Hunting Angels (Box Set) (The great horror writers (Masterton, Saul, Herbert) and now Jones)

by Conrad Jones

  “Oh come on!” Peter groaned.

  I ignored his complaint and carried on. “Precisely fifty years later to the day, the siege at Waco ended with eighty-three dead. In occult gematria, the number five is the number for Death.” Peter was going to speak again, but my raised hand stopped him once more. “19th of April 1995, precisely twenty-four months to the day after Waco, a huge bomb devastated the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”

  “Like I said, coincidence.”

  “24th of April 1998, a goth shooter struck in Pennsylvania.”

  “Coincidence!”

  “20th of April 1999, avowed satanists struck in Columbine, fifteen dead and fourteen wounded.”

  “It’s all bollocks,” Peter shook his head.

  “26th of April 2002, a shooter struck in a German high school.” I was counting the coincidences off on my fingers as Peter’s face reddened. “29th of April 2002, a shooter struck in Bosnia. All the shooters were into goth culture. They were into the music and the satanic side of it. Can all those dates be coincidence or did they pick those dates for a reason?”

  “Fuck knows,” Peter mumbled. “So are the Nine Angles goths?”

  “I’m not saying that every black-haired teenager in a trench coat is a devil worshipper. I am saying that their music and culture obviously influences young minds.”

  “But are they connected?” he asked frustrated.

  “Who knows, Peter? I don’t.” I raised my hands in the air. “I’m trying to explain to you that these groups are fractured, but there are thousands of them.” I breathed in deeply and calmed myself. “The first group to openly admit to following the left-hand path surfaced in the sixties.” I was using jargon so I explained myself. “The followers of the left-hand path worship the devil as opposed to God.”

  Peter nodded that he was following. “Like I said, I’m not thick.”

  I ignored his snipe. “It was founded by a guy called Anton LaVey. He wrote The Satanic Bible and most of their teachings before he died in the late nineties. They evolved into the Church of Satan under his daughter’s leadership, but many of his disciples split and founded other groups. You can buy a membership card into the Church of Satan online for two hundred dollars, which tells me that they’re harmless enough. It’s the splinter groups that are far more dangerous.”

  “You mentioned that some of them are neo-Nazi?”

  “Some of them are. Just look at the goth bands and listen to their lyrics,” I nodded, and searched for my smokes. I thought that Peter was barking up the wrong tree, but I humoured him with an explanation. “A guy called David Myatt was linked to one of the splinter groups who broke from the Church of Satan and he was also heavily involved with some of the more violent British right-wing groups.”

  “What, like the BNP?” He looked pleased with himself that he was following.

  “Way before their time, mate.”

  “Carry on about the fascist side to them.” Peter seemed keen to go into the fascist theme probably because it was something tangible that he encountered every day at work. It was more believable and easier to grasp than Satan-worshipping.

  “Well, when I looked into them there were a few websites that stood out. When you read the first few pages, it’s all about causing chaos and mayhem by using the dark arts, but then the next few pages are praising Hitler and his extermination of the Jews. I’m not sure where the two things marry, but several of the sites I looked at had a similar ethos.”

  “I don’t get it,” Peter said, shaking his head, “are we talking Nazi-loving skinheads – no offence.”

  “None taken,” I smiled. “I know it sounds odd, but the two seem to gel. Evil breeds evil and a lot of the iconology used is based on Nazi regalia. You have to remember that the Nazis were convinced that they were the superior race. The people who choose the sinister way believe that their way is better than the civilized norm that we accept. They call us the ‘mundane’, which is derogatory, right?”

  “I guess so,” Peter nodded. “So what did you change the name to in your book?”

  “The Eighteenth Brigade.” I tried to explain it simply: “There are some hardcore fascist groups who use the number ‘18’ as a euphemism for the name Adolf Hitler. The one translates into the letter A and the eight becomes H, the first and eighth letters of the alphabet.”

  “Oh, I get it,” he nodded. “I’ve heard of ‘Combat 18’. Now I know where they get the ‘18’ from,” he laughed.

  “Have you heard of ‘Column 88’?” I used another high-profile group with a strong presence on the Internet.

  “Yes.” Peter glanced at me. “They’re on our lists of right-wing extremists.”

  “The same thing applies with them, ‘88’ translates into ‘HH’: ‘Heil Hitler’, and Myatt was connected with both of those groups and the Order of Nine ‘Angles’.”

  “Interesting,” Peter said, “but what do they all want?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  “What are they trying to achieve?”

  “That’s like asking why are we here or what is the meaning of life. My understanding of it is that it’s similar to most conventional religions in essence; the more they believe and live by the sinister codes, the more will be revealed to them by the evil forces in the cosmos. All religions look to a divine power, theirs is evil.”

  Peter gave me a sideways glance. He obviously thought that I was talking gobbledygook. “Come on, Conrad – divine power?” he laughed. “Aren’t we talking about a bunch of crackpots who want to join a club with a difference?”

  I agreed with him to a degree. Some of them would be lowlife losers who wanted to belong to something, but there were genuine believers out there too. I decided to play devil’s advocate, excuse the pun. “Do you mind if I smoke?” I’d not had a cigarette for hours. He shook his head, but he didn’t look totally happy with my request. I lit a menthol with my Zippo. “Why would anyone believe in a deity who created our planet in seven days when we know that our solar system was formed by a huge explosion?” I lowered my window and exhaled the cigarette smoke. “Do you honestly believe that Jesus was the son of God, who fed the five thousand with a few loaves and fish, walked on water, died on a cross and then came back to life?”

  “Not completely,” Peter conceded. “I know that the Bible is exaggerated.”

  “Exaggerated!” It was my turn to give him a sideways glance. “We know for a fact that the Bible was compiled by the Emperor Constantine, who decided which bits of documented scripture to include and which ones to bury in pots near the Dead Sea. In my opinion the Bible was created to control the Christian population.” I paused and pulled on my cigarette deeply. “They were causing unrest for a crumbling Roman Empire and they needed a way of bringing them into line. It’s a rule book of how to be civilized, and nothing more.”

  “You don’t believe in God, then?” he sneered sarcastically.

  “I don’t believe in a compilation of scriptures written by fuck knows who!” It was my turn to be sarcastic. “No one knows who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy, but it’s assumed that they were written by Moses. Since Deuteronomy records his death, it seems like bullshit to me that he wrote any of it! It’s a compilation of works by scholars dating back nearly a thousand years before Christ, and it’s full of contradictions, yet millions take its teachings literally.”

  “You thinks it’s all a big con?” he laughed.

  “The Dead Sea Scrolls have been in the Vatican for decades and they still won’t tell us what’s in them. Why do you think that is?” I was waffling on. “Religion makes my piss boil. We know it’s manufactured, yet it’s the root cause of so much pain and destruction, and always has been.” I took a deep drag and inhaled the minty smoke. “I’ll tell you why the Catholics won’t release their translations, it’s because it will shatter their grip on the millions who pay to keep the Catholic Church in business. It’s all bollocks in my opinion, but what we h
ave to accept is the fact that millions do truly believe in God, Buddha, Allah and, in this case, the devil.” Lecture finished, I flicked my stump through the window and closed it. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes as Peter digested what I’d said.

  “You wouldn’t get on with my Sunday school teacher,” he joked. “Fancy disrespecting Jesus; that’s shocking.”

  “I’m not disrespecting Jesus,” I laughed. “I have no doubt in my mind that he existed and that he was a charismatic prophet with values to share, but I don’t believe he was the son of God. I believe he was human. The point is that it doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what they believe that’s important. That’s what makes them do the things they do.”

  “We’re nearly there.” Peter indicated left and slid out of the traffic. “I need to explain all this to my Governor, and he has his feet firmly on this planet so I need to translate what you’ve told me into plain and simple English.” We pulled off the A49 and travelled a short distance to a converted warehouse, which developers had transformed into a block of apartments. They overlooked Central Station and the main Manchester line. “So in the nineties there were a lot of fascists that worshipped Satan and allegedly they evolved into the group which Jennifer Booth is talking about?” He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded and he carried on. “According to your research, their sites are plastered with swastikas and racist ranting mixed in with the occultist stuff, but then on the other hand there are the real hardcore devil-worshippers, too. Is that it in a nutshell?”

  “Basically,” I laughed. “Look, this occultist stuff goes back to ancient Egypt and Babylon. It’s intertwined throughout history. The Templars used images of the Goat of Mendes in their chapels and the Freemasons teach that Lucifer is the light-bearer, but that doesn’t mean that they worship Satan. If you look into it, occultism is older than Christianity.”

  “Who says that the Masons are devil-worshippers?” Peter asked chirpily.

  “Conspiracy theorists will tell you that the Masons are satanic, but if you look into their history, the evidence contradicts that.”

  “Good, the Governor is a Mason!”

  “My dad was a Lodge Master, so I’m pretty sure about that!” I laughed, but the memory of my father tugged at my heart. “The Niners are the real thing. Their shit is really off the chart.”

  “Fascist devil-worshippers?” He shook his head. “Sounds like bollocks to me!”

  “It is bollocks to us. Google it!” I laughed. “It will take you two minutes to find them!”

  “Is the Superintendent going to go for that?” Peter frowned again and looked at me in disbelief. “Sounds like a weird combination.”

  “It’s true, though,” I explained. “Tell him to search for them. It will take him thirty seconds to find a page full of them. There are dozens of groups with the same agenda. They’re racist, homophobic satanists, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re thick Nazi thugs stomping around in Dr Marten’s boots, far from it. From what I can remember, they boasted some powerful business leaders and politicians as members.”

  “And then they became the Niners?”

  “They originally called themselves Ophite Cultus Satanas, I think, but then that group either disbanded or went underground because of the attention they were attracting.” I could tell that the name confused Peter. “Or maybe no one could remember the name,” I joked.

  “The Nine Angels and Angles are much more current. They were established in the nineties. They have clandestine groups known as traditional nexions or sinister tribes. Their lingo is quite distinctive, but it struck me how consistent it was.” I shivered as I explained the group to Peter. Something walked over my grave. Peter pulled the Citroën to a halt in an empty parking bay marked “visitors”. The main entrance door to the apartment block was wedged open and guarded by a uniformed officer. It was in essence a huge converted engine shed and it had retained its historical features while being transformed into a desirable apartment block.

  “What do you mean, ‘consistent’?”

  “The sites which are well developed with tons of information on them all use the same terminology.” I reached for another cigarette as I tried to explain. “The language they use in their teachings is consistent across the different groups, which tells me that their information comes from the same original source. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” Peter nodded. “So what are they up to then? How do we relate all this to what Jennifer Booth is saying?”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer.” I shook my head and lit up. Instead of opening the window I opened the door and twisted my body to swing my legs out of the car. “I remember there were rumours of sexual deviancy, rape and murder during their gatherings. There’s a hierarchy within the group and there were helpers, sympathetic to their ideals. They had loose members or colleagues who participated in their ceremonies and then there was the upper tier, about which there was little information available for obvious reasons. But I picked all this up from Internet chat linked to the sites. It could be just hearsay.”

  “Jennifer mentioned feeders?” he asked. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No, not really. Look, these groups are like ghosts, there are only whispers that they ever existed. She could be telling the truth; maybe she is involved in some kind of devil worship. Then again she could be bonkers, right?”

  “She’s black.” Peter pointed a finger at me as he made the point. He climbed out of the driver’s side and then spoke across the roof of the car. “How do you explain that?”

  “What?” I was confused.

  “You said they’re racist.”

  “They are when it suits them. If they think that someone could be of use to them, then who knows where their prejudice stops and starts.” We walked by other cars as we talked. I noticed that there were some top-of-the-range BMWs parked outside the apartments. The development was fairly new and they looked expensive. As we reached the foyer, I noticed the ceiling was vaulted and tiled with white squares. “What happens to Jennifer now?”

  “We need to decide if she’s crazy or telling the truth.” Peter spoke to the officer at the entrance and then waved me in. “SOCO have finished; we can take a look.”

  Jennifer’s apartment was on the ground floor, thirty yards down the corridor from where we were standing. The floors were carpeted with beige cord and the walls were painted in neutral colours, whites and beiges. Peter pushed open the apartment door and we stepped into a hallway which revealed nothing about the person who inhabited it. Peter scanned the hall, “Looks normal.”

  “You sound disappointed,” I said. “Did you expect pentangles on the floor and reversed crucifixes on the wall?”

  “Maybe. Look around, but don’t touch anything.” Peter didn’t see the humour in my comment. I needed to be normal and make light of things. The morning’s events had put me into shock. My head ached and my eyes hurt.

  The apartment was spacious. There was a lounge with a small kitchenette at one end and a balcony at the other. The bedroom had a double bed, a dressing table and a chest of drawers. There were fitted wardrobes on the wall opposite the bed. One of the wardrobe doors was open. It was empty. There were no clothes hanging up, no dresses, jackets, skirts, blouses or shoes. Even the hangers were missing. She had large television set on the drawers and there was a used cup from McDonald’s next to her bed. The whole place was bland and nondescript. If we were to discover anything about Jennifer’s personality, then we weren’t going to find it here. The place felt like it had been cleansed.

  In the living room was a three-piece suite in white leather. The cheap wooden laminate floor was featureless and the walls were magnolia. There were no ornaments or photographs. She had no books or DVDs and there were no magazines or personal stuff. The kitchen was new and spotless and looked as if she never used it. The cooker gleamed and the kettle was empty. No one ever switched it on.

  “This place looks like a show
home,” I said. “Apart from the coffee cup, there’s nothing here.”

  “It looks like it’s been cleaned recently,” Peter said. “Sterile.”

  “Why would anyone do that?” I asked. I could understand why a gangster or a hoodlum would clean a crime scene, but this was a young woman’s apartment. What was the point?

  “To remove any evidence that Jennifer may have left behind,” Peter shrugged. It was a mystery. “Maybe she hasn’t been here for a while.”

  “I can’t see how you will learn anything about her unless she tells you herself,” I shrugged. “You need to get her to talk to you.”

  “That’s proving impossible at the moment.” Peter opened the bathroom door and revealed more of the same: nothing.

  “Look, I know it is a bit odd, but if Jennifer is telling the doctors that she wants to talk to me, why don’t you let her?” I looked out of the balcony window at the rail tracks below and wondered how long it would take to fall onto them. Although it was a ground floor flat, the railway was way below the balcony. I have a real fear of heights, so it pops into my mind when I look over the edge of a drop. I don’t like driving over bridges or even climbing a ladder! As I looked over the balcony, I decided it would take about four seconds for me to hit the ground if I jumped. I wonder what goes through someone’s mind when they jump. Do they have second thoughts? I can’t imagine being desperate enough to jump. I watched the poor souls trapped in the Twin Towers, faced with the choice of burning to death or jumping to certain death. Can you imagine fate landing you with that choice?

  “What do you have in mind?” Peter put his hands in his pockets while he listened to my idea. His trousers had dull patches were they were worn from sitting down and his black shoes were ridiculously shiny. He leant against the doorframe while I spoke.

  “I don’t have a clue how it would work, but she might talk to me. I know a little bit about satanic cults, maybe she’ll open up.” I moved away from the drop. “What have you got to lose?”