St. Agnes' Eve

by Malachi Stone

  “What are you trying to do, Liz? Get yourself off?”

  “God, you’re sick,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re fooling around with here. If this chick is with Kokker she’s a witch, see? But not the back-to-nature, sixties hippie kind. Oh, she’s man-friendly and easy on the eyes, but don’t let her fool you. Look at poor Gwendace.” Liz closed the lid on the first-aid kit.

  “I’m sorry, Liz. If there’s anything I can do—”

  “You want to do something for me? Then answer my question.” Her tone was surprisingly sharp.

  “Markings. All right, let’s see. She has a mole on her breast, shaped kind of like an upside-down five-pointed star.”

  “The Lucifer brand,” Liz gasped. “The morning star falling from Heaven. It’s much worse than I thought. Does she wear any jewelry? Any pendants, for instance?”

  “Yeah, she wears this one pendant—all the time, as near as I can tell. Shaped like an infinity symbol with ruby letters that spell—”

  “CS,” Liz said.

  “Bingo. What’s it mean?”

  “Cultus Sororitas. The Sisterhood. She’s a pureblood in the Lilith cult. And she’s taken the final step and sold herself to the Devil. That’s what the star means. Tell me, have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  I don’t know why I lied to her. Maybe I wanted to protect Janis from this lunacy. I knew Janis could not be involved in any of it. “No,” I said.

  “What else about Sandra?”

  “Oh, God, I almost forgot. She wears a wig. Shaves her whole body, even her head, just like Kokker.”

  Liz shook her head impatiently, until her short hair bounced. “That’s so nobody can glom onto a hair sample.”

  “What are they worried about? DNA?”

  “DNA? You poor fool. They’re protecting themselves against anybody using a lock of their hair to place a hex on them.”

  “I’m surprised at you, Liz. After all, you’ve studied science.”

  She sighed with exasperation. “These people aren’t worried about science, any more than witches in the Middle Ages worried about alchemy,” she said. “They have contempt for science, and why not? Kokker got rich as Croesus by merely possessing the Lilith talisman. Now that it’s gone, he must be mad as hell. Literally. You’re in mortal danger as long as it’s in your hands, Ricky. There are those who’d kill for it. Who else knows you have it?”

  “I don’t have it.” I ever so reluctantly told her about Janis. About Madeleine’s disappearance. To my astonishment, Liz knew Janis. “That hot number in the glass cubicle? She gave me the look the last time I came to your office. By the way, send me a bill. Fair is fair, and Diaz must have put in some legwork.”

  “Wait a minute. The look? Janis is a Catholic, for God’s sake.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I mean, she’s got a black onyx statue of the Madonna right there on her desk and all.”

  “That’s no Madonna. I saw the thing you’re talking about. That’s Sarah la Kali. Sarah the Dark One. Saint Sarah to the Gypsies. They call her the Dark Wanderer. An Egyptian woman with a deep knowledge of the occult, now a roaming and restive spirit.”

  “How do you know all this, Liz?”

  Instead of answering, she moved to the rear of the shop, past rows of apothecary jars filled with God-knows-what. The place had high molded ceiling and lazily turning suspended ceiling fans, beveled mirrors everywhere, and a counter with stools set along a narrow aisle. It might have been an old-time drugstore once, or a saloon. Liz slid out a heavy, built-in walnut drawer. Retrieving something, she walked slowly back to me as though she were following after the coffin in a funeral procession, her hands folded in front of her waist. She opened them only when she stood beside me. She held a pendant identical to those worn by Sandra and Janis.

  “Look familiar? It belonged to Gwendace,” she said. “Diaz was kind enough to bring it to me along with her other effects, even though I’m not a blood relative.”

  “Gwendace was one of them?” I asked her. “How long had you known?”

  “From the beginning.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Both women had called me for advice, so often and over so many years, and now I was the one needing the answers. Instead, Liz asked me a question.

  “What’s the single most important thing one gay woman can’t give another gay woman, Ricky, without the participation—however anonymous or half-hearted—of a male donor?”

  “A baby,” I said.

  “Do you remember me telling you of the Lilith cult and my suspicions about how they are able to reproduce?”

  “Asexual, you said.”

  “Parthenogenesis, to be exact. Almost like a budding plant, without male contact or any of the nasty little entanglements male contact brings. Parthenogenesis always produces a girl baby, a perfect pureblood clone of her mother.”

  I began to question whether Liz had literally lost her mind from grief. “You know what science would say, don’t you? Prove it.”

  “I wasn’t looking for scientific proof. My interest was purely personal. Gwendace and I were planning a perfect little girl—probably next year. Nobody’d have been the wiser who the father was... or wasn’t. Do you know how many birth certificates nowadays list the father as ‘unknown’? Nobody thinks twice about illegitimacy any more. Try retracing a bloodline over ten thousand generations using the mothers’ maiden names. As impossible as charting the shifting sands back to creation. The Lilith cult members can live and reproduce among us without our ever suspecting their true nature.”

  “Which is?”

  “Savage and powerful. Wild and free. Their whole species is a living atavism, and I’m one of the few with a science background who even suspects their existence. Do you know what an atavism is, mister lawyer?”

  “An evolutionary throwback, isn’t it? The recurrence of an extinct species?”

  “Right, except they never really died out. They only wandered the desolate places until the time when human memory ran out, and they could walk among us once more. That time is now.”

  “But they’re obviously human. I mean, look at Gwendace.” I immediately regretted saying it, but Liz seemed to have dived down some paranoid delusional rabbit-hole. I felt it was my place to call her back somehow.

  “Human? No, dear boy. They may look human and even act human to the casual observer, but let me assure you, they’re not. I suspect their mitochondrial DNA might give the game away, but of course no one has thought to do the research because no one knows of their existence. Very few do, anyway. And almost no one knew Gwendace was one of them.”

  “Who knew that besides you?”

  She gave me a long look that showed me regrets and sorrows too deep for words. “You know... now.”

  “Who else?”

  The look continued. I thought I could read her darkest thoughts. The voices. The banality of evil. Kokker. “Kokker knew about Gwendace?”

  Liz kept giving me the same look. The look of the lost. It told me everything she wanted me to know. “You think Gwendace was killed because she was one of them?” I asked.

  “Gwendace wouldn’t sell out—wouldn’t lie down with those demons—even though it offered her an inconceivably long life and unbelievable powers. I warned you to stay away from those people. Get her out of your house and out of your life, Ricky, while you still can. Your Sandra is only beginning to scratch the surface of evil’s magical, seductive potential. She’s not even a century old.”

  “What do you mean, a century old?”

  “I mean the Lilith cult escaped the biblical threescore and ten curse, as well as some other Old Testament maledictions that continue to afflict mankind to this day: work, pain in childbirth, subjugation to the male. All these came later, after Lilith’s prideful self-banishment. The devil, the ultimate predator, was waiting there for her in the wilderness to tempt her, just as he waited eons later, in that same wilderness, for Jesus Christ. Jesus resis
ted, but Lilith fell victim to the Tempter’s spell. Every generation of Lilith’s progeny are tested and tempted the same way, offered all the same enticements: greatly extended life span, enduring youth and beauty—they mature until they look about thirty, then stay that way for centuries—and supernatural powers that far overshadow those that they were born with. It’s the price of those things that Gwendace refused to pay.”

  “Which is?”

  “The price of those things is to become Satan’s betrothed, to sell yourself to him. That’s when the mark of the falling star appears. Those who wear the pendant also wear the brand of Lucifer. Except that Gwendace told them to go to hell.”

  “So you’re trying to tell me Sandra Kokker has actually sold her soul to the devil?”

  Liz nodded before adding, “The thing about myths and legends, Ricky, is that they all originate from one essential truth or another, once you care to research their origins deeply enough. The Lilith legend is no different from any of the others.”

  “So you’re saying Sandra has a greatly extended life span? How is that possible? I can remember when Sandra was only nineteen.”

  “I’m telling you she’s only getting started. She’s only recently sold her soul. If Satan or the others don’t take her life, she might live to an age rivaling Methuselah’s, only she’ll be youthful and beautiful the whole time.”

  “I’ll say it again, Liz. Prove it.”

  Her expression told me she thought she was wasting her time with me. “There are some things,” she explained, “that lie beyond the realm of scientific proof.” She looked down again at the amulet. A yelp of a sob escaped her. I awkwardly put my arm around her. She didn’t pull away.

  “Diaz took me to identify her body,” she wept. “Her beautiful hands.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I know.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

  “It’s probably better that way.” The first rule of comforting someone is agreeing with every statement of theirs—whether you understand or not—except self-condemnation. It was not long in coming.

  “It’s all my fault,” Liz sobbed. “I wanted to wait, she didn’t. It all seemed a little creepy to me, so I was apprehensive, you know?”

  “What was all a little creepy, Liz?”

  “The fertilization process. I didn’t tell you about that, did I?”

  Just then the shopkeeper’s bell over the front door jingled and Diaz strode in. His expression turned curious as soon as he got used to the dim light and found the two of us embracing. His questioning eyes looked me up and down.

  “Your wife said I might find you at the office,” he said.

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Following my instincts.”

  “How is Diane?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve gone out on enough domestic violence calls to know a jealous rage when I see it. You’re probably lucky she’s a Christian woman.” He laughed harshly, then became serious. “Remember what I said, Counselor. About keeping it at home, I mean.”

  “She’s not jealous. She’s just mad over my drinking. So what else did she say?”

  “I did most of the talking,” he said. “You must have a death wish—what with your wife being psychic and all—the way you’ve been acting lately.”

  Liz looked at me quizzically. She tensed, but didn’t pull away from my embrace.

  “Her being a psychic,” Diaz went on, “I asked her whether she’d be interested in working with me on this Madeleine disappearance—runaway—whatever. Boy, she’s really got a bug up her ass about using her powers, doesn’t she?”

  “Why don’t you use a little more respect when you’re talking about my wife?”

  Diaz drew back in mock apprehension. “Touchy, aren’t we? See how it feels, Counselor? Another man talking about your woman’s ass? And hers is a hell of a cute ass, at that. What’s the matter, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

  I flashed on the image of his powerful fingers exploring the contours of Diane’s bare bottom and burned with rage. I wanted to fight him right there in the shop—both of us throwing bare-knuckled haymakers like a Saturday morning western—even though he was taller than me by inches and no doubt in much better shape. Liz made the peace.

  “Boys, boys,” she shouted. “Listen to me. I’ve got a fortune invested in this place, and I’m underinsured as it is. Nobody wants to appraise magic charms and enchanted amulets at market. So let’s both of you be friends, okay? Shake on it! Ricky?”

  I looked away, but reluctantly extended my hand toward him.

  “You, too,” she prodded Diaz. We shook once, then each put our hands in our pockets, as though to protect our goodie bags.

  Liz shook her head. “And you call yourselves professionals.”

  “I was about to say you oughta thank me,” Diaz said amiably. “I tried to take all the heat about last night, telling her how I practically dragged you to the place, about how you protested, et cetera, et cetera. She wasn’t buying it. That’s why I figured it must be a jealous woman-type thing.”

  “What was it you wanted to see me about, John?”

  He looked uncomfortably at Liz. “Maybe we better step outside.” When she began to protest, he added, “This is police business. Nothing personal.”

  Assuring Liz we’d talk more and making her promise to call me whenever she needed anything, whatever the hour, I walked out of the shop with Diaz. We’d barely hit the sidewalk before he said, “I need to take your statement. Officially. It’s for your own good. You’re lucky you were with me last night instead of alone like half the jack-offs in that joint.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Your girlfriend Cheryl turned up dead.”

  Diaz’s car upholstery had been newly shampooed, all traces of Cheryl scrubbed away. A humid washday smell clung to the interior as we sped to the county jail on F Street. Diaz parked in his slot, led me wordlessly to his carrel of an office, and flipped on his computer. He tapped out a few characters on the keyboard before saying, “Maybe four hundred off-duty cops saw the two of you together last night.”

  “What happened to her? How did she die?”

  “I’m calling this one the ‘titties in the trash dumpster’ case. An old codger scrounging for cans this morning found the body in the alley right behind your office building. This time killer stuffed a holy card in the victim’s mouth. Same bloody fingerprint again. There’s another good clue, too: a used Tex-Ass scumbag lying right between those two big severed jugs. She won’t be shaking them for the boys at the Sphincter Club no more. Whoever did this must have paid her, fucked her, and then hacked off her moneymakers.”

  Diaz put together a statement on the word processor, dutifully inserting mid-page mistakes for me to initial, corroborating the fact that I had read through each page. I carefully read, initialed, signed, and dated every damning one. There were five of them. By the time I had finished, I felt like I had just signed my own final divorce papers.

  “You won’t let these get out, you know, and into the wrong hands, will you, John?”

  “You mean, will wifey-poo ever find out how you locked yourself in my car with a known whore and then watched while she wizzed?” He laughed. “Don’t worry. As soon as we identify the DNA in Big Tex’s gism, we’ll have our killer.”

  I could hear my own shallow breathing in the quiet carrel. Diaz seemed to be listening, too, waiting for me to say something.

  “I didn’t kill that woman,” I said at last. He seemed surprised I had spoken, or maybe it was feigned surprise. “I was home all night after you dropped me off. Ask my wife.”

  “I already have,” he said. “Both her and Kokker’s old lady put you at home until well after the body was discovered. Boy, you got some weird scenes going on, I’ll say that for you. Makes me feel like an altar boy by comparison. How do you get away with all of it?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Maybe too lucky.”

>   Telling Diaz I needed fresh air, I walked the few blocks to my car, trying to think. Alibi testimony of family or friends is always suspect. I was down on paper wanting Cheryl to turn a trick for me within hours of her ritual murder by a john. It was my fresh semen in the Tex-Ass rubber I had discarded in that dumpster, carefully wrapped inside a sandwich baggie bearing my fingerprints. I’d left the cops a perfect specimen. Guanine, cytosine, tyrosine, and whatever the fuck the fourth one was—all lining up in precise permutations and combinations—hammering out a bar code with my name on it. Right now, my whole life, my freedom, my dim hopes for the future and the genetic blueprint of all I had been and all I would ever be lay imprisoned in some forensic lab’s test tube like a genie in a bottle ready to draw me down to hell.