Piercing the Darkness (61 page)

“Secondly, seeing as the attorneys for the plaintiff continually insist on trying this case in the press, let me just throw this into the mill for your consideration: a) Everything we’ve heard in this case has been filtered through Amber’s mother and the attorney-appointed child psychologist, Dr. Mandanhi, and we insist we have the right to confront our accuser, who is Amber, and just get to the truth. b) We do not intend to be harsh toward Amber or abuse her in any way. We will accept reasonable restrictions, and we will work with the judge and with the plaintiff’s attorneys accordingly.

“Now, as to this ruling of Judge Fletcher: it is clearly erroneous and absolutely contrary to the law, and we have no choice but to appeal to the Court of Appeals without delay. Now try not to edit that too much.”

With that, and with more questions still being hollered at them, Corrigan and Tom hurried down the hall to the elevators.

BACK IN BACON’S
Corner, little Amber Brandon was giddy and laughing when she got off the school bus, and had been so disruptive on the bus that the driver was only minutes from writing her a discipline slip to give to her mother. But Amber’s stop came first, and so the driver was satisfied with just getting Amber and her playmates off the bus.

Her playmates were used to seeing Amber acting like a pony, and some had even played the pretend game with her. But today Amethyst was not a fun pony to play with. She pushed her friends, she teased them, she stole their books and threw them about, she jumped, pranced, somersaulted, and mocked them.

All Amber’s friends went home angry at her, vowing never to play
with her again.

But Amethyst just kept laughing and prancing, and she didn’t care a bit.

IT WAS DEFINITELY
time to get all the team together. That evening, Mark and Cathy opened up the church and the core group gathered—the Howards, Ben and Bev Cole, Marshall and Kate Hogan, Tom Harris, and Wayne Corrigan—along with the elders, Don Heely, Vic Savan, Jack and Doug Parmenter, and their wives. Push had come to shove. God was moving in their hearts and they could all feel the threat from outside; it was time to do some serious business with the Lord.

They sat in a close circle on the pews and some pulled-up chairs at the front of the sanctuary, ready to compare notes, talk it out, pray it through.

“I figured we should meet here tonight,” said Mark. “This seems to be the center of Satan’s attention right now, the center of his attacks. We need to pray a hedge around this place.”

“Let’s meet the enemy!” said Ben.

“It’s high time we did!” said Jack.

Mark smiled, encouraged. “I want to tell you, the battle is getting thick out there!”

“So how did your deposition go last week?” Doug Parmenter asked.

Mark sighed; Corrigan rolled his eyes a bit. Mark answered, “Ames and Jefferson are laying a trap of some kind, that’s obvious. They were just so kind and yet . . .”

Corrigan completed the thought. “They were trying to milk Mark for anything they could find to use against him, to set him up for a fall.” He looked at Mark. “I think you did all right, though, pastor. You came out squeaky clean, and they didn’t like that.”

“Well, praise the Lord for that. ‘He who walks in integrity walks securely.’”

“Right on,” said Bev.

Mark turned to Corrigan again. “Wayne, since we’re on the subject, why don’t you tell all of us what’s next in the legal process?”

Corrigan looked a little tired and depressed. “Well, of course, Tom and Mrs. Fields are scheduled for depositions in the next few weeks.
But in the meantime, we’re going to appeal today’s ruling to the Court of Appeals, and then we’ll have to wait and see. We may not win there either, but at least it will buy us a little more time. Mind you, this is just a minor detail in the whole lawsuit, only one little skirmish in a long and costly war.” He looked at Marshall. “We’ll have to hope that something else breaks in this case. It just feels like we’re so close!”

“How about that curriculum?” asked Kate. “I’m convinced now that the school system isn’t going to let us see it without some real legal pressure. They’re stalling.”

Corrigan nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hoping they can outlast the court system and hide that curriculum until we’re already in court. Well, with today’s ruling and the appeal process starting, that’s going to be hard to do. I’ll definitely issue a subpoena for that curriculum tomorrow.”

“As far as something else breaking,” said Marshall, “we just might have it, or a part of it, or an inkling of how we might track down a corner of a part of it. I’m talking about the curse put on the church this morning.”

Bob Heely asked, “Did you go to the police about that?”

Ben replied, “Are you kidding? I’m about 90 percent sure that Mulligan’s in on this thing! Those goat legs came from Sally Roe’s goat, and you know how Mulligan’s been covering up that attempt to murder her. He’s got to be a part of this curse too, or at least helping whoever it was that did it.”

Jack Parmenter had to ask, “Are you really sure about that?”

Marshall stepped in. “Not yet. But the point I’m making is that now we have concrete evidence that there’s some witchcraft or Satanism in the area, some organized, heavier form of occultism like a coven, a secret society, whatever. And that means there are people—and I mean normal-looking, everyday people you’d never suspect—that belong to this group. And in a town this size, they can pull a lot of weight and intimidate a lot of people. Mulligan and Parnell the coroner might be under the control of these people, or they might belong to the group themselves.

“But don’t miss this point: Whoever these people are, they’ve clearly spelled out that this church and Sally Roe have something in common: we are their enemies, and they mean to do us harm. They
killed Sally’s goat and drained its blood, probably for use in their ceremonies. Now that’s a contact point for them, something that belonged to the person they want to curse. They took off the legs and left the front ones here at the church. That includes us in the curse they’ve leveled at Sally Roe. I’m guessing that the hind legs are still with the witches somewhere as a contact point at their end.”

“Why the legs?” asked Corrigan.

Marshall guessed, “Well, you can’t run far without them, and right now Sally Roe is running, I’m sure of that.”

Tom’s wheels were turning rapidly. “So there are your moles again, Marshall! They’ve tried to put Sally Roe and us under the same curse; so even though we can’t see it yet, there has to be a connection: Sally Roe has something to do with our situation, with this case, and they know it.”

“You’ve got it.”

Corrigan clenched his fists and looked toward Heaven with mock drama. “Oh, if only we could prove all this! If only we knew who these weird people are!”

“I don’t know about you, but I have some suspects,” said Marshall. “We would do well to take some careful second looks at Sergeant Mulligan and Joey Parnell. They’ve been close to this whole Sally Roe thing, and we know Parnell is scared spitless right now.”

Ben was more blunt. “Parnell’s in it, no doubt.”

“And I’ll even throw in Irene Bledsoe, the CPD lady, as a suspect. She’s working with the whole Brandon/ACFA camp, and she’s being anything but objective.”

“Oh, man, I hope not!” said Tom.

“How’re the kids?”

“I saw them on Friday. They’re hanging in there. The foster home sounds pretty rough, but at least they’re not in Bledsoe’s daily care. A witch taking care of my kids, that’s all I need!”

“And there might be still another suspect,” said Mark. They turned to hear who, but he fell silent and thoughtful, exchanging a look with Cathy. “How do we know that one of these witches, or Satanists, or whatever they are, hasn’t come right into this church? We’ve been having no end of trouble, and I’ve never seen so much division as long as I’ve pastored here.”

Cathy added, “I feel that we do have some kind of poison working directly among us, no question.”

“It does happen,” said Marshall. “They do infiltrate churches; they know all the Christian lingo, they know the Bible, they make it a serious business to pass for Christians and stir things up from the inside.”

That stopped them all cold. Suddenly they found themselves looking at each other like all the suspects in a “whodunit.” It was a downright creepy feeling.

Jack asked Mark and Cathy, “Any idea who?”

Mark shook his head. Cathy answered, “No . . . but listen: we have one. We have a demonic mole in this church. I just feel that from the Lord.”

Marshall nodded. “That’s a distinct possibility.”

They pondered that for only a moment, and then, without a further word, Mark slid from his chair and sank to his knees right there. The others did the same. It was spontaneous. They knew what they had to do.

“O Lord God, have mercy,” Mark prayed. “Where we have sinned, forgive us. Grant us wisdom to know what we’re doing wrong, and repentance from that wrong. Have mercy on us, Lord God, and restore us.”

His prayer continued, and the others prayed right along with him. Tears started to flow, unbridled weeping before the Lord.

Ben prayed, “Lord, help us to sort this whole thing out. Protect us from our enemies, and give us a victory for what’s right.”

“We pray for all the children,” said Cathy. “This is their battle too, maybe even more than ours. Satan wants our kids, and we just can’t let him have them.”

Mark declared, “We just pray now for a hedge of angelic warriors to surround this place and guard it. Surround Your people, Lord, and protect us all from any curses leveled against us. We plead the shed blood of Jesus over ourselves, our ministry, our children, the school . . .”

“Protect Ruth and Josiah,” prayed Tom. “O Lord, please protect my kids.”

“Bring an answer, Lord,” said Marshall. “We have enough hunches and theories to fill a warehouse, but we need an answer, something solid, something positive, and we need it fast. Please break through the
walls the enemy has put up; break through, Lord God, and bring us an answer.”

“And, Lord,” said Jack, “if there is an invader in our church, a demonic mole, we just put chains on that person right now, we bind the demons associated with him or her, and we ask, Lord, that this person be exposed.”

OUTSIDE THE CHURCH,
Nathan and Armoth set up the hedge, a regiment of the best warriors available for the job, all standing shoulder to shoulder around the church property, swords ready, alert, ready for a fight.

Tal was pleased with this little bit of progress. “That should hold things together for a while. Now to root out that mole!”

“It looks like we’ll be ready,” said Nathan, regarding the prayers from the people inside the church.

“Of course,” said Tal. “And it was nice of Destroyer to get so reckless. He’s exposed the breach we needed!”

CHAPTER 33

IT WAS TUESDAY
morning and the
Ashton Clarion
was out on the stands, in the grocery stores, and on the front porches all over town. That used to mean it would be a little calmer around the
Clarion
office; Cheryl the cub reporter could relax and catch up on advertising clients, Tom the paste-up man could go fishing or work at home in his yard, and George the typesetter could sleep in.