Initiate

by Bill Bennett

  The Chalk Witch had always been a mystery to Baphomet. And a torment. She’d been one of Cygnet’s most ferocious combatants. The only time she’d shown any vulnerability was after she found out that it was she, the Hag, who had killed her pathetic sister. The stupid witch became deranged with grief and thoughts of revenge. In her fury she dropped her defences and left herself exposed.

  The Chalk Witch tracked her down eventually, and on a flat-topped mesa in the remote deserts of Arizona, they slugged it out for a day and a night – two masters of their craft, one black, one white. They hurled every conceivable spell at each other; a duel of mythic proportions. At dawn on the second morning they both limped away, with injuries they would both never recover from, the Hag more hateful than ever. Now, years later, if she had to fight the Chalk Witch again, she wasn’t sure she’d survive. She didn’t want to have to find out.

  Her house up top of those mountains would be protected like a fortress. If the girl hunkered down there with that pestilent woman they would have no chance. What was of greater concern though was why the girl was going up there. Was it just to shelter? Or was she going to be tutored by the Chalk Witch, to learn the old ways from a master adept? If so, then they would soon have another active member of the Maguire line to contend with, and Baphomet would be furious.

  She took out her phone. She only had one bar of signal. Further up the mountain there would be no coverage at all. She had to tell the Grand Master about this development. She called his number, and while she waited for him to pick up, she thought about the various ways Baphomet could choose to kill her.

  They drove up the mountain into a sun that was dropping fast. Shadows lengthened across the track. The breeze turned to wind. The temperature dropped. Up ahead, tall conical peaks reached up to fluffy clouds, coloured pastel by the setting sun.

  The mountains were like stalagmites that had dripped down from heaven. Skyhawk crunched down a gear to climb up a steeper rock-strewn slope. The landscape around them now was virtually denuded of all vegetation, other than that which clung on for dear life.

  It was near dark by the time they rounded a bend and saw up ahead a small house nestled in among a slew of overhanging rocks. It was a flat-roofed bungalow made of mud bricks, bleached white, adobe style, with several large cacti in earthen pots out front. There was a light on inside which spilled out buttery yellow into the blue desert evening, and sheltered as it was among the rocks, it looked homely.

  A figure appeared at the doorway; a handsome woman, tall and lean, with long flowing silver-white hair. She wore a beautiful flaxen robe that reached down to her feet, and even from a distance she seemed to glow as if lit from within by an ethereal light.

  As they pulled up out front she walked out to greet them. She could have been eighty or ninety years old, yet she moved with the ease and grace of a woman half those years. She had wide green eyes, and she radiated a gentleness of spirit that seemed to emanate from her very soul; as if long ago she’d found an inner peace and wisdom reserved for sages and saints.

  Lily got out of the car to greet her. The old woman walked up and held out her hand. ‘I’m Luna Bianca,’ she said. ‘Call me Luna. You must be Lily.’

  They shook hands. Luna looked into her eyes, searching, and Lily sensed that this extraordinary woman suddenly knew everything about her that there was to know, and if anyone could help save her mother, then it would be this wise and beautiful old woman.

  In the half-light of evening, Kritta stood on the rotted porch of an abandoned ranch house situated on a rocky spur that offered a hidden view of the Chalk Witch’s house. It also looked back down the track to the plain, so they could not only observe the girl, but they could also see if anyone was coming from below.

  Kritta watched through her binoculars as the Chalk Witch opened a white-light cone around her cottage, ushered the boy and the girl inside, then closed the cone again as she followed.

  The Hag stepped up beside Kritta.

  ‘What do you see?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a cone up. It’ll be high power too.’ She put down the glasses, rubbed her eyes. ‘But they can’t stay in that filthy little house forever. Soon as the girl pokes her nose out, we’ll grab her.’

  ‘You’re an idiot, girl,’ the Hag said. ‘You think it will be that simple. You have no idea, do you.’

  She walked away. She needed to think. The Grand Master had told her he was going to send the Twins out to settle the matter once and for all. The Twins would not only kill the girl, they would probably kill her too – and the rat-girl and her familiars as well. Baphomet would want to make a statement, to show there was zero tolerance for non-performance.

  Word was the Twins didn’t travel. They hadn’t developed that skill. They’d used their precious eighteen years on this earthly plane to develop skills in other areas. Highly effective skills, such as the ability to instantly change into other life forms – but they couldn’t travel. So it would take them several days to get there. That meant she had time to turn things around.

  Tomorrow morning she would get the rat-girl to send that stupid eagle out to scope the old woman’s house, see if there was any way of getting through the cone, or getting to the girl. If she was to be tutored, then perhaps the Chalk Witch would take her somewhere else, outside the protection spell around the cottage. That might give them a chance.

  Kritta walked around to the back of the ranch and sat on a flat rock looking out over the desert plains below. She pulled out her phone and sent a text with the map coordinates of their location, along with the message: Come now.

  She needed back-up. The Hag was more than a nuisance, she was a liability. She was too old, and she had no strategy, no plan, other than to use Andi to try and find an opportunity to strike. What sort of plan was that? And she was her familiar after all. The Hag had lost it. She might have been a fearsome witch once, but she was now well past her use-by date.

  Perhaps KJ could do something, Kritta thought. Maybe he could get the girl to come out of the shack, away from the white-light shield so that they could grab her, before the Twins arrived. Then maybe they’d be spared. At least it was a plan. And as well, it might be fun to have the boy around. Things were getting tense. She needed a release.

  They sat on the park bench, arms stiff by their sides, staring straight ahead. They were identical. Slim, short blonde hair, clear blue eyes and unblemished pale skin. They were eighteen years old and beautiful. They wore the same clothes: dark-blue blazers, cream slacks, light-blue shirts with ivory cufflinks.

  They were like two peas in a pod.

  Perfect in every way.

  They were the Twins.

  One was called Mikheil and the other Grigor. Boys, they were, but so beautiful they could have been girls on a catwalk. Born in Russia, they now sat on a bench in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, and they waited.

  Waited for their prey.

  They both got a phone call at exactly the same time. They took out identical Prada phones from their exquisitely cut jackets. Mikheil took the call with his right hand, Grigor with his left. They spoke together, in perfect unison so that there wasn’t even the slightest echo.

  ‘Yes?’ they both asked.

  They listened, then each said at the same time, ‘North America?’

  They looked at each other, their brows furrowing with a momentary concern.

  ‘Are you sure?’ they asked, in a dual monotone.

  They listened some more, then they each said, ‘Certainly. When?’

  They listened again, then together, ‘Of course, Grand Master.’

  They put their phones away in exactly the same manner and in perfect synchronisation. In the same inner pocket of their identical jackets. And then they sat there, still as statues, and they waited.

  Waited for their prey.

  Around them, children played and tourists wandered with their guidebooks and their cameras and their plastic bottles of Badoit. Sometimes people would stop and stare and lau
gh and want to take their photograph, thinking they were street performers busking for euros. But still the two young men just sat there on the park bench, unblinking, as they waited.

  Waited for their prey.

  The sun dropped behind the grey stone and slate buildings of the first arrondissement. Shadows stalked across cold gravel. Skeletal trees, early in bud, shivered in a chilled breeze. The few remaining tourists scuttled off, their children protesting. Vendors quickly closed up their crepe and ice-cream stalls and walked off swiftly to the nearest metro station before darkness took possession of the park. The two young men didn’t move, though, as if they were oblivious to the chill. They sat there and they waited.

  Because soon their prey would come.

  He was an elderly balding man in a crumpled suit. He walked briskly through the gardens, his plain black leather shoes crunching on raked gravel. He didn’t notice the two men sitting on the bench in the gloom.

  But they noticed him. Their bodies didn’t move but their eyes followed him. One of them actually smiled. The other didn’t.

  At first light the next morning a primly elegant woman would discover the old man’s body while taking her poodle out for a walk. She would scream, hand to her mouth, eyes wide in horror, while her dog sniffed the mutilated carcass and licked the congealed blood that had pooled around where he’d been dragged to the ground and mercilessly torn apart.

  The police would take photographs and document the manner of death. They would postulate that the old man had been attacked by a savage dog. Or two savage dogs. Hunting dogs perhaps, off their leashes long enough for a frenzied attack.

  In the morgue later that day, one of the skilled medical technicians would notice a tiny tattoo in the small of the old man’s back – an outline of a baby swan. A cygnet. And he’d wonder why a visiting American professor, Professor Henri Duprey according to his toe-card, would wear such a tattoo.

  Randolph Waterstone put his phone away, and walked into the room crowded with journalists. He stepped up to the lectern where they’d positioned the microphones. The room was buzzing as television crews jostled for the best position. The case had been a resounding success. It was now almost certain he’d be re-elected, and should he wish to stand for governor, there was a strong chance he’d win.

  But he was distracted. It was a worrying development, the Maguire girl and the Chalk Witch. If the girl gained powers up there, she could become bothersome, given her family bloodline. He couldn’t afford to take any more chances.

  It was a pity the Hag and that rabid little inquisitor had botched things. He would have loved to have presented the Inner Sanctum with both mother and daughter on the night of Unholy, and to have witnessed the extraction of both souls at one of the most hallowed nights in their celestial calendar.

  But it was better to have the Maguire girl killed now than run the risk that she could become more powerful and cause problems later. The Twins would deal with her. They would do the job cleanly, efficiently and mercilessly. They were Baphomet’s finest.

  They’d never operated outside of Europe before. This would be their first assignment in the US. With their strange accents and their dandy clothing, they would no doubt draw attention to themselves, especially in New Mexico. But he wasn’t concerned. They were elite adepts, and so had the witchcraft skills to get themselves out of any difficult situation.

  After they’d dealt with the daughter, he would then instruct them to deal with the Hag too, and the inquisitor. Their deaths would have to be suitably grotesque, as a disincentive for others. The Twins would enjoy that. Grotesque deaths were their specialty.

  He stepped up and faced the news crews. They quickly got ready to roll. He smiled. His pollsters told him it was a winning smile. A reassuring smile. A smile you could trust.

  Late in the afternoon as shadows darkened the road and a chill wind shivered the passing trees, the Fallen Priest crossed the state line into Missouri, heading east towards the Deep Sink. In the lee of Black Mountain, which is where they would celebrate Unholy, the Sink was one of his favourite places on this earthly plane – a vortex of pure evil and a portal to pure ecstasy.

  Within the dark damp recesses of the Deep Sink he could continue his work on the Maguire woman, and because it was so close to the Palace of Fires, if she again proved difficult and he needed help, then His Lord, Her Lady, the Glorious Beast of the Night, was close at hand. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that though, and with the assistance of the surrounding malevolent energies, he could complete dislodgement of her soul without any further issues.

  Sometime after dark he pulled off the highway and drove down a small rutted road which led to a gas station seemingly unchanged for fifty, sixty years. A short man wearing oil-stained denim bib-and-brace overalls waddled out, belly protruding, his legs bowed, his gait duck-like.

  ‘Fill ’er up, pastor?’ the duck-like man asked.

  The pastor who was not a pastor, the man who was not a human, just nodded.

  He hated these stops, these impositions. They were a nuisance. An irritating concession to his pretense. He didn’t need fuel, of any kind. Yet his damned vehicle did. This was one of his many frustrations at living in the real world, yet not being a part of it.

  The duck-like man squinted across at him. ‘Yer not from ’round these parts, are ya, pastor?’ he said, flagrantly displaying the full range of his IQ.

  Fool, the Fallen Priest thought. But then they’re all fools. All except that woman tied up in back of his SUV. She was no fool.

  A pick-up skidded around the corner before the Fallen Priest could reply. In a flurry of dust, the busted-up, rusted vehicle pulled in hard opposite the shiny black Navigator. A muscled tattooed arm hung out the window. A cigarette clung to the driver’s fat lower lip. His bloated acne-scarred face turned to the priest, eyes behind shades, jowls behind whiskers, discoloured teeth behind a smile. In the back of the cabin was a shotgun rack. Off the rear-view hung a miniature Confederate flag. Deer antlers adorned the front of the truck.

  The driver’s mouth slowly graduated from smile to smirk. ‘Praise be the Lord,’ the mouth said. The eyes crinkled with amusement behind seven-buck drugstore aviators.

  ‘Dan,’ the duck-man said, ‘I don’t want no trouble now, ya hear me? He’s a man of the cloth and he’s just passin’ through, so if you’re not needin’ any gas, how’s about ya just get on back to Milly and the bub, crack open a longie, turn on the game and leave well enough alone, okay?’

  Dan opened the door and eased himself out of the pick-up. Big guy. Two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe more. Muscle turned to fat. Fat turned to fat. Still muscle there, somewhere.

  ‘Nice car,’ he said, his voice a mix of gravel and stone. With some whisky thrown in. He wandered over to the Navigator.

  ‘You should take heed of your pop there, son,’ the Fallen Priest said quietly, watching as Dan approached his vehicle. ‘He may look stupid as a bucket of slugs, but he gave you some wise words just then.’

  Dan stopped, angled his ample frame around to the gas stop owner. ‘Otis,’ he said. ‘This kiddy fiddler here called you stupid. Stupid as a bucket a slugs. That’s what he called you. You gonna allow him to talk to you that way?’

  Otis stared at him. ‘I am stupid, Dan. Everyone knows that.’

  Dan turned back to the Fallen Priest. ‘You pull in here, you insult my friends, make disgusting analogies. Don’t the good book have somfin’ to say ‘bout that? In the eyes of the Lord God Almighty, you sir have sinned.’

  The Fallen Priest pushed his head back and roared with laughter. The sound boomed out, preternaturally loud, echoing around them, wrapping them in its malevolent gaiety. It seemed to come from the ground, and the skies, and from the very air that breathed between them.

  ‘You’re right there, son. I have sinned,’ the priest said.

  And then silence. The laughter was gone – torn away by the wind. Dan stood, staring at the Fallen Priest, unmoved by the priest’s moment of hila
rity.

  ‘I don’t get the joke,’ he said flatly. Then added, ‘What’s a preacher doin’ drivin’ a fancy car like that anyways?’

  He walked over, stared through the back windows. He saw Angela’s duct-taped wrists extending out from under the sacks. He turned quickly and whipped out a handgun from the back of his jeans. He aimed it at the Fallen Priest’s chest.

  The Fallen Priest stood still, and smiled. He put his arms down, outstretched his palms like a Christ, surrendering.

  ‘I told you I’d sinned,’ he said, his eyes twinkling with anticipation, with the delight of what was to come.

  The duck-man watched, confused. He stopped pumping gas, pulled the hose from the tank.

  ‘What’s up, Dan?’ he said.

  ‘Creep here’s got someone tied up in back there. Looks like a woman,’ Dan said.

  ‘It is a woman,’ the Fallen Priest corrected him. ‘Tell me,’ he added. ‘Do you like to dance on the dark side?’

  Fixing him in his gaze, the priest walked slowly forward up to the man, two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe more, holding a levelled gun at him. He gently took off the man’s sunglasses. Threw them away.

  Dan stood motionless. Transfixed.

  The Fallen Priest stared into his eyes. As though holding him in a hypnotic trance. Dan numbly nodded his head – a delayed response to the priest’s earlier question. ‘Yes,’ he said without emotion. ‘I like to dance on the dark side.’

  ‘I thought so. So let’s go dancing.’ He whispered a few words to Dan, who then turned and walked over to his friend, the gas station owner, Otis.

  He shot him three times point blank in the face.