Chapter 37 - The Motel Sect
The motel was a sect.
Not metaphorically.
The Prairie Lantern Sect had operated from roadside motels for sixty years because, according to their master, "nobody investigates carpets like these."
They cultivated travel fortune.
Safe journeys.
Missed accidents.
Right turns made at the right time.
Unlike the Nine Houses, they earned fortune by guiding travelers rather than stealing from them.
Mason was fascinated.
"So ethical fortune cultivation exists."
The sect master shrugged. "Ethical enough. We overcharge for vending machines."
The sect had waited because Lou once saved them from Mercer expansion.
They offered Mason a map of unofficial Fate Wells across America.
Hundreds.
Some exploitative.
Some cooperative.
Some abandoned.
The world was much larger than the Nine Houses.
Before Mason left, the sect master gave him a technique.
[WAYFARER'S RETURN — MARK ONE LOCATION AS A KARMIC HOME ANCHOR.]
Mason marked Raymond's ridiculous wedding chapel in Vegas.
Tasha pretended not to be touched.
Then every motel room phone rang simultaneously.
The clerk answered one.
Her face went white.
"Central Clearinghouse issued a travel freeze."
All roads east became covered in red probability threads.
Mason looked at the map.
The Houses were closing every route to Chicago.
Ivy smiled faintly.
"Good thing roads are only suggestions to fortune cultivators."
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