The next day went much like the one before from Riordan’s point of view. He’d checked in with Duane, updating the pack leader in the night, but had restrained his urge to mess with either the ritual space or the traumatized ghosts. He did play some cards with Cole and the others before he went off to sleep for real, awkwardly managing small talk. Riordan hated and loved it at the same time, especially since he knew his pack wouldn’t last.

It couldn’t last. No ghost deserved to be trapped in limbo forever.

The bittersweet feeling of temporary belonging continued throughout Riordan’s working hours. First, in the way that Norris made sure that Riordan ate breakfast, allowing him the use of the small private dining room to avoid the awkwardness of the pack dining hall. Quinn and Ahlgren joined him there. They were even less welcome in a pack space, not being shifters at all. It was strange to realize that. Belonging had a strange layered sense. Or perhaps it was kinship or tribalism or something.

It’s like being able to have a rivalry with a different neighborhood in a city, but joining together with those neighbors when looking at another city. And with that other city when looking at another state or another country. An exiled shifter was still more welcome in a pack of shifters than a non-shifter mage, even respected ones. Heck, with the cultural prejudices, a human in the know was more welcome than the mages, because their loyalties were at least not compromised by mage politics. Theoretically.

Riordan was very glad he’d never had to deal with that kind of interpersonal politics and really really hoped that no one tried to make him act as a pack shaman. That could only end badly.

Still, even as the pack welcomed Riordan more than the agents, Riordan welcomed the agents more than the pack and his ghosts more than the agents. He felt more himself than ever to have a pack and even more an outsider than when he was exiled. Because he wasn’t just excluded from a group now. No, now he was included in another group, one that most people dismissed entirely. No one thought about ghosts. Riordan certainly hadn’t before.

Daniel made Riordan feel welcome as no one had in ages. The ghost was his friend. His pack. His brother-in-arms, for all that the man couldn’t fight much on the physical plane and would likely just hurt himself trying. Riordan knew that Daniel would try. He wasn’t alone.

It would suck a lot when Daniel was free to pass on.

Riordan tried to make the most of what he had for as long as he had it. Transcribing missing persons cases into lists, making new tabs with data on potential victims and adding case numbers to the ones that were already on their confirmed victims lists, hardly made for the most relaxed day. That part went more quickly now that Riordan knew the programs better and they had their core lists.

They spent more time doing research on the Daughters of the Divine Feminine. Daniel coached Riordan through some more internet searches, turning up a website and a few social media accounts. The website was technically for Daughters House, the domestic abuse organization that was the core of the cult’s public face. Well, sort of. It had two sides to it. One side was a website that looked like it was about classes for improving domestic skills, covered in rhetoric about the importance of femininity. Riordan realized that they had done this on purpose in case the abuser was monitoring the internet usage of the victim.

The classes were therefore part classes, part cult meetings, and part cover for victims to come seek help. The other half of the website provided more information about services available to people working on getting out of bad domestic situations, everything from counseling to assistance with housing and finances to education on how to be independent.

A flare of anger ran through Riordan staring at all this new information. He growled his displeasure, attracting Daniel’s attention. The ghost cocked his head at him. “What?”

“This is good,” Riordan said, waving a hand at the computer to indicate the website and all the services it offered. “This is needed. It shouldn’t be, but it is. Someone thought it out and is trying to do their best to help. Only, it’s all also a gateway into the cult, sucking in vulnerable people under the guise of rescue. A cult that is just as mentally and emotionally abusive as anything else. I hate how twisted this is.”

Daniel winced at that bald assessment, studying the website once more under that new light. He grimaced again before replying, “Probably financially and physically abusive as well. Maybe even sexually, though we won’t find that on their public sites.”

“Definitely sexually,” Riordan countered, thinking back to the short conversation he’d heard from that cult member a few days ago. About joining an aspect and becoming a mother. “Remember Kimberlee? Sex would be involved somewhere if she was becoming a cult-approved mother. Even if they consented, they would have been manipulated into it on some level. And I hate to think what happens to kids with that set up.”

Daniel had his thinking face on now. Riordan loved watching the young man come into his own, embracing the strengths of his quick mind after being denied so much else. Even if they were pondering potential abuses. Riordan could imagine all too easily the descent into the cult. Some poor woman trapped in a bad situation reaches out. She gets help and a warm welcome. Everything is provided to her. Her opinion matters. She has choices and friends all of a sudden. The friends give her the chance to be part of something positive, to help others too.

And then she has to look at herself under the guise of therapy, handing over all her deepest secrets and fears to be manipulated with. Her housing and food and finances are all in the hands of the cult. She has to report on her thoughts and actions each day. If she strays, she’s gaslighted or shamed or otherwise abused. She’s directed to others for help and instead of real help, she’s taught how to be a better cult member. Things are better when she’s complying. She has friends and purpose and stability.

At the cost of free will.

Daniel pulled Riordan back from that mental pit. “There had been four statues at that house. One was the Mother. When I accidentally triggered it and it glowed, Kimberlee thought it was a sign and she was going to go get ‘acknowledgment for her divine path.’ I think that’s right anyway.”

He met Riordan’s eyes, continuing his line of reasoning. “Therefore, the other statues represent other divine paths. There was the Mother, with a baby. The other three were probably some variation of the Maiden, Warrior, and Crone, though I don’t know for sure what meaning each would have in the group.”

Riordan knew of a lot of religious paths, but he wasn’t sure which one Daniel meant. He frowned. “Which tradition are you referring to?”

To Riordan’s surprise, Daniel blushed. “Ah, I’m actually thinking of a fantasy book series, but I know that it is based on something else more common. Search it?”

With a bit of new searching, Riordan was staring at a page on the Triple Goddess and Neopaganism. The original version was just Maiden, Mother, and Crone, a representation of a woman’s social roles as she aged, all tied up in one goddess who embodied all of those things at once and whose aspects focused on the specifics. The Warrior part was an addition or sometimes lumped in with one of the others, but Riordan agreed that one of the statues likely matched that.

The four statues had been a young woman with a flower crown, a woman in armor, a woman with a baby, and an older woman with a crow. That set fit with the archetypes, though offered only guesses into what “divine path” the cult had associated with each.

The Maiden was a symbol of new beginnings. It could also mean expansion and energy and new harvest. Riordan’s best guess for that would be recruiters for the cult, or maybe the people who started new programs or purchased more resources for the cult as a whole.

The Mother meant stability. It was also fertility, sexuality, and power, as well as a literal description of having children. That meant the members there could be focused on, well, on having children for one. And also being the ones to nurture others and provide stability. That would make sense for them to be the ones chosen inside the cult to establish the routines of the cult worship, to lead by example and encourage others to act as they do.

The Warrior wasn’t mentioned in most of the Triple Goddess versions, but it was obviously another form of power. It had the literal meaning of a fighter, but it could also mean someone who defended or revenged, which was dangerous in a cult devoted to anti-abuse. Riordan suspected these were the ones who did the kidnappings and murders, though possibly also just activities like protests and keeping the cult properties secure.

The Crone was typically the wise elder. Riordan thought of Vera and Norris and Frankie at that, though he doubted the cult had anyone quite as sharp and independent as that. He wondered if they had many elderly. That was a population open for abuse for sure, but he wasn’t sure if they would have been filtered into the cult or just shipped off to nursing homes to be ignored in that horrible manner that Americans had. The Crone also meant death and endings. He’d place them as the social manipulators of the cult. The ones who educated the others with fake wisdom on the tenets of that twisted life and who probably made most use of the fears and weaknesses of others. They probably also ran the ceremonies.

Being on a divine path meant being on a higher tier inside the cult. Obviously a person could be a member for a while before they received some divine sign. That gave time for the other cult members to groom candidates as well as to point to the next level as something to aim for and to respect. He wondered if there were other categories someone fell into and what they would be called. As Phenalope pointed out, names had power. Names allowed something to be defined and categorized. To include or exclude.

Heaven help those categorized on the outside in a cult.