Page 50 of The House Guest

‘Stevie. Elton. Mick. Jerry. Patti. Bruce. Yeah, I did. But ...’ She leaned forward. Her yellow glasses gave her face a sickly glow. ‘It’s too dangerous for me to contact them now.’

She left the room before I could ask what that meant, and Callum grinned at me before following her.

I could still hear the dog barking in some part of the cabin as Wanda led us along a corridor that was filled with more framed discs, along with vintage concert posters and magazine covers:Creem,Playboy, moreRolling Stone. We paused in the kitchen and Wanda asked me if I’d like anything to drink.

‘Just water, please,’ I said.

Wanda winked at Callum. ‘These millennials, huh? I’ve heard they don’t drink. Very sensible. Very boring.’

‘I wish I didn’t drink,’ I said. ‘I might not be in this trouble.’

She handed me a glass of water and we followed her further down the hallway. There was a door at the end, which Wanda unlocked using a bunch of keys that hung from her belt.

We went inside. The room was full of computers: desktops and laptops, screens glowing in the semi-darkness. There must have been a dozen of them, some brand new, some knackered-looking, including an original Blueberry iMac.

‘Wow,’ I said.

Wanda eased herself into a huge leather chair, and Callum perched on the edge of a desk beside her. This room wasn’t full of rock memorabilia. Instead, the walls were covered with pages from newspapers and printouts from online news pages. I peered at them. All the stories were about cults.

‘Take a seat, young man,’ Wanda said. ‘And tell me everything.’

So I did. When I’d finished, Wanda took her glasses off and I could see excitement shining in her eyes.

‘Can you help us?’ I asked. ‘Help us find Ruth and Eden?’

‘I’m going to try.’ She looked at me. ‘Nineteen eighty-three. I was on tour with this band called Mister Magpie. Holy shit, they were bad. Made A Flock of Seagulls sound like the Beatles. The singer was cute as hell, though.’

Was she about to start regaling us with tales from the road? I opened my mouth to ask her about what was happening in the present day, but Callum gestured at me to be patient.

‘That’s when I first started hearing about young people going missing. Fans of the band, mostly young women. There was a big group of them who followed Mister Magpie around. Wannabe groupies, a lot of them. Actual groupies, some of them. I thought it would be interesting to talk to them, and found out that a few of the girls had vanished during the tour. There was a lot of whispering about it. I thought they’d probably just gone home – but, well, the rumours were that they’d been enticed to join a cult.’ She shook her head. ‘And that’s what got me interested in the whole thing, though it was just an interest at that point. We never did find out what happened to those missing fans, even though I spent all my spare time trying to dig into it. It still kills me, you know? But I didn’t have the resources back then.

‘Fast-forward to the end of the nineties. I retired from rock journalism. Too old. Too bored. And then I got my first computer and dial-up internet, and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Find the kind of kids I’d failed to help back in the eighties.’

‘Remember the early days of the web, Adam?’ Callum asked.

I said no. For me it had always been there.

‘It was awesome,’ said Wanda. ‘In 2000, I was on a message board and found a reference to something called Terrium. A self-help organisation, according to them. A cult, according to me.’

‘Terrium? What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. It’s just a word they made up. Just like they made up a whole philosophy. They lured all these young people to join, usually kids from poor backgrounds, kids who were homeless or drug addicts. Terrium actually had a pretty good drug rehabilitation programme. They’d get people clean. Then they trafficked them into sexual slavery.’

‘Oh Jesus.’

‘Fastest-growing industry in America,’ Wanda said. ‘The leaders were actually a married couple. Karen and Brad Keeffe. Evil motherfuckers. They made a lot of money. Alotof money. I’m proud to say that we brought them down. I knew these cub reporters at the local paper, persuaded them to go in undercover, and they got evidence the Feds couldn’t ignore. Rescued a lot of souls. But what struck me was how a lot of them didn’t believe they needed saving. They’d been brainwashed to believe they were on a path that would lead to their salvation. It wouldn’t surprise me if half of them went on to join other cults.’

‘They were seekers,’ I said, half to myself.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Anyway, that experience showed me I could actually make a difference. So I’ve kept on doing it. Even though it’s been like painting a target on my back.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘There are a lot of people who’d love to see me dead. Because I’m not only investigating these creeps, I’m telling the world all about them. Warning people.’

Callum gestured to the closest computer. ‘Wanda has this incredible database. She’s got every cult and secret organisation that’s ever existed in the United States on there. And her own YouTube channel too.’

‘Really?’

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