Page 22 of The Devil's Viking

If there’s anything that I know how to do well, it’s those three things.

Chapter Eight

Ice walked into King’s Garage and looked around. It was crazy busy and if he’d been there to get his motorcycle fixed, he’d be worrying about getting it looked at before they closed in four hours, at seven o’clock. As it was, he had zero interest in a service.

His ice-blue eyes scanned the room and stopped when he spotted the man he’d come to see.

Matt ‘King’ Kingston was walking over to him and despite Ice’s military background, and his decade as an Enforcer for the Road Devils, and his large frame, he was briefly intimidated by King, just as he always was. It was such a fleeting feeling that it passed within a single heartbeat, but still – Ice never forgot who he was dealing with. Nobody did.

“Ice.” King extended his ludicrously-large hand covered in thick silver rings and Ice shook it. “Good to see you.”

“King. Thank you for the time.”

“You got it. Let’s head to the back room, it’ll be quieter.”

Ice followed King through his garage, nodding at the men working on the vehicles. It still kind of surprised him that although King ran a group of ex-special-ops men and women who took private assignments for huge paychecks, he still kept his garage open and running. It was a legit business, too, one hundred percent above-board, and customers included soccer moms with mini-vans and florists with delivery trucks. Ice had no idea why King would hang onto it when King’s Men was wildly successful, unless it was for sentimental reasons. But then again, Ice didn’t understand much about sentiment; he didn’t really want to.

“So.” King turned and fixed his steel-grey eyes on Ice. “I called my buddy Denton in the Salt Lake City police department, and he told me about the area around Walton.”

Ice appreciated a man who got right down to business – small talk was a waste of time.

“And?” he asked briskly. “Anything interesting?”

“Just one thing.” King cocked his dark head, narrowed those eyes at Ice. “Word among law enforcement is that just outside the very boring little town of Walton, there’s a cult.”

Ice prided himself on not being startled by much, but this took him by complete and total surprise; whatever he thought he’d come to get from King in terms of information, this wasn’t it. He was almost speechless. That had literally never happened in the whole of his life, so all he could do was stare at the older man and let his thoughts snowball. Finally he managed to spit out two syllables:

“Acult?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus fuck.” Ice was recovering himself even as realization began to dawn. “Oh, Christ.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought. You and Wolf and the boys aren’t mixed up with this group of religious lunatics, are you?”

“I don’t know.” He thought about Iris, as he now knew she was named thanks to Viking being a nice guy who got people to talk without smashing their kneecaps. He was remembering what she’d looked like in the back of the van – she’d looked like a woman on the run, a woman who’d escaped something serious and scary. “Maybe.”

“Well, getun-mixed up with them and damn quick. Denton says these people are legitimately insane.”

“Tell me.”

“He didn’t say too much, mostly because nobody outside the cult seems to have all that many clear facts and the people in Walton try to avoid the situation. What Dentondoesknow is that the show is run by some egomaniac called Gideon, who’s decided that he’s some kind of Messiah. He and his bunch of goons troll all over the country, around university campuses and homeless shelters, outside AA and NA meetings, on street corners with hookers and drug buyers – they target people who are isolated or alone or struggling, and they befriend them. After a while, if the person is receptive, they get invited for meals and outings with more cult members. Pretty soon, the vulnerable, lonely person feels like they have a whole group of friends and they’re happy to do whatever to hang onto them.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty standard cult indoctrination.”

“He’s not re-inventing the wheel, that’s for sure. He’s following the same playbook as every one of these cult leader yahoos, and he’s doing it because it works.” King sighed. “Anyway, Denton says that Gideon has his own private army of guys who keep the women in line. He heard they’re called Guards or something like that. Maybe Guardians.”

Ice’s ears pricked up at the mention of women. “How many women?”

“Denton says that this lunatic has twelve Guardians and twelve women. Apparently inspired by Jesus’ twelve disciples.”

“Asshole.”

“Right? And get this: the women are all named after flowers.”

Ice’s heart jolted to a complete and-still in his chest. “Flowers?”

“Yeah. Gideon’s cult is called The Garden of Divine Sunlight, or Divine Moonbeam, or some-such crap along those hippie lines. So because it’s a garden, he has a dozen flowers in it.”

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