"I would never make a pact with Satan. I need no underlings."
—Conrad Bland
The Church of Satan, brand-new and glistening in the moonlight, was a huge Romanesque building with Moorish undertones. It was set back almost two hundred feet from the street, and was encircled by a black wrought-iron fence topped by razor-sharp spikes. Discordant electronic music emanated from within, and the exterior was illuminated by smoky red lights.
Ubusuku and Jericho stopped a few yards short of the gates, and while Jericho stood where he was and observed the people who were entering the church, Ubusuku walked up to one of the hooded men guarding the entrance and whispered a few brief words. The guard nodded, went off for a moment, and returned with a small caped man whose only distinguishing feature was a thick shock of unruly gray hair.
"I didn't really think you were going to make it!" he exclaimed, grabbing Ubusuku by the shoulders and giving him an affectionate hug. "And where is your friend?"
Ubusuku led him over to Jericho. "This is Gaston Leroux," he said, gesturing toward the little man, "and this is my friend—"
"Orestes Mela," interrupted Jericho, stepping forward but not extending his hand.
"Well, I'm pleased to meet you, very pleased indeed," said Leroux with a cordial smile. "We'll have time to get acquainted later, but the service is due to begin any minute now."
"Big crowd?" asked Ubusuku as Leroux led the way up the stone walk to the doors of the church.
"For a weeknight," said Leroux with a shrug. "We've been drawing so well on weekends that we've had to hold two masses an evening."
"I don't think I'd have the energy for two Golem services an evening," laughed Ubusuku.
"My friend the lecher," said Leroux to Jericho with a huge wink.
"I was always a lecher," said Ubusuku. "But on Walpurgis I've found a religion that condones it. However, I'm willing to be shown the error of my ways—but I warn you, it's not going to be easy."
"The way of Lord Lucifer rarely is," said Leroux. "But we'll give it our best shot, and at least you're willing to listen. We'll sit in the back so I'll be able to explain what's going on without disturbing the priests." He looked at them for a moment. "Matter of fact, we'll have to sit in the back, in the Laymen's Gallery. Neither of you is wearing a ritual cape."
They passed through an ornate foyer, and he turned left, leading them into and out of a short series of dark corridors, finally emerging at a row of cushioned seats about fifty yards away from an onyx altar. Frescos of debauchery and bloodless torture dominated the walls and ceiling, illuminated by literally thousands of oddly shaped ritual candles. On the wall behind the altar hung a gold-and-black Church of Satan talisman, which Jericho estimated to be a good forty feet in diameter.
Dozens of speakers throughout the church amplified the music, which Jericho found atonal but compelling, possessed of an insistent primal rhythm and punctuated by screams and moans, both passionate and pained, which might or might not have been human in origin.
The arm of every seat had a small orifice for inserting a candle, and Leroux produced one for each of them. As Jericho lit and positioned his candle, Leroux explained that these candles differed from those of the other sects in that they were made from human rather than animal fat, all graciously willed to the Church of Satan by its membership. Ubusuku looked somewhat distressed, but Jericho showed no reaction and continued observing the scene around him.
In the front three rows were a number of men and women whose bare arms suggested that they were wearing little, if anything, beneath their cloaks. After that came perhaps twenty-five rows of men and women—mostly men—dressed much as Leroux was. There was a gap of six more rows, and then came the Laymen's Gallery, which this evening possessed only about thirty men and women, most of them seated singly and in pairs, and none so close that Leroux would bother them with his whispering.
Then, as his gaze moved back to the altar, a tall man appeared beside it. He was dressed all in black, and wore a black cowl possessing a pair of horns that were meant to appear ominous but that Jericho thought looked rather foolish.
"That's Dennison, our Major Priest," whispered Leroux. "Rumor has it that he's going to be elevated to High Priest of Amaymon within the next year or two."
Dennison waited until the audience was perfectly still, then withdrew a wand from his cape and touched five points in the air before him.
From somewhere a gong rang out, and the priest spoke:
"I reign over thee, saith the Lord of the Flies, in power exalted above and below."
"Follow the audience," whispered Leroux, and Jericho moved his lips as the congregants murmured, "Regie Satanis!"
"Behold, crieth Satan," chanted Dennison, "I am a circle on whose hands stand the Twelve Kingdoms. Six are the seats of living breath, the rest are as sharp as sickles, or the horns of death."
"Regie Satanis," intoned the audience.
This continued for another five minutes, at which time the priest touched his five imaginary points with his wand again, and cried out "Shemhamforash!" and the audience responded with the same word.
"It's our most holy invocation of Satan," whispered Leroux. "What's occurred so far is standard for our services. Now we'll get a sermon of some sort, which I hope won't be too boring, and then we'll get on to the mass itself."
Jericho nodded and looked back to Dennison.
"My parishioners!" cried the priest, to the accompaniment of another gong. "I must speak to you now about the man who may be the Awaited One."
"Oh, shit!" whispered Leroux. "Not again!"
"I speak of he who has come to be called the Dark Messiah," said Dennison. "He who has single-handedly staved off the forces of the dread Republic. He who represents the pinnacle of all we cherish and worship. He who has called upon the sects of Walpurgis to help him. Can we, dare we, refuse aid to this man?"
"Great Lucifer, but I wish he'd find some other subject!" whispered Leroux.
"Conrad Bland is the embodiment of Satan, the spirit made flesh!" cried Dennison. "Yet even as I speak to you, Republic ships of war encircle our planet, threatening instant retribution if our people do not comply with their demands. Will we do so?"
"No!" screamed the audience.
"No indeed!" echoed Dennison. "For just as the church must not impose its will upon the state"—Ubusuku and Leroux both chuckled at that—"so the state must not dictate to the church. And the sects of Walpurgis will not relinquish this savior of the believers in Satan!"
"Savior my ass!" snorted Leroux under his breath.
"What do you mean?" asked Jericho pleasantly, as Dennison droned on.
"I haven't been to Tifereth myself, you understand," whispered Leroux, "but I've got a friend who has, and he says Bland has turned the whole damned city into a charnel house."
"You don't say!"
Leroux nodded. "I guess there's corpses lying everywhere, and the torturing has gotten so out of hand that even the Messengers have left the place. This Bland has gone on a killing spree that's already wiped out half the town."
"It makes it rather difficult to worship evil," said Jericho Wryly.
"Bland's not evil!" said Leroux hotly. "He's crazy! He's got nothing to do with my religion. What the hell does he know about pleasure or contemplation or—"
"Lower your voice," whispered Jericho, noticing that they were attracting some attention.
"Sorry," said Leroux. "But I get sick and tired of hearing about that madman." He turned back to Dennison, a scowl on his face.
"Beware the Republic!" the priest was saying. "Even from their vast distance they can still distort, they can still influence, they can still subvert. I tell you that Conrad Bland is nothing less than Satan unchained. Satan made flesh!"
Dennison parroted the clergy's line for another fifteen minutes, and the gong sounded again.
"Well, at least that's over!" sighed Leroux. "Have you ever attended a Black Mass at a Church of Satan before, Orestes?"
Jericho shook his head.
"Well, no matter what my friend Ibo may have told you, it's a very symbolic ceremony with a reason for everything that occurs. Laymen don't participate, but if you'll note the people in the first three rows, they'll be joining in later."
A young woman got up from her chair in the first row, walked up to the altar, unfastened her cloak, let it fall to the ground, and turned once around to show the congregants that she was entirely nude. She then lay on her back on the onyx altar.
"The purpose of the Black Mass is to invert the traditional Roman Catholic mass," whispered Leroux. "I've heard that some churches to the north of Amaymon take it so seriously as to actually sacrifice babies or virgins, but this is mostly a ritual with us. The girl represents an altar, which is about as blasphemous to Christianity as an altar could be."
A black-hooded priest came up and placed a black candle in the girl's left hand.
"The candle is ostensibly made of the fat of unbaptized babies," commented Leroux, "though of course it isn't. Still, it's the symbol that's important."
A bare-breasted woman wearing a parody of a traditional nun's habit walked up to the altar, deposited a small bowl on the girl's belly, and stood behind her, holding a cross upside down.
"More blasphemy," explained Leroux. "The nun is holding the cross in an inverted position, and the bowl is supposed to contain the blood of a prostitute. Since there are no prostitutes on Walpurgis, we use the blood of a sacrificial goat."
Jericho wanted to know how they managed to sacrifice an animal they held sacred, but decided against asking.
A caped priest, not Dennison, approached the altar, holding a small object on a tray.
"That's a black-stained turnip he's got on the tray," whispered Leroux. "He'll rub it against the girl's labia and then use it to draw a pentagram around both of them."
"Any particular reason why?" asked Ubusuku.
"I suppose it's the most blasphemous thing he could use for the purpose," said Leroux with a shrug. "Now he'll start speaking in Latin. It's a dead tongue, but what he's doing is chanting Christian prayers and psalms backward, with various obscenities thrown in to confuse any angels who happen to recognize certain key words."
"This symbolically conjures Satan?" asked Jericho.
Leroux nodded. "He's almost done with the Latin. Now he'll speak in a language we can understand."
The priest accepted a cat-o'-nine-tails from the mock nun and gently began passing it over the nude girl's body.
"I suppose I needn't point it out," said Leroux, "but he is symbolically flaying the shit out of her."
"Before the mighty and ineffable Prince of Darkness, and in the presence of all the dread demons of the Pit," intoned the priest, "I renounce all past allegiances, I proclaim that Satan rules the universe, and I ratify and renew my promise to recognize and honor Him in all things, without reservation, desiring in return His manifold assistance in the successful completion of my endeavors and the fulfillment of my desires."
The priest then took a bite of the turnip and sipped the goat's blood, after which a second bare-breasted nun picked both up and began passing through the first three rows of the audience with them.
"Ave, Satanis!" cried the priest, and the church echoed with the repetition of the words.
Then a man, totally nude except for a goat's-head mask, raced out and leaped into the pentagram.
"Satan?" asked Jericho dryly.
Leroux nodded without taking his eyes off the proceedings.
The Satan-priest took the whip from the priest and cracked it two or three times. Then he brought it down hard once on the nude girl, who shrieked but didn't move. Throwing it aside, he went through a number of gestures and antics that made no sense at all to Jericho and that Leroux didn't bother to explain. Finally he drew the girl toward him and began rhythmically thrusting his erect penis into her as the congregation began chanting "Ave, Satanis!" with each movement of his pelvis. At last the girl shrieked again and wrapped her legs around him. He lifted her off the onyx altar and they completed their orgasms as he whirled her around the border of the pentagram. When they were through he put her back on the altar, turned her onto her belly, did a few obscene things with an unlit candle, and disappeared into the darkened recesses of the church.
"That's it?" asked Jericho.
"It's just beginning!" said Leroux, sweat streaming down his excited face. "Now all the participants will enact much the same thing for the rest of the congregation."
Jericho watched, remembering details and certain phrases in case he ever needed them, while Ubusuku and Leroux joined the rest of the congregants in chanting "Ave, Satanis!" at the appropriate times.
When the last exhausted participants had returned to their seats, Dennison reappeared, gave a final curse/blessing in Enochian, the official Satanic language, and the congregation got up to leave.
"Well, what did you think?" asked Leroux excitedly, as he walked out the door with Jericho and Ubusuku.
"I saw a bunch of men fucking a bunch of women," said Ubusuku.
"No, Ibo!" said Leroux. "What you saw was a symbolic invocation of Satan, and a total inversion of the Roman Catholic mass for demoniac purposes. It's a shunning of Good for Evil, a casting off of the beliefs that held men in thrall for ages. Do you understand?"
"Of course I understand." Ubusuku grinned. "A bunch of men fucked a bunch of women."
"You're hopeless!" said Leroux with mock anger. "How about you, Orestes? Did you like what you saw?"
"Hey, I liked it just fine!" protested Ubusuku with a laugh.
"It was interesting," said Jericho. "I'd like to come again for a different ceremony."
"I'd be glad to have you as my guest," said Leroux. "Possibly you'd like to take instruction in the Church of Satan?"
"Possibly," said Jericho.
"Well, then the evening wasn't a total loss," said Leroux. "See, Ibo, who needs you? I've got me a convert, and I'll bet the police aren't even interested in him."
"What are you talking about?" said Ubusuku.
"Oh, Sable's office," said Leroux offhandedly. "They called this afternoon to ask some questions about you. I told them you were a solid citizen and a credit to the community. They certainly hassle immigrants with red tape, don't they?"
"They certainly do," said Ubusuku, his eyes clouded with worry.
"Exactly what kind of questions did they ask?" said Jericho softly.
"Oh, nothing in particular," said Leroux. "Just the typical sort of inane bureaucratic stuff you'd expect"
"I see," said Jericho.
"Well, who's for a drink?" said Leroux. "I'm buying."
"Fine," said Jericho. "I know a little bar not too far from here."
"Lead the way," said Leroux, and Jericho started off, turning left at the corner and moving farther and farther from any major thoroughfares.
"I'm really glad you came," said Leroux as they walked down the empty avenues. "The Black Mass isn't one of our major ceremonies, but it's flashy, if you know what I mean."
"It looks just like a Golem orgy," said Ubusuku.
"It's not the same thing at all," said Leroux. "You do it for pleasure, we do it to defile everything that Christian religions stand for. It represents a travesty and a perversion of God and goodness and all that self-denying crap. We have our orgies, too, but they're not like this. If this wasn't so steeped in religious significance very few of the women would be willing to participate as the altar; it's too degrading. But they do, because they understand what it means, even if a Golemite like you snickers."
He went on praising his church and explaining some of the more obscure blasphemies that they had witnessed for another ten minutes, then suddenly came to a stop. "Are you sure that bar's near here?" he asked Jericho. "This looks awfully residential to me."
"Just another block or so," said Jericho. "By the way, did anyone drop a token or a talisman on the street?"
"Of course not," said Leroux. "Why?"
"Because I see something shining by the curb there."
Leroux leaned over to get a closer look, and Jericho brought the edge of his hand down hard on the back of the little man's neck. There was a loud cracking sound, and Leroux collapsed lifeless to the pavement.
"You didn't have to do that!" raged Ubusuku.
"Keep your voice down," said Jericho softly.
"He was my friend!"
"He was a connection. He could have led them to me through you. Better to be done with him here and now."
"What about me?" demanded Ubusuku.
"What about you?" said Jericho.
"I'm a link to you too—and the police have probably got my apartment staked out."
"I know," said Jericho.
"You've got me into a mess of trouble! What do you intend to do about it?"
"I've given the matter serious thought," said Jericho.
He reached down to his leg and unwrapped the tape.