by Bill Bennett
‘It’s simply horrific, what’s happened. Not unexpected, but horrific nonetheless,’ he said, and waited until Lily was ready. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, and he continued. ‘All right then, I know there’s an urgency to all this, and the last thing you need right now is to listen to an old fuddy-duddy prattle on, so I’ll make this quick.’
Lily smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She was warming to this genial, eccentric man. Anyone who had such respect for her mother was hard not to like.
‘Witches,’ he began theatrically, as if addressing a packed lecture hall. ‘Witches have always existed, from the time of the creation of Satan when he fell from the grace of God. In medieval times, witches were rigorously persecuted by the Church, but often it was misdirected. Many women who were merely using brews and potions to heal friends and relatives were deemed witches, and were hanged or stoned to death. Most were completely innocent, but others were in fact genuine witches who had made pacts with Satan or his agents.
‘I use the masculine gender when I speak of Satan, however some of my esteemed colleagues, along with myself, believe that Satan in fact is hermaphroditic, male and female, and encompasses the duality of evil in both the masculine and the feminine.’
He pulled a large checked handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it into a glass of water on his desk, wet his lips, and continued.
‘The church used its witch-hunts essentially to dominate women, to keep them submissive, and to consolidate their masculine power and dominance. It was a religious crime of massive proportions, and all it did was force the true witches underground. What emerged from it all, in the seventeenth century, was an organisation called The Golden Order of Baphomet.
‘They held ultra-conservative fundamentalist views, and in reaction to the Church’s persecution, they followed the most extreme teachings of Satan. The Golden Order decrees that there’s no sin, no evil; that man, and woman too, can and must satiate his and her basest lusts and desires without shame or guilt. They believe there should be no moral code, no ethics, no taboos, and certainly no punishment.
‘Their aim is to force a complete breakdown of social order, because only then can they get their claws into our hearts and minds, and take control. They feed off conflict. That’s their oxygen. They have no desire to engage us in battle directly. Rather, they manipulate events so we fight among ourselves, and use up our precious resources in the process. And when the dust clears and we’re totally spent, then they’ll take over.’
Lily was trying to keep up with him, make sense of what he was saying. It seemed unbelievable. Was he really claiming that a bunch of witches were trying to create some kind of global chaos so they could take over the world? It seemed like comic book stuff.
‘Where Baphomet is dangerous,’ the professor continued, ‘is that they’ve infiltrated every part of our society, not only here but overseas too. It’s taken centuries, literally, but they’re now within the political systems, the bureaucracies, the media, big corporations, you name it. They’ve embedded themselves into the judiciary and law enforcement agencies too in countries all around the world.
‘Go to the annual list of Forbes’ wealthiest people and probably twenty-five to thirty per cent of them are Baphomet, maybe more; no one really knows. They run media empires, they’re into software and video games and online social media. They largely control internet gambling. They make the Mafia and al-Qaeda and ISIS look like street gangs in comparison. They sit in positions of power, holding the levers of industry, commerce and culture, and they’re waiting their time. They’re like cancerous cells that have got into all our major organs, but have yet to metastasise. But metastasise they will.’
Lily stared at him blankly. What he was saying sounded so bizarre, so totally overblown, that it might actually be true. She had a deadening feeling in her stomach that her mother could somehow be mixed up in it.
‘Now we get to your family,’ he said, standing and walking over to the bookshelves. He pulled down an old leather-bound book that he brought back to his desk. On its cracked cover was embossed: The Rituals, Practices and Haunts of Daemons and Witches: Ireland 1550–1700.
‘As you might be aware, Lily,’ the professor said, settling himself back in his chair, ‘one of the ways you become a witch is by making a pact with the devil, aka Satan, Lucifer, Belial, Beelzebub, et cetera. The terms of the deal are usually very simple – you sell your soul, usually for some material advantage during your lifetime, and the contract is payable upon your death. It’s irredeemable; that is, you can’t change your mind and try to back out of it. Satan won’t countenance that.’
He thumbed through the book, settling on a particular page. ‘In 1676, a woman named Jennett Maguire was born in County Fermanagh in Ireland. She’s an ancestor of yours, Lily.’ He looked up at her over his glasses, then continued perusing the book as he spoke.
‘Her family owned a small farm on the outskirts of a village in the north of the county, and their livelihood was totally dependent upon their potato crop. In the late 1600s, their county was hit with a blight that wiped out most of the crops for several years. The Maguire family all but starved.
‘As the story goes, Jennett, then a pretty young lass, was approached in a field late one afternoon by a lord from a nearby castle . . .’
Lily stiffened. ‘A castle? What sort of castle?’
‘It’s a castle in County Fermanagh. It sits on top of a hill overlooking the village. It’s still there, although it’s partly in ruins now.’ He hesitated. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering,’ Lily said, thinking of her nightmare of being chased by that two-headed beast through a castle.
Duprey looked at her curiously, then continued. ‘So this so-called lord made her an offer – if she was prepared to sell her soul to Satan, he would guarantee that she’d have a thriving crop until the day she died, and the family would never starve again. Jennett’s father was near death from a lack of sustenance, as was her young brother.
‘And so that’s what she did; she entered into this pact with the devil. She signed away her soul in blood on a piece of dried goatskin. And sure enough, the next season the crop was a bumper, and the family from that time on flourished when others around them grew sick with malnutrition, or simply died of hunger.
‘However, a few years later when the blight had passed and the village crops once again returned to full production, Jennett began to have second thoughts about her deal with Satan. She wanted to reclaim her soul, and get out of the contract she’d signed.
‘As part of that pact, she’d been given certain powers, and she began to use those powers to help others, and to heal. And before long she’d attracted a following of like-minded women who were prepared to renounce the devil, and the established church too at that time. It was the start of Cygnet, an organisation of white witches that survives to this very day.’
Lily didn’t know what a ‘soul’ was, and she wasn’t even sure if Satan existed. She believed in God, only because she hoped that her father had gone to heaven. So if there was a God, maybe there was a devil too. She didn’t know. But what relevance did the professor’s story have with her mom?
‘And so we get to your mother,’ Duprey said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘And the reason you’re here, Lily.’
He turned and grabbed a computer printout from a pile of papers on his desk. He swung them across to her. It was a genealogical tree – a chart of her family lineage – and at the top of the tree was Jennett Maguire.
‘I’ve spent countless years tracing the Maguire family, filling in the gaps. You’ll see there are some names printed in red. These are the eldest daughters directly descended from Jennett. Keep following the red names, please, if you will.’
He watched closely as Lily flipped through the printout, page after page, going through the 1700s, the 1800s, then the 1900s, following the names in red. Finally she came to the twenty-first century. She followed the red names down the family tree until she go
t to the second last entry – Angela Maguire. Her mother. And then the last entry was her name, Lily. But just above it was another name, Lisbeth.
‘Who’s this?’
‘Lisbeth was your elder sister, Lily. She died at birth. She was premature.’
Lily stared at the name on the printout. ‘A sister?’ She looked up at the professor in disbelief. ‘Are you saying I had a sister?’
‘Yes, Lily. I’ve checked all the records. It’s not a mistake. She would have been two years older than you, had she lived. But sometimes God chooses who will come into this world, and who will stay back. Lisbeth stayed back, you came.’
She looked across at Freddie blankly, in shock. ‘Did you know about this?’
He nodded. ‘Your mother was devastated, Lily. I think the only way she and David got through that time was to pretend it never happened. Denial is one of the primary stages of grief.’
Lily shook her head. ‘Yeah, even so, I still don’t know why they never told me.’ She stared at the name Lisbeth on the family chart. To think she had a sister, and she never knew. It didn’t matter if she died at birth, her mom and dad still should have told her.
She thrust the printout back at the professor. ‘Thank you, but I don’t understand what any of this means. And what it has to do with my mom.’
The professor cleared his throat, took off his glasses, cleaned them, and put them back on again. He peered at her over the metal rims. ‘Lily, what it means is that you and your mother are direct descendants of Jennett Maguire. The powers of a witch are handed down genetically and they’re most potent in the eldest daughter. Your mother has extraordinary powers, and she’s been using these powers to keep you both safe all these years, without you realising.’
‘Angela didn’t want you to live in constant fear, Lils,’ Freddie said quietly. ‘Not until you were old enough to use your powers to protect yourself, and fight, if necessary.’
‘So I have powers?’ She thought about her tingling fingertips, and the stinging bees. And her photo brain.
‘You have latent powers, yes. They’re like buds in spring at the moment. But they’ll develop with time, and with the right training.’
‘Does this mean I’m a witch?’ Lily could barely believe she was sitting in this musty room, asking such a question of her uncle.
‘You have the genetic predisposition to be a witch, Lily, yes, absolutely,’ Freddie said. ‘A very powerful witch, like your mother. But like I said, you’ll need training to be able to put those powers to use. The reason I wanted you to meet Henri and hear the history of our family is so you can understand where all this stems from.’
‘Satan never got his soul, Lily,’ Duprey said. ‘Jennett Maguire reneged on the deal and worse still, she began to battle him and his followers. So your forebear became a real thorn in Satan’s side, if I can use a biblical reference. And ever since, down through the ages, he’s tried to claim that soul through one of Jennett’s direct descendants, but he’s always been thwarted. You Maguire women have proven to be wily foes.’ He chuckled, then realising it was probably inappropriate, he stopped.
Lily looked to her uncle for explanation.
Freddie paused, then said, ‘We believe that Baphomet intends to deliver on the original contract to Satan. Jennett Maguire welched on her deal, Lils, and Satan now wants your mom’s soul in lieu. And if they can get your soul too, then they’ll effectively wipe out the family line, and extinguish Cygnet.’
The room seemed to close in on Lily. The shelving seemed to bend and sway, the air seemed stifling and musty. She stared down at the computer printout, and the last two names in red on the page. She looked up at the professor.
‘So they want my mother’s soul? And mine too?’
Duprey nodded. ‘You have to decide, Lily, whether to develop your powers and use them to help find your mom. But to do that, you have to be initiated as a witch. A white witch. You don’t have much time though. You’ll have to make a decision quickly.’
‘Why?’
The professor glanced across to Freddie, who nodded almost imperceptibly, as if giving him permission to tell her.
‘As I mentioned before,’ the professor said, ‘in a few weeks there’s going to be a unique astrological event – an alignment of several planets and suns which happens very rarely. The last time was one hundred and twenty-five years ago. For Baphomet, this is an important occasion. They believe that this particular alignment gives them, for a very short time that night, a unique cosmic connection to their source of pure evil – Satan. They call it The Night of the Unholy, or simply, Unholy. We believe this is when they’re going to extract your mother’s soul, and yours too if they can get it, and offer it up to Lucifer.’
Lily wanted to say something but she couldn’t talk.
Duprey continued. ‘We believe it’s going to be a huge ceremony, bringing together the most powerful and elite witches from around the country, and some from overseas too. The high point of the night will be this ritualistic sacrifice. In handing over your mother’s soul, it will be seen as the repayment of the debt that Jennett Maguire reneged on more than three hundred years ago.’
Lily shook her head. This was obscene, she thought. The whole thing. Who were these creeps? Calling themselves witches. They weren’t witches, they were psychopaths.
‘This isn’t going to happen,’ she said quietly, coldly, without emotion. She looked over to Freddie, her eyes flint hard with resolve. ‘We’re going to find Mom, we’re going to bring her home, and all these psycho witches can go to hell, where they belong.’
He watched from the kitchen window as his father drove down the wide circular driveway and out the front gates, which dutifully parted for his silver Bentley, then just as dutifully closed behind him as he prowled away, heading to the feeder which would lead him south to the bridge.
Several times a month, when the moon was in the seventh heaven or some such BS, his dad attended his astronomy club somewhere near Silicon Valley. He would be away most of the night, peering up at the stars through his eight-thousand-dollar telescope, swapping notes with his geeky friends. And then he’d come home and sleep in till late the following day. That would give Kevin all the time he needed.
Most probably his father wouldn’t notice him missing till sometime tomorrow evening. He’d assume his son was at school, and later he’d think he was in his room on the internet, and he would probably only realise that he’d gone sometime around five or six p.m., when he failed to show for dinner. That’s how little contact they had these days.
It took no time for Kevin to construct an email address that purported to be from his father. Only someone trained to look for phishing or cyber-scams would realise. The email stated, in his father’s slightly arch and condescending style, that his son suddenly had to leave for the east coast, to attend the funeral of a close family friend. He would be away for at least a week. Kevin created a very realistic signature to finish up, and sent it through to Miss Crestwell via a VPN, so it couldn’t be traced back to his laptop.
That was done.
He then went upstairs to his bedroom and wrote out a note to his father saying that he’d come down with another episode, as he called his panic attacks, and he’d gone away for a few days to chill out. Nothing to worry about. He just needed some time to himself. Please don’t try and contact me, he wrote, I just need to find a beach somewhere and watch the surf and be by myself for a while.
Find a beach somewhere might throw him off the track, if his father tried to come looking, which he probably wouldn’t. He’d disappeared before for a few days during past episodes, and his father hadn’t seemed to give a damn.
Kevin left the note on the table beside his bed. He quickly packed a sports bag with some clothes, and then almost as an afterthought he went into his father’s bedroom and walked into his massive closet. On a shelf above a rack of Armani suits and Yamamoto shirts he found an ornately carved ebony box.
He unfastened a silver c
lasp, shaped like tusks or horns, opened the lid and looked down at an exquisite knife, nestled in a bed of red velvet. The knife had an aged ivory handle embedded with glittering gemstones, and a double-edged, razor-sharp blade intricately carved with ancient symbols and runes. The blade caught the light and the runes seemed to dance and shimmer.
He remembered his dad had bought the knife off eBay a few years back. At the time he said he’d bought it as an investment off some trader or something in Kazakhstan or some other strange place. Kevin remembered thinking it was a weird kind of investment.
The biker babe liked knives. She’d be impressed that he had a knife like this. She was kind of attractive, in a miniaturised sort of way. She’d be fierce in bed, for sure. Scary fierce. He tingled at the thought of it.
He closed the box, fastened the silver clasp and threw it into his sports bag. He then went downstairs again, loping down the huge spiral staircase three steps at a time. In the garage he put his bag into the back of his electric-blue Mustang convertible – a present from his father on the day he got his licence – and keyed the car’s ignition.
The beast awoke and roared at the indignity.
He clicked a remote and the garage door cantilevered open. He drove out the front gates and into the chilled night air. Below him was a breathtaking vista, the oceanfront fringed with a sparkling necklace of blinking diamonds.
Kritta had sent him a text earlier that afternoon telling him to head to Flagstaff, Arizona, then keep driving east until she sent further instructions. He remembered her words when they met: that she would take him into the dark so deep he wouldn’t ever want to see the light again. He grinned at the thought. The light was boring. The dark was so much more fun.
He put his foot down. The car gripped tar as he swung hard around a bend. He didn’t know what lay ahead but he felt excited.
Excited and scared.