Page 112 of Forged in Deception

“I would call her a goddess, but she is too humble to accept such a title,” Lily said, her expression softening just as Cora’s had at the mention of Mother a few moments before. “I suppose she’s an interdimensional being. She cannot manifest herself fully in the everyday world, but across time and cultures, she has always been there.”

“How? How does she appear?” Asher demanded.

“For those of us worthy to see, she appears as a large serpent, as green and shimmering as an emerald. She is the most beautiful thing on Earth.”

KARLIN

Karlin took a step closer to Axel, recoiling in horror at Lily’s words.

“You think the savior of mankind is a giant snake? Seriously?” Axel asked, shaking his head.

She had to agree with his assessment.

From what little she knew of God and the Bible, it was pretty clear that talking to snakes was a bad idea, as was human sacrifice.

And yet, she shouldn’t have been surprised. She was familiar with the decades of academic literature on psychedelic drug use, and hallucinations of serpent-like beings were sometimes reported by those who had used the drugs, particularly more potent ones such as ayahuasca and, apparently, DX8.

But she was no longer convinced that the snakes these people saw were mere hallucinations.

Lily ignored Axel’s jab. “We were so close to completing the task that Mother laid out for us, but you two were clearly up to something. Always sniffing around, always asking questions. I couldn’t risk you finding out too much.”

Karlin’s mind raced as everything began to come together.

She’d brought Axel in to investigate Senera’s misdeeds and to set herself free, but all the while, a much bigger crime had been happening for years, right there in the shadows.

“You were the one who called the cops on Bajwa, weren’t you?” Axel asked.

Lily smiled, clearly pleased by her own cleverness. “I had originally planned to report Ms. McKenna, but then I had second thoughts. Unlike Dr. Bajwa, she was actually working here at the time Amira died, and I was worried that fact mightlead the police to dig a little too deep. I didn’t think they’d have time to do much before the ritual, but still. Why take the risk?”

“We also couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that Bajwa wasn’t working with you guys,” Cora chimed in. “Mother has a lot of enemies. We had to be careful. In the end, we figured getting all three of you away was the best option.”

“But it didn’t work,” Axel said flatly. “You were too cowardly to kill any of us. I guess it was easier to rope in a conspiracy nut like Cora. Someone who wouldn’t resist her own murder.”

“I’m not a murderer,” Lily snapped. “I would kill only for the greatest good.”

Karlin couldn’t hold back her speculations any longer. “Amira was part of your cult, wasn’t she?”

Lily frowned. “Calling it a cult is so…cliche,” she said. “It’s a community. We take care of each other.”

“We offer people the truth,” Cora added. “I had been searching for it my entire life. Until I met Lily and she told me that Mother had chosen me.”

“What about Amira?” Karlin snapped, blinking away the tears that were quickly beginning to build. “Did the snake choose her too? Choose for her to kill herself? To leave her husband and daughter behind?”

She felt Axel’s hand resting gently on the small of her back, but his touch offered little consolation. Years of guilt and sorrow were bubbling to the surface again, threatening to consume her. She had spent so many years blaming herself, so many years convinced that DX8 alone had been enough to push Amira’s mental health beyond its breaking point.

Part of her preferred that story.

At least it made some level of sense.

To consider that the poor woman had been recruited into a violent alien cult was even worse, regardless of whether or not it lessened Karlin’s own culpability for her tragic death.

“That was never what Mother, or any of us, wanted,” Lily said. For a moment, Karlin could see a flicker of sadness in the woman’s eyes, but it was gone in seconds, replaced by the same cold, expressionless mask she’d worn before. “Amira was chosen to be the sacrificial victim, yes. By her blood, Mother would bring us all to the empire of light–including her husband and her little girl.”

Axel’s jaw tightened, and it was Karlin’s turn to place a soothing hand on his forearm. They had no choice but to listen now. Whatever the ugly, terrible truth was, she wanted to know it.

She had to.

“Unfortunately, Amira was weak,” Lily continued. “She took part in, shall we say, a preliminary ritual and got cold feet about going through with the final deal.”

---