Four
Father Anthony walked into the police
precinct and up to the desk sergeant. “Hello, I’m here to meet Special Agent
Powell. My name is Anthony Gonzalez.”
The officer checked his computer before telling the priest, “Agent
Powell is waiting for you. Follow me, Father.”
Anthony followed the cop deep into the building, passing a slew of
desks and offices to an interrogation room. The officer knocked on the door and
announced that the priest had arrived. The FBI agent jumped up when Anthony
entered the room, shook his hand and said, “Father, it’s so good to see you
again.”
“Hello, Bill,” Anthony returned warmly. “How’s your family?”
“Oh, the wife is doing fine,” Powell replied. “Having a little trouble
with my oldest—he’s going through his rebellious stage. He’s staying out too
late, arguing with his mother and me. You know, the usual.”
“I’m sure he’ll outgrow it.”
“Thank you again for coming down, Father. You know how much I
appreciate your input.”
“Any time,” Anthony said.
“Let me introduce you to some of the members of my taskforce.” Powell quickly rattled off the names of his
fellow agents: “This is John Chang, Caitlin Casey and Melissa Banks.” The three were dressed in similar colors to
Powell, as if they were following some kind of guideline on approved colors. Powell
then introduced the other two people left in the room. “And this is Detective
Hinton and Lieutenant Larson of the Phoenix PD.”
After greeting each of them in turn, Anthony asked, “What is it that
you want me to look at, Bill?”
Powell asked Anthony to take a seat at the table. He then set a manila
folder in front of the priest. Anthony slid on his glasses and opened the
folder, revealing a thick stack of crime scene photographs. The picture on top
showed a red pentagram painted on a wall.
“I take it that’s blood?”
“Yes,” said Powell.
Anthony returned to examining the photo. At the very edge of the
picture, he saw what appeared to be a fragment of broken furniture. He set the
first photo down and held the second one up close to his face to scrutinize it.
This one came from the same scene judging by the fact the wall was the same
color as the first picture. This photo had three smaller pentagrams along with
a number of symbols all painted with blood. Along with examining the symbols,
he noted the massive amounts of damage to the wall. There was a huge hole
punched in the drywall just underneath the pentagrams. He placed that photo
next to the first and examined a third photo.
For the next ten minutes, Anthony studied over four dozen photos. Each
one showed pentagrams and symbols painted in blood. Besides the symbols, he saw
shattered furniture and holes punched into walls. He took mental notes of
everything he saw. He would have liked to see the rest of the crime scene
photos in order to see everything. However, he knew from past experiences
dealing with the police as an occult specialist, they would only offer
fragments of information. Not only to protect their investigation, but to
protect the experts from seeing the rest of the gory images. Once he had gone
through all the pictures, he spread them out before him on the tabletop. He
looked over them again for a few more seconds, letting the combined images sink
into his brain. Finally, he spoke. Pointing to the various symbols, he said,
“These mean power, death, strength and evil.”
He indicated the pentagram and added, “I don’t think I need to tell you
what this means. I can assume that whoever painted these did not use them in
the manner Wiccans do. Wiccans don’t paint pentagrams in blood, inverted or not.
It’s clear they drew these believing in the Christian and Satanic connotation
of the symbol.”
“Thank you very much, Father,” Powell said. “That’s what we thought
they meant.”
“That being said, I don’t think you’re dealing with true Satan
worshipers.”
Knitting his brow, the Federal agent asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, the symbols come from different languages. Some are Sanskrit,
some Celtic, and one of them is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. Also, the
meaning for the symbol of power doesn’t fit in with the rest. The definition of
the symbol refers to the power of fertility: both in regards to sexual
fertility and the fertility of one’s crops. It doesn’t make sense in context
with the other words, not with death and evil.
“There is a chance they are Satan worshipers and that they just grabbed
a bunch of symbols off the internet thinking they would mean something in some
sort of ritual,” he explained further. “But I would say that the people who
painted the symbols didn’t actually believe them.”
“So are you saying you think the symbols are a ruse?” asked Detective
Hinton.
“Possibly. But as I said, there’s still a chance that they are Satan
worshipers. Just some uninformed Satan worshipers. I could ask around
and do some research if you like to see if there are any new groups in the
area.”
Hinton along with some of the FBI agents were stunned.
“I have a number of friends who know I’m interested in the occult,” he
explained with a chuckle. “I admit it’s a bit morbid.” Shrugging his shoulders, he grinned. “It’s a
hobby. My friends send me any newspaper clippings and also tell me of all the
rumors they hear.”
“That would be very helpful, Father.”
Powell reached into his jacket and pulled out his business card. “If you
find out any information I would truly appreciate you contacting me.”
“Of course.” Father Anthony took
the offered card, wished them luck in their investigation and left.
Anthony rushed back to St. Andrew’s and a quarter hour later, he called
an emergency meeting with his fellow Georgies. Reidy, Giselle, Matthew, Edwin
and Luke gathered around a large table in one of St. Andrew’s larger offices. Anthony
described his meeting with the FBI. He told them he assumed the photos had come
from several different crimes scenes and that each one had various symbols
painted on the walls in the victims’ own blood more likely than not. He also
told them about the other things he saw. “Everything that I could see was
broken and shattered like they were made of papier-mâché. I saw a few holes in
walls, a number of pieces of destroyed furniture and whatnot.”
“Do you think something supernatural is behind this?” asked Father Luke.
The old man was half slumped over in his chair. His gnarled hand held onto the
handle of his cane tightly.
“From what little I saw, I would say that is a distinct possibility. For
a normal man to do that amount of damage he would need large power tools if not
heavy machines. Otherwise, they’d have to have supernatural strength. If I were
to guess with what little information I have right now, I’d say they were using
a monster to kill these people. The brutality and destruction leads me to think
this is what happened.”
“Could the photos you saw be connected to that string of home invasions
we’ve heard about in the news?” asked Giselle.
“Yes, I’m almost positive they were,” he said. “Judging from the décor
in the pictures, I’d say they came from several different houses. Also, I did a
little bit of research and mapped out the reported areas of the home
invasions,” Anthony paused and pulled a map from his briefcase. He unfolded it
and showed it to everyone at the table. There, on the map of the city of
Phoenix and the surrounding areas, was a pentagram. “The red dots are the
locations of the four home invasions. On a hunch, I drew a pentagram based on
these locations.”
“Whoever’s doing this is hitting homes in a pentagram pattern?” Matthew
asked.
“It seems so,” replied Anthony. “Three of the home invasions coincide
with three of the five inner points where the lines of the star converge while
the fourth is one of the points of the star.
“Seeing that the murderers drew pentagrams at the crime scenes and the
locations seem to be laid out in a pentagram, I have very little doubt that the
photos I saw today aren’t linked to the string of home invasions.”
“Are they trying to send a message, to scare people?” asked Edwin.
“It could be. But I’m not certain.”
“Could they be trying some sort of ritual?” Giselle asked. “Are they
trying to raise a demon or something?”
“Again, it’s a possibility.”
Father Luke thought for a moment before stating, “There’s a chance—a
slim one—this is still a mundane case. We should investigate. If it turns out
in fact to be mundane in nature, we’ll give our findings to the police in the
form of an anonymous tip and let them deal with it. But if it’s as Father
Anthony suspects, we’ll handle it.
“Brother Edwin,” he said, turning to the portly man, “I want you to
hack into the police department’s computers and try to get everything they have
on the cases.”
Edwin pulled a laptop computer from his briefcase and opened it. Often,
the Georgies would need to view confidential police reports. To access these
reports, Edwin had hacked into the police department’s mainframe and set-up a
backdoor program which allowed him access to their files whenever he wished. After
a moment of typing, he announced, “Here we go,” and began reading the
highlights of the reports aloud. “So far four places have been hit that they
know of… Either they haven’t come to the conclusion the murderers are choosing
their victims to draw a pentagram or they haven’t put it in their notes on the
computer… There’s no official body count
because they’ve only been able to find fragments of the victims… they’re
working under the assumption that a large dog or group of dogs ate them… and
they believe it’s a gang of Satanists that have a bunch of dogs.
“Hmm,” Edwin uttered, “… this is odd.”
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“Well, the police are a little baffled,” he began to explain. “It seems
there are no witnesses. No one heard or saw a thing at any of the crime
scenes.”
“Seeing how much damage was done to the homes, there must have been a
heck of a racket, not to mention the victim’s screams,” Reidy submitted.
“But nobody heard a peep,” clarified Edwin. He continued in his
summary, adding, “One of the places that was hit last night was an assisted
living apartment building. They have a staff nurse and a security guard on
overnight as well as a security system with video cameras. The cops have done
an initial viewing of the video, but apparently no one entered or exited the
building last night.”
“Magic could be involved. It could’ve been a spell to hide them from
sight and one to deaden any sounds they made,” speculated Anthony.
“Didn’t you say they used the wrong symbols?” asked Reidy. “If they
couldn’t understand ancient symbols, wouldn’t that imply they couldn’t be able
to cast spells?”
“There’s a chance they could’ve stumbled on a magic book. Or they could
be using the symbols to throw off any investigation.”
Luke said, “We need to find out as much as we can about this. Edwin,
research the victims and see if they have any connection to one another or if
these murders are just random. Tom, I want you to ask your contacts and see if
they know anything about Satanists using magic lately.”
“Got it,” said Reidy.
“The rest of us will hit the archives and see if we can find anything
about rituals using a string of murders,” Luke concluded.
Reidy walked out of the conference room and made his way out of the
church. The moment he stepped out in the parking lot, he pulled his phone out
of his pocket and began browsing through his contact list. Selecting the entry
labeled Aunt Ellen, he hit the talk button. His Aunt Ellen was a
flower child stuck in the sixties and when Reidy enlisted in the Marines, the
peace loving Ellen disowned him. Not that it really affected him. He had never
been close to his mother’s older sister. In fact, the only time he spoke with
his aunt since he was fifteen was the terse phone call she made to tell him of
her decision to sever all ties with him because he joined the military. It
wasn’t Ellen’s number on his phone. He had no idea where she lived much less
what her phone number was. Her name was used solely as a cover.
“Well, hello there, Tom-Tom,” a man’s jovial voice sounded through the
cellphone.
“Hello, Gary.” Reidy used
Ellen’s name to hide the identity of this man. If any of his teammates happened
to see Gary’s name in his contact list, they would be furious. The Order of St.
George did not tolerate people like Gary.
“It’s been ages, Tom-Tom,” Gary said with a musical lilt. “How are
you?”
“Fine, how’re you?”
“You’re just asking out of courtesy. You’re not really interested in
how I’m doing.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Reidy
opened the door to his car and climbed in. “I need to know what kind of spells
can be used to make something or someone invisible. Also, one that could mask
any sound made so no one could hear them.”
“So direct and honest. That’s why I like you Tom-Tom.” Reidy could hear the happy smile in Gary’s
voice. “Well, I could perform four spells right now that could do what you want.
With a little time and some invocations from my books, I could do another six
or so. In total though, I think they’re hundreds of spells that can make people
invisible and hide any noise they make. I can’t give you an exact number.”
Reidy started the car. “Is there any spell that can counter those?”
“Sure, there’re loads of them. Of course, they won’t help unless you
know what spell you want to counter. The spells are… very specific in what
spells they can and can’t affect.”
“Damn,” he cursed.
“Is there some beastie that you can’t see?” Gary asked, teasingly. “Do
you want to hunt it down and kill it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Hmm, let me think about it,” the man said and began humming. “Maybe
there’s something I could whip up for you. It won’t be perfect, but it might
work.”
“Thanks, Gary.”
“I’ll give you a call when it’s ready. T. T. F. N.”
***
Reidy parked the car in front of Macabre Emporium. Most magic and
occult stores sold nothing more than harmless bric-a-brac—benign and innocent
junk. There were a handful of stores that actually dealt with true magic, not
just burning incense and empowerment-self-help-books. Macabre Emporium was one
such place and was the fourth real magic and occult shop Reidy had visited that
day. So far, he had learned nothing. None of his contacts who dealt with actual
spells and magic had heard anything useful.
He entered the shop and was greeted with a sight he had seen too much
that day—black drapes, black carpet, black furniture, black walls and black
shelves. For once, he’d like to enter an occult shop that had a tiny splash of
color. Littered throughout the store were wands, crystal balls, books and a
number of squishy items in jars of various shapes and sizes. At the counter,
Macabre Emporium’s owner was helping two young women.
“Hello, Barney,” Reidy called out, looking over the two women at
the owner.
The man’s smile faltered and his eye twitched a little. Quickly, he
handed the women their change and said, “Thank you for coming by.”
The women passed by Reidy as he asked, “How’s business, Barney.”
“I told you never call me that!
It’s Barnabas! My name is Barnabas,
damn it!”
“Yeah, if you wanted to give yourself an exotic name, why’d you settle
for Barnabas?” Reidy asked, dismissing the man’s demands. “Besides, I
never got into Dark Shadows.”
Glowering angrily, Barnabas demanded, “What do you want, Reidy?”
“The usual... information.”
“Information about what?”
Barnabas was not particularly fond of Reidy and he made no attempt to
cover this hostility from his voice.
“Have you heard of any weird things going on lately?”
Chuckling, Barnabas held out his hands, gesturing to the shrunken
heads, organs, and animal fetuses in mason jars and various other morbid
knickknacks lining the shelves in his store. “If you haven’t noticed, I deal
with weird stuff all the time.”
“Have you heard of any new groups in town? They would be amateurs.”
“What kind of a new group? I’ve
got a broad clientele. Most of my customers buy shit for the novelty of it. And
then there’s the ones like those chicks,” he said, pointing to the door and the
women who had just left. “They’re infatuated with Rice and Myers and love
anything to do with snuggly vampires. Then there are the real devotees;
Wiccans, pagans…”
“Satan worshipers,” Reidy interrupted, “ones that are just starting out
more likely than not.”
“Shouldn’t you be talking to Kane?
He’s the local Satanic Priest.”
“These aren’t Kane’s type of Satanists. These aren’t the type who gets
their jollies shocking people by saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards. These guys
are the violent type. They may even dabble in magic.”
“I don’t deal with those guys… the violent ones, that is,” Barnabas
said, sneering. “Fuckin’ amateurs slaughtering chickens thinking that’ll get
them power.”
“So you haven’t heard anything,” Reidy said, ready to turn away and
head to the next occult shop.
Barnabas frowned and said, “I didn’t say that exactly…”
Reidy eyed him. “What do you know?”
“You always come in here and you never buy anything,” he said.
Knowing what Barnabas was implying, Reidy picked up a little trinket
out of a jar with a sign stating $5. The item was made of brightly
colored feathers tied together with a thin band of leather. He dropped it on
the counter.
“Oh, good choice,” said Barnabas. “That’ll be… let’s see… forty bucks.”
Reidy pulled two twenties from his wallet and placed them on the
counter next to the trinket. The man pocketed the cash, saying, “A few days ago
this tweaker comes in, looking for goat heads, pentagrams and anything Satanic,
as well as spells and rituals. I got a real weird vibe off the guy, too. He had
a friend who had a big-ass dog on a chain. They tried coming in and I told him
that he and his mutt had to wait outside. The damn dog scared away a few of my
customers.”
“What kind of dog?” he asked. “Was it a pit bull or a bull mastiff?”
“I don’t know… I’m more of a cat man.”
“Did you happen to catch the tweaker’s name?”
“I can do better than that. I’ve got his address.”
Reidy opened his wallet again. “How much is it going to cost me?”
Pursing his lips, he looked at Reidy and said, “I’ll give it to you if
you promise to call me by my name; Barnabas.”
“Okay, deal,” Reidy said with a nod.
Barnabas knelt down and pulled a shoebox filled with index cards out
from under the counter. Thumbing through the cards, he explained, “The guy
signed up for my weekly newsletter. I remember his name, Steven Miles, because
he was so stoned he asked me how to spell ‘Steve.’ Can you imagine being so high you forgot how
to spell your own name?”
He pulled the card out and handed it to Reidy who took it and turned to
leave. “Thanks for the help… Barney.”
Frowning in disgust, Barnabas said, “You’re such a dick, man.”
***
Steve the Meth-Head’s address led Reidy deep into a slum, where weeds
as tall as a grown man’s hips broke through the wide cracks in the sidewalks
and driveways. Steve’s house was in shambles. Many of the windows had been
smashed and had pieces of cardboard covering the holes. Some kind of animal had
made its home in the rafters and its nest was visible from the sidewalk. The
house was the only one in the neighborhood whose fence was still standing and
not lying flat as a pancake on the ground. It was a good thing because behind
this fence were three large dogs.
As Reidy got out of the car, the dogs began barking wildly at him. Their
throaty woofs reverberated in his chest. Foam and spittle flew from their jowls
and their teeth snapped together. It was clear each one was a pit bull mixed
with other large dog breeds. Reidy saw a touch of bull mastiff in one and Rottweiler
in another. Walking closer to the house caused them to bark louder and more
ferociously.
“Shut up, you fuckin’ mutts!” a voice from within the house screamed. This
only seemed to encourage the dogs. The animals barked even louder.
Reidy walked up to one of the broken windows and looked around the side
of the cardboard to peer inside. He saw an unconscious woman in the room,
dressed in ratty clothes with a hypodermic syringe dangling out of her arm. Scattered
around the room, he spotted a number of guns ranging from pistols to shotguns
to carbines and a few assault rifles. On a cable spool that was turned into a
sort of coffee table, Reidy saw a real goat head. Flies buzzed around the
severed head. Steve and his buddies must have stolen the animal and decapitated
it in some sort of ritual.
He needed to get in the house to find out if these assholes were the
people behind the home invasions. Since the dogs were guarding the fence, he
couldn’t hop over it to see if he could slip in through the back. He could
climb through one of the broken windows or he could just go through the front
door.
Reidy pressed the doorbell and waited. He could hear a muffled
conversation beyond the door.
“Wha’sat?”
“The doorbell, ass.”
“It’s your turn to get it.”
“No, you get it.”
The door, like the rest of the house, was flimsy. It barely hung on its
hinges. Reidy could easily kick the thing down. He had a dark humor to mess
with these guys and he wanted to fulfill it. People who ruined their lives with
drugs, like the meth heads in this house, annoyed him. He smiled over the
notion of what he was about to do. He pressed the doorbell again.
The door flung open and Reidy looked into the glassy eyes of an
oily-skinned man. The drug addict slurred, “Whaddya want?”
Still smiling broadly, Reidy introduced himself. “Hi, I’m holding a
door-to-door survey. I’d like to know if this hurts.”
“Like to know wha’ hur—”
Reidy interrupted the druggie with a right hook to the jaw. The greasy
man was already pitching backward when Reidy threw a second punch, burying his
fist deep into his belly. The man dropped to the ground with a thud.
“Wha’ da fuck!” a second drug addict shouted. He was sitting directly
across from the door and was in the process of standing when Reidy’s heel
rammed into his sternum. The man crashed back into his chair and slumped over
the side of the armrest.
There was a woman, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. Upon
seeing two of her friends getting beat up, she began laughing uproariously as
if it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen.
A third man rushed at Reidy. He tried to tackle him only to end up
flipping up and over Reidy. He made a rather large hole in the wall and the
woman snorted loudly.
“Hold it right there, asshole!”
Reidy spun around to see another man standing behind him, holding a
snub-nosed revolver at his chest.
“Are you Steve?” Reidy asked, bored and unimpressed with the gun.
“Wha’? No, tha’s Steve,” he
said, using the gun to point to the man who was half-stuck in the wall. “I’m
Pete.”
Pete’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise because the gun he had just
been using as a makeshift pointer was no longer in his hands. The weapon was
now being held by the man who had broken into the house.
“You really should lay off the shit,” Reidy said. “It fucks with your
head and reaction speeds.”
Holding the small gun in his palm, Reidy slammed it into Pete’s
forehead.
“Ow, Goddammit!” shouted Pete. Blood flowed from the gash in his head. “Tha’
fuckin’ hurt!”
Reidy tossed the gun over his shoulder and grabbed Pete by the front of
his shirt. “Are there any more of you in here?”
“Amy’s crashed in the other room. There’s nobody else.”
“Good.” Reidy tossed the man
onto a nearby couch. “I’ve got a few questions…”
He paused. Tossing Pete had caused the sleeve of his T-shirt to rise
up, revealing part of a tattoo. Reidy reached down and lifted the sleeve
further. The skin was red and inflamed, indicating the tattoo was brand new. “What’s
this?”
“It’s the mark of the Devil,” Pete announced proudly. “He will get His
revenge on you for hurting us. He—”
“Did you do this one yourself,” he asked, interrupting Pete’s threats.
“Yeah, Steve and me took turns inkin’ ever’body.”
Reidy walked away from Pete to the man’s fallen friends. Reidy looked
at each man’s arm and saw the same tattoo Pete had. Looking at the six pointed
star tattooed on their arms, Reidy sighed and said, “Oy vey.”
