League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  Arthur arrived late. The role-playing foreplay was swift and the main action half-hearted. When he rushed away she wandered around the motel unit with an urge to kick the furniture until she saw something glinting on the floor in the wardrobe alcove. It was a heavy gold ring with patterned edges, a wedding ring. She hasn’t seen a ring on Arthur’s finger. Amber makes a point of checking fingers. Does it belong to Arthur or an earlier client? Should she hand it in to the motel office? Bound to belong to one of her guests, the motel is old but carefully cleaned by its owner-operators. Whoever owns the ring can ask if they want it back. Amber zips it into a pocket in her handbag and checks her diary. The last client of the day has cancelled. She will be finishing early tonight, Ben will be the last.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai reads the Press while Pauline checks again that all is ready. The small table in the lounge holds 13 tall-stemmed wine glasses standing beside bottles of red wine on silver trays. The girls appreciate a drink on arrival; helps boost the mood. Porcelain cups and saucers are set out on the large table, surrounded by other supper essentials. Pauline’s blueberry muffins and Sarai’s cheese straws are covered with a cobweb-patterned throw-over. Everything is in order. Being February there is no point in starting a moonlight ritual until after nine o’clock. She pours a large sherry for Sarai and herself.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Ben greets his hostess with a predictably shy and formal, “Good evening, Amber.” In the bedroom his bespectacled eyes are bright with anticipation but he comes too soon and is embarrassed.

  So he should be at his age, thinks Amber unkindly, but keeps her professional cool. “It’s OK, no worries mate.” Knowing he likes to talk, and since she has nothing pressing to do, she suggests they shower and have an instant coffee. She soaps him, spin-rinses him, and edges him out, taking a couple of minutes to have the barely adequate water-jet to herself.

  “Do you have any hobbies?” Amber asks conversationally when they’re both dried, dressed, and sitting in armchairs.

  Ben puts his cup down, reaches into his pack, and extracts an expensive-looking camera. “Photography,” he confides. “I carry a camera everywhere. Great photo opportunities are liable to present unexpectedly.” He packs it away with care, saying, “I develop my own films.”

  Develops films in this age of digital cameras and phone photos? She is amazed that anyone would bother.

  “Yes,” Ben admits, “you could call it old-fashioned, but to the purist real film produces inimitable quality. It’s an art form. I use digital as well,” he adds, not wanting to sound too weird.

  “So you go in for art. What about porn?” asks Amber.

  Ben is shocked. “I record real-life moments not contrived titillation. I would never dishonour a woman by lewd photography. However,” he flushes brilliant crimson, “there is only a thin line between art and some perceptions of pornography. I couldn’t help but notice how beautifully the light silhouetted you behind the shower curtain. It was a life moment I would love to record.”

  Luckily the sun has dropped and the patterned glass of the shower window is no longer providing seductive light.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Wilkin drops a light kiss on Jen’s cheek. “Hi, hon. Sorry I’m late.” He sits. “A Japanese theme. That’s nice.” He manoeuvres his chopsticks distractedly, lost in his own thoughts. Even when tired he looks good, Jen thinks, as she asks after his day. His grey eyes meet her blue ones briefly. The chemistry is still there, or is it? He may as well be reciting a shopping list — recession, business stresses mounting, deadlines to meet, and … he looks at her, longer this time, silently approving her grooming, but all he says is, “... and sloppy staff.” It is not news to Jen. Wilkin is a perfectionist and his present secretary is too motherly-casual for his pernickety tastes.

  After a long silence Jen asks if he is enjoying the meal. He nods and tells her she is becoming quite proficient in the kitchen. Jen contains her response to rolling her eyes when he isn’t looking. She has planned an end-of-week, relaxing evening listening to music, but Wilkin opts for watching TV. There is an item he wants to see on hopefuls for the new season’s rugby team. “I think Andy Bealey will be the choice for winger,” he observes. “He’s an excellent player and they say he’s over his depression issues.”

  “He’s in great physical shape,” comments Jen.

  When the programme ends Wilkin flicks channels, not settling on anything, something Jen can’t abide. It doesn’t last long. When the wine is finished he announces, “I’ve had a tiring week. I’m off to bed.”

  Feeling decidedly unromantic Jen follows and makes an effort to display her new silks. His eyes hold interest but his mouth ruins it. “Mmm, very nice my dear, but you’re not quite the slender waif I married.”

  You’re no six-pack-wonder yourself, Jen silently shoots back, as he heaves into his marital duty.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Becky, the childless young woman, drinks red wine and wonders what she is letting herself in for. Perhaps she should not have talked so openly with the woman on the river bank. “No town in New Zealand has rivers more English than Christchurch,” Pauline had said. Over the course of their meetings Becky learned that Pauline has no family. The brother she was close to died in a tragic accident. Being able to buy property with a back gate to the river is the reason she calls this downunder city home, the Pom had confided. She talked about the abundant gifts of nature and how the Avon’s manicured banks and trailing willows evoke happy memories of Cambridge. Her brother had gone to the famous university and later established a gardening centre in Cambridge. “I feed ducks and memories in unison,” Pauline had smiled. Becky feels she could tell Pauline almost anything.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Pauline carefully chose the night after new moon, to enhance the potential for conception and growth. The night is warm and balmy. A circle of garden lights set back from the pentacle throw their own magic, low and steady, across the lawn. Twenty-four hours earlier Pauline had taken care to remove any bad karma from previous owners of the athame by asking Odin’s blessing on the male object, and placing it in the centre of the pentacle with the words, Knife, you are brought into this circle of transformation to be forever after my athame. A full day’s exposure to the sun and other elements should have completed the cleansing process but for extra safety she will smudge it with sage.

  Her guests stand around the blazing brazier and watch with interest. Pauline takes fire tongs, shiny clean for the occasion, extracts an ember, and places it on a pottery paten centred on a wrought iron table. From the glowing ember she ignites a sage leaf and passes the blade through the smoke thrice, saying,

  All bad be gone, all good become,

  I am your owner, I am the one.

  The coven members take their places around the pentacle. Pauline stands at its apex beside the altar. The well informed know the altar cloth is red for sexual potency and the pink lace doyley at its centre signifies love and romance. The round altar table is a matching pair with the table beside the brazier, as is the pottery paten. This paten is filled with halved passion fruit. On either side stand the matching chalices, one filled with wine, and the other with salted water. Pauline defines the sacred space and lays her athame on the altar.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Shane and his mates slouch through the shadows. The three youths wear dark hoodies, two of them carry backpacks. An approaching couple cross the street to avoid them.

  “Yeah, fuck off,” Marty calls after them. Their combined swaggering gait professes ownership of the empty street. Fences are high in this part of town, gates locking each multi-storeyed residence inside its own spacious patch.

  The apprentice thugs test each gate in passing. Loose from an afternoon of boozing and edgy from speed they want action. One gate moves. Dale and Marty push in unison. Hinges creak and barking shatters the air. As they wrench it shut two dogs leap at it, snapping and pawing at the barrier. The youths run but no one follows or
calls after them. Nonetheless they are rattled. Shane recovers first. He pulls his hood back over his smooth skull and directs scorn at the others. “Couple of fuckin hard men you two bitches are.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai stands in the shadows under the trees and ponders Pauline. Religion has such potential for good yet can cause so much harm. In Pauline’s case Christianity caused life-stilting repression, but, Sarai reflects ruefully, most religions have similar dualities and Goddess liberation has no less power than the others to seduce and corrupt.

  In the distance some dogs bark. Sarai adjusts her hood and pulls her earth-brown cloak closer. The sky-clad circle moves rhythmically, warmed by their dance, the newness of the moon, and the bright summer stars.

  Becky clutches her best silk bathrobe. She had told partner Zac she was having a night out with the girls. Zac has no idea these ‘girls’ are closer to her grandmother’s age than hers. Pauline had explained what would be required of her during the ritual, but Pauline hadn’t realised Becky didn’t understand the term sky-clad. Becky didn’t cotton-on until they all went upstairs. What the old women intended to do is such a totally unimagined notion that chatty, disco-dancing Becky was stunned to mute acquiescence. The women trooped into the garden wearing dressing gowns. Then they took them off.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  The hoods slouch on in silence. Shane fingers the blade in his pocket; it is all the comfort he needs. At 19 Shane is alone in the world. His sister left home at 15 and disappeared. At 16 he had almost killed his father when he walked in on him hitting his mother. A week later, when Shane was out getting pissed, his father punched his mother to death.

  “Look,” nods Marty, “over there. Gate’s open.” The youths contemplate the property across the street. The front fence is surprisingly low. “More like it,” Shane displays the authority of experience. “Flower baskets, gay statue.” The others are sufficiently impressed to cross the street. “Letterbox in the shape of a cat, gotta be some cat-crazy bitch. Won’t be no dogs here.”

  Four cars are parked on the lawn. All are locked. “No lights on,” observes Dale, scanning the house. Shane edges into the porch. The panelled door moves to his touch. “This dumb bitch is asking to be robbed.” They slide inside and can just discern a distant noise, soft music perhaps.

  “The old girl will be watching Coronation Street,” grins Shane, extracting a flat torch from his jeans. A wide, carpeted staircase rises to the light’s beam. “No point looking for electronic shit here. Maybe jewellery.” They tread warily but nothing creaks.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Becky studies her bare feet. Freshly-painted toenails reveal she agreed to this and did what she could to prepare. The old women are dancing and chanting. Dancing naked! What is she doing here?

  This is mad, cries the voice of reason in her head.

  No, it’s worth a try, says her creative side. No harm can come of it and it might work.

  You intended to start a baby as soon as you got married and your third wedding anniversary is the month after next, taunts Reason.

  Exactly, crushes Creative, I have to do something. Take action.

  Sex isn’t as good as it was, niggles Reason.

  That’s because Zac is starting to think I don’t want a baby. He thinks if I wanted a baby it would happen.

  But sex is no longer making love it is about making babies.

  It’s up to me to do something positive.

  You have to change, it’s wrong to be uptight with Zac. Reason has the last word.

  Shane nudges the partially-open door with his foot, revealing a spacious bedroom. The queen-sized bed is covered with a multicoloured quilt. On a polished dressing-table necklaces hang on a tree sort of gadget, asking to be plucked. In the top drawer brooches lie in waiting on a velvet lining. Marty scoops some polished stones from the top of a chest of drawers. From the bedside table Dale souvenirs a strange rock with sharp edges about the size of a fist. The en-suite contains nothing of interest. The wardrobe contains nothing male. Elated, the thieves move to the next room.

  It is just as spacious and like its predecessor the windows are covered with thick drapes. Towels hang on a wooden free-standing towel rail. More bits of rock sit on another chest of drawers. The bed is covered with clothes, heaps of old-woman gear — skirts, pants, tops, gross underwear. Shane circles his torch round the room and pauses on the framed painting above the bed. A striking young woman in see-through top and swirling pink skirt points to a small fire where a squatting monkey puffs air from bellows. Woman, monkey and fire are enclosed in a circle of stones, but they aren’t stones, they are skulls. Smoke curling around the woman wreaths her head with flowing hair. “Nice frame,” says Shane. “Take it.”

  The third room holds twin beds. These too are heaped with piles of clothes. “How many clothes does a woman need?” mutters Marty. “Why doesn’t she put them away?”

  “Perhaps she has a different set for each day of the week,” whispers Dale. “Fuckin nut-job, look at the pictures.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Becky takes a deep breath and looks across the lawn. It’s weird but the women look OK, one has a lovely figure and none of them are ugly. In fact, she smiles suddenly, the plump ones remind her of the Teletubbies. When they had removed their dressing gowns by the brazier her eyes had been drawn to stretch marks, surgical scars, cellulite, sagging flesh and scrawny limbs. Moving as a group they don’t look brazen, or coy, just … natural. Such casual acceptances of their bodies is impressive. When she swims with girlfriends they change discreetly, hardly ever baring all.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Shane’s torch finds further framed pictures over the twin beds, black and white prints this time. One is a sketch of two old women stuffing things into a fire burning in a bin. The fire has snake-like flames. Big raindrops hover in an umbrella shape above them. “The Rain Makers,” reads Dale from the caption as he unhooks it. Marty peers at the second print. Two witches on a single broomstick fly over a river in a dark valley. “Jesus,” he mutters, unhooking it. “Just fits,” he adds, wedging it into his backpack beside the first print. They turn toward the door. Something moves. Shane’s finger actions the off button on his torch. The trio freeze. Two gleaming orbs are hovering near the floor. Shane depresses on. Dale gasps.

  “Just a bloody cat, see, that’s all.” Shane sweeps the beam around. It plays over a disk mounted on the door. Etched on the china is a star shape. As they move forward it appears to shimmer and rotate. Shane flicks the beam back. Steady, he tells himself, it couldn’t have moved. His torch confirms the disk is no longer moving but a picture is forming within the star. Mesmerised, each man strains to stifle rising panic. The points fill with lines suggesting horns, ears, and beard. The lines unite to form the image of a goat’s head. Shane is no substance novice; he’s had his share of bad trips. He takes a grip on his unease with a gruff order. “We’ll check downstairs. Keep clear of the lounge.”

  Dale and Marty want to leave. “Why are those cars on the front lawn? There must be more than one person in the lounge,” says Dale.

  Shane’s fear shifts easily to anger. “If you’re scared of a bunch of old women then fuck off.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Becky is disrobed by two Wiccans. Her gown is added to the pile on the garden seat. The brazier flickers lively shadows over the slim whiteness of her body. She is led to the centre of the magic circle. Overhead a sliver of crescent moon brightens. Nervous as hell, Becky picks up the resonance of good intention. Despite the surreal setting she believes the women are bound by friendship and purpose. She keeps hers eyes steadfastly glued to Pauline’s face. No one need know, she keeps telling herself, and it might work. There is nothing to lose. Pauline takes the paten in both hands, raises it to the moon and says,

  Each elfin bowl offers its seeds to you,

  Bless them now and what we now do.

  Lowering the paten she offers it to Becky with the words, “Take and eat.” B
ecky picks up a piece of fruit and wonders how she is expected to eat it. But Pauline’s organisation is thorough. The Wiccan nearest the altar table steps forward and hands her a golden teaspoon. While Becky eats, the helper takes the paten from Pauline and walks round the circle. Each woman takes a piece of fruit and gazes intently at her portion cradled in both hands. Pauline chants,

  Firm the seed and moist the womb

  Passion blessed by the moon

  Arouse latent virility

  And grant the maid fertility.

  “Blessed be,” respond the witches. The empty paten is offered to Becky for the spoon and fruit skin, and is returned to the altar. Two attendants arrange Becky spread-eagle on the paved star. They drape her body with a frond of jasmine, the flower of love, and begin to hum softly. The other crones join in the humming and carefully place their moon-blessed fruit in the spaces between each point of the pentacle.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Shane leads his mates downstairs and resolutely turns from the front door. They follow him down the hallway and turn into a little passage, passing doors labelled Toilet and Laundry leading to a back room. The door is ajar and the curtains pulled back. Shane cuts his torch. Slabs of muted light define a tall window, almost to floor-level, at the end of a bench and another window above the bench. Moonlight reveals a sink but the place doesn’t look like a kitchen. Dried flowers, herbs or something, hang from the ceiling. Shelves contain rows of small bottles, smaller than whisky miniatures. Marty unscrews one. “Rancid shit,” he whispers, and flicks the perfumed concentrate at Dale.

  “You’re dead!” hisses Dale.

  “Shhh,” cautions Shane. “I can hear something outside. Down!”

  They drop as one and crawl to the bench. Each thief is unnerved and torn between wanting to look and wanting to hide. Curiosity conquers, heads rise cautiously, levelling eyes above the sill. They gaze transfixed …

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~