11. Jaxson
11
Jaxson
M y investigations into my father’s money is slow going. It’s possible the random hundreds of thousands of dollars that are going missing under the National Treasurer Priest’s watch are for some miscellaneous expense because goodness knows my father can rack up those for a variety of reasons. Health expenses. The community outreach he’s randomly inspired to perform when he wants to be seen and awed over. Bribing someone to silence. Pulling any one of the failing Sovereignty businesses out of the hole for another six months because he’d rather do that and blame it on some dubious, non-specific enemy than the fact that he won’t hire people with actual expertise to run them.
It's a wonder the Sovereignty still has a billion dollars of liquid cash and a few hundred million more in assets, even though they deny it to anyone who asks. It could be a lot more if my father were actually as competent in running the Sovereignty as he is in believing his own delusions. At the very least, my father’s predecessor had been good at that—or at least his wife had been, though she never got much credit for running the Sovereignty while he was having orgies with his secretaries and somehow not destroying his liver from too much alcohol. My father, unfortunately, doesn’t have the benefit of having a business-savvy wife.
Regardless, there’s something too deliberate about the randomness of the transactions for it to simply be random.
I spend days going back and forth with Abner trying to track down a money trail until I finally get to an actual place and not some shell corporation or pseudonym.
Charleston, South Carolina.
Like all cities with Sovereign Altars, big or small, I’m familiar enough with it. And while the Charleston Altar isn’t small necessarily—fluctuating between 250 to 300 members at any given time—it’s not particularly significant in the grand scheme of the Sovereignty and isn’t a major hub for Sovereigns like New York or Chicago. Like most of the Altars in the Bible Belt South, it was notoriously hard to establish. If not for the dedicated Head Priest and his team who run the Altar, investing all his time and money with little support from the Sovereignty headquarters, it probably would have collapsed years ago. So why is my father sending hundreds of thousands of dollars there?
It's not something I’m going to find an answer to while sitting in my office. I’m going to need to go there and investigate myself.
But I need a pretext for it first. My father more or less left me alone when he found out I was in Georgia. But now that he’s decided to covet what’s mine, he’ll be paranoid about anything that can be perceived as an act against him. Randomly going to Charleston will definitely and rightfully turn his paranoia toward me .
I’m on the phone with my real estate team about possibly finding a plausible reason to want to buy up some commercial property there when I get a call from Magdalene.
I ignore the call. She knows our plan. She’s going to have to give us some time to execute it. There’s only so fast that Lauressa can interview the people for her podcast. That’s without posting them. That’s without grabbing the rest of the attention of the Sovereignty. That’s without shattering the trust of his inner circle. It’s a process that will take months, and no amount of Magdalene nagging me about it is going to speed up the process. All Magdalene needs to worry about is collecting intel and the weaknesses of my father’s inner circle.
Magdalene calls a second time.
I ignore it.
The third time, I’m concerned that something happened to Jessie and answer.
Jessie is fine.
But what Magdalene does say is much worse.
“The S-team is sending a team ahead to case your house for a visit from the Oracle.”
No sooner than the words are out of her mouth am I standing up with another phone in my hand and messaging my security team.
“You couldn’t have warned me sooner?” I ask.
“I just found out,” Magdalene says. “The Assistant High Priest just called me to ask what your address is because they were thirty minutes out from Macon. Which was five minutes ago, by the way. They’re not going to be nice either. Your father will be in the city in the morning.”
“Let me guess. He was suddenly inspired to see his new pseudo-bride after she fled from him almost three weeks ago.”
“You said it.”
I hang up the phone.
I should have known. I should have been prepared for this. Instead, I deluded myself into thinking that Lauressa and I could, at least for the time being, exist in this blissful fairytale of our own making. Instead, I fell into the very same arrogance and complacency that got me into this mess.
With my security activated to hide anything that needs to be hidden, I go to where Lauressa is working on editing the first batch of interviews, with Nala in her lap.
“Secure that,” I command.
“Secure what?” she asks.
“Your laptop. All your work. Put it in a box somewhere and I’ll get one of my men to take it off the premises to a secure location,” I say. “Hurry up. You’ve got twenty minutes at most.”
“What’s going on?”
“My father’s S-team is coming,” I say.
I grab a crate full of her recording gear, slam her laptop closed, and dump it haphazardly into the crate. Her iPad follows, along with all her printed notes and research.
“Jaxson. What are you doing? Where are you taking that? I need that! Who the fuck is the S-team? ”
“Language,” I say reflexively. But I can’t blame her curiosity. To any other Sovereign, that statement would have been self-explanatory. But for all that she’s an expert in cults, there are still some details of the Sovereignty that Lauressa knows nothing about.
“The S-Team is my father’s elite security team. They’re sending a team here to prepare for my father’s visit.”
“Your father’s visit? Wait. Jaxson. Since when?”
“Since whenever my father decided he wanted to, without giving me adequate notice.”
“Where are you taking my stuff?”
“My security team will take it to a secure location.”
“Can you trust them?”
“My security answers to me.”
“But are they brainwashed to answer to you and you above the Oracle?” she asks. “If the Oracle comes in here and demands that they bring back anything that you tried to hide, would they still be loyal?”
I open my mouth to answer in the affirmative. That my security is loyal to me and me alone, and that was proven when I lined them up to commit suicide for the sin of seeing Lauressa naked. I trust them with my life, and I generally don’t trust anyone…
But also, I can’t answer with one hundred percent certainty that if the Oracle countermanded an order that I gave them, they’d stay loyal. Their brainwashing is dependent on them thinking, knowing, and believing that I’m in line with the Oracle and thus with the Supreme Force. I make sure of it. Because if I want a Sovereignty to rule, I can’t just openly disregard its hierarchy and chain of command. I need this blind obedience for when I’m Oracle.
My security team has been complicit in many things for me. Torture. Kidnapping. Murder. A myriad of other felonies. However, what my security has never been complicit in is going against my father.
I’m ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent sure they would stay loyal to me over my father. But even that point zero zero one percent is too much of a risk to take.
My silence is answer enough.
“I’ll get Abigail to come get it.”
“Tell her to hurry. She has to be gone before the S-Team gets here. She can take Nala too. I’ll tell J to go pick her up.”
Lauressa nods.
Satisfied that she has everything well in hand, I go downstairs to coordinate with my security and the rest of the house staff, who are already in a flurry getting things out the back door that need to be taken off the premises. They leave a bit of a junky mess in their haste, but I’m not concerned about any of that. When the S-Team comes, they’re going to take apart the entire house and clean it from top to bottom anyway. The important thing is taking anything that might incite the paranoia of the Assistant High Priest or my father’s paranoia. Frankly, I’m not sure whose is worse.
Abigail arrives in ten minutes. Lauressa doesn’t even let her get out of the car, placing Nala in the back seat in her carrier and packing her equipment and research in the trunk.
“What’s going on?” Abigail asks .
“I’ll explain it later. Let me know when you get home,” Lauressa insists.
“Don’t make any stops. Lock all your doors. Be suspicious of anyone who suddenly wants to be friendly with you,” I add.
“Most people are like that around here,” Abigail says.
“Today, they are all your enemy,” I declare.
Abigail looks at Lauressa, who leans into the window and says, “Just trust us. Now go. Remember to text.”
Abigail leaves, and Lauressa turns to me.
“Anything else I need to do?” she asks. “Anything I need to wear?”
“My father won’t be here until tomorrow. My father probably sent with the S-team what he wanted you to wear if he had a preference. Still, take heed. The preliminary team will be watching and paying attention to everything we do and say to report to my father.”
“So does that mean I should probably take all my stuff out of your room?” she asks.
“My security is handling that. Besides, they’ll likely turn a blind eye to anything like that.”
“What would they be looking for then?”
“Depends on how paranoid my father is feeling,” I say.
My father can laugh off the biggest slights and missteps while making a mountain out of even the most innocuous.
Not even five minutes after Abigail is gone, a line of five cars is driving up the road to my estate.
The Assistant High Priest steps out of the first car. A tall, buff, bald man with a graying beard and mustache .
“Jaxson,” he says loudly. “Heard you’ve been down here in the boonies hiding out from the meat grinder of headquarters.”
“Samson,” I respond with much less enthusiasm.
Samson rolls his eyes. “Now don’t be like that, nephew. Give me a proper greeting.”
Samson proceeds to embrace me, and I indulge him in returning the embrace since it has been a while since I’ve seen him.
He’s always part of the feeler teams, sent ahead of my father to secure premises and plan routes through the city. He’s the first to arrive ahead of my father and the last to leave after him, which means he’s almost never in one place for long. Even when I’m spending a significant amount of time in Chicago, I only see him every two years. Pity too. He’s one of the few people in the Sovereignty that I can tolerate purely for his competence in all things security and defense. He’s the man who trained me, after all.
When he lets me go, Lauressa looks at me and asks, “Nephew?”
“I’m not his nephew,” I reply.
Lauressa looks to Samson for clarification.
“Not in blood, but I’ve been with his father every step of the way since long before you were born.”
His statement is a reminder that while he’s one of the few people in the Sovereignty that I can tolerate—even grudgingly—I still can’t trust him. At the end of the day, his loyalty lies solely with my father, which makes him an enemy to me.
“Alright,” Samson says, gesturing for his team to head into my house. “Let’s get this show on the road. ”
If it were possible, I’d take Lauressa somewhere and leave while Samson and his men work. But the last thing I’m going to do is let Samson and the S-team have complete free rein of my house. The scope of their work is only so far as to make sure everything is secure for my father’s visit, and though they always stretch that scope to its farthest limits, they aren’t supposed to go beyond that. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to try, and the only way to stop that is to stick around and supervise.
Samson and his team completely take apart and inspect every inch of my home, searching for anything that can do their precious messenger of God harm. They remove curtains and inspect windows, undo beds, move furniture, remove books from bookshelves, and, in general, take apart my entire home. The staff that the cooking team has sent ahead takes over the entire kitchen, throwing out everything in my refrigerator and pantry while taking out all the dishware and pots to clean and sanitize.
They’re more thorough than the feds, and as annoying as it is, except for the loss of groceries I didn’t put there in the first place, they put everything back like they found it. Everything except the guest side of the estate, where they prepare my father’s room. They take out the mattress, sheets, pillows, linens, and toiletries and place them in a storage area that I designate. Then they replace it all.
“Is all this really necessary? They’re acting like he’s an important political dignitary?” Lauressa asks as she fidgets with her hands and awkwardly watches as Samson and his team carry in a new mattress.
“To the Sovereignty, the Oracle is,” I state .
“You’re his son. They don’t trust that the Oracle will be safe in his own son’s home?”
I look at Lauressa with a raised eyebrow. “All things considered, should they?”
“I suppose not,” she says as she continues to watch. “But you’ve been nothing but loyal on the surface and even beneath it. They have no reason to suspect you’d betray your father.”
“No one had any reason to suspect Judas would turn Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified either,” I point out.
“It’s still ridiculous,” Lauressa mutters, shaking her head.
She’s right. But it’s a farce that we’re going to have to put up with. A farce that gets worse as the minutes and hours tick by, bringing us closer to my father’s impending arrival. With nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no way to speak freely, Lauressa goes to bed early for once.
I almost follow ten minutes later to do the same, only to be accosted by Samson.
“Where do you think you’re going, nephew?” he asks.
“Bed.”
“When the night is still so young and we haven’t caught up yet?” he says, throwing an arm around my shoulder and all but dragging me to the kitchen.
He grins over at one of the cooking staff still lingering about, a young woman looking fresh out of high school with pale blonde hair and dark eyes.
“Sweetheart, brew a pot of coffee for an old man and his nephew, will you?” he asks .
She looks at Samson and blushes before nodding to go just that. It seems that Samson’s promiscuous ways and proclivity toward barely legal young women are still going strong.
“So, tell me, nephew,” Samson says after we sit at the table. “How’s life been treating you? What have you been up to?”
Samson is heedless of the presence of the kitchen staff. I am not and throw a glance at the blonde brewing our pot of coffee.
“Ah. Jubilee ain’t going to tell nobody if she hears anything. Are you, sweetheart?” Samson asks.
Jubilee blushes again and shakes her head as she prepares a coffee tray.
Samson turns back to me. “See?”
She’ll be quiet until Samson gets bored of taking her to his bed, and whispers of their affair start traveling through the Sovereignty, if they haven’t already.
Despite Samson’s insistence, I wait until Jubilee has served us our coffee.
“Thanks, honey,” Samson says. “Why don’t you go ahead and call it a day for the evening?”
Jubilee nods and turns to leave, but not before Samson smacks her ass.
“You could be less blatant about your lechery,” I point out as I stir sugar and cream into my coffee while Samson takes his black.
“Please. I’m not hurting anyone, and we all have our struggles.”
Not hurting anyone except his faithful wife. And calling it a struggle would imply that Samson actually struggles with it rather than gleefully taking to bed the youngest and prettiest legal women in the Sovereignty who cross his path.
“But we’re not here to talk about me. My life is boring. Same stuff I’m always doing. Making sure Abdiel doesn’t get his old ass killed. What about you? What made you come all the way down to this quaint little town?”
I repeat the same lie that I always state when anyone asks. That I was led here by the Supreme Force to start an Altar.
Samson huffs. “You have my sympathies. You know how long the Sovereignty has been trying to establish an Altar in Georgia? In the thick of the Bible Belt?”
“Other places in the Bible Belt have Altars,” I point out.
“True. But we’ve never been able to get anything to make anything stick in Georgia. It’s a… very special region. That’s for sure. Perhaps that’s not even what you were supposed to come down here and do. Perhaps you were supposed to come here and meet Lauressa and bring her back to your father,” Samson says carefully.
“Perhaps,” I reply neutrally.
When it’s clear he’s not going to get anything out of me by my own accord, Samson continues, “I heard that you’re close to her.”
“People grow close when they work together,” I state.
“You know exactly how I mean,” Samson says.
“How exactly do you mean?” I ask, continuing to play dumb. But playing dumb has never been a good look on me, which is why I hardly ever try to .
“Look. I get it’s disappointing, but you know your father would never do anything malicious to you, right, son? He wouldn’t have claimed her if he weren’t guided by the Supreme Force to do it.”
“For someone who’s always on the go, you sure have had time to keep an ear out for Sovereignty gossip.”
Samson ignores me and continues, “He told me himself that he saw how enamored you were with that girl when you walked in and that he was thrilled you were finally bringing him home a daughter-in-law only to realize you hadn’t.”
It's pointless to argue otherwise with Samson. It would be pointless to argue with any Sovereign about it, but especially with Samson. The man who has been my father’s most faithful companion and defender for forty years. One of the people who campaigned for my father to become Oracle after Zachariah Holione died after his ascension was contested by those who supported Raphael. There’s no part of him that believes my father has a malicious bone in his body, let alone that my father is manipulating him by going around telling people close to him that he’s only doing the will of the Supreme Force in trying to take Lauressa from me. I could bring Samson clear evidence of my father’s malicious deeds, and he wouldn’t believe they were evil.
“Did he tell you to tell me this?” I ask.
“No. But I figured he wanted you to know. I know how he gets. So caught up in being Oracle to you and your siblings that he forgets to just be your dad,” he says.
I sip on my coffee to prevent myself from scoffing out loud .
Once I set it back down, I force myself to say, “It doesn’t matter. She’s just one woman out of millions. A dime a dozen, and the last thing I’m going to do is let a woman get in the way of my efforts to accomplish the Sovereignty’s mission. Women come and go. The work is eternal. If my father wants her, if he wants every woman I ever bring home, it’s irrelevant.”
“Spoken like a true future Oracle,” Samson says with a laugh.
I’m tempted to ask him if my father told him that too. That if I bent the knee and let him steal Lauressa from me, it would show him my dedication to the Sovereignty, and he’d name me his heir. But I can’t seem too interested in that. Besides, loathe as I am to speak to Samson, especially about my father, an opportunity has presented itself.
“Speaking of work, I’m still trying to get an Altar established here, and though Lauressa’s insights have been helpful, the insights of someone in charge of an established Altar in the Bible Belt would help,” I say. “I was thinking maybe the Altar in Birmingham.”
Samson immediately scowls and shakes his head, exactly what I expected him to do. I may not always have my ear to the ground when it comes to the gossip of the Sovereignty, but I do when it comes to conflicts among the priests and national leadership.
“That son of a bitch couldn’t tell you anything. Head Priest Wayne can barely manage his Altar.”
The only reason Samson believes this is because he slept with said priest’s daughter and got into a physical fight over it when the priest found out. Not that the priest had much room to stand on, considering he physically abuses his children. But taking his only daughter’s virginity and ruining her "virtue"? That was apparently crossing a line.
Samson continues, “You’ll want to go talk to Yates in Charleston. Good man. One of our top-performing Altars. He can tell you a thing or two about getting and keeping converts in the Bible Belt.”
I can’t trust Samson, but I understand why my father keeps him around. He’s simple-minded and easy to manipulate. Now, when I propose this to my father, I can say that Samson gave me the idea, and Samson will corroborate the story, leaving him with little choice but to allow me. Especially if he thinks it’s me quietly acquiescing Lauressa to him. It also tells me that whatever my father is hiding in Charleston, Samson has no clue about it. He’s my father’s closest confidant. If he had a clue what was happening there, he wouldn’t have been so quick to steer me there.
Irritating as this affair of my father visiting has been so far, at the very least, I’m walking away from it with something valuable.