Magum Imperatoria, Part Twenty-Three

What I wanted to be doing with my day, of course, was talking to Roderick and digging for more information on the Hudsons and magic and why we were so strictly separated from it. But I was part of this now, and I had technically come here as part of a team he had hired specifically to work under him in an investigation, so I ultimately accepted the task Michael had for me. It was, somewhat annoyingly, the most mundane of the jobs he had in mind.

And that was how I found myself attending an Anglican mass. I wasn’t entirely sure about the logic, but Michael believed that the presence of the four cultists we’d captured the night before—who were now dead, which only raised more questions for me—hinted at a larger concentration of the cult in the immediate area and presumed they would need to be in position to strike the church constantly until their signal was given. So he expected there would be at least one cultist, somewhere in the church, and that they would be thrown off by the absence of their compatriots. What I was supposed to do if I found some cultists wasn’t entirely clear, but I was hoping just reporting them to Michael would suffice. I was not prepared to have a fight with these people.

​The service was fine, a bit more stilted than the services I was used to in the one my family has attended since moving to the states, but not outrageously so. I tried my best to look for someone who might be in the cult, but I didn’t have much to go on. What was I even looking for? Someone who looked lost, or confused? Someone who looked like they were expecting someone who wasn’t showing up? These were such vague ideas I didn’t even really know what to do with them. I never felt certain enough to make note of anyone, and by the time mass ended I hadn’t accomplished anything. I knew Matteson would be by sometime soon, but not exactly when, so I probably had some time and didn’t want the trip to be an absolute waste. I decided to warn the priest about the cult.

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