Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Lucien
The keys jangled in my hand as I fit the right one into the lock. The heavy door gave its usual groan before swinging open, releasing a breath of air that smelled like dust, incense, and ancient glitter.
“Home sweet heathen home,” I said, pushing the door wide for Sarah.
She stepped in first, her boots clicking against the worn parquet. “It’s so creepy when it’s empty,” she said, shivering theatrically. “Like the ghosts of disco past are judging us for not having a fog machine.”
“Please. The ghosts here are having the time of their afterlives.” I flicked the light switches behind the bar, one by one, until the place glowed a warm amber. “If I died in this place in the ’80s, I wouldn’t go quietly either.”
Scandals. That’s what it used to be called.
Richmond’s most infamous gay bar—part nightclub, part confessional.
The Chapel of Reason still wore its bones proudly: mirrored columns, a stage where drag queens once lip-synced for their lives, and the ghost of a disco ball that still hung, fractured and dulled, over the main floor.
Sometimes, late at night, I swore I could still hear it all—the laughter, the bass line of “Do You Wanna Funk” shaking the walls, the soft moans from the dark corners where freedom came with a growl and a heartbeat.
I didn’t believe in hauntings, but this place had a soul. You could feel it in the walls.
Sarah hopped onto a barstool and twirled, her red hair catching the light. Tattoos climbed her arms in vivid vines, winding around script and sacred geometry. “You ready for tonight? I think it’s going to be a good one.”
“It’s always a good one when we’ve got a crowd.” I walked behind the bar, pulling bottles into neat rows. “But I’m glad to see people waking up again. The last few months have been wild.”
“Wild good,” she corrected, grinning. “We’ve got fresh new faces every week. I got an email this morning from a guy in Charlottesville—says he’s bringing a whole carload tonight. Their first time.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “First-timers always keep things interesting. You can feel their energy before the ceremony even starts. Half fear, half curiosity.”
“That’s what you call it?” Sarah laughed. “I call it wanting to sin just enough to see what it feels like.”
“Same difference.”
We moved through the cavernous main floor, checking tables, rearranging chairs, readying candles for later.
The space was enormous—industrial ceiling, dark metal beams, a mural of the cosmos Sarah had painted herself that stretched across the far wall.
The light made the constellations shimmer faintly, as if the room was breathing.
The Chapel wasn’t like other chapters of The Satanic Temple. We leaned more toward philosophy than performance art, more toward debate than blasphemy. Reason over ritual, though we loved a splendid spectacle now and then.
Upstairs, the old drag stage had become our ceremonial hall.
The wooden runway still gleamed under the spotlights, though instead of sequins and stilettos, it now hosted black candles and lecterns.
Red velvet curtains framed the space, repaired more times than I could count, but I refused to replace them. There was history in those folds.
“Lights?” I asked.
“On it.” Sarah flipped the breakers, and the upstairs glowed to life. “Crazy to think this used to be a gay bar, huh?”
“Not crazy,” I said. “Perfect. A place built for liberation being reborn as a place for reason. It’s poetic.”
“Poetic,” she teased. “You mean kinky.”
“Well, that too.”
She laughed, the sound bouncing through the empty hall. For all her piercings and ink, Sarah had the heart of a kid in a candy store—just with more spikes.
“You nervous?” she asked.
“Excited,” I said. “It’s been a while since we hit a hundred people. After the news story broke, it felt like the floodgates opened.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “Oh, please. The lawsuit’s part of it, sure—but let’s be real. The reason we’ve got all these new followers is because you went viral. Don’t pretend you don’t know it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sarah—”
“No, really. You were on TV looking all studly, serious, and righteous, talking about religious freedom and empathy and blah blah blah.” She deepened her voice into a mock version of mine. “‘We don’t worship evil; we challenge hypocrisy.’”
“Accurate quote, terrible impression.”
“Whatever.” She grinned. “You’re hot when you’re righteous. Half the city’s probably googling ‘join the Satanic Temple’ just to see if you’re single.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You have a talent for sacrilege.”
“I have a talent for recognizing thirst when I see it.” She winked.
Before I could fire back, her phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced down, scrolling through a new email. “Oh, hey—looks like we’ve got another newbie coming tonight.”
“Another one?”
“Mm-hmm. A student named Jimmy Harper. Says he’s doing research for a grad program at U of R. Studying alternative faiths.” She snorted. “I love it when the academics come slumming.”
I smiled, intrigued. “Good. Maybe he’ll write a paper that doesn’t make us sound like a Halloween club.”
She looked up from her phone. “You think it’s because of the lawsuit? All this fresh blood?”
“Maybe,” I said, leaning on the railing beside her. “Or maybe people are just finally tired of being told what to believe. Chesterfield County made us look like the villains, but villains make the best headlines.”
“Mm. Headlines and sexy fantasies.”
The lights flickered briefly, a reminder of the building’s age. I closed my eyes, just for a heartbeat, and could almost hear it: the low thump of bass, laughter like confetti, a thousand forgotten voices carried on the air. Maybe there were ghosts here?
Then Sarah nudged me with her elbow. “Earth to Lucien. You good?”
“Yeah,” I murmured, opening my eyes. “Just thinking about how this place holds on to its memories.”
“Well, tonight it’ll make a few new ones.” She stretched her arms over her head, a gleam in her eyes. “And if we’re lucky, maybe that Jimmy guy will bring a few cute friends from campus.”
I chuckled. “You’re hopeless.”
* * *
We were already in motion when the room took its first breath.
Candles ran the length of the old drag stage.
The velvet curtains drank in the golden light and gave it back dusky and red.
The room held a sea of faces—some soft with wonder, some hard with defiance, all of them turned toward me like I might say something that would loosen a knot they’d been carrying for years.
I loved big rooms. I loved the charge that moved through a crowd right before a first kiss, a first truth, a first anything. It made my skin sing.
“Welcome,” I said, voice warm and low. “To those who are new—this isn’t a place to worship monsters.
We don’t do monsters here. We do responsibility, consent, and choice.
” Sarah’s eyebrows did a quick, satisfied little bounce.
She loved when I hit the cadence just right.
“Tonight is for anyone who needs a ritual to name the thing they’re becoming. ”
A murmur moved through the room. The Chapel of Reason wasn’t a church like they were used to. It was more like a mirror.
I raised my right hand, palm open. “As is tradition, we begin with words that remind us of what we are not.” I let a smile tilt the corner of my mouth. “Not bowed, and not afraid.”
There was a hush. I gave them the invocation—measured, not chanted, letting each idea land: standing “unbowed and unfettered,” eating of knowledge rather than clinging to comforting delusions, judging people by actions instead of arbitrary norms, holding fast to what can be shown to be true.
Refusing authority that violates sovereignty, and that sharp little blade: that what can’t bend must break, and what truth can destroy should not be spared.
I closed with the customary seal, simple and clean.
“It is done.” Then after a beat—“Hail Satan.”
“Hail Satan,” voices answered, some tentative, some hungry.
The lights dimmed, and the candles flared.
“Tonight we’re doing an affirmation,” I said. “No one’s obligated to participate. If you want to stay and simply witness, you’re welcome. If you want to step forward, you’ll have a choice of short vows. All consent, and no pressure.”
Sarah moved through the aisle like a red-haired comet, piercings winking as she handed small black cards down each row—two or three options of vows we’d written with the congregation: one for reclaiming bodily autonomy, one for breaking with old dogma, one for pledging compassion joined to reason.
“Begin,” I said, and they came forward in small groups, hesitant at first, like stepping into cold water.
The first was a woman in her fifties. Silver streaked through her dark hair, pulled back in a clip that trembled as much as her hands.
She wore a cardigan the color of storm clouds and eyes that looked older than her face.
She approached the stage clutching the small black vow card to her chest, lips moving silently over the words she’d already read a dozen times.
Sarah met her halfway down the aisle. “You’re all right,” she whispered, touching the woman’s wrist.
The woman nodded but didn’t speak. Her eyes lifted to me. Then, voice shaking, she read aloud:
“I claim ownership of myself. My body is not a sin, my thoughts not a trespass.”
Her voice cracked halfway through, but she didn’t stop. A single tear slipped down her cheek and fell onto the card, smudging the ink.
Sarah caught her hands, steadying them. They held on to each other for a heartbeat, two women bound by something deeper than language, until the older woman drew in a shaky breath and smiled.
She stepped back into the crowd, and a few moments later came a boy who couldn’t have been more than twenty.