They got out and split up. Skip followed the road a little farther, staying close to the side, where the trees were. It was a warmish night without much wind. The moon was rising and, because it was full, she could see very well—but so could she be seen if anyone happened along. She had an odd sense of anticipation, of excitement, a kind of tingling.
A reaction to danger?
she wondered. But it wasn’t her usual sort, which involved a lot of heart pounding and sweat This was pleasurable, almost a sexual sensation—a marked contrast to her fear the other night. For the life of her, she couldn’t have said why.
She had walked about ten minutes, until she heard the sound of voices. The women were in a cleared space, perhaps a meadow. In the center of it they had placed a table of some sort—the altar, Skip surmised, and noted with relief that it was neither the size nor shape for human sacrifice. And this time there was no skull. But the moon glinted on the dagger, and she could see the pentacle plate.
Small scarves or bits of colored cloth were scattered at equal intervals around the altar—four of them, with a candle in a jar on each one, and a few other things, Skip couldn’t tell what, but they looked like rocks and shells.
The women were still fussing, organizing, arranging, making things pretty. Behaving much like women giving a tea party. Skip thought again of the banality of evil, but tonight she couldn’t make it stick; the beauty of the evening, the woods bedecked in silver light, the purity of the air, the softness of the women’s voices—somehow, it just didn’t add up to degradation and horror.
I’ll feel differently when they put on those spooky black robes and get the bloodcurdling chant going.
But to her amazement, they put on white robes instead—all but Kit, who had disappeared.
Oh my God, they’re playing dress-up. A cult with outfits; just what I need.
* * *
Pearce had seen her arrive after the others, and realized it must be her car he had passed, parked on the side of the road. He had followed Lenore. She must have followed one of the others, probably Kit.
He had seen her colleague too, the old guy.
He had arrived at the opposite strategy from theirs, had driven past the glen where the women were having their little picnic, had parked, and doubled back. He’d already been in position when the cops arrived. It amused him that he was the better stalker.
They were all in white now, in belted robes with little bags like drawstring purses hanging from their belts; little bags and knives—a very medieval look. But Kit was missing.
Ah—now she was coming, just emerging from her car.
Unlike the rest of them, she wore yellow, a gorgeous yellow robe, belted with some sort of cord threaded through the loop of another, shorter cord. From the shorter cord hung a large metal ankh. The effect was of a rosary, or whatever priests dangled from their cassocks. On her head she wore some kind of headband with a sort of disk on it, affixed so that it stood upright, on its edge. It was gold-colored metal, probably brass, and the moonlight glinted eerily on it.
Her hair had been teased out in all directions, forming an unruly mane around her face, a variation on the Bride of Frankenstein look. And she had painted her face. Even with the brightness of the moon, he couldn’t see terribly well, but from his vantage point, it looked as if she’d put horizontal stripes on her cheeks, like cat whiskers.
The women stood in a circle. They took turns lighting the four candles they’d placed around the middle table, each one mouthing some sort of mumbo jumbo about east and west and earth and fire, and who knew what kind of crap. It embarrassed him.
But each one, as she did it, slid a knife from its sheath and drew something in the air with it—what, he couldn’t tell.
When it was nearly over, the pattern of the thing began to ring a bell—something about the four directions and the elements. Wasn’t this a common part of religious rituals? Was it Masonic? He thought it was, perhaps, but he thought he’d read something about its origins; he had the impression it was vaguely Kabalistic.
Something told him he was in for more than he bargained for—this wasn’t a bunch of women doing some little improvised Halloween skit. He didn’t know what it was, but it was starting to spook him.
He rifled his pockets for his tape recorder; he was close enough that it might pick up. And, to make sure, he took notes as well, on his ever-present four-times-folded sheaf of paper, the only proper notepad for reporters, the old-timers had told him, because it fit in the palm of your hand and didn’t make anyone nervous.
Neetsie came forward and with a fanfare drew the dagger on the altar from its sheath, held it out the full length of her arm. Kit also came forward and pointed likewise with her ankh.
Neetsie began speaking a language Pearce couldn’t understand. He couldn’t get it at first, couldn’t make any sense at all of it, but she kept repeating it, chanting it, and finally he just started writing down what it sounded like:
Eko, Eko, Azarak,
Eko, Eko, Zomelak,
Eko, Eko, Shining One,
Eko, Eko, Terrible One!
As she chanted, she walked around the circle, Kit following, the two still pointing with their weapons.
Darksome night, and shining moon,
East, then South, then West, then North;
Hearken to the witches’ [room? tune? he wasn’t sure]
Here we come to call ye forth!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire
Wand and pentacle and sword,
Work ye unto our desire,
Hearken ye unto our word!
Cords and censer, cup and knife,
Powers of the witch’s blade,
Waken all ye into life,
come ye as the charm is made!
Queen of heaven, Queen of hell,
Horned hunter of the night,
Lend your power unto the spell,
And work our will by magic rite!
By all the power of land and sea,
By all the might of moon and sun—
As we do will, so mote it be; Chant the spell and be it done!
Eko, Eko, Azarak,
Eko, Eko, Zomelak,
Eko, Eko, Shining One,
Eko, Eko, Terrible One!
They walked the circle three times in the course of the chant, and when it was over, Neetsie said, “The circle is cast; we are between the worlds.”
The other women answered in chorus: “So mote it be!”
A woman Pearce didn’t know came out of the circle, picked up a bowl of water from the altar, drew her knife, put it in the bowl, and said, “I exorcise thee, o creature of water, that thou cast out from thee all the impurities and uncleanliness of the world of phantasm; in the names of the Lady and the Lord of light and darkness.”
She held up the bowl for all to see.
Another woman, also a stranger, came forward, picked up another bowl, put her knife in it, and said, “Blessings be upon this creature of salt; let all malignity and hindrance be cast forth here from, and let all good enter herein; wherefore do I bless thee, that thou mayest aid me, in the names of the Lady and the Lord of light and darkness.”
She then poured the salt into the water; both women put their bowls back and rejoined the circle.
Neetsie again took center stage and admonished the group: “Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called Artemis, Astarte, Athena, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Dana, Arianrhod, Isis, Bride, and by many other names. At her altars the youth of Lacedaemon in Sparta made due sacrifice.”
He had thought she would continue, but Kit directed her ankh toward the heavens (toward the moon, he realized later), and all the women spoke in unison:
“Whenever you have need of any thing, once in the month and better it be when the moon is full, then shall ye assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of me, who am queen of all the witches. There shall ye assemble, ye who are fain to learn all sorcery, yet have not won its deepest secrets; to these will I teach things that are yet unknown, and ye shall be free from slavery—”
Here Pearce’s tape recorder jammed, and he fiddled with it during the rest of the speech. There was something about the “secret door,” though, “which opens upon the Land of Youth, and mine is the cup of the wine of life and the Cauldron of Cerridwen, which is the holy grail of immortality.”
Sign me up,
he thought.
So what if we have to sacrifice a few virgins
?
“Nor do I demand sacrifice,” they said.
Ha! What about the youth of Lacedaemon
?
There was another phrase he liked: “All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.”
Again he thought,
Sign me up
, but given the spooky tone of the ritual, he couldn’t help wondering what on Earth the phrase was supposed to mean. Were these women some sort of modern maenads, as likely to tear strong men apart as light a candle or two in the moonlight? Kit looked the part.
A little scenario came to him: What if Geoff’s death wasn’t quite as cut-and-dry as it looked? What if he’d been killed somewhere else and taken to his patio, the ladder placed just so…
Or maybe the ritual had been there in the first place.
Exactly how it might escalate to death he’d worry about later, but a less pleasant thought hit him now—maybe these women really were dangerous when full of religious fervor or whatever you called this.
If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time…
A sobering thought but no way in hell was he budging. In all his years as a reporter, he’d never seen anything like this damn thing.
They finished the speech: “For behold, I have been with thee from the beginning; and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.”
But who the hell are you?
he wondered, as people had, he realized, since “the beginning” the speech mentioned.
The end of desire. Sure. If only it were that easy.
Neetsie seemed to have another announcement to make.
This Neetsie certainly wasn’t the one he knew. She was much more poised, sure, more confident.
More adult.
He found himself a little in awe of her, a circumstance he couldn’t have imagined before tonight.
She spoke to the moon. “You who are with us always even when you are not; Moonmother! Shining One; dark one; large one; small one; pregnant one; barren one; crescent and circle. You who are as we are—maiden, mother, crone—though now at your height. Diana, Luna, Cybele, Aradia; Ishtar, Astarte; Inanna. Come to us tonight! Come to us!
“Be here now!”
Obviously following some sort of script the others shouted: “Be here now!”
Neetsie lit a black candle and picked up a green one. She spoke to it: “And you, Lord Cernunnos. Homed one; leaper, lover, brother and son. Virile one, keeper of the animals, join us as well.” She lit the candle.
“Be here now!”
“Be here now!” the women chanted, and it was all Pearce could do not to shout the words with them. Though what it was they were calling, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
If it has horns, it probably has little cloven hooves as well.
Neetsie spoke again, this time to the group, having apparently finished her colloquy with heavenly bodies and demons. “Women of the Cauldron of Cerridwen! Tonight we will speak with one as old as the pyramids. Wiser than all the pharaohs and all the gods; more terrible than an earthquake. Sekhmet the Lady of the Fifth Way! Those who work with Sekhmet mention indescribable delights and unspeakable horrors. So is it with our lady.”
Mixing things up, aren’t they? Cerridwen was Celtic, I think, and the pyramids are Egyptian. And how the hell does Our Lady fit in?
He was trying to think sophisticated thoughts, striving to muster up his usual cynical attitude, but he couldn’t stop a crop of goose bumps.
“Priestess Brianna, come forward.”
That proved to be Kit, who had rejoined the group, and now came to the center again. “Priestess Brianna, are you ready to receive the Lady of the Bloodbath?”
“I am.”
“Are you ready to receive the Giver of Ecstasies?”
“I am.”
“So mote it be.”
The answer came: “So mote it be.”
Once again, Neetsie spoke to the moon: “Lady Diana [she pronounced it “Deeonna”], it is your night; it is your moment And so we beg your indulgence to call into our priestess your counterpart of the daytime hours, another Shining One, a lady of the sun.”
Pearce half expected the moon to bellow out “So mote it be!”
“Cover us,” commanded Neetsie.
Suby stepped forward, picked up a silvery scarf from the altar, and draped it over both women’s heads. It looked as if, inside, Neetsie held Kit by the shoulders.
“Mother of the gods!” she shouted. “Come into our priestess. One Who Was Before the Gods Were! Flaming One! Lady of the Scarlet-Colored Garment! Awakener! Lady of Enchantments! Sekhmet of the Knives! Satisfier of Desires! Sublime One! Mother of the Dead! Enlightener! Destroyer by Plagues! Lady of the Waters of Life! Great One in Heaven! Devouring One! Bountiful One! Warrior Goddess! Beloved Teacher! Beloved Sekhmet! Come into Brianna!”
Under the scarf, he saw Kit straighten suddenly. Neetsie lifted the scarf and stepped away. Kit’s bearing was different, Pearce thought; and one of her hands had drawn itself into a clawlike shape. With the other, she raised her ankh, slowly, agonizingly slowly, and pointed it straight ahead: “I am the Lady of the Place of the Beginning of Time. I am Sekhmet, Great One of Magic. Come forward, you who would know.”
One of the women stepped forward and spoke quietly to Kit, who answered her too softly for Pearce to hear. The supplicant then lit a candle she had brought with her, a white candle in a jar apparently meant to serve as a wind shield.
She stepped back and another came forward, then another, till everyone had had a turn.
Meanwhile, the ones who weren’t eating from the tree of knowledge, or whatever they were doing, chanted some godawful spooky thing: it could have been “Om” or just “O,” Pearce couldn’t say, but it sounded like the baying of all the hounds of hell.