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The egg was taken to the altar, upon which there was a golden lamp in the shape of an octagon. The acolyte placed the egg daintily into the accorded receptacle sitting on the cloth, below the lamp. The priest on the other side of the altar began to chant in a foreign language. He held up a bejeweled silver knife and gestured to it frequently in his speech. He tapped it against each corner of the octagonal lamp and then handed it to the acolyte, who then pricked the egg with the tip of it. The amniotic fluid seeped out slowly into the receptacle and the acolyte bowed eleven times before it with the knife held in their praying hands. The priest held out his hand to receive the knife back and the acolyte took it by the blade, hilt pointing towards the priest -
WHAP! The knife was suddenly in the carved wooden wall, and it held the priest there, too, by his sleeve. He struggled against it, but amongst a certain scholarly physical disposition, possibly somewhat old age, and what appeared to be a disdain for the idea of ripping his gold-embroidered silk robe, he found himself unable to free himself as the acolyte approached him.
"What have you done?" said the priest, "Why have you ruined and blasphemed your ceremony? You can never advance now! This knife will require days of purification! I- I'll need to realign the balance of the lamp! I'll need to have a new robe made! That was a waste of a perfectly good egg!"
The acolyte lowered their hood, revealing the face of a woman who was not particularly interested in discussing the matters of ritual. "Tell me where the lists are kept."
"The- the lists!? We respect our members' privacy! You know this, Catherine. Privacy is the third High Tenet!"
She leaned in and looked at him over the rims of her rectangular glasses. "The lists. Now."
"No! You can't make me! I'll never do it!"
Catherine brandished a more conventional knife from a scabbard on her leg.
"You wouldn't dare! I know how you value life! I remember the sheep! Even though you've betrayed me now, I remember the sheep and I know that whoever you are in there, that was truly you!"
She picked up the hem of his robe, revealing his trembling legs, and began to pick at the gold embroidery with it.
He winced.
She looked at him again over her rims and raised an eyebrow.
"Th- they're in the basement, fifth door on the right!"
She stuck his other sleeve to the wall and left him there.
***
Three years ago, Catherine, only a neophyte, was out on the streets of Marvinville, Illinois with other neophytes, and supervised by an acolyte, who would later be a full priest in the Octagonal Order. They were all out in plainclothes, proselytizing, handing out pamphlets to the townsfolk, spreading the words of Jackson Copeland Heller. In short, he preached a connection with the divine kept as private as possible while maintaining a clerical hierarchy to ensure basic moral outlines and proper practice of ritual. So private, in fact, that proselytization was only allowed at specific times, this of course being one of them. It was a difficult, sunny afternoon, because the local Christian population was likely to proselytize back. They had decided to take a break for ice cream at the local establishment, when a man dressed in a white robe led a sheep along to a small mountain of soapboxes across the street and began reciting the part of the Bible where Abraham goes to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. All the while, he looked quite intently at the Octagonals. This display attracted a crowd of confused people. When the man revealed a knife and began gesticulating with it at the sheep the confused people were separated into the savvy people and the non-savvy people. The savvy people sighed and facepalmed, having seen this coming. The non-savvy people became frightened and apprehensive at this loud man suddenly waving a knife around, especially at that poor sheep. And of course, not even the most pious of them knew what that particular part of the Bible had to do with the Octagonals. This is where Catherine stepped in and started asking questions like "What are you doing?", "Do you really need to have a sheep?", and "Why haven't the police arrested this armed man?"
That was about when the town sheriff waddled through the crowd and reprimanded his new deputy for being ridiculous. The deputy continued to pontificate atop his makeshift mountain, which made the sheriff angry, and the two men got into an argument about law and order, and religion's place in that. It didn't take long for the sheriff to take out his gun and demand the deputy step down. The deputy, in defiance, lifted his knife as to strike the sheep with it. It was only Catherine, having jumped forward, grabbing the sheep and pulling it off the soapboxes - and the deputy with it - that prevented bloodshed when the furious sheriff fired his gun. The townspeople had had quite enough at that point and took to restraining and calming the two men while Catherine lay on somebody's lawn hugging a sheep, wondering what the hell had just happened.
***
Catherine had just escaped the Grand Octagonal Cathedral in New York City, the lists secure on a flash drive. She quickly slipped out of the red acolyte's robe and threw it into a dumpster in an alleyway. She had on jeans and a white t-shirt. However, her job was not finished. She melded into the rivers of New Yorkers on the sidewalks, as invisible as an x-ray fish in the Amazon. At one corner, she noticed an Octagonal acolyte talking to an NYPD officer. She made a hard right into a nearby alley and booked it. No sense in getting near that, she figured. In her rush, she got a little lost in the alleys, but to be fair, the city planner who authorized them was probably related to King Minos. She found herself at a dead end and made herself stop and slow down.
She took in her surroundings while she was doing that: the alleys were formed of the concrete walls of buildings and brick walls otherwise. There were some trash cans around, one tipped over, spilling out its contents. As she took deep breaths, she combed her hand through her short, brown hair.
"Okay," she told herself, "hug the left wall."
"Hey!" responded something that was not her. She flinched a tiny bit at the surprise and turned towards the source of the sound. It was a homeless man in a ragged flannel shirt sitting against a concrete wall, holding a bottle. To her surprise, the label said "Perrier".
He took a sip from the water and said, "Aren't you that Octagonal?"
Catherine narrowed her eyes and weighed her options. Lid from the toppled can. A broken piece of piping. Her own fists. Warily, she decided on words, for now. She said, "What's it to you?"
"Sheep," said the former deputy.
Her eyes widened, and then the circuits went on overdrive. "Maybe you can help me."
"Or maybe I can't. News travels fast, of course. Someone stole something from the Octagonals. I can put two and two together."
"Since when do you care about them?"
"I care about law and order, thief."
"What if I told you that's exactly what I'm doing, here?"
"Then I'd have to wonder what exactly you think you are."
"Follow me and I'll show you."
"And why should I trust you?"
She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Sheep."
He smiled back and chuckled. "Yeah." He looked away. "Not my best moment. It's good not to be a killer."
Together, they went through the alleys and found their way out. Back on the street, the deputy helped Catherine watch out for cops and Octagonals as she led him to wherever she was going. Once they started getting to the parts of the city with fewer people on the streets, they had a harder time of blending in to crowds that weren't necessarily there. Less concrete and glass, more bricks. But this had to be far from the action. Catherine relished it - it was the first time she'd talked to her in months. They eventually got to a secluded alley beside an old apartment building, where a woman in a suit was sitting on a stack of broken air conditioners.
"Finally," she said, "and who the hell is this?"
"An.. old friend," said Catherine.
The suited woman jumped down from the stack, grabbed Catherine by the shoulders, and whispered, "Are you trying to get your cover blown!?"
"It's already blown. They know I'm gone, and they know what I have." She took the flash drive out of her pocket and presented it to the woman.
She sighed and took it. "You must be real confident in this lead, Agent."
"I am. I know what I heard."
"Agent?" said the deputy.
Catherine turned to him and held her hand out to the other woman, who sighed, shook her head, and handed Catherine a black leather object, which she flipped open before the deputy. It contained a badge and ID. "Special Agent Catherine Dubois, FBI," she said with a smirk.
He whistled. "Three years. Probably more. I wonder what you sacrificed for this."
Catherine's smirk faded and she turned back to her handler. "You brought your laptop, right? Take a look at the lists. I only had a brief glance while they copied, and I could see the connections start to form in my mind. You should have a field day."
The lists were not just membership lists - they also had accounts. High-ranking members donating to Octagonal-run charities or the religion itself. What was most interesting was where all this money was going. It was all funneled into "trust accounts", held by the religion for the purpose of rewarding great service. If the lists were to be believed, apparently the higher-ups were serving greatly every month. They were donating their money to "charity", thus avoiding taxes. The religion was fully registered and thus tax-exempt. The whole thing was a huge tax-evasion scheme, and it was about to come down.