by Frank Lauria
Looking forward to the day of his ordination and the consecration of his hands, he practiced the movements of his Mass. He choreographed his physical Mass to generate the fullest possible celebration of the glorious power of God.
It was during his study of the Mass in the library manuscripts that he first saw a mention of the black mass.
His curiosity was stimulated immediately. Within a month he had grasped its mechanics, and had begun making inquiries.
At first he concentrated on the fringe practitioners of the occult. He was already familiar with astrology through the early teachings of Petra and her people. Once he had even seen her speak to the dead. He sought the acquaintance of the mediums and mystics of Paris, and he found that the same people who courted money and pleasure courted the favors of these transformers of spiritual power.
The day of his ordination was a great event at the seminary. Word of the young virtuoso of theology had seeped upward, and on the day of August’s first Mass the chapel was crowded with many powerful members of his order. He didn’t disappoint them. He performed a Mass that touched even the most venerable and jaded of the participants.
August had already charted the course his career in the church should follow and with his honors he had no difficulty in gaining the certifications necessary to pursue it.
He continued his studies. He elected to read for a doctorate in Mathematical Theology, under the tutelage of Count Inverna of the Sorbonne. Certain duties of August’s new office were suspended to allow him to stay at Inverna’s residence while he prepared his thesis.
Inverna, a mathematician, was renowned throughout the academic world as a scholar and educator of great genius. He had devoted all the resources of his position, including the political, to make the universities centers of progressive experimentation rather than catalogues of the past.
August found life with the widower Count stimulating. And the occasional presence of the Count’s daughter Malta Inverna was exhilarating. But his first attentions were for the Count.
Inverna was pleased with the company of the celebrated young scholar. When he discovered that his ward had leanings toward the occult he was convinced that cosmic elements had preordained the combination. The Count had long been an adept at certain forms, especially the science of astrology and the tarot He was delighted that he had so much to teach his pupil. August let himself be taught, neglecting to mention his education by the Bedouin.
When the young priest showed him a section of his thesis which delineated the mathematics of astrology, the Count enthusiastically told August something he had never discussed with anyone. He told him that his daughter, the Countess Malta Inverna, had powers of clairvoyance beyond the ordinary. It was for that reason that he had decided to educate Malta at a convent. He wanted to protect her from negative influence.
August suggested that perhaps the Contessa could help them with other phases of investigation. He pointed out that certainly the respected and powerful Count together with a priest of the church would be sufficient protection for the girl.
Inverna agreed readily.
Malta was pleased to escape the confines of the convent.
She had inherited the impatient independence as well as the beauty of her Spanish mother. She was also gratified that her father had decided to take an interest in her. About Pere D’Te she was uncertain.
Count Inverna had been right, Malta was endowed with strong psychic potential. Without training, she was able to communicate with the dead in her sleep. After some study she was able to put herself in trance and predict events, act as a conductor of certain thoughts, and read the message of the tarot cards with great accuracy.
The two men congratulated themselves at finding an assistant of such potential.
Their experimentation ranged the entire spectrum of phenomena until they had explored every shade of spiritual experience. It was only then that August made his next suggestion.
He asked Inverna if he had ever had occasion to attend a black mass. The Count was negative, but his curiosity was challenged, just as D’Te knew it would be.
Some few weeks later the Count confided to D’Te rather proudly that he had attended a rite of the black mass. The young priest congratulated him on his courage and perseverance but warned him against becoming too involved.
Inverna continued to attend the Mass. He became secretive, keeping to his rooms when he was at home. He was frequently absent from the experiments conducted by D’Te and his daughter, Malta. August began preparing a section of his thesis which dealt with the mathematical measurement of the spirit planes. He asked Inverna to arrange to have him go to the Vatican for further study of the occult.
The Count interceded for D’Te with the Bishop of Paris, and August was dispatched to Rome as a special student of exorcism.
Pere D’Te was away for only five months, but during that time he absorbed all of the recorded knowledge of the secret arts held by the archives.
He returned to Paris and Inverna with a profound grasp of technique and his own handwritten book of spells. He had copied the book from the ancient texts, and smuggled it out of the Vatican library, page by page.
When he returned to Paris he was pleased to see that the change he was expecting in Count Inverna’s life had occurred.
The Count was obsessed with his cult to the point of considering offering Malta as a candidate. It was easy for D’Te to convince Inverna to introduce him to the cult so that it could be fully investigated before involving Malta. Inverna was relieved that his young friend did not try to dissuade or censure him but accepted his role in the cult of Lucifer as a form of religious experimentation.
August knew even better than Inverna what it meant to accept a candidate as talented as Malta in the name of Satan. While the Count made arrangements to have D’Te attend the Mass, August turned his full attention to the girl.
Malta didn’t feel at ease with Pere D’Te. Despite the friendship he had with her father, despite the experiments, despite his gentleness and animal attractiveness, she did not welcome his nearness. She was respectful and obeyed her father’s wishes, but there was something that went cold inside her when she spoke to the young prelate.
D’Te knew that the girl was frightened of him, but it had never been convenient for him to persuade her to feel otherwise. He now found it crucial to his next phase that she adore him.
Methodically, he pursued her, manipulating her emotions as he had done with so many others. He was the perfect companion. They spent long hours just walking about Paris, laughing at the nonsense they confided to each other. When Malta was afraid, D’Te dissolved the fear with a quip and took her to a chic cafe, where he plfed her with ice cream and idle gossip. When she was bored he stimulated her with simple but engrossing games. When she was sad he played the clown. And always he taught her things that had never occurred to her before.
Before D’Te’s first visit to Inverna’s cult, Malta’s aversion had turned to affection.
The cult revealed itself to be a loosely organized group of jaded men and women who gathered monthly to revel in orgy. Although some had talent, and all were interested in the worship of evil, they were leaderless. None among them had the proper tools to gain the favor of their chosen master. D’Te changed that. His presence gave the cult more potential than it had held before. He was an ordained priest, his fingers had been consecrated with the key source of Christianity’s power. And he understood how to make the ritual the machine of Satan’s power.
He attended his first few meetings as an observer, offering suggestions but never participating. In time, however, he allowed Inverna to persuade him to offer a genuine black mass.
It was also agreed that Malta would be introduced to the cult at this mass. When she was told by her father of this new experiment Malta felt a warm rush of pleasure at being able to serve the man she had come to love.
The mass was a masterpiece. For the first time the Cult felt the force which they had sought to inv
oke. For the first time they understood how the life force which pulsed through their organs could call down a vast universe of energy. And for the first time Inverna realized he was in the employ of Satan.
Hie Count watched as Pere D’Te took his daughter at the apex of the intense ritual, and in spite of his revulsion he heard himself screaming with the rest as he felt the churning sexual presence of the Clear One.
After that the cult began to bud.
D’Te made the ancestral home of Inverna the center of his activities. There was no lack of influential patrons, and the priest had already started to make overtures to certain religious men of his acquaintance. The only drawback to the arrangement was Inverna’s stubborn refusal to experiment with human sacrifice. The animals sufficed, but the efficacy of the sacrifice was weakened by the low order of the life offered. It was the German invasion that gave D’Te the fuel for his entry into the orbit of the select.
D’Te managed to maintain the balance of his position during the early occupation of the city and by diverting the operation of his cult he gained the confidence of the Nazis.
The commandant of the German army had implicit faith in the spiritual preordination of a Reich victory, as did his Führer, Adolf Hitler. He was so taken with the magnetism and genius of the young priest that he made the Inverna home his headquarters. This upheaval broke Inverna. He was a daring, perhaps reckless, gambler of consciousness. He had undertaken many grave experiments in the name of man’s destiny. He had been strong enough to impose his will upon his emotions. But when he lost control of his honor he lost control of everything.
Count Inverna watched D’Te absorb his home, his life and his daughter. Every day the grate of boots on the marble of his floors reminded him of his cowardice. And every day he saw D’Te prosper. He was unable to restrain the priest from performing his Mass of human sacrifice. The victims that had been so difficult and dangerous to obtain during the period of peace were now plentiful. Inverna was impotent while D’Te accumulated the power of a hundred sacrifices and extended his influence as far as Berlin. The sight of Malta gnawing at the flesh of a child finally snapped his sanity, and he was confined to his rooms. D’Te took the name of the supreme, Susej, and endowed his mistress with the cup of the priestess. He was now a full adept of the Clear One and master of the Mass of Souls. That night, as Malta drained the goblet that made whole the elements of the passive and active, he felt the surging energy joined through his consciousness and he grasped the junction of true omnipotence.
It was politics that gave D’Te his first setback. The war was failing, the tactics of the Nazi high command were straining to shore the crumbling walls of its attack. Pere D’Te calculated the mathematics of the situation and began to draw back his activities. He made it appear that he had been entertaining the invaders only to find their weaknesses.
When the American army arrived in Paris the priest was given an important liaison post by the Allies. But D’Te still had much to answer for. The war had made it impossible for him to maintain his influence over his past acquaintances. Expectedly, the affection his sponsors had once felt for him had hardened into distrust. Rumors of his occult experiments had reached Rome, and D’Te detected the crumbling of his own offensive. He decided to avoid the inevitable inquiries and leave Europe for America, where the authority of the Church was diffuse and where the atmosphere of technology had made the study of the occult a harmless hobby.
He dispatched a long letter of resignation, explaining that the cruel events of war and occupation had forced him to reconsider his vocation. He apologized for his lack of faith, but he pointed out that by resigning he was avoiding the risk of embarrassment to the Mother Church.
That business concluded, D’Te was filled with a new rush of enthusiasm. He was impatient to leave for his new grazing land. The enormity of his vision during the mass of the Priestess rocked his mind with its logic. During the rite his body had not only felt the passive element and active element of the universe, but for one intangible instant of time his body had become those elements. His consciousness became the pure matter of existence and he heard the silence of creation. He would serve evil as the most direct method of achieving what he now understood as his true goal—to bring the passive element of good to bear under his domination and in doing this, perform the Mass which would also bring the active element of evil to his will. He would be greater than both God and Satan—the first cause, the prime mover, the new water of a new life, the fertile liquid of a new chemistry of the universe. All existence would be the servant of his eternal dominion.
The night before he left Paris he offered one last mass for his priestess. He wished to endow Malta with her whim for eternal beauty, and to remove a potential obstacle to his future plans.
At the Mass he sacrificed the Count Inverna to the Clear One, giving his heart to the priestess. As she meekly consumed her father’s flesh, D’Te felt the earthquake of massed energy rumble through his ribs and he let his bones become the laughter of his master.
VII
Hap Prentice woke up shouting.
He sat straight up in bed as he realized someone was moving about in the darkness.
A light went on. Doctor Orient was at his bedside.
Hap slumped back on the pillow. “What time is it?” he asked, his eyes closed.
“It’s one,” Orient told him. “You’ve been asleep for about six hours.”
“Doc,” Hap said with difficulty, “I had a terrible dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“Malta was in trouble. I saw her far away, calling. I tried to reach her but I couldn’t. I kept running and running but I couldn’t get to her.” He sat up. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to blink his eyes into focus. “What are you doing here, Doc? And what am I doing in bed?”
“Finish telling me about your dream,” Orient said. ‘I’ll explain later.”
“I just kept running and getting nowhere, then something… it was a big cat I think… yeah, some kind of yellow cat came at me and knocked me down.” He looked at Orient; “You were in the dream too, Doc. You had a rope or something and you got it around the cat’s neck… someone was with you… I don’t know who… anyway, you both pulled on the rope and started choking the cat… and it ran away.”
“Is that all?”
“No. Then I was alone on this big football field… it was nighttime… I could see a half moon. Then I saw Malta at the end of the field. She was trying to run toward me… she… she was calling out something.” He stopped.
“Do you remember what she said?”
“I was just trying… it… I think it was ‘oh say,’ ‘oh say.’ Yeah, that was it.”
“What else?”
“Malta kept running toward me… then she reached me… she was very close… when she got near me she said, ‘I won’t go back, I won’t go back.’ She asked me to help her.”
Orient heard the jangle of a tambourine somewhere at the edge of his thoughts.
Hap went on. “I told her not to worry, and I promised to watch her, then she disappeared. I tried to find her, but I was alone on that big field… then I heard her call my name and I looked up and saw her face in the sky… she was crying. I yelled to her to come down but she just kept crying. All of a sudden I felt this awful pain in my chest, like a heart attack. I fell down… I was lying on the ground, looking at Malta crying, and the pain got worse, and then the sky started to spin… and I woke up.”
“What’s the last thing you remember before that dream, Hap?” Orient pulled a cigarette from the silver case in his hand.
… Hap was silent for a moment. “I think… ” he began, “I was talking to Sordi in the kitchen and we heard someone scream. I took the elevator up to Malta’s room. I ran in and I saw Malta standing there… I think. I can’t separate the dream from what was real.”
Orient studied the tip of his cigarette. “That was another reality, Hap,” he said finally, “but real. As real as your teeth.�
�� He paused. “Malta’s gone and I haven’t been able to find her. That’s real, too.”
Hap was still dazed. “She’s gone,” he repeated.
“Hap, I’m going to tell you what happened. It may not make any sense all the way through, but I’ll tell it just the way it was.” He looked carefully at Hap. “Do you understand?”
Hap nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”
Orient told Hap about his possession and exorcism. Hap’s mouth hung open with amazement as he listened. He fingered his jaw ruefully. “No wonder my chin feels dented,” he observed.
Orient smiled. “It’s a good thing Bishop Redson was able to surprise you. You would have torn the walls down.” His smile faded. “There’s another thing,” he said. He paused. “This morning when I went to see Malta I realized that she and I were together in a previous existence.” Orient paused. “We were together and in love.”
Hap looked up at him. Orient waited.
Hap stared as if he were looking at a face he was trying to place.
“Okay.” Hap nodded finally. “You were in love with her during another lifetime. So what?”
“I don’t know.” Orient examined the long ash balancing at the end of the cigarette. “I thought you should know.”
Hap didn’t say anything.
Orient waited.
“Okay,” Hap said, looking around for his shoe. “So you told me.” He looked up suddenly. “Do you love her?”
Orient looked at Hap and tried to remember the music. “I know her,” he said. “That’s something.”
Hap fumbled with a shoelace. “That’s right, Doc,” he said.
Hap pondered the matter. Amazingly, Orient was really disturbed about Malta. He’d seen the doctor involved with women before but he’d never seen him squirm like this. Until now Hap had been convinced that Orient was a very cold man… Remote… So involved with his work that he forgot about people.
But Malta definitely had his number. And in this lifetime.