Chapter 1
Help Wanted
“YournameisBrian?”
The young man sitting across from me in Coffeelicious nods enthusiastically. He has big blue eyes, a mop of curly blond hair, and the kind of face that makes you think of Renaissance paintings of cherubs. He looks like an angel, not a Brian.
“Yep!” he says, and his smile is so bright I want to put on sunglasses.
I glance down at his CV. It’s surprisingly decent for someone who looks like they’ve never had a negative thought in their entire life. He has coffee shop experience, which immediately puts him ahead of the three other candidates I interviewed this morning, one of whom thought ‘latte art’ meant drawing on the cups with a Sharpie.
“And you’re studying law at Bristol University?”
“That’s right!” More enthusiastic nodding. I’m getting a headache just watching him. “First year. I’m really excited about it. The law is fascinating, don’t you think?All those rules and precedents and the way everything has to fit together just so.”
I blink at him. He sounds genuinely excited about law. What kind of person gets excited about law?
“Right,” I say slowly. “And it says here you worked at a coffee shop in Somerset for two years?”
“Oh yes! The Blessed Bean. It was the cult’s main source of income, actually. We made excellent coffee. High Priestess Magdalene was very particular about the roasting process.”
I pause, my pen hovering over my notebook. “I’m sorry, did you just say cult?”
“Mmhmm!” Brian’s smile doesn’t even flicker. “I grew up in the Children of the Eternal Light. It’s a commune, really, but everyone calls it a cult. We had about forty members at peak, but it’s down to maybe twenty now. Lots of people left after the prophecy didn’t come true.”
He says this with the same casual tone someone might use to discuss the weather. I stare at him.
“The prophecy?”
“Oh, you know. End times, rivers of blood, the usual stuff.” He waves a hand dismissively. “High Priestess Magdalene said the alignment was wrong and Big Brian just needed to recalculate, but honestly, I think she was just making excuses.”
I have no idea what to say to that. I’ve interviewed a lot of people since I first became a coffee shop manager. I’ve had candidates who showed up high, candidates who couldn’t spell their own names, and one memorable candidate who tried to convince me that poisoning customers was a valid form of marketing. But I have neverhad someone calmly discuss growing up in a doomsday cult like it’s a perfectly normal thing.
“So you left the cult to study law,” I say eventually.
“Well, I left to get an education generally,” Brian explains. “But law seemed like a good fit. I’m used to complex rule systems and hierarchical structures. Plus, all firstborn sons in the cult are called Brian, so I figured I should probably make something of the name.”
I blink. “All firstborn sons are called Brian.”
“Yep! The founder was called Brian, and he was really into Monty Python. Life of Brian, specifically. He thought it would be funny and also spiritually significant. You know, the whole ‘he’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy’ thing. He said it would keep us humble.”
“Right.” Usually, I’m the oddest person in the room. The one who says shit that makes everyone else stare. It’s very discombobulating being on the receiving end.
Brian leans forward conspiratorially. “Brian One left to become an accountant. Brian Two is still there, he’s really into the goat yoga classes. And Brian Four ran off with a guy he met at a farmer’s market. There was a whole thing about it. High Priestess Magdalene said he’d been corrupted by capitalism, but honestly, I think she was just mad because the guy sold organic honey and it was better than ours.”
Despite everything, despite my truly terrible mood and the headache building behind my eye sockets and the general low-level fury that has been living in my chest for months now, I make a sound that is almost a laugh.
Brian looks delighted in a way that is deeply annoying.
“Sounds like a hippy paradise,” I snap.
“Oh, massively. Tie-dye, organic vegetables, meditation circles, Enya at every full moon ceremony. Everyone wove their own clothes on this ancient loom. I can make you a scarf. It might have some asymmetrical bits.”
“I don’t want a scarf.”
“Your loss,” he says cheerfully, and means it. “Let me know when you want a black one with white skulls and red pentagrams on it. Or whatever you want that goes with your whole goth thing.”
My eyes narrow. Damn him, that does sound like a cool scarf. Not that I’m ever going to admit it.
