Unholy

by Bill Bennett

  Kevin turned and looked down the corridor at the goat and the boar, their eyes blazing yellow and red, and an involuntary shiver of terror rifled through his body. He had never before experienced such an embodiment of evil.

  ‘Are you ready?’ she asked him.

  He turned back to her and nodded.

  She began.

  She looked to the creatures and called out, ‘Let us adore the Lord of the Universe and of all Space and Dark Matter, and Whom Nature hath not formed.’

  All the animals responded – the snakes hissed, the birds screeched and squawked, the foxes and coyotes howled, the deer and elk bellowed and stamped the ground with their hooves. Only the goat and the boar were silent. They stood still at the head of the hall, as if the cacophony was directed towards them.

  Slowly the noise died down.

  Kritta continued. She turned to Kevin. ‘Candidate, I purify thee with water.’ She picked up the Coke container and threw its foul contents over his body. She then walked over to the fire, picked up a burning stick of wood, brought it back to him. ‘I consecrate thee with fire.’ She thrust the flaming torch onto his chest. It was all Kevin could do not to scream in pain. She threw the wood back into the fire.

  ‘Inheritor of a Dying World,’ Kritta said to him so all the creatures in the clearing could hear, ‘why seekest thou to enter the Sacred Hall? Why seekest thou admission to our Hallowed Order?’ Then, whispered to Kevin, ‘Say after me …’ She again raised her voice. ‘My soul wanders in darkness and seeks the Dawn of Hidden Knowledge.’

  Kevin repeated the words, his voice wavering in pain from the burns to his chest.

  ‘Now I ask you, are you ready to take a solemn obligation in the presence of this assembly to keep the secrets and mysteries of our Order Inviolate?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kevin.

  ‘Say “I am”,’ Kritta whispered to him.

  ‘I am,’ Kevin said louder.

  ‘And are you ready to take this oath of the novitiate, that will bind you till your last dying breath?’

  ‘I am.’ Kevin was now shivering, unsure whether it was with cold or with fear.

  ‘Then you will kneel on both your knees before me.’

  Kevin knelt on both knees. He looked up to Kritta, who picked up the triangle of crisped toad’s skin from the altar.

  ‘Both hands,’ she said quietly, and placed the toad’s skin, the wafer, into his cupped hands. ‘Now bow your head, and say after me, I, Candidate Kevin Johnstone …’ Kevin repeated the words. ‘In the presence of the Lord of the Universe and all Dark Matter, who works in silence and whom naught but silence can express …’ Kevin said the words. ‘… do by my own free will hereto and hereon, solemnly swear to keep secret this Order, its name and its proceedings, its rituals and ceremonies, the names of its members and the contents of its writings and scriptures …’ Again, Kevin repeated what she said. ‘… and I solemnly promise never to debase my mystical knowledge of evil magic in any time or under any temptation …’ Kevin made the promise. ‘And if I break this, my sworn oath and obligation, then I submit myself to a stream of power set in motion by the Divine Guardians of this Sacred Order, who live in the Shadows of their Perfect Justice.’ Kevin said the words.

  Kritta then lowered her voice and said to him quietly, ‘Now open your mouth and put out your tongue.’ Kevin opened his mouth and extended his tongue. Kritta put the triangular wafer of crispy toad skin on his tongue. ‘Swallow,’ she said, and Kevin swallowed, then he gagged. But he swallowed again and swallowed the toad skin.

  ‘Now stand and turn and face the Masters of the Hall,’ she said, again quietly. Kevin got to his feet, turned to see the two lines of creatures staring back at him, and at the far end, standing regally, were the horned goat and the tusked boar, their eyes glinting in the dancing firelight.

  Kritta rapped hard on the altar. ‘The candidate seeks for entrance to the degree of novitiate. Admit thee …’

  All the creatures on the line bellowed and bayed and hissed and screeched. The goat and the boar looked on, implacably.

  ‘Vast and Mighty One,’ Kritta called out. ‘Lord of all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be, Beast of the Night and Lamb of the Dawn, accept this candidate into the Degree of Novitiate of the Golden Order of Baphomet.’

  The goat suddenly brayed and the boar let out a high-pitched squeal. Kevin, with Kritta prompting him from behind, began to walk down the corridor between all the woodland creatures, walking towards the goat and the boar.

  ‘Look with favour on this novitiate,’ Kritta called out, walking one step behind Kevin, ‘and grant Thine aid unto the higher aspirations of his soul, so that he may prove a true and faithful servant among us.’

  Again the goat brayed, again the boar squealed.

  Kevin walked up so that he was just a few feet from the two Masters of the Hall.

  ‘Kneel,’ Kritta whispered, and Kevin knelt before the two hellish creatures.

  ‘Inheritor of a Dying World, we call thee to the Rule of No Rule, that thou mayest wander in the Halls of Wild Darkness, and furnish thine soul with all that thou lusts and desires.’

  She turned him around, thrust the toad’s heart into his mouth. ‘Eat,’ she commanded him. And he ate. And then she mounted him, and as the line of woodland animals formed a circle around them as they coupled, and as they screeched and howled and bellowed their delight to the night, and as the goat and the boar turned and slunk back into the shadows, Kevin Johnstone became a novitiate in a heartfelt cry of ecstasy.

  CHAPTER 21

  Randolph Chapman Waterstone the Third, Louisiana District Attorney, swivelled in his handmade turn-of-the-century mahogany and leather chair and stared at a large map of the United States on a far wall, framed in cedar with gold inlay. Beside it was a United States flag, a relic from the Civil War, so they said. It was certainly very old. On the other side of his office door was a large framed print of the constellations. Chappy, as he was known to Mary, his wife of thirty-two years, loved his astronomy. Almost as much as he loved politics. Almost as much as he loved bespoke suits and Italian hand-tooled brogues.

  Chappy was tall, fit still in his advancing years, with silver hair and long elegant fingers which he often steepled as he contemplated. Chappy liked to contemplate. He liked to think things through. He had the chiselled looks of a daytime soap star and a smile that his advisors said was his best electoral asset. It was a smile you could trust, they told him. And a lot of people trusted Chappy Waterstone.

  There was a respectful knock on the door and, without waiting for him to respond, in walked Tammy, his executive assistant. Tammy was the only one he allowed to do that – to walk right in on him. She was twenty-eight, yoga slim, with dark hair and molten-honey eyes. She still drew his attention after more than two years working together. But at times, he had his suspicions about her. Why would such a beautiful young woman be attracted to an old man with a BMI more than it should be? Power, he guessed. All women gravitated towards power. And he had plenty of power.

  ‘They’re waiting downstairs, Chappy,’ she said. ‘It’s a big turnout. Everyone’s there.’

  ‘Good, thanks Tammy,’ he said. He’d decided to run for governor, after numerous calls to do so from the party elite and with the support of several wealthy donors. He’d organised a press conference to announce his standing and it was sure to make lead story in the news cycles as soon as it broke.

  Tammy nodded and turned to go, then turned back to him. ‘Are we on tonight again?’ she asked, less with her voice, more with her eyes.

  Chappy hesitated. ‘I can’t tonight, Tam,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go away in a few days and I’ve got a buckletload of work to get through.’

  Tammy pulled a cute pouty face.

  Chappy laughed.

  ‘Perhaps for an hour or two,’ he conceded.

  Tammy pulled a cute happy face.

  Chappy laughed even louder.

  ‘Now get out of here,’ he said
. ‘Let me prepare. I’ve got to wow them downstairs.’

  ‘Just smile,’ Tammy said. ‘You’ll win the ladies’ vote.’ She grinned, then briskly walked out.

  Chappy Waterstone turned to his laptop. He quit out of his office profile and opened up his secret profile. Highly encrypted and protected by a lock spell that not even the FBI or NSA could crack, this hidden partition of his hard drive contained all his correspondence with the Inner Sanctum, and with the Centrum himself. As Grand Master of the Northern Quadrant of the Golden Order of Baphomet, Chappy Waterstone had to keep in regular contact with Budapest, especially since Unholy was now so close. Only a few more days.

  The Fallen Priest had the Maguire woman safely hidden in the Deep Sink Mine, but the Collector was having difficulty loosening her soul in preparation for the extraction. She was proving to be more tenacious than they’d thought. That’s why it was so important that the Kredlich girl get the Cygnet Book of Light to the mine as quickly as possible. Perhaps within its pages they would find a spell or practice or ritual that might help.

  The Kredlich operative had lied to him on the phone. He knew that she’d been to the Needle to try and kill the Maguire woman’s daughter, that she’d used one of her familiars, and that she’d failed – and wasted precious time. He’d mete out her punishment later, after she’d delivered the book to the Mine. Perhaps after Unholy. There was no hurry. He had more important things to deal with other than a lying scheming priestess hell-bent on leapfrogging her way up the Baphomet hierarchy.

  The state fair was coming up and everything was in readiness. He’d instructed Snowboy to create maximum outrage. To get maximum coverage. It would be carnage. And it would be a media spectacle. Snowboy would capture it all on his phone and feed it to the news sources later. Most importantly, though, it would keep everyone away from the main game, which was Unholy.

  Then there was Dr Skinless, who was now in Florida chasing down a lead. If the Hag ever thought she had a chance of escaping the retribution that was due to her, then she’d soon be made aware that no one, no matter what their past status, could be allowed to break their solemn vows and not pay the ultimate price.

  Dr Skinless had discovered that the old witch had fled with a protégé, a young and talented initiate named Belt. The Inner Sanctum for some reason had been grooming Belt for greater things, he’d discovered when going through her file. And there was no doubt she had an extraordinary gift – highly evolved innate skills for someone so young – and perhaps the Hag wherever she might be was honing those skills. Developing the young girl’s potency. Whatever the case, Skinless would find them. And when he did, he would do what he does best when he hunts down prey.

  Chappy smiled at the thought of it.

  And then there was Ganglia – the major disturbance they were planning after Unholy. The Centrum and the Inner Sanctum had high hopes for Ganglia. They’d been working on it for years, with the help of Mother – Father Beast. It had been His and Her idea from the start, born in the Palace of Fires. How appropriate, Chappy thought, and chuckled. Fire on fire. It would be a major disruptor, the first real step towards the breakdown of social order that was the primary goal in the Golden Order’s mission statement. To create Hell on Earth.

  He updated the Centrum via the dark net, shut down his computer, walked over to an antique wardrobe and pulled out a cream silk sports jacket. From a drawer he took out a dusky pink handkerchief that matched his tie perfectly. He tucked it into the jacket’s breast pocket, then walked to the door. He went to turn the brass doorknob and stopped, and thought about what was to come. He would win the election, he would become governor, he had no doubt about that. Just another step towards what he really wanted, which was to become president. President of the United States. Now wouldn’t that be grand, he thought. The most powerful country on the planet, run by a witch.

  He laughed.

  He skipped down the winding marble staircase, and looked at the throng of media that waited for him below. He stopped, several stairs above them, and he smiled. The smile they all trusted. And immediately he heard that sound that he loved so much – the sound of cameras whirring and clicking.

  CHAPTER 22

  He was tired, she knew that. He’d slept the night in a small plastic motel room chair. It must have been horribly uncomfortable. He’d gallantly refused to share the double bed with her, even though she’d offered. She’d laid down some strict rules with the offer: like each keeping to their own side of the bed, if one of them snored the other had to wake them and the most important rule of all – no farting.

  They laughed at that one.

  Even so, Skyhawk had chosen the chair, which in fact he’d put in the bathroom, in the shower, to give her complete privacy. Except for when she wanted to use the toilet in the middle of the night, then he vacated the bathroom, waited for her, then when she was done he got back into the shower, sat down again on his small plastic chair and tried to get back to sleep.

  She’d told him he was being stupid, that if he slept in the bed then he’d get a decent night’s rest, which was what he needed, what with the big drive ahead tomorrow. He’d thanked her, graciously, then had gone back into the shower, to the plastic chair and closed the door behind him.

  They headed off early the next morning, and after breakfast they stopped at a clothing store in a small town off the interstate. Lily wanted to buy herself a pair of properly fitting jeans, and a couple of t-shirts and a jacket. Much as she’d enjoyed wearing Skyhawk’s clothes and breathing in the faint scent of him, revelling in the thought that her body was touching the same fabrics that his had touched, she needed to regain her own identity.

  But what was that identity?

  She was now a witch. An initiated witch. She was a fundamentally different person to the one that left the farm with her mom that Saturday morning to go sell their produce at the Mill Valley farmers’ market. That was another lifetime ago. A different lifetime to the one she was now living.

  Should she buy a pair of boots? She’d always worn boots – her precious Blundstones. She liked that they were heavy and rugged. She’d always felt that if her feet were protected, even in ninety-degree heat, then she would be protected. Wearing flip-flops to Lily was like wearing a bikini into a warzone. She needed Kevlar. She needed boots. But she’d been wrong. Her boots hadn’t stopped her getting attacked, hadn’t kept those biker witches at bay. Lily hadn’t realised that for most of her life, she’d lived in fear. The boots were a representation of that fear. Of her need to guard herself against the cruelties of a harsh and unjust world that would rip her father out of her life, that would take her mother from her, that would leave her alone, vulnerable, threatened.

  Embracing fear wouldn’t fix anything. She knew that now. It would only attract more fear. And more fear would leave her powerless, moribund, impotent. Lily knew that she could fight whatever stepped forward, but only if she rid herself of fear and pulled from her inner power as a woman. Yes, a woman. Not a girl anymore, a woman. She had become an aspect of the Goddess Artemis – the warrior, the defender, the righter of wrongs. It was wrong they took her mom. And she would right that wrong, no matter what the personal cost.

  She bought herself a pair of sandals and left the store.

  Since the initiation she’d felt different, somehow. She felt more aware, more conscious of everything around her. It was subtle, but ever since she’d taken those vows in the cave and become an initiated member of Cygnet, she felt she was undergoing some kind of molecular change; as though each strand of her DNA was retooling, reconfiguring, to make her stronger, more capable, more powerful. She felt more sensitive to scents and sounds too, and to light and shade, to a breeze on her skin, an aroma, a distant bird call or dog bark. Somehow she felt … animal. All her senses felt heightened.

  Is this what it feels like to be a witch?

  She felt proud, too. Proud of her heritage. Proud of her ancestry. Proud that she’d come from a long line of women who’d sto
od up for what was right, for what was good in the world, who’d fought evil in all its basest forms. Just like her mom had done.

  Tears suddenly pricked Lily’s eyes. Her mom wasn’t dead yet. So why had she thought of her in the past tense? There was still a good chance they could find her and save her from this obscene sacrificial killing.

  I have to keep believing, she thought. Because if I lose faith, then she will surely die.

  As she walked back to the car with Skyhawk she felt the stinging bees in her hand again. She quickly looked around, wondering if Kritta and her two girlfriends had followed them – but all she saw was an elderly man further down the street, walking out of a deli with a bag of groceries. From a distance he seemed vaguely familiar. He walked over to his parked car, around to the driver’s side, and as he was about to hop in he turned, and looked directly at her – as if he’d somehow felt her energetically scoping him. The look was casual and fleeting, and then he hopped in his car and drove off.

  Lily watched as the car turned onto the main road heading out of town. She’d seen that car somewhere before. A maroon-coloured Lexus SUV. But where? Back in Mill Valley? At school? She summoned up her photo-brain. She called it her photo-brain but really it was a highly trained process of memory recall that had been instilled in her from a very young age by her father. He’d essentially taught her how to develop a photographic memory, which at the time she thought was just a cool game they played, but later she realised he’d been training her to remember the tiniest detail as part of an overall discreet schooling of defence and attack skills.

  Using that photo-brain, she immediately remembered. She’d seen that exact same Lexus at the farmers’ markets each Saturday. It belonged to Dr Lindsay Johnstone, the retired cosmetic surgeon who’d shown a romantic interest in her mom on several occasions. Kevin Johnstone’s father.