Ritual Dreams

by Hadena James

  People who didn’t understand were convinced I must be lonely and depressed. I wasn’t and there was no way for me to explain that those weren’t really things I had ever experienced, not really. I liked my own company and now that my mom was living with me in secure housing, I always had her for company if I felt I had to talk to someone.

  Of course, Nyleena was always a phone call away, Gabriel was my neighbor on one side. Caleb lived on the other side of me. Lucas had a house across from me. Fiona was two doors down and Xavier lived across the street from Gabriel. Malachi lived next door to Fiona. One road in the FGN was dedicated to housing the SCTU. Twelve houses on a street that circled around and ended in a cul-de-sac that backed up to the large prison like stone fence that surrounded our neighborhood. They had hired more than just architectural planners when they rebuilt the neighborhood. They had hired security consultants.

  We lived near the back of the neighborhood, just beyond the tower that housed a central command for the neighborhood, an armory, an apartment building, and offices for the SCTU since we didn’t work out of a US Marshals office nor our own office building. Of course, there was a little office underground with my name on it; I had only been in there two, maybe three, times. Mostly we used the conference rooms, there weren’t enough SCT units that allowed any of us to stay home and work out of an office. Despite the addition of Malachi’s team, we were still out in the field 24 days out of 30. I surmised the offices were for catching serial killers in Kansas City or consulting when we had to be home due to injury and everyone else was out chasing bad guys.

  We shared this office area with a security team, they had little offices like us, none of us worked out of cubicles because the security teams didn’t need to hear or see the gory photographs we dealt with. They needed to be focused on keeping bad guys out of the neighborhood. Since the rebuild, the system hadn’t been tested. We were sort of waiting for Navy SEALS to swarm into the neighborhood one day as a test run of how effective the security was.

  “Do you guys agree with the FBI on any level?” Kimberly asked as we stood next to our cars, ready to head to the hotel room and hopefully get a power nap before another set of bodies were found, because I was sure we would wake up to a new dead couple.

  “Not really,” Lucas shrugged. “You have to understand, they are still running on information gleaned from serial killers in the 1960s and early 1970s. We’ve learned a lot about sociopaths and psychopaths in the last two or three decades. And people like Ace teach us new things every day, she has a unique perspective on serial killers that is incredibly useful. I think back to the abnormal psychology classes I took and realize they were mostly in the dark even when I was taking them, because much like the FBI, they were based on information gleaned from serial killers in the 1960s and 1970s.”

  “Sociopaths and psychopaths tend to be very convincing compulsive liars.” Xavier said. “We have to deal with this issue of Malachi v. Aislinn all the time. Malachi is not exactly a compulsive liar, but he will lie just for fun. Ace tries not to lie because she fears once she starts it won’t stop. We have a third psychopath in the mix that is more like Ace than Malachi and we use him for the tiebreaker opinion if need be.”

  “You remember I am standing right here, right?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “Yes, but do you actually care that I just said that?” He asked. I shrugged, I really didn’t. Kimberly had known I was a sociopath when we were roommates in college. I had told her one evening while we were discussing a psychology project we had to do. We had partnered up for it because as roommates it was easy for us to set aside time to work on it. Plus, we’d been roommates for a couple of months by then and she had seen my temper a few times, and I had felt she deserved an explanation.

  “She has always been unique,” Kimberly smiled, and for a moment I felt like I was in college again. Kimberly and I may not have been best buddies in college or even now, but as a college student that barely had a driver’s license, she had defended me a few times against peers that thought I was weird or teased me for being so young, those sorts of things. I knew that she had gone into criminal justice partly because of me, and just as I had suspected, she had done well.

  “Yes, yes she is.” Lucas responded. “I have learned more about sociopaths and psychopaths from working beside her for the last two years than I have from all my years of professional training.”

  “The other big thing is that the FBI still works with the theory that rape and murder are different crimes. We don’t. Sex is more of a motivator for murder than for rape,” I told her. “When both happen, it is our belief that the killer wanted to control the person and had a sexual attraction to them. The killer rapes them to make them feel powerless and then murders them as an act of sexual gratification.”

  “On top of that, if the killer is a woman, she isn’t raping or sexually assaulting either victim. The acid is punishment for perceived wrongs, not a forensic counter measure.” Fiona told her.

  “Are you all profilers?” Kimberly asked.

  “No, none of us are, really,” Gabriel answered. “Profilers make decisions about a killer’s personality based on what they can learn about the victim and the crime. We don’t care about the personality of the killer. We can all guess that serial killers are white males usually in their late 20s or 30s, but that’s because that’s the group most likely to commit serial murders. Because we don’t profile, our understanding of serial killers is more fluid. The FBI will fight us until we catch the killer about it being a woman, however, a woman is just as likely to be the killer as a male. Perhaps more so since the weapon of choice is acid. We find that in cases of punishment murders, women are more likely to be the perpetrator than men.”

  “We are profilers in our own way,” Xavier said. “It’s hard not to profile a killer. The biggest difference is that profilers seem to latch onto ideas and stick with them regardless of the evidence, and we do not.”

  “Today, during the autopsy, the medical examiner told me I would find no trace evidence under the nails of the victim because the killer seems to subdue them. And I did not find anything under the fingernails, just like he said I wouldn’t, but I don’t believe it is due to chemical sedation and I found no evidence of physical restraint. I think the killer uses psychological restraints to keep the victims from fighting back.”

  “How would you psychologically restrain someone?” Kimberly asked.

  “You’re a mother,” Fiona offered her. “If someone broke into your house and said they were going to kill you and your husband, you’d fight back, until they said they were going to kill you and your husband, but if you fight back they’ll also kill your children.”

  “But the children aren’t home,” Kimberly offered.

  “But if I know where your kids are, that gives me more power. And since this killer is stalking the victims, she would know where the children were for the night.”

  “Yep, that would make it so I didn’t do a lot of fighting back.” Kimberly said.

  “Exactly, I’ve broken in now so that I don’t have to harm your kids, just you and your husband, but the moment you stop listening to me, I kill you, him, and your kids and your kids are at Janet’s house at 1234 Anywhere Road.”

  “Suddenly, I become more cooperative, because for whatever reason I believe her.” Kimberly nodded. “You really think this is a woman?”

  “I do.” I said. “It’s not just the shoes at the other crime scene, it’s the compliance. When a man breaks into the home of a couple, the husband automatically goes into fight mode. Men know what to do when that happens. These husbands don’t go into protective mode. They become submissive. There has to be a reason for it and the only one I came up with is the killer isn’t a man and men are socially programed not to hurt a woman, even one threatening them, because they are bigger and stronger than women.”

  “Meaning the dynamic would change if she broke into a house where the husband was abusive towards his wife,” K
imberly said.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Abusive males abuse their wives because they think of them as property. It’s the only thing that keeps them from becoming abusive towards their kid’s daycare teacher or girl scout leader.” Lucas offered up. “Although, an uninvited intruder might be different, it mostly depends on the man. Some men think anything that crosses their threshold is fair game to be their punching bags and others don’t.”

  “I’m glad you guys were willing to come. The FBI hasn’t been all that helpful. She’s been here nearly two weeks and we are no closer to stopping the killings than we were before she arrived.”

  “Why did she arrive so early?” Gabriel asked.

  “Because a newspaper actually received a warning from the killer three weeks ago.” Kimberly said. “The entire case has crazy written all over it. Three months ago, someone ran over a lady in a parking lot and then sped away. Someone caught it on video with their smart phone. The lady was a bishop at the Church of the Disciples of the Fallen. They are a very small breakaway sect of the Temple of the Rising Sun. Not many members, maybe thirty total. But they are members of the two big pagan unity groups the Satanic Coalition and the Goddess Movement, which means they are small, but they have clout. A few days later, someone calling themselves Stop Satanic Rituals distributed pamphlets about systemic child molestation and sacrifice near all the pagan churches and temples around town. They absolutely plastered the front door of the Way of Light with the pamphlets. The Way of Light is the only Wiccan sect in town with a physical church. We investigated because the pamphlet took credit for the hit and run that killed the bishop, and it carried a threat that more Satanists would die if they didn’t stop practicing child sacrifice and sexual abuse.”

  “Wiccans aren’t Satanists,” I interrupted. “They would be part of the Goddess Movement not the Satanic Coalition.”

  “That would be correct. The Way of Light did organize the Goddess Movement group. Satanists are big on helping the community. The Goddess Movement does the same thing with religions that worship nature and goddess” Kimberley said. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah. The only thing is, aside from the Temple of the Rising Sun, we have never received complaints of sexual abuse or child sacrifice against any of our Satanist groups. With the death of the former leader of the Temple of the Rising Sun, they have really cleaned up their act. They even burned their old headquarters down and moved here to start over. We didn’t find anything, not really. The car that was used was stolen and found burnt in a swamp in Miami. Without leads except the video, where you can’t even see the driver of the car, the investigation went cold and we didn’t find any evidence to support the claims that there was child sacrifice or sexual abuse happening in any of the organized groups, including the breakaway sects. The only thing we came up with was a couple that hadn’t paid taxes in nearly a decade. I mean we dug into every aspect of the lives of the known Satanists in the area. We didn’t even find any evidence of physical abuse in the homes we investigated. As strange as it sounds, the pagans pretty much police themselves. Also, we have a very low rate of runaways and missing children, so where they would get the victims for their child sacrifices is beyond our comprehension. They try very hard to be transparent in their practices. We know there are sacrificial days; on those days they usually hold big outdoor ceremonies in parks with animal rights activists protesting from beyond a police border, because they will sacrifice a goat or big or cow and then roast it there in the park and feed everyone. They encourage the homeless and poor and down on their luck to come eat with them. Sacrifice days turn into feast days. Members bring sides and they feed the hungry and homeless and poor on those days to prove they aren’t doing things like sacrificing children.”

  “That sounds useful,” Lucas said.

  “It is. The thing is, since most pagans are persecuted against in much of the country, they do their best to be beneficial to the community here, where we don’t care much about their religious leanings.”

  “Even Wiccans,’ Fiona added dryly.

  “Yep, Wiccans, Satanists, Alienists, Druids, they all do their best to help the city in every aspect. And they don’t recruit. You aren’t going to see a bunch of guys and gals with pamphlets knocking on doors to tell the teachings of their religion around here. They have an open-door policy, members can join and leave as they see fit. But those are the organized ones. We have a couple of cults that aren’t as law abiding or community oriented. We tried to investigate them, but they are harder to talk to. The reason we were able to dig into the lives of the Satanists and Pagans we did investigate was because we went to the churches and asked if we could. Nearly every member signed a consent form to be investigated, even the couple that hadn’t paid taxes in a decade.”

  “What about those that didn’t?” Lucas asked.

  “We only had five or so people that didn’t agree out of the thousands in town.” Kimberly answered. “Their failure to agree was enough for us to get warrants. However, it appears the reason they didn’t agree was because they didn’t want to be outed as Satanists. None of them had anything more than a parking ticket. No domestic abuse calls. No investigations by child services. One was a cop and his wife who told me he said no simply because he didn’t appreciate being wrapped up in such a wide net and I can’t say I blame him for it.”

  “That’s impressive.” Lucas said. “They were probably urged to cooperate by church leaders.”

  “I have no doubt.” Kimberly said. “The thing is, Satanists in this town are like everyone else. They go to church, whatever church they want, they go to baseball games, they go to football games, they participate in their kids’ PTA, they work, they spend money locally, they are everyday people. And most of them are scared that someone is targeting them. Being a Satanist is like being Jewish or Catholic.”

  “Or a witch doctor,” Kimberly’s husband spoke up. “There are more than two hundred religions practiced in Tallahassee. The thing is, our Satanist population is the largest in the country and it grows all the time. We constantly have people moving here because they know that they are free to practice whatever religion they want, and no one cares. It’s what makes the city unique and different, and quite honestly a great place to raise kids. We live in an FGN, just like you guys, one of our neighbors is a DEA agent that asked to be transferred here because he and his wife are practicing pagans. They aren’t Satanists, but if they were, they would still be our next-door neighbors and we would still get together with them for barbecues and our kids would still be allowed to go over there for sleepovers. They know my father is a practicing Haitian Vodun and yet they invite my father over for their barbecues.”

  “We have the same problems as most big cities, crime rates that are too high, murders every couple of days, but they are rarely motivated by hate.” Kimberly stopped talking and took a breather. “I don’t think we’re explaining this very well.”

  “Yes, you are,” Lucas responded. “You are saying you don’t fear the pagan community around here because the people that make it up are just regular people, and if someone is perpetrating these crimes because they hate Satanists, it’s because of a lack of understanding or for perceived crimes, not real ones, and even though that shouldn’t matter, it does, because at any moment they could switch from targeting Satanists to targeting Wiccans or Baptists or some other random group for perceived crimes they haven’t actually committed.”

  “Exactly,” Kimberly’s husband agreed.

  “What happened after the pamphlet drop?” Gabriel asked, getting Kimberly’s story back on track.

  “Oh yes, after the pamphlet plastering on the Wiccan church we have here, and the investigation that went cold, nothing happened for about a week. Then someone set fire to one of the Satanic Temples. The arson investigator said the arsonist didn’t know much about fire. They threw some paint thinner on the building and lit a match. The fire did some localized damage to the exterior wall, but that was it. The investigator said mostly the fumes of the pain
t thinner were lit, not the actual paint thinner. So, all the damage that was done was some melted vinyl siding that didn’t catch fire. If the paint thinner had caught fire, the vinyl siding would have caught fire.

  The arson inspector got a manifesto with the Stop Satanists logo on it. It was turned over to us and we found a few partial fingerprints, but not enough to run through a general database. The manifesto talked about all the harm that Satanists were doing to children and how if they didn’t stop having services they would all be killed and that the fire and the killing of the bishop were just the beginning, that more Satanists would die until they stopped holding services. Again, we investigated but we didn’t get anywhere. The invisible to the naked eye printer encoding listed it as an Epson printer, but it’s a mass manufactured printer available at most physical and online stores that sell printers. The markings did match it to the printer that sent the letter to the newspaper. We suspected the person wanted recognition, although we weren’t sure what for. We didn’t believe there were a group of citizens organized against the Satanists in town.”

  “Again, it went cold and since it didn’t hurt anyone it wasn’t a priority,” Fiona added.

  “Exactly. We had a nutjob running around trying to make us think they were big and important and part of a group, but we were sure it was a lone guy with an axe to grind. We looked into every criminal and civil case in the last few years filed against Satanists and Satanist church groups, but we didn’t find anything that seemed like it was relevant.” Kimberly said. “So, another few weeks passed and nothing happened, and then someone set a parking lot full of cars on fire. Again, the accelerant was paint thinner. But this time they waited for the paint thinner to settle on the surfaces and start evaporating before they set it on fire. It did a better job of starting a fire. It was a sacrifice day and the cars were parked at a bank near a park where the Temple of the Rising Sun was conducting their annual hog sacrifice and roast. It’s the biggest sacrifice day of the year and the temple sacrifices a hog, five goats, and lots of vegetables. It isn’t just this one temple, it is a world-wide Satanic sacrifice day, so all the Satanic churches offer sacrifices that day and all the parks fill up as a result. We bring in the Florida Highway patrol as well the US Marshals and the Secret Service to help us control protestors on these days, because while the city sees it as doing good, not everyone in the world is so like-minded, there are animal rights activists, Other religious groups come to protest the event. It is considered a family event. There are poverty thresholds, you can get a voucher from one of the food banks or homeless centers in town for you and your family to eat free or it’s $4 per person with children eating free. The money collected gets donated to local charities.”