question about why she was in a gardening group when she paid a landscaper to keep up their yard.

Then she took her evening pill and drifted off to sleep, leaving him alone and waiting for Terror.

He struggled through a day of attempting to act normal at work, hearing himself talk a bit too fast and laugh a bit too loud. When the on-site Terror agent George Baldwin passed him in the hall, the broad-shouldered man gave him a cheerful greeting, and Ruppert’s heart nearly collapsed of shock. Baldwin was not normally an outgoing man. He always wore the suit of a Terror man-black coat, black shirt, black tie-and rarely had much use for the newsreaders, or anyone below the executive level. Nothing came of it, though. Perhaps Baldwin was just in a rare good mood.

It was Tuesday, so after work he attended his Revelation group, where once again they discussed how the final clash between the armies of good and evil was playing out across the globe. Naturally, everything was following the Biblical prophecies of the End Times, even if it took some jiggling to make the details fit.

The group had become a maudlin comedy to Ruppert as he watched the other men try to fit the Book of Revelation to the latest news reports, while Ruppert knew the reports themselves were mostly false. Tonight’s subject: Is Muhammad al Taba the Antichrist? Ruppert guessed no, partly because he knew al Taba had already been captured, and partly because he knew al Taba would be eventually be forgotten, and there would be a whole new Antichrist in a year or two. There always was.

After the meeting, O’Shea buttonholed Ruppert at the corner of the classroom, his rubbery smile even wider and toothier than usual.

“Looks like this is it, Daniel,” O’Shea said to him. “It finally happened.”

“What’s that?” Ruppert slid his hands in his pockets to conceal their shaking. If even O’Shea could scare him now, Ruppert thought, there was no hope.

“I heard from Pastor John’s office this morning,” O’Shea said.

“Yeah?”

“Yep! And you’ll never guess what they told me.”

Ruppert glanced around the room. He was left alone now with O’Shea, whose pudgy body blocked his path to the door.

“What’s that?” Ruppert asked. “What did you hear?”

“Just take a guess. I bet you can guess if you try. Think about it.”

“I don’t have any idea, Liam.” Ruppert looked out the door into the empty hall to see if any Terror men were approaching, but he saw nobody unusual, just men passing on their way out of various classes and study groups and discussion groups and activity groups.

“You don’t want to try and guess?”

“Liam, I need to go and meet Madeline-”

“They approved my application!” O’Shea brandished a laminated badge featuring his picture, in which O’Shea’s mouth sagged wide open as if he had no idea he was having his picture taken. The logo of the World Dominion Church was stamped above the picture-a golden sword, its upright handle the shape of a cross, skewering the Earth right through the North Pole, its tip protruding somewhere near Tierra del Fuego.

“I am now an official lay pastor here at Golden Tabernacle. I now have the authority to watch for those who show signs of straying from the flock, and to counsel them how best to correct their life’s course.”

As if you ever needed official sanction to do that, Ruppert thought. He felt himself sag with relief-this was about O’Shea, not him.

“Congratulations, Liam,” he said. “That does call for a little celebration. Let me buy you a Fizzer at the Fishes N’ Loaves. You like raspberry?” Ruppert nudged forward and put a hand on O’Shea’s soft upper arm, meaning to steer him around towards the door, but O’Shea didn’t budge. Instead, he cleared his throat.

“I’ve identified my first project, Daniel.”

“That’s great. Let’s go enjoy a nice Fizzer-”

“It’s you, Daniel.”

Ruppert was slipping from paranoid to merely annoyed.

“I don’t think I heard you correctly, O’Shea.”

“I’ve been watching you, Daniel. I’ve been trained to watch, you know, working in Social Services.”

“And what?” Ruppert’s voice was low and hard now, without the friendly office-chatter tone.

“I’ve seen signs of doubt.”

“Listen, Liam-”

“Do you suffer doubts, Daniel?” Liam edged up to him, his face looming to fill Ruppert’s sight. Spittle flew from his lips. “Do you feel your faith might be sliding?”

“No.” Ruppert decided it would be safest to take a hard line with him. “Liam, this is insulting. How dare you question my…my faith. My faith in Our King, Liam.”

“There’s no need to be ashamed, Daniel. The demons of doubt are everywhere. The legions of the devil gather in the largest cities. They offer temptation. They offer lies. They offer doubt and uncertainty. We cannot afford uncertainty, Daniel, in these times. The armies of darkness are rising to destroy us. The end draws nigh, Daniel. Soon Our King will arrive with a burning sword in his mouth, and he will destroy all unbelievers. If he finds doubt in your heart, he will destroy you, too. He knows how strong your faith is. Or how weak.”

“Liam, you’re a spitter.”

“What?”

“You spit on people when you talk. You’re, what, forty years old? Hasn’t anybody ever mentioned it to you? Have you ever considered the fine distinction between saying it and spraying it?”

Liam’s face turned red. “I have overactive saliva glands. Stop switching the subject. I am here to discuss the eternal fate of your soul. As a lay pastor, it is my sacred duty to bring your faults to your attention.”

“And I know that takes a lot of effort on your part.” Ruppert leaned in towards the pudgy man. If Terror was after him, there was no point in trying to impress people like Liam any longer. He found the realization strangely liberating. “Now get the hell out of my way, Liam.”

Liam’s mouth sagged open as if he were a dying fish taking its last gulp.

“This is for your own good, Daniel. I think you need a lot of prayer. You and I need to spend a long time in the prayer closet together. What are you doing after Men’s Meeting tomorrow?”

“Forget it, O’Shea.” Ruppert pushed one of his shoulders, meaning only to turn him aside and out of the way, but O’Shea didn’t cooperate. He lost his balance, toppled sideways into the wall, and slid to the floor, gaping as Ruppert stepped over him.

“This is the wrong choice!” O’Shea squealed. “You’re making the wrong choice! You assaulted me!”

Ruppert walked to the door, not looking back.

“Walk away!” O’Shea screamed after him. “Walk away! You can walk away from me, but you can’t escape from Our King! Nobody escapes the King, Daniel!"