Page 136 of Divine Temptations

“The Chapel of Reason—Principles of Compassion, Autonomy, Inquiry.”

I mouthed the words to make them real. My thoughts kept slipping their rails, honest and ugly by turns.

Maybe these folks use kindness as a trick, and the Devil saves his claws for later. Then a seed of doubt sprouted in my head: Maybe there is no Devil here at all.

A sound—a short, surprised laugh—snapped my gaze to the right. Two men stood near a pillar, talking close. One was older, lean and fine-boned, his hair silver at the temples. A face that would have fit in one of Daddy’s donor brochures: successful, upright, a man people trusted with money. The other was younger by twenty years maybe, broad-shouldered, wearing a black T-shirt that had seen better days. They talked, and then the older man leaned in and pressed his mouth to the younger one’s lips.

The younger man smiled when it ended—one of those shy, private smiles I’d only ever seen pass between parents and their babies in the hallway after church—and rested his forehead briefly against the older man’s like the contact steadied him.

Men didn’t do that where I came from. Not in public, not in private, not anywhere but in the nightmares Daddy preached about.

Heat climbed my neck, hot as shame, and spread across my scalp until my ears rang. I couldn’t breathe right; every inhale came in wrong, a hiccup instead of a breath. The column at my back pressed colder and harder, and the air smelled suddenly too sweet. The entire room seemed to tilt a fraction, and all the faces blurred into a pattern I couldn’t read.

Don’t look at them.

I looked. The older man’s hand settled at the small of the younger man’s back. No one around them stared or pointed or hissed. The moment didn’t cause the ceiling to crack or the floor to open to a stairway leading down to hell.

My stomach flipped. A prayer I didn’t know how to finish started in my head—Lord, Lord, Lord—not a request, just a word to hold on to while the ground shifted.

I had to get out.

I moved without deciding, racing to the stairs. I kept my eyes on the exit sign like it was a star I could follow out of the wilderness. Someone said my name as I hurried away.

At the bottom of the stairs, an old bar stretched out like a shore I could reach. The air down there was cooler, and people streamed past me in threes and fours, laughing, bumping shoulders, saying excuse me when we brushed.

I pushed through the exit, the black glass reflecting my face—drawn, eyes wide open like I’d seen a ghost. Outside, the humid air wrapped around my head, thick and wet. I leaned my shoulder against the bricks and bowed my head. I tried to pray, my voice a hoarse whisper.

“Keep me pure. Keep me safe. Don’t let me fall.”

Behind my closed eyes, the kiss replayed—not the lips, not even the faces, but the quietness of it, the way the room had allowed it.

I drew in a breath, then another, and stared down the slick black of the street, the way the gutter caught the lamplight and turned it into a thin, trembling ribbon. Somewhere inside, Lucien had promised to find me.

“I can’t,” I whispered, then I took off running toward my truck.

The drive back to the Airbnb felt longer than it should’ve. My headlights carved tunnels through the dark, but the world beyond them stayed black. By the time I pulled into the gravel lot beside the rental house, the night had gone still—too still, except for the tick of my cooling engine. I left the truck running a minute longer, hands resting on the steering wheel.

Nothing bad had happened, not really. No pentagrams drawn in blood, no howling demons, no fire raining from the ceiling. Just people. Kind people, mostly. Ordinary people. And those two men.

I swallowed, my pulse thudding in my ears. They weren’t barbecuing babies, for God’s sake. But the sight had done something to me—tilted something loose.

With a sigh, I climbed out of my truck. The little house stood hunched in the dark, one window glowing weakly yellow, like it didn’t want to wake the neighbors. The place was small—kitchenette, bathroom, a fold-out sofa—but Daddy said it was perfect for “a short mission trip.”

Inside, the air smelled faintly of pine cleaner and something stale. I tossed my keys on the counter, the jingle loud in the quiet. I’d barely sat down when my phone rang.

I hesitated, then swiped to answer. “Hey, Daddy.”

“You all right, son?” His voice came low and serious, that preacher’s cadence that could turn anything—weather reports, dinner plans—into a sermon.

“Sure,” I said, forcing lightness. “All good.”

“How’d it go tonight? What was it like? Describe the evil, son.”

The words froze me. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. What was I supposed to say? That I’d found people lighting candles and talking about compassion? Or that their leader—Lucien—looked me in the eye like he saw me, not through me? That it didn’t feel evil?

“I… uh,” I started, rubbing the back of my neck. “It was different than I expected.”

“Different?” Daddy’s voice sharpened. “How so?”