The Satanist (50 page)

Owing to the circumstances in which Wash had come upon Mary he had from the beginning accepted her as a Satanist, and she had, ever since, been careful to maintain that illusion in his mind; so for the past three days during all their talks they had treated every subject from that point of view. Speaking from that angle now she said:

‘If either side launched a surprise attack I should have thought it much more likely to be the Russians. We know that the old religion is making use of Communism, because it aims to destroy the Governments and false religions of the West. Isn’t it quite a possibility that the Brothers of the Ram in Moscow might influence the men in the Kremlin into going to war with the idea of putting an end to the Christian heresy for good?’

He smiled at her. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, honey. There’s Communism and Communism. The sort that’s outside the Iron Curtain is the genuine old Marxist goods, and useful to us. But not the Soviet brand. The boys in the Kremlin threw true Communism down the drain years ago. Take a look at what’s been happening there. No more free love but
a big build-up for family life. Go to church if you want to. Cut down the drink, or else. A new bourgeois society with all the old taboos. The guys at the top aren’t going to risk the good time they’re having for the sake of going crusading in Europe. They’re reckoning on getting the whole works without. I’ve told you how, honey. Giving the impression that the Cold War is over and they really want to be friends, taking over wherever we stop paying out, industrial sabotage and using sweated labour to undersell us. I’m telling you, unless Uncle Sam blots Russia first it’ll be the only country worth living in ten years hence.’

‘We are always told here that the American people are scared stiff at the idea of an atomic war. And so are we for that matter. Anyhow, it would end in the whole world going up in flames; so however bad unemployment in the States becomes, I can’t see them urging their Government to let them commit suicide.’

‘They wouldn’t do that. Not consciously. The danger is things could get so bad there’d be a threat of revolution. Rather than face that the Government might plunk for taking a big gamble. All I’m telling you is that economics might push the U.S. into pulling the trigger, whereas the Soviets are getting more prosperous all the time. They’re as scared of starting anything as we are, and they’ve more to lose. They’ve only to go on playing it the way they are to get Europe’s cities, ports and industries as going concerns. They’d be plumb crazy to reduce them to heaps of ruins.’

‘Then why is it that all these conferences about doing away with nuclear weapons have never got further than nibbling at the problem of preventing an atomic war? If what you say is right surely the Russians should be only too anxious for both sides to scrap everything, then they would have a free field to go on with their peaceful penetration without any risk of the United States suddenly banging off at them?’

‘Sure; sure, honey; and they are. They’ve offered again and again to go the whole way; but they’re not such
Dummkops
as to agree to half measures. And the West
digs its toes in at the idea of packing up the great deterrent altogether, because the Soviets hold the bigger stick where conventional forces are concerned. That’s the deadlock, and the Russians would put out the biggest ever red carpet for anyone who would break it for them.’

‘It seems an impasse out of which there is no way.’

‘Oh, there is a way. I could do it myself if I wanted.’

‘You can’t mean that,’ Mary said with a smile, feeling certain that he was either pulling her leg or making an absurd boast to impress her. ‘How could you possibly change the views of all the leading statesmen of the Western Powers?’

‘By dropping just one egg in Europe. Vague ideas are one thing; seeing is another. Headlines, radio, eye-witness reports, T.V., documentaries on the flicks. All the horror of an H-bomb bang brought fresh from the scene right into every home in the N.A.T.O. countries. Just think of the pressure there’d be on their Governments. Millions of women blowing their tops, voters of all shades shouting “It mustn’t happen here”, demonstrations, strikes, threats to Cabinet Ministers. And as I was telling you a while back, democratic Governments aren’t free agents. They’d have no option. None at all. They’d be pushed into making a pact with the Soviets to scrap all nuclear weapons and make no more.’

‘Really, Wash!’ Mary protested. ‘It’s you who are off the mark this time. Apart from doing such a terrible thing as dropping a bomb out of the blue that would kill or maim countless innocent people, can’t you see that in whichever N.A.T.O. country it fell everyone would immediately assume that the Russians had opened hostilities. Within minutes your squadron and everything else we’ve got would be on the way to Russia; and in no time the Russians would be fighting back. Such an act could only precipitate a general blow-up.’

He gave her an amused look. ‘I didn’t say drop it in a N.A.T.O. country, honey. I said Europe, and there’s still neutrals. Say we put one down in Switzerland, both sides
would hold their hands. They’d sit tight, batting their heads who done it, and why. Meantime, the camera boys would be having a red-letter day; pictures and films would be getting around and the demonstrations starting.’

‘I see. Yes; I suppose you’re right. But think of the poor Swiss. As far as they are concerned it would be coldblooded mass murder.’

‘Seeing they stayed at home in both world wars they’re about due for a token blood letting,’ he replied callously. ‘Besides, if the egg were dropped among those mountains its effects would be localised. A small town or two, some villages, a few thousand yodellers and tourists would take the rap; but that’d be no price at all to pay if it deprived the East and the West of the power to blow one another to pieces.’

‘Looked at that way,’ Mary admitted after a moment, ‘perhaps there would be a case for martyring several thousand people. After all, hundreds of thousands were massacred by the Nazis with no benefit to anyone. Perhaps if one could definitely save all the great cities of Europe and America, and the millions and millions of people who live in them from a terrible death, it would be justifiable. All the same, to kill men, women and children en-masse like that would be an awful thing to do.’

‘I’ve no inhibitions about killing,’ he asserted cheerfully. ‘And remember, if the two big boys do get to pulling their guns there’ll be mighty little left in the world that’ll be worth having. Those of us who aren’t disintegrated instanter or scheduled to stagger around for a few days, without teeth and our hair dropped out, will be left pretty near where you Anglo-Saxons started. For a generation or two maybe worse; anyway, for a time it’s certain to be as simple as dog eat dog.’

Mary sighed. ‘What a gloomy picture! And it doesn’t seem that your imaginative idea for preventing an atomic war would lead in the long run to a situation that was much better. It would simply open the gate for the Russians to walk in.’

‘Sure, but wouldn’t that be better than death or going back to nature?’

‘I’m not certain that it would.’

‘It certainly would for ninety per cent of the folk who make up the population of the Western Powers. The other ten would be for the high jump or Siberia, but that’s their funeral.’

‘As an Air Force Colonel you’d be among them.’

‘Not me, honey. As a servant of the Lord of this World I’ve an international ticket to the easy life in any country. That would go for you too. The Brothers of the Ram would see to it that little Sister Circe didn’t lack for potatoes.’

She gave him a smile. ‘Well, if it ever looks like happening, that will be nice to know. You seem to have forgotten one thing, though. This career you’re so keen on would be finished; that is, unless you could get yourself taken on in the Soviet Air Force.’

‘My career’s finished anyhow, I’m on my way out now.’ He spoke with such sudden bitterness that she momentarily felt a touch of sympathy for him, and said:

‘I’m sorry, Wash. But why? I understood from what you told me that only the very best men were given command of these squadrons of big bombers that are right in the front line and all ready to go.’

‘That’s so, honey.’

‘Then why shouldn’t you become a General? Have you blotted your copybook in some way?’

‘No, there’s not a thing against me on the record. It’s just that war-plane flying is finished. The rocket guys are taking over, and fast. They’re making no more big bombers, or fighters; the types in service now are the last. In a year or two my beauties will go in the ash can, and I’ll be out on my ear.’

‘You will still have lots of money.’

‘Yeah. But dollars aren’t everything. I’ve ambition; and though I’ll have to start again, some way yet I mean to make myself a big shot.’

The following afternoon when he got back from the base
there was a letter waiting for him. For some time after he had read it he remained plunged deep in thought, then he said to her:

‘You’ll recall how I was nattering last night about the U.S.A.A.F. putting me on the pension list come a year or two’s time. I’ve been throwing out lines for a future, and one of them’s matured sooner than I thought. From Saturday I’ll have to take some leave, on that account.’

Mary hid her sudden elation. It looked from what he said as if in another forty-eight hours she might be freed by him and, even greater blessing, escape the initiation which she so much dreaded. Endeavouring to appear disappointed, she said:

‘In that case you won’t be able to make me a full witch on Saturday night.’

He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t fret yourself, honey. I don’t mean to miss out on the Esbbat. I got to hold that so as to pull down more power to myself for the new deal I’m set on making. Besides, there’s the forfeit I’ve got to ante up for cutting loose on Walpurgis Eve.’

Concealing the blow her hopes had sustained, she asked:

‘What form does it take?’

‘Human blood,’ he replied, and went on with a callousness that appalled her, ‘Back in the States there are plenty of coloured folks who’ll trade a child for fifty bucks, and the Lodges in the South sends them up on mail order. But here snatching kids is apt to mean trouble. It’ll have to be one of the floosies who hang around the camp. There are scores of them, and I’ll rope one in tomorrow night.’

Mary had gone dead white. After a moment she said in a low voice:

‘Would you … would you please mix me a drink; a … a stiff one.’

‘Sure, honey.’ Levering himself up to his enormous height from the armchair in which he had been lounging, he stepped over to the cocktail cabinet. ‘Idea of human sacrifice still gives you the willies, eh?’

‘I … I’m not used to it yet. Not… not being an initiate
I’ve never seen one. But aren’t you afraid that the police might trace the girl?’

That’s about as likely as me peddling peanuts on the moon. There’s thousands of young dolls go missing in Britain every year. Most of them just quit home because they’re fed up with handing in their pay packets to their mommas, or because they’ve got hot pants for some married man. Mighty few of them are ever traced, and if some get in bad with a guy who gives them a passport for the golden shore there’s no one to start a hue and cry after him. These teenage harpies who claw the dough outta my boys’ wallets aren’t local girls either. Leastways, precious few of them. They’re East-end bitches down from London; so if there’s one less come Sunday morning who’s to worry?’

Taking the Bourbon on the Rocks that he handed her, Mary gulped some of it, drew a deep breath, and asked, ‘Do the Brotherhood often offer up human sacrifice?’

‘There’s no fixed rule. One time it’s same as now, an adept having to put himself in the clear after a lapse; another it’s to celebrate the induction of a new High Priest. Times are when it’s done with some special intention – maybe a Brother or Sister wanting a relative to make a quick exit, so they can get their hands on some lolly, or skip a divorce. Then once in a while some Lodge finds its secrets are being betrayed. Soon as the traitor is caught out there’s an atonement ceremony in which he or she is the victim. That was the case with the last human whose blood I saw offered up.’

Mary’s heart stopped for a second. A sudden paralysis seemed to run through all her limbs. With a great effort she raised the glass and took another quick drink. The strong spirit, hardly yet diluted at all by the ice cubes, seemed to burn in her chest, but it again sent her circulation racing, and enabled her to get out the question, ‘How long ago was that?’

‘Bit over two months. This guy was a police-spy. Someone tumbled to it that he was taking photographs of the Temple with a mini-camera. Under some pretext old Abaddon
gave him deep hypnosis and dredged him clean, then sent him off to collect all the notes he had taken. There was enough dynamite in them to have blown the whole Lodge sky high. Seems he was only waiting for info’ about when the Great Ram meant to officiate there again to fix for the place to be raided. Leastways, that’s the story as Abaddon gave it to me. I was only in on the ritual killing.’

Wash was mixing himself a Vodka Martini and had his back to Mary so while he was talking he did not see the horror in her eyes. She knew that he must be speaking of Teddy. The date tallied so it could be no one else. When she had least expected it she had reached the end of her self-imposed quest. It was possible that Ratnadatta might only have played the jackal, and made off with the victim’s shoes, but she was now hearing about his murder from a man who had actually witnessed it. She heard her voice, as if coming from a great distance, say, ‘What did they do to him?’

‘Oh, there’s a special drill for dealing with initiates who become apostates. Assumption is they’ve gone back to the Christian heresy; so we give ‘em the treatment same as J C. got for getting up against Our Lord Satan in Palestine. Only difference is we have to cut their throats so the blood’ll run, and for convenience sake we crucify them upside down.’

Mary set down her glass, lurched to her feet and, with a strangled sob, ran from the room.

Half an hour later she returned to find him working at his desk. Looking up, he said casually, ‘Bit strong meat for you, eh, honey? But you asked for it, and that was just as well. If you’re going to be a good witch you’ve got to get acquainted with what goes on, and be prepared to stand in at any sort of ceremony. Play the radio now if you want, but set it on a musical programme. I can’t abide canned voices while I’m working.’