Piercing the Darkness

by Frank Peretti

  “There have been three ritual murders since then that I know of, and I’m sure many more that no one will ever know of. The three brought to me I quickly wrote off as accidental deaths. They were unknowns, possible runaways. I was hoping they would not be missed, but simply buried and forgotten, and that’s what happened.

  “But you see, I knew Sergeant Mulligan and his friends would be watching me. I knew I would have to perform to satisfy them, and so, with each murder I concealed, I fell deeper and deeper under their control, and that’s where things stand at the present time.”

  Marshall asked, “Just who are these people? What are they?”

  Parnell reached into a cabinet and pulled out a file folder, then set it before him closed, his folded hands resting on top. Carol brought the coffee and sat down beside her husband, putting her hand on his arm and saying nothing.

  “If you want a name to call them, you can use the term Broken Birch. It’s a secret label they share among themselves. They’re a coven of witches, Satanists, occultists, whatever you wish. They’re linked with hundreds of other such groups across the country. And taken together, these people wield incredible power, mostly through terror.”

  “And they’re responsible for those ritual murders?”

  Parnell looked at the telephone hanging on the wall. “You should know that right now I can pick up that telephone, call any one of six different phone numbers, and have both of you dead within twenty-four hours. The other side of that, however, is that there are other parties who can make the same call regarding me, and I could be dead just as quickly, and may very well be if they find out I’ve talked to you. Unknowns and transients are used for ritual sacrifices; people who are known and would be missed are . . . Well, fatal accidents are arranged for them.”

  “Can you tell us who belongs to this bunch?”

  Parnell shook his head slowly for emphasis. “First of all, I don’t know all of them. Secondly, I wouldn’t tell you if I did. I can only confirm what you already know: Sergeant Mulligan is involved, and has been for years. As I understand it, he and some of the men from the local lodge checked it out and found the transition very easy. Because he holds such power in town and is head of law enforcement, they were quite willing to include him.”

  “Can you confirm Claire Johanson?”

  Parnell hesitated, and then answered, “Yes.”

  “What about her boyfriend, Jon Schmidt?”

  “Yes, he’s part of it.”

  Ben wondered, “So what about all those people involved in the LifeCircle fellowship? Do they tie into this?”

  Parnell shook his head emphatically. “They aren’t supposed to know about it. All those well-meaning people being pulled into the LifeCircle group are simply being used and manipulated; they have no idea that Broken Birch is at the core of it, and they have no idea what their leaders are really up to.”

  Marshall asked, “What about Donna Hemphile? Is she a part of Broken Birch?”

  “I believe so. It’s hard to be sure sometimes, they hide it so well.” Parnell drew a breath to change gears, then opened the file folder. “Here’s what you really want to know, and all I really want to tell you.”

  He distributed the contents of the folder on the table in front of Marshall and Ben. With great interest, the two men examined several police mug shots and the rap sheet on a young, beautiful, black-haired woman.

  “Not Sally Roe, obviously,” said Parnell.

  Ben recognized her. “The dead woman we found in the goat shed.”

  “I did some checking on my own. Her name is Alicia Von Bauer, twenty-seven, a Satanist, a member of Broken Birch. You’ll note her criminal record: animal mutilations, public nudity and perverse behavior, prostitution, pornography. I might add to that list ritualistic murder, but who could ever prove it?”

  Marshall asked, “So you think this Sally Roe thing was another ritual murder, or at least an attempt at one?”

  “Exactly. It’s clear to me that her death was arranged, and it was supposed to appear to be a suicide.”

  “That’s how you recorded it, anyway,” said Ben.

  Parnell nodded. “With an unforeseen additional service: identifying the body of Alicia Von Bauer as that of Sally Roe. I do what I’m told, Mr. Cole. But obviously, something went terribly wrong, and all I can figure is that Sally Roe—or something else—overpowered Von Bauer, and Roe escaped.”

  “That’s our theory,” said Ben. He picked up the most recent photograph of Alicia Von Bauer for a closer look. The deep black eyes seemed to stare back at him from the page. It was eerie.

  Marshall asked, “Where’s the body now?”

  “Cremated. We did that as soon as possible.”

  “Disposing of the evidence?”

  “Exactly.”

  Marshall didn’t know if he’d get an answer to the next question. “Mr. Parnell, we have a lot of reason to believe that this attempted killing isn’t just a Broken Birch affair. What about the big people Claire Johanson and Jon Schmidt are connected with? Would they have something to gain?”

  “I think you’re on the right track. I’m sure the order for the murder came from someone higher up.”

  “How do you know?”

  Parnell even smiled a little. “Because it’s the first time I’ve seen Sergeant Mulligan afraid. Not long after I collected the body, Mulligan called me, asking if I’d found any personal effects on the body, which I hadn’t. I could tell he was getting pressure from someone much higher, much more powerful than him or his Broken Birch friends. He was desperate enough to tell me what to look for, something missing that should have been there.”

  “Yeah,” Ben recalled, “I asked you about that. Somebody even ransacked the rental house.”

  “So what was missing?” asked Marshall.

  “A gold ring,” Parnell answered. “Someone took it off Von Bauer’s finger with cooking oil. I found traces of the oil still on Von Bauer’s finger. The other thing missing was ten thousand dollars in cash.”

  Marshall and Ben looked at each other. They both had the same thought.

  Ben spoke it. “Somebody hired her.”

  “Who?” asked Marshall.

  Parnell shrugged. “I’d advise looking for someone rich, influential, and very powerful.”

  Ben responded, “A mighty big mole, Marshall.”

  Marshall had no comment. Right now he was overwhelmed with a sudden, flesh-crawling fear he hadn’t felt since a few years ago in Ashton, when it seemed all the evil in the world was about to crash down on him. A mole? Suddenly the analogy was inadequate. What Marshall felt was more like a dragon, a monster—dark, insidious, clever, and big enough to fill the sky, with jaws gaping just above them, dropping to the kill, closing like a vise.

  FAR AWAY FROM Bacon’s Corner, and still hidden from her enemies, Sally Roe sat among the floor-to-ceiling shelves at the downtown library in Henderson, flanked on every side by invisible angelic guards, and paging through a massive National Bar Association directory of attorneys. She had a hunch, only a guess, but in her thinking it was the strongest possibility.

  At her elbow sat Volume IV of the four rosters she had stolen from Professor Samuel W. Lynch’s office, its full title: A Continuation of the History and Roster of the Royal and Sacred Order of the Nation. Each of the four volumes contained about two hundred pages. Most of the pages were devoted to weird, esoteric, ceremonial mumbo-jumbo, secret rites and initiations, minutes of meetings, and bylaws. At least fifty pages in each volume were dedicated to the names of members. The pages of names held her attention for the time being; she’d been scanning them for hours.

  She now had another volume lying across Volume IV to hold it open to page 68, The 168th Brotherhood of Initiates. Like the 167 pages in this and the three volumes that came before, this page listed the names of new members brought into the Order of the Nation in one particular year, and contained two columns of fifteen names each. The column on the left contained bizarre, esoteric names
like Isenstar, Marochia, and Pendorrot. The column on the right contained real names, some of them even familiar. Two-thirds of the way down the left column, she’d found the name she had looked through several years’ worth of pages to find: Exetor.

  At first, Exetor was just a mysterious word she’d found engraved on the inside surface of the ring she’d taken from the finger of her would-be assassin. Until she stole the rosters and studied them, the engraving made no sense at all. When she finally found page 68 in Volume IV of the rosters, it made a lot more sense. Exetor was a secret name or title, ninth on the list of fifteen. Directly opposite the name Exetor, in the right column, was the real name of the man who had received the title.

  “James Everett Bardine.”

  James Bardine. He’d been initiated into the Sacred Order of the Nation along with fourteen other men twelve years ago, and upon his initiation had been granted the secret Brotherhood name of Exetor and his Ring of Fellowship bearing his secret name.

  Very impressive, even spooky, and not to be scoffed at. The Nation could have been just another lodge or fraternal organization, some secret society or club where all the good old boys could get together, have a secret meeting with its oaths, handshakes, funny hats, and rituals, and afterward down some beers and be rowdy. Almost every town had a lodge or secret order of some kind.

  But the Nation went beyond that. It bound a lot of familiar names together and gave them at least this society in common. She’d found the name of Samuel W. Lynch among the 129th Brotherhood of Initiates—he’d been initiated into the Nation fifty-one years ago, and as he showed her in his office, still kept his cherished Ring of Fellowship.

  The second ring in her possession—the one she’d hidden for ten years under the brick windowsill in Fairwood—bore another secret name, Gawaine, but she already knew whose ring it was. She quickly found his name at position seven, opposite the name Gawaine, in the 146th Brotherhood of Initiates: Owen Jefferson Bennett, initiated thirty-four years ago when a senior at Bentmore University.

  Good old Owen. There were so many things he never told her.

  All this was fascinating, of course, but first and foremost in Sally’s mind at this moment was the name of James Everett Bardine. The Nation was a strictly male organization, but a female assassin was wearing his ring. What was the connection? Who was Bardine in the first place?

  Perhaps it was the current lawsuit causing all the stir in Bacon’s Corner that made her think Bardine might be an attorney; perhaps it was the fact that the Nation seemed to have no ordinary, blue-collar people in its membership, but only bankers, businessmen, educators, attorneys, and statesmen—purveyors of power.

  Whatever the case, she was now narrowing her search in the “B” section of the Bar Association directory, and getting closer.

  Barcliff . . . Barclyde . . . Barden . . . Bardetti . . . Bardine. James Everett Bardine.

  Bingo. This guy was an attorney. The listing was current, published this year. Bardine was working for a big law firm in Chicago: Evans, Santinelli, Farnsworth, and McCutcheon. They were members of the American Citizens’ Freedom Association.

  Sally had to sit back and think about that. James Bardine is a member of the ACFA . . . The ACFA is bringing the lawsuit against the school . . . The killer was wearing Bardine’s ring.

  Did this mean a connection between the ACFA and Sally’s would-be killer? Sally thought so. She would be looking up more names, that was certain. She couldn’t wait to write to Tom and tell him.

  But who in the world was that fiendish woman in black?

  FRIDAY MORNING, PASTOR Mark Howard found his way through the noisy, busy, bustling Bergen Door Company, protective eyewear and earplugs in place, dodging the forklift, ducking around the doors being stacked, being sanded, being moved. He engaged a clipboard-carrying foreman in a brief, shouting conversation, and got directions to the small cubicle office of Donna Hemphile, Finish Supervisor. Mark could see Donna through the glass enclosure. He stepped up and tapped on the door.

  “Yeah, come in!”

  Mark stepped inside.

  Donna Hemphile swiveled around in her desk chair and stuck out her hand. “Hey, Mark! What a surprise! What brings you here?”

  Mark had no time for sweet-and-easy, beat-around-the-bush phrases. “Some pretty serious matters, Donna.”

  Donna looked at the clock. “Well, you know, I have to be out of here by—”

  “I already talked to Mr. Bergen. He has someone else handling that new band saw. He said I could have an hour with you.”

  Donna had to digest that for a moment, and then relaxed back in her chair. “Okay. Have a seat.”

  Mark wheeled the only other chair around and sat facing Donna. “I’ve been running all around town since Wednesday night trying to nail some things down, and I haven’t slept much. You know the kind of trouble we’ve been having in the church since this lawsuit came up. I’ve felt like a seaman trying to patch the leaks in a sinking ship before it goes down completely.”

  Donna nodded. “Yeah, it’s been rough.”

  “Anyway, I finally got three families together for a conference: the Warings, the Jessups, and the Walroths. It was a pretty good meeting, I guess. Ed and Judy Waring are still disgruntled, but the Jessups and Walroths might be coming around.” Mark paused. He was going to change directions. “But I wanted to ask you about something they all told me, and you know, I never thought about it before this. You’re on the prayer chain, and your name comes before the Jessups, the Walroths, and the Warings.”

  “Mm-hm.” Donna just sat there listening.

  Mark plunged in. “So, let me ask you point-blank: Did you tell June Walroth that Tom Harris beats his daughter Ruth, and that’s why he puts long sleeves on her so often?”

  Donna chuckled at that. “No.”

  “Did you tell Judy Waring that Cathy and I are having marital problems because I was unfaithful and had an affair a few years ago?”

  Donna smiled and shook her head. “No.”

  “Did you tell Ed Waring that the school was in bad debt because Tom and Mrs. Fields were stealing the school’s money?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell Andrea Jessup that Tom’s had some real problems with sexual deviancy ever since Cindy died?”

  “No.”

  Mark was finding Donna’s extremely brief answers a bit jarring. “You don’t have any other comment about all this?”

  Donna smiled and shook her head in seeming incredulity. “Why should I say anything, Mark? Those people are gossip-hounds. This is the kind of thing they’d come up with.”

  “Why do you suppose they all came up with the same source for their information?”

  She tossed up her hands. “Beats me. They must have something against me, I don’t know. So what else do you have on the list?”

  “Well . . . somebody who doesn’t even go to our church. Kyle Krantz, the kid who got fired on Tuesday for having marijuana in his locker.”

  At that, Donna rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother!”

  “Well, he has an interesting story to tell, and you know, a lot of what he has to say checks out. I guess you know his side of the story, right? That someone planted that bag of pot in his locker to set him up?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve heard it, all right. He could have come up with something more original. All the kids use that line.”

  “I’ve heard it before myself, from Ben Cole. Somebody planted some confiscated marijuana in his locker at the police station, and Mulligan fired him. Of course, it was Mulligan, according to Kyle, who came down to the plant here and struck a deal with Kyle and didn’t book him for possession, isn’t that right?”

  “That part of it wasn’t my concern. I just fired him according to company policy.”

  Mark slowed down a little for emphasis. “Kyle says Mulligan told him he’d let it go if Kyle kept his mouth shut about some things he knew.”

  Donna got just a little tense. “Well, listen, Mark, what goes on in
this plant is my business, and none of your concern.”

  Mark didn’t back off, but kept going. “Somebody killed Kyle’s dog too; they cut it open and left it on the front seat of his car. Maybe they were trying to give him a little reminder to watch himself.”

  Donna leaned her elbow on her desk, propped her hand under her cheek, and gave every appearance of patiently humoring a childish, assuming, overimaginative minister.

  Mark kept going. “That was weird enough in itself, and I don’t know if I would have believed Kyle if something similar hadn’t happened to us, right at the church. Monday morning, somebody splashed goat’s blood on the front door and left two goat legs crossed on the porch. It was some kind of curse, or maybe it was a warning, I don’t know. But just the day before, on Sunday morning, Ben Cole went out to the Potter place to investigate the killing of a goat that used to belong to Sally Roe. All the blood had been drained out, and the legs cut off.

  “Then, according to Kyle, on that Sunday night he and a friend were out at the Benson farm and saw a witch coven holding a ritual in the barn, and wouldn’t you know it—the witches, or Satanists, whatever they were, were drinking goat’s blood and were standing in a circle around two more goat legs, calling for the defeat of the Christians and for the death of Sally Roe.”

  That finally evoked at least a small comment from Donna Hemphile. “Heh. Pretty bizarre.”

  Mark hit her squarely with the next sentence. “And Kyle says you were there, that you were part of that group holding the ritual, along with Sergeant Mulligan, Claire Johanson, and Jon Schmidt—probably Tom Harris’s, and our church’s, worst enemies right now.”