At 6am in the morning, Pastor Ezekiel Abrahams stood in the hall of the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ. Ezekiel was not his real name. His real name was Colin Fletcher, but none of his followers ever spoke it. To do so, or to refer to the Pastor's former life as a boring, nerdy IT consultant, was a sin. He stood at a pulpit at the front of the church, near the ceiling, gazing at his followers from its lofty heights. The pulpit was only accessible from a staircase which was embedded in the wall. Only Pastor Ezekiel had access to the key so it seemed like his ascension to the pulpit was a miracle.
'Brothers and sisters,' Pastor Ezekiel said, his soft voice amplified by the powerful microphone sewn into his robes, which he used for his sermons. He looked directly into the eyes of the rows of worshippers who were staring at him reverently. 'I stand before you today to bear witness to the power of our Lord. Yesterday marked the start of the Days of Deliverance.'
'Amen, Pastor!' the congregation chanted in reply, rapturous with spiritual fervour. 'Amen!'
'The prophecy is fulfilled. And those who do God's work shall be rewarded,' Pastor Ezekiel said, as his gaze fell on the figure at the back of the church. If the congregation showed any sign of dissent or discomfort at the newcomer to the fold, they did not show it. Pastor Ezekiel opened an app on his phone, making sure nobody saw, and used it to draw a purple curtain around the pulpit. He unlocked the door and disappeared into the hidden passage in the wall.
Once inside, he walked down the staircase, which wound all the way round the church until it came to the back entrance. He stood before two locked metal doors with biblical verses engraved on them. He entered a code in another app on his phone and a trumpet automatically blared. The doors opened.
All the members of the congregation turned towards him and made the sign of the cross. He was dressed in the robes and intricately decorated hat of a bishop and carried a bishop's mitre. Some of the congregants reached out and touched his robes. Some of them bowed and some of them touched the bible he was carrying. He loved how they all gazed at him with such adoration on their faces.
He looked at the woman who stood a few seats away from him, a fatherly glance in his eyes.
'My child,' he said. 'Are you ready for the anointment? To be received into the family of the Lord?'
'Yes, I am.'
He beckoned her and she edged past the other smiling congregants towards him. Together they walked down the aisle, but this was more of a baptism than a wedding. The floor they walked on was covered with a mosaic depicting the fires of Hell, devils and demons, so that with the very act of walking in the church, Pastor Ezekiel's followers were crushing the legions of Satan underfoot.
After they had walked to the front of the church, he leant the mitre by the altar. On the altar was a huge bible with pages one metre long. He placed his own, smaller bible on a stand in front of it, then bowed before the two bibles. Ezekiel had never been much of a writer. But recently the success of ChatGPT had got him thinking. Maybe he could use AI to write a testament of his own?
As he clasped his hands and pondered this, not facing the worshippers, he opened another app on his phone, which he kept hidden in a pocket on his long, ecclesiastical sleeve. He scrolled through a menu and made a selection. Some floorboards slid open by the altar, revealing a small rectangular pool.
The lights switched off, several claps of thunder sounded, and a voice boomed from hidden speakers in the rafters. 'I am the Lord your God! Behold, a great and wondrous miracle!'
'Who is this man?' The pre recorded voice permeated throughout the church hall. 'Who is he that performs such wonders? Who is he that can summon the spirit of the Lord?'
'Pastor Ezekiel! He is the holy one!' the congregation yelled back. Some caught their breath and had to sit. A young woman sitting near the front fainted. To the congregation's gasps, the lights turned back on, blinding with their glow.
'You heard him! The Lord has spoken to you today in his very own church!' Pastor Ezekiel shouted, placing his hands on his newest disciple's shoulders. 'Now, if anyone doubts in his existence, you do not have faith, you have proof! You can say, I was at the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ and he - God - spoke loud and clear!'
'Amen! Amen!' the whole church responded.
'Do you doubt my holiness?' Pastor Ezekiel yelled. The woman he laid hands on looked into his eyes adoringly. She did not blink. It unnerved him.
'No!' the congregation yelled. 'You alone are the Lord's vessel!'
'And you, my child?' Pastor Ezekiel asked the woman. 'Do you doubt my holiness?'
'No. You alone are the Lord's vessel,' the woman said. For a second, Pastor Ezekiel saw a flash of something else in her eyes. What was it? Desire? Greed? She smiled again, baring her teeth like a shark.
'Amen! By the grace of the Lord, she is saved!' the Pastor yelled, throwing his hands in the air, eager to distract her with this theatre. 'We have a mighty, awesome God, brothers and sisters!'
'Amen!' the congregation shouted. 'Amen! Amen!'
'She is saved! She is as innocent as the day she was born! Her sins are washed clean away! Hallelujah!' Not believing what he said for a moment, he shoved the woman hard. She toppled into the pool. There was a huge splash. Water sprayed onto his clothes and hit his eyes.
'Hallelujah!' the congregation shouted. Pastor Ezekiel jumped into the small, deep pool after her. 'Hallelujah!'
The bishop's robes he was wearing stopped Pastor Ezekiel from swimming fast as he tried to reach the surface of the baptismal pool. For a second he remembered who the woman was. How stupid this was! Panic filled him as his hands clambered towards the surface. Momentarily, her hands touched his head. At the slight weight which carried so much menace, he almost prayed. Despite the success of his church, Pastor Ezekiel was not a believer. Praying was something he had not done in years.
He reached the surface, gasping for air. She was already treading water, beaming at him with a big smile.
'Your old, sinful name will be no more,' Pastor Ezekiel gulped, his eyes darting momentarily towards the side of the pool. 'It shall be blotted out from the kingdom of heaven. Your new name will be Eunice Mercy.'
'What a wonderful name,' the woman grinned. 'Eunice Mercy.'
Pastor Ezekiel placed his hands on the woman's shoulders again. He hoped he would not come to regret this gamble of all gambles, this need to produce an ever more dramatic redemption, an ever more astounding miracle for the wealthy donors keeping this business afloat. News headlines and courtroom footage flashed through his mind. He imagined a news report on his own murder.
He didn't even believe in God.
What was he doing?
'Do you swear by Almighty God that you will serve the Lord all the days of your life?' Pastor Ezekiel's legs wriggled under his robes in the cold water. He hoped his apprehensive, fearful voice would be taken for reverence of the Divine.
'I do,' the woman formerly known as Eloise said. 'Thank you, Pastor. You saved me from the darkest despair I have ever lived. You gave me back my freedom.'
****
The entire hall was silent as the penitent sinner pledged her allegiance to God. Then, led by the Pastor, Eloise swam to the poolside and pulled herself out. From the back of the church, Matteo watched with astonishment, trepidation and awe.
It had at first seemed unlikely to Matteo that Pastor Ezekiel had the power of Christ in him as he claimed, yet the church was endlessly fascinating to him. Pastor Ezekiel seemed a more intriguing, dramatic figure than the staid priest he had grown up knowing.
Going to church in itself wasn't a subversive activity, yet he felt a thrill knowing his family's inevitable feelings on this place, and especially the Pastor. The Abundant Blessing Church of Christ did remind Matteo of documentaries he had watched about cults. But this was part of what made the sect so intriguing. Under any definition of the word, the church was a cult. A cult that had just broken a murderer out of prison.
The danger excited him.
And Matteo couldn't deny Pastor Ezekiel's charismatic power. He had his doubts about whether the voice he had heard was real, although he was not about to express those. But perhaps the man was a worker of miracles; there were things he had seen here, testimonies he'd heard which he couldn't explain. Something about the Pastor clearly kept his parishioners going back. And for the last few months, it had kept Matteo going back too.
He felt like he belonged.
It was time for him to go, Matteo realised, staring at his watch. 6.30am. The service lasted from 5 till 8, but if he stayed any longer, his family would question where he was. His uncle's girlfriend definitely would. She was a cop and Matteo just wanted to stay away from those.
Especially after what had happened last night.
'Are you going?' a man asked. 'So soon? You're not staying for Pastor Ezekiel's deliverance ceremony?'
'I have to go. My uncle will wonder where I am,' Matteo said in a hushed tone.
'You're in the house of the Lord. What could be safer than that?' the man whispered, and guilt shot down Matteo's spine. He cursed himself for holding so strongly onto these worldly familial ties, for not giving himself fully to God the way the Pastor demanded.
He hoped Pastor Ezekiel could help him repent of his own sins. He pondered this as he edged his way through the row of worshippers, towards the huge, forbidding church doors.
After all, if there was anyone who needed redemption, it was Matteo.