Wicca

by James Follett

  Prescott stared at the accusing image and at Cathy in turn. He was genuinely shocked and for a moment seemed to share her inability to form a coherent sentence. `You... That's... It's...' And then it came out: `You filthy, disgusting whore!'

  `It's not me--'

  He seized her right hand and thrust it against the screen. The image was life-size -- there was no mistaking the amethyst ring on Cathy's third finger. Her T-shirt ripped when he yanked her towards him so that their faces were centimetres apart. `You filthy, lying little slut! It's you, isn't it?' He shook her hard. Cathy's eyes filled with tears. She looked away and nodded, clutching at her T-shirt across her chest.

  `Do you know what the punishment is for that sort of thing?'

  `No, sir.'

  As it happened, nor did Prescott but that was beside the point. Cathy cringed when he brought his hand up again but he realized that he did not need violence to compound the woman's terror, and allowed his arm to fall to his side.

  `When was it taken?' He had to raise his hand and repeat the question.

  `About a year ago.' Tears of humiliation, shame, and pain streamed down her cheeks.

  Prescott could think of nothing to say. Judge Hooper had warned him that he had no jurisdiction over crimes committed before the Wall was in place. It was Cathy who resolved his dilemma.

  `Please, sir -- I'm terribly sorry for what happened. I was half-drunk at the time. Please don't tell anyone, I beg of you. I'll do anything--'

  `For God's stop whining!' Prescott snapped, still undecided and momentarily distracted by the sight of Cathy's breasts as she tried to wipe her eyes while holding the torn T-shirt in place. He slapped her hands away. `So you're sorry?'

  Cathy nodded. His change of tone gave her hope. And then he was idly brushing her nipples back and forth with his knuckles, moving to each one in turn, then pulling to make them harden against her will. She kept her eyes averted from Prescott's calculating gaze.

  `And ashamed?'

  Another nod. He pinched her hard.

  `Speak up!'

  `Yes, sir.'

  `How many more pictures are there like that one?'

  `Just that one, sir. I've deleted the others.'

  `How many were there?'

  `Ten.'

  Prescott stared down at the frightened woman and took his hand away from her breasts. `Well I don't want this sort of filth aired in my courts. And you say that you want to redeem yourself. Did I understand you correctly?'

  Cathy's `Yes, sir' was uttered with only the slightest hesitation. She expected Prescott to demand some sort sexual gratification from her and was prepared to take that hateful route if she had to.

  Prescott nodded. He had an idea in mind. `How do you feel about doing some community service?'

  The question surprised Cathy and gave her hope. `I'd be pleased to, sir,' she stammered.

  `Very well then. But first you'd better get rid of that picture.'

  Cathy's hand shook. She had trouble controlling the mouse and brought up the wrong menu twice but she eventually managed to delete the incriminating picture.

  `Is that all?'

  `Yes, sir.'

  `No more pictures?'

  `None, sir.'

  `Switch the thing off and come with me.' It gratified Prescott that the power he was exercising over this lovely young woman was such that there was no need for him to hold her arm as he strode along the corridor; she followed meekly behind, and made no attempt to escape.

  The blackshirt keeping watch outside the muster room stiffened to attention at their approach. He gave a double warning rap on the door but Prescott's brisk entry was too quick for Faraday to grab the remote control and zap the movie DVD that was playing on the monitor.

  `Good evening, gentlemen,' said Prescott amiably, beaming around at the six heavies who were jumping to their feet from the circle of armchairs around the television. `Don't worry about your DVD, Nelson -- I've brought you something much more interesting. This delightful young lady has been somewhat naughty of late and is anxious to carry out some community service to redeem herself. Is that not right, Cathy?'

  Cathy sensed a trap. She nodded without looking up. She gripped her shredded T-shirt across her breasts, having no idea how many men there were in the room and lacking the courage to raise her eyes to find out.

  `This is most important, gentleman: you all observed her follow me in here of her own freewill and without any coercion on my part. Is that not so?'

  There was a chorus of assent from the blackshirts as they gathered around, their eyes feasting hungrily on the young woman. Prescott steered her gently by the shoulders into the centre of the circle and patted her affectionately on the bottom. `You're here of your own freewill, aren't you, Cathy?'

  This time Cathy looked up and saw Faraday sneering at her. `No!' she cried, and lunged for the door. Faraday grabbed her and pushed her into an armchair. A blackshirt clamped a huge hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. Two more grabbed her flailing legs.

  `Now then, Cathy,' said Prescott affably. `All your community service involves is for you to entertain my troops for a couple of hours.'

  Faraday laughed and announced his intention of pulling rank on his colleagues by being first.

  Prescott lowered himself into an armchair to watch. He was pleased with his little ruse. It promised to provide an interesting finale to what had been an interesting day.

  Chapter 24.

  BOB HARDING WAS DISAPPOINTED by the failure of David Weir's showman's engine to breach the Wall, but he was not deterred. He had spent several nights in his workshop industriously converting a fanciful design to a working model. He loved model-making, particularly at night when all was quiet and he could work undisturbed now that Radio Pentworth had moved. Tonight he finally managed to get the model working and was so pleased by the results that he forgot all about time until Suzi decided to flush him out.

  He was too intent on his work to hear her creep up behind him. She slid her arms around his rounded shoulders, nibbled his earlobe in a manner that could earn her a prison sentence in some Gulf states, and advised him that his habit of working all night by the light of a low-wattage car bulb instead of going to bed with her was becoming a distressing habit that could result in both of them going blind.

  Harding chuckled and kissed her palms without turning around. `I have been neglecting you, darling.'

  `You certainly have,' Suzi scolded. `To think that I imagined that you were working on another worthy project to ease the drudgery of day-to-day life in Pentworth, and instead I find you playing with a toy submarine.'

  Harding lifted the model out of the big, mud-filled aquarium, rinsed off the silt in a bowl of water, and placed it on his bench. It rested on a pair of skids made from a wire coathanger. `It's not a toy submarine. It's a model submersible. What do you think?'

  Suzi examined the curious device. The body appeared to be a 400 gram food tin. Attached to the nose was a double spiral auger device. It had stabilising fins, a small, wire-caged propeller at the stern, twin hydroplanes and a rudder. The control box was connected to a motorbike battery and consisted of a computer-type joystick, several buttons, and a digital ammeter. It was connected in turn to the submersible by a two-metre length of lightweight cable.

  `It looks like a tin of baked beans with an attitude problem,' Suzi declared.

  His wife's perception impressed the scientist. `Actually, the Mark 1 did have an attitude problem, but I think I've fixed that with larger hydroplanes.'

  `Mark 1!' echoed Suzi. `You mean that this is the second one?'

  `Third, actually,' Harding admitted sheepishly. `The first one was a cardboard mockup -- a design concept. Watch.'

  The scientist lowered the model into the aquarium. It was slightly negatively buoyant so that it sank slowly into the opaque silt. Just before it vanished, Harding operated the control box so that the model's twin-auger nose appeared, sliding down the inside of the glass and held against it by the
slow-turning propeller.

  `And now it'll burrow into the settled silt. Watch.'

  The model submersible tilted down and started driving into the sediment, powered by the contra-rotating augers and the thrust of the propeller. It disappeared for several minutes and came bobbing to the surface when the scientist toggled a switch to release some ballast weights.

  `Clever,' said Suzi. `Do you think Prescott will sanction the cost of building a full-size version for you to play with?' `It won't have to be very big,' said Harding. `Just large enough for one man. I've already got a liquid gas container earmarked for the main hull. That's most of the cost taken care of.'

  `So you're going Silent Vulcan hunting? What do you if you find it?'

  `Well -- talk to the visitors, of course. Once there's a physical contact, it ought to possible to talk to them through a transducer or something similar.'

  Suzi still looked unconvinced. `Supposing they don't understand English?'

  Harding sighed and patted her hands. `We have to make contact first. Once that's established, a system of communication can be worked out afterwards. But the all-important thing is to make that initial contact.'

  `Which they haven't done?'

  `No.'

  `So their shoving of umpteen tonnes of steamroller sideways wasn't them making contact, or at least making a point?'

  The scientist reflected that his wife could be remarkably obtuse at times.

  400 metres away in North Street, Ellen woke up, sensing that something was wrong. She shouldn't be awake; she had drunk a strong cup of her "night" tea to be certain of good night's sleep. Then memories of that tragic day swarmed back and she knew what was wrong. There was no reassuring weight on the bed; no Thomas craftily stretching and thrusting in his sleep to be assured of more than his share of bed space.

  Alone and desperately miserable, wishing she had stayed another night with David at Temple Farm, and filled with wretchedness and foreboding, Ellen let herself sink into an unashamed flood of tears for her beloved pet.

  Chapter 25.

  THE VAN PULLED UP OUTSIDE Hill House. The rear doors were flung open and Cathy was pitched onto the road by two laughing blackshirts. Her panties and shoulderbag were tossed after her as she lay sprawled, sobbing in pain and humiliation, her face bruised, her skirt and T-shirt in shreds. One of the blackshirts stamped on the floor of the van. Its engine revved and it screeched off into the night.

  Cathy climbed shakily to her feet. The bruising and grazing from the fall were nothing compared with the pain of the few steps needed to reach her E-Type Jaguar, still parked in her drive. She clutched it for support. Her mind was already blotting out the unspeakable horrors of the last two hours. In so doing, it was also sapping her reason.

  The touch of cold steel and glass was contact with an old friend. When she couldn't walk, the Jaguar had given her more than freedom -- the power under its long, phallus-like bonnet had been a stallion-like assertion of her energy and driving sexuality in a society that sought to deny such emotions in those confined to wheelchairs. Suddenly she wanted the protection of Jaguar's steel womb around her. She wanted a blaring stereo and speed in which she could retreat into her own secure world and so shut out the terrors of reality.

  She found her keys and fell behind the steering wheel, savouring the cool feel of vinyl against her thighs after so many months. No courtesy lights had come on when she had opened the door. The battery had been taken, and they would've syphoned off all the E-Type's petrol but for the steep slope it was parked on that had prevented the tank from being emptied.

  Starting the car was the next problem but she had done so on many occasions when the battery was flat. Provided the alternator was turning over, it would power the fuel pump and so prime the carburettors. She slipped into neutral, released the handbrake and allowed the car to roll out of her drive and gather speed as it coasted downhill. Thankfully there was a moon, just as there had been the last time she had driven it; she had no difficulty avoiding the kerb.

  With 200 metres to go to the foot of the hill, she snicked the shift into 2nd and engaged the clutch. The V-8 engine churned sluggishly, its crankshaft impeded by sump oil that had turned to goo.

  Please, please, dear God -- make it start...

  The engine wheezed and popped, its valves sticking, allowing unburnt fuel into the exhaust manifolds. The SU carbs were suddenly fully primed; two cylinders caught, then a third, then all eight. An almighty backfire that woke the neighbourhood and the engine was running lumpily; a heady, deep-throated but erratic roar, threatening to stall.

  The terrible memories of her ordeal slipped away as Cathy concentrated on nursing the neglected engine, slipping the clutch to minimise load and keep the revs up. She had run out of hill therefore it was essential to keep the engine running --there was no way of restarting it if it stopped. It had settled down to a steady note by the time she was turning south onto the A285 so she risked shifting into 3rd.

  Next the lights. Two pure white halogen beams lanced through the humidity -- pointing the way to freedom and salvation.

  The stereo. A tape was still in the player. The lyrical pounding of Dire Straits. Telegraph Road. Old yet timeless. The music mounting to a crashing crescendo of perfection that allowed no room for ugly memories. She pushed the throttle pedal halfway to the floor. The Jaguar bounded forward. Wind sucking through the window, lashing her hair, pulling her mouth into a smile, and then a laugh as her right foot went down hard. Friendly, welcoming emotions spawned by speed and music and the comforting roar of the engine crowding in, driving out the terrors, bringing warmth, love she had never known and always craved. The touch of a loving partner; a baby's gurgling laughter -- secure in its bonding with its mother. And always the divine speed, and yet more speed until the E-Type's speedometer needle was hard on the stop...

  The A285 runs almost dead straight south out of Pentworth for 5 kilometres, ending in an abrupt 90 degree left hook to avoid the pair of massive 4 metre high granite and brick piers that had been built for Seaford College's wrought iron gates.

  200 metres further on was the Wall.

  But Cathy never reached the Wall because she did not make that left hook.

  The charging Jaguar continued in a straight line, arrowing across the grass. It hit and destroyed the left pier of Seaford College's gates. The left pier in turn destroyed the Jaguar. And both destroyed Cathy.

  Chapter 26.

  PRESCOTT SHOOK HANDS WITH each of the great and the good of Pentworth as they filed out of his office. The deputation included a Baptist parson, the rector and several deacons, Father Kendrick, Adrian Roscoe, and a motley collection of lay ministers of both sexes from the wide variety of churches and chapels in Pentworth and its environs. They clattered down the stairs, most of them loud in their praises of Asquith Prescott and how lucky they were to have a leader prepared to take swift, decisive action when the circumstances warranted.

  The only member of the party who wasn't happy was Father Kendrick. The Catholic priest had tried to raise another matter during the meeting, namely the question of Brad Jackson's appeal, but Prescott had brushed the priest's concerns aside with the time-honoured phrase beloved by politicians of how it would be `inappropriate for me to comment' on the setting up a court of appeal until the council had considered the matter.

  `And please, ladies and gentlemen,' had been Prescott's parting admonition to the party. `Not a word about this until the government's official announcement.'

  Prescott returned to his desk, looking pleased with himself and regarded his executive officer. `Well, Diana -- I think I handled that rather well.'

  `Very well,' said Diana non-committally, completing the notes she had been taking.

  `Do I detect disapproval?'

  Diana regarded him with unusual coldness. There had been an undercurrent of rumours in the building about Cathy Price's suicide. Ugly stories about a party in the blackshirts' muster room. She had tried to dismiss the rumours as idle
gossip, particularly as none of them involved the chairman, but there was one aspect that rankled: that he hadn't kept his promise to visit her that night, and he had offered no apologies the following morning.

  `I don't think new legislation is necessary,' she replied. `The existing laws dealing with criminal damage and trespass are more than adequate.'

  `Adequate? Churches being desecrated left, right and centre? The very cornerstone of our society under attack.'

  Diana didn't think a few dead chickens scattered around churchyards at night posed much of a threat to society. `What difference will new legislation make if they're not being caught under existing laws? It's a policing problem.'

  `It might make the scum carrying out these acts think twice if the penalties are stepped up,' Prescott growled. `Tough penalties work. How many times have we had to use the stocks? Twice -- that's all. Pilfering, shoplifting, street crimes are almost unheard of now. I want something in place by the end of the week. Something with teeth to keep the churches off the government's back. We can't afford to ignore pulpit power.'

  Diana protested that drafting new legislation on such a matter could take days.

  `I agree,' said Prescott, plonking his feet on his desk. `So let's take Judge Hooper's advice and use old legislation with all the wording and definition donkey work done for us. All the case law and precedents in place.'

  `What legislation?'

  `Now what could adequately cover what's been happening?'

  `It might be possible to extend the Town Police Clauses--' `There's an old act that meets all our requirements...'

  `Which is?'

  `The James 1st Witchcraft Act of 1604,' Prescott answered, and chuckled richly at Diana's expression.

  Chapter 27.

  SARAH UNROLLED THE CONDOM and subjected it to a critical examination. They were made by a garden shed entrepreneur by dipping a glass former in latex tapped from ficus elastica plants -- the popular rubber plant -- that were flourishing outdoors and growing into respectable trees. An edict issued by Government House the week before had banned the manufacture of condoms but that hadn't stopped the entrepreneur -- just made him richer because he had put up his prices.