The Cult

by Arno Joubert

  “Father! Father! Please help!”

  Father McGill stepped down from the podium and jogged down the stairs of the small stage. “Jeremy, what’s wrong?”

  “Some men came to fetch my mom,” he sobbed.

  “Police?” McGill responded without thinking.

  “They were wearing ski-masks,” he sobbed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, his chin trembling. “I hid in the closet. I’m such a coward.”

  He grabbed Jeremy’s hand and rushed out of the church, muttering excuses to his parishioners as he ran. “When was this?”

  “Earlier this morning,” Jeremy sniffled, glancing up at the older man. “I was too afraid to come out.”

  McGill pulled out his wallet, fumbled for the Captain’s card and punched in her number. She answered immediately.

  “Captain Guerra, I have a distraught Jeremy with him. He says some men abducted his mother.”

  The Captain sighed. “I know, we…“

  He stopped in his tracks. “You know? Why haven’t you contacted me?”

  “Your phone went to voicemail.”

  “Yes, I was busy with a sermon.”

  The Captain kept quiet.

  “What? What is it?”

  “We found her body half-an-hour ago.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alexa drove, passing through sprawling urban developments containing ranks upon ranks of brand new duplexes, seemingly cloned from the same template. The brand-new homes had neatly-manicured lawns and shiny new cars in the driveways. She switched the air conditioner to high and glanced at Neil. “Can you believe that we’re in a desert?”

  Neil looked out at the landscape rushing by. “This place isn’t on the GPS yet,” he said, checking a street map he had found in the glove compartment. “Take a right here.”

  They bumped over a railroad track and followed a dirt road for a hundred yards, passing a construction area, yellow metal bulldozers clearing the area, the first phase of a new housing development.

  “Short-cut?” she asked Neil as they jolted their way over the stony tract of land.

  Neil shook his head, looking around. “This isn’t on the damn map either.” He looked up and pointed. “Keep heading southwest, that’s where we want to be,” he said, pointing to a nondescript white building a mile away.

  Neil folded the map in half, his finger poking the paper. “The Holy Trinity Baptist Church,” he said with a grin. “At least that’s on the damn map.”

  They bumped onto the blacktop and drove past the hulking block of a building. Scaffolding stood to the one side of the monolith, men stripping a large section of peeling paint from the walls. A concrete ramp with a metal railing led to an entrance, the sounds of clapping hands and an upbeat gospel song being sung as they drove past. A large signboard planted on the sidewalk announced that, “TIMES CHANGE, BUT GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU REMAINS”.

  “Drive another twenty yards and turn into the panhandle. His house is on the church grounds,” Neil said, scanning the instructions McGill had given him.

  They entered a large, wrought-iron metal gate which led to a crushed gravel driveway flanked by towering shade trees. Alexa pulled up in front of an old-fashioned but neat two-story cottage.

  An elaborate rock garden had been planted in front of the whitewashed picket fence, filled with an assortment of cacti and succulents and colorful fine-leafed flowers Alexa had never seen before. Low maintenance plants. They followed the paved pathway to the front door. Olive Trees bordered the walkway, offering a modicum of relief from the blistering sun. Red Yucca and various small plants which Alexa didn’t recognize were planted in raised beds in front of the house.

  She rang the doorbell and heard a loud ding-dong. “Nice place, pity about the weeds,” Alexa said pointing with her chin towards the raised beds.

  Neil looked down to where she had pointed, chuckled. “They’re called herbs, Alexa.”

  Alexa frowned.

  “Origanum, Dill, the fine-stemmed ones are Thyme.”

  Alexa shrugged and looked in front of her as the door opened to a somber-looking Bishop Daniel McGill.

  He invited them inside and showed them to a comfortable living room, the sun streaming in through large windows. A humming air conditioner kept the room cool.

  Alexa looked around. Various trinkets and collectables were displayed around the house, a pair of old bifocals and an ancient sewing machine stood on a mantle. Bric-a-bracs which Alexa didn’t associate with the Bishop at all. “Nice house.”

  Bishop McGill smiled and stared out of the window. “It was the first Baptist Church in Las Vegas, but once we built the Holy Trinity in the sixties, my family and I moved in here.”

  Alexa knew McGill wasn’t married and had no kids, but the house had a certain antiquated feminine touch, like the furniture or decorations hadn’t been moved around for decades.

  “Sorry, how impolite of me,” the bishop said with an apologetic smile. “Please have a seat while I get us something to drink.” He shuffled out of the room and Alexa heard him opening the refrigerator, then the clinking sound of glasses. He came out carrying a tray with a jug of orange juice, tumblers and a silver ice bucket. He carefully placed the tray down on an antique coffee table. He took some white plastic coasters from the mantel piece, the words “God loves Guiana, 1963” were printed on them in faded lettering. He placed the glasses on the coasters, nodded. “Help yourself.”

  Alexa poured the drinks and passed them around. “How is Jeremy?”

  McGill flopped into a leather Lay-Z-Boy. “The doctor gave him some sedatives. He’s sleeping it off in my daughter’s room upstairs.”

  Alexa turned around, surprised. “You have a daughter?”

  He shrugged. “Had.”

  They shifted their attention to him, waited expectantly.

  “Next month, the ninth of May, I’ll commemorate the thirty-sixth year since her passing.” A faint smile played on his lips. “Her name was Ruth.”

  “What happened?” Alexa asked gently, not wanting to upset the man any more than he already was.

  McGill stared at the ceiling, his face hardened as if he was steeling himself mentally. He smacked his lips a couple of times before facing them. “Ever heard of a man called John Jordan?”

  Neil nodded slowly. “The guy who told his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with tranquilizers and cyanide?”

  McGill let out a deep breath. “Yes, he led a church called the People’s Church in Guyana.”

  “Your daughter was a member of his church?” Alexa asked.

  McGill waved a hand and smiled, shook his head. “No, no. A lifetime ago I was a missionary in Marxist Guyana, I established a Baptist church, trying to reform a people who came from a diverse cultural melting pot. One of the groups I had confronted with my brash preaching style was the People’s Church.” He slapped his thigh and looked up. “Let’s just say that John and I didn’t see eye to eye.”

  They waited for him to continue.

  “Ruth and Mary, my wife, befriended some of Jordan’s followers and tried to recruit them to our church.” He chuckled. “They were feisty, God-fearing woman who didn’t take no for an answer.” He looked up at Alexa, his lips pursed into a thin line. “Regrettably, it was the wrong way of going about your evangelical outreach in that god-forsaken place.”

  Alexa swallowed and cast a weary glance at Neil. He sat, staring at the floor, arms resting on his legs and a grim look on his face.

  McGill sighed. “My pop always used to say, God don’t need no preachers, he needs servants of the people. And that is where we faltered. We preached a lot but helped too little.”

  “What happened?” Alexa asked softly, her hand on her throat.

  “My wife and daughter had disappeared for two days. Then the mass-suicides happened. A week later, the police found shallow graves in the commune. Ruth and Mary’s bodies were buried amongst a dozen others.”

  “How did you man
age to handle such a…tragedy?” Alexa asked, unable to control the emotion in her voice.

  McGill shrugged, eyes narrowed. “I went after the bastard. Jordan had disappeared. So I started looking for him in the rainforest.” He cast them a stony-faced glare. “There was no way I was going to let that bastard off the hook. It took me three months, but I finally found him with the help of some of my loyal parishioners.” His shoulders slumped. “And I killed him.”

  Neil grunted. “Good for you.”

  McGill closed his eyes and sucked in a deep, long breath. “Unfortunately, he was friends with some very senior officials in the communist government. They didn’t take kindly to me murdering the man who persuaded a huge amount of the population to vote for them. I was jailed until a democratic government was voted into power.”

  “How long?” Neil asked.

  “Twenty years.”

  Neil whistled softly.

  McGill lifted his hands and dropped them on his thighs. “Tell me about Eden Calloway. How did she die?”

  Neil studied the man for a moment. “Straight answer?”

  McGill nodded.

  “Her abdomen was slit open and her bowels removed. Her eyes and tongue were cut out and her eyes and mouth stitched closed.”

  “And Mika?”

  Neil nodded slowly. “Same way.”

  McGill pursed his lips and then put his hands to his face. They could see his shoulders shake as he cried. After a minute he looked up, his cheeks shiny with tears. “She reminded me so much of my Ruth.”

  Alexa stood up and placed her hand on his shoulder. He opened his arms and she bent down as he hugged her, sobbing. He held her back by her shoulders. “It’s happening all over, Captain.”

  “Call me Alexa,” she whispered. “What’s happening all over?”

  “There’s a cult operating in Vegas. Mika tried to persuade some members not to join. I wanted to help, but I was so damn scared,” he sobbed.

  Neil kneeled in front of the man, touching his knee. “What are they called?”

  He looked up, his lower lip trembling. “Illumenex for short. It stands for the Illuminated and Exalted Church of Isis.” He sucked in a raspy breath. “Their leader is a man called Joe Di Mardi.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  Father Warren Garland opened his eyes and pinched them closed again, blinked a couple of times as he tried to focus. His sight was assaulted by a blinding light, and his body was shivering uncontrollably. He was loosely bound by his hands and feet, when he tried to move, he could hear the clink of chains connecting the shackles around his limbs to the cold table he was laying upon.

  “Ah, I see you are awake,” he heard a silky voice say.

  He lifted his head onto his chest, but he shrieked, almost blacking out, as a jolt of pain exploded in his back.

  “Please lay still,” the voice said smoothly. “I was afraid that you were going to bleed to death.” The man spoke in a smooth tone, no pitch or lilt to the voice, with an almost imperceptible Italian accent.

  Garland gasped, blinked a couple of times, trying to focus through tears of pain. He turned his head. A man dressed in black, wearing a clerical collar, sat at a table clipping his nails. He slipped an emery board into a nail grooming kit and folded it closed before slipping it into his jacket pocket. The priest strutted to a basin in the corner of the room, casually, inspecting his nails and then he washed his hands. The man slowly counted to sixty and Garland could see the steam rise from the basin; it must have been scalding hot.

  Garland tried to recollect what had happened, but his memories were hazy, foggy tendrils shrouding the clarity he so desperately sought. Had he been drugged?

  The memories slowly morphed into a cohesive whole, the fog lifting, like ghostly apparitions turned real, coming back to haunt him. This man standing in front of him, Father Casanellas was from the Vatican City. He had been visiting Garland’s parish to find out what had made them so, prosperous, as he had called it. Garland had welcomed the man with open arms, pleased at the prospect of expanding his business empire.

  “What are you doing?” Garland sobbed. He was feeling lightheaded and cold. He shifted his body, trying to see what he was laying upon, then gasped. It was a metal gurney, the type that coroners used to do their autopsies on, and he was laying in a pool of sticky blood. His own blood. “Oh God! What have you done to me?”

  Casanellas hushed him. “It’s called bloodletting, cleansing your soul, purifying the lifestream, siphoning out the evil from your system.” He smiled, then cocked his head to the side, studying Garland closely. “It was a method particularly favored by the bards and druids of the early sixteenth century as an offering to the gods.” He gave a curt nod. “It has many ritualistic applications in religious ceremonies, but I simply relish the drama of it all.”

  “Why?” Garland sobbed.

  The man pulled a piece of paper from his top pocket with a flourish and unfolded it. It was a newspaper clipping. “Bishop Warren Garland, founder of the NSSL, or News Saints of Salt Lake, has been acquitted of tax fraud.”

  Casanellas looked up, smiled thinly and continued. “Garland was being investigated by the IRS for tax fraud to the tune of one-hundred and thirty-million dollars. In what was seen as a controversial decision by the prosecuting attorney, Mike Wendell, Judge Roland Heath overturned the IRS claim, quoting from a case that set a precedent more than a decade ago.”

  Casanellas looked up. “Here is the pertinent bit.” He read again. “The fact that followers of the NSSL claimed that they had gifted the funds raised by the NSSL’s multi-level marketing business to Garland, implied that Garland didn’t need to pay any tax at all.”

  “So what? A man of the cloth cannot be a businessman as well?” Garland groaned.

  Casanellas tsk-tsked. “I’m not saying that at all.” He folded the paper neatly and slipped it back into his pocket. “But you are blatantly deceiving your government. Ignoring our Savior’s commandment to give onto Caesar.”

  Garland snorted. “It’s called a tax loophole.”

  Casanellas folded his arms. “But are five Ferraris, eight limousines and a private jet absolutely necessary in the performance of your duties, Bishop?”

  “Fringe benefits.”

  Casanellas chuckled. “I am not going to respond to that. I am not going to respond to your answers on how you spent twenty-million dollars on a new home, but yet are unable to pay alimony to the various wives of your thirty children.”

  “They’re not my kids, polygamy isn’t allowed anymore so we were never legally married.”

  Casanellas strode over and smacked the palm of his hand down onto the gurney beside Garland’s head. “Polygamy was banned in the late nineteenth century and you knew that! You’re twisting the law to suit your corrupt behavior. You have a moral responsibility, you viper,” he shouted.

  Garland winced. “You’re not getting away with this. This is murder.”

  Casanellas smiled down at Garland, straightening his cuffs. “This isn’t murder, this is euthanasia.” He turned around and started washing his hands again. “Your true punishment shall start in your next life.”

  Garland swallowed. “C’mon, Casanellas, don’t tell me you even believe in all that afterlife bullshit.” He inhaled deeply. “Where are we, anyway?”

  Father Timothy Casanellas closed his eyes for a moment, his lips moving as if he was talking to someone. He took a deep breath and turned to Garland. “We’re in your abortion clinic.” He checked his watch before picking up a scalpel from an assortment of tools in a tray. “It is one AM, so we better get a move on.”

  “What? I don’t have an abortion clinic.”

  Casanellas chuckled. “Call it what you want. A freedom of choice clinic, an early termination clinic, semantics, same thing.”

  “They’re not even human yet, they’re bloody cystoblasts when we remove them,” Garland shouted, feeling a dull throb in his head.

 
“Well, you’re not human either,” Casanellas said with a wry smile. “Think of the irony of dying in your own clinic and being incinerated by the same oven that has extinguished so many thousands of lives.”

  Garland tried to kick himself back, tried to tip the gurney to the side, but Casanellas grabbed his leg in a vice-like grip. “Now, now, Bishop. Let us say the Lord’s Prayer together and beg that he has mercy on your worthless soul.”

  Garland screamed as the cold blade plunged into his chest, just below his breast bone, shrieked as Casanellas dragged the scalpel all the way down to his pubic area. He looked up as the blood pumped from the exposed flesh, over his stomach and his hips and onto the metal trolley, but the cut wasn’t deep enough to kill him immediately. He shook his head in silent and shocked anguish, tears streaming from his eyes.

  “Relax, this will take some time,” Casanellas said with an evil grin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Vatican City, Rome

  Casanellas drummed his fingers impatiently as the phone rang in his ear. “Hello?” a groggy voice answered after the seventh ring. “Who is this?”

  “Good morning, Director Scarpa.”

  “What time is it?”

  Casanellas checked his watch. “It is eighteen minutes past three. How is Donna doing?”

  Scarpa didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, probably gathering his thoughts. “Father, good morning. My daughter is recovering, thank you.”

  “No relapses?”

  Scarpa hesitated. “None that I know of.”

  Casanellas smiled. Not that he would know much about his daughter’s drug problem, being so engrossed in his bloody job all day long.

  “Thank you for putting her on the program and keeping it discreet, Father.”

  Casanellas chuckled. “No thanks necessary. Do you want to do a confession?”

  “Over the phone?”

  “Why not?”

  Scarpa sounded hesitant. “I just thought that—“