The Diabolical Conspiracy

• The Diabolical Conspiracy
  
• Midpoint
  
• EPILOGUE
  

By Bryan Smith

First Digital Edition

Copyright 2012 by Bryan Smith

All Rights Reserved

www.bryansmith.info

Cover design by Kristopher Rufty

http://lastkristontheleft.blogspot.com/

Bonus content copyright 2012 by Bryan Smith

Formatting by Denise Brown

www.maydecemberpublications.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

“
What happens here tonight stays between us. Everything discussed stays between us. It is not to be debated or even spoken of outside these walls. As usual. Is this very clear?”

The speaker was a pale-skinned young woman with shoulder-length black hair. She wore black heels and a sleek black dress. Her skin was blemish-free and creamy smooth. A blood-red shade of lipstick compellingly contrasted the black and white goth-noir look. She was slender but shapely, with the curve of her hips and thighs emphasized by the way she sat with one leg crossed over the knee of the other. Her face, with its delicate lines and striking contours, was a study in beauty so exquisite it bordered on the otherworldly.

Mike Bradley had seen a lot of very attractive women in his nearly thirty years of life. Beauty itself wasn’t a rare commodity. All you had to do was venture out into the world and soon enough you’d see plenty of it. But this girl…she was on a level beyond anything in his experience. She was…
perfection
. She was flawless. Elegant. Ethereal. And yet possessed of an electric eroticism that was staggering.

“
I ask you again…is that clear, Mr. Bradley?”

Mike blinked rapidly and struggled to swallow a lump in his throat that felt roughly the size of a softball. He was so entranced by her that until that moment he had failed to realize she was looking right at him…and speaking to him. He coughed after finally managing to get his throat cleared. “I…uh…um…”

Her expression was blank, but there was a glint of something dangerous in her eyes. “Hmm…were you not giving me your full attention?”

Mike couldn’t help squirming beneath the laser focus of her eyes. His heart started beating faster as he struggled for an acceptable answer to her question. Then he sighed as he realized the only real option here was confession. “I…ah…yeah, I guess my mind sort of…went off somewhere…while you were talking.”

She continued to stare right at him for long, silent moments, each of which felt like a self-contained eternity as he sat there and listened to the increasingly loud thud of his heart. At one point it occurred to him to wonder why he was so uncomfortable. This was just a social gathering, albeit a bit of a weird one. This woman had no real authority over him. He could get up and walk out of here at any time. Nor was there any logical reason--beyond her unusual beauty--to find her so intimidating. Seated in folding chairs arranged in a loose circle in the strangely aseptic garage were eleven other people. Though most were strangers, a few were people he already knew. Nothing bad could happen here.

Right?

The woman then leaned forward in her chair slightly, causing Mike to instinctively press backward into his chair. “Mr. Bradley…may I call you Mike?”

Mike frowned. It surprised him that she would ask his permission for anything. “Uh…yeah. Sure. Why not?”

“
Mike, it is imperative that you hear and comprehend everything I say tonight. This is your first time attending one of these meetings, so I realize you are not yet aware of what’s expected of you. When I speak in my capacity as leader of this group, I deserve nothing less than your fullest attention. I’ll say again,
hear and comprehend everything I say
. Got it yet?”

Mike forced himself to stop squirming. “I hear you. I understand.”

Though he had managed to recover a degree of composure, visible evidence of his nervousness remained in the form of the sheen of sweat on his brow. He would wipe it away, except he knew doing so would only draw attention to it.

The woman nodded. “Good. Our group requires a final member to complete the diabolical circle. A thirteenth member. Thirteen being one of the most infernally significant numbers. I do hope you will become our Thirteenth, Mike. We cannot move ahead with accomplishing our goals until the infernal circle is complete.”

“
Right, well, I…” Mike’s brow furrowed as he trailed off, the strangeness of what she was saying finally beginning to register. “Hold on…is this some kind of, um…satanic cult or something?”

Sudden laughter erupted in the garage. Mike took a look at the faces of the people seated around him. They were all laughing, a few so heartily their faces flushed red. One man had a big hand slapped against his belly because it was heaving so hard. Even the ones he knew, his so-called friends, were laughing. The only exception was the beautiful leader of the group. Her focus remained solely on him, her gaze so studiously intent it was unnerving.

Mike loudly cleared his throat. “If someone could kindly explain to me what’s so fucking funny, I’d appreciate it.”

“
Silence.”

The laughter ceased at once at the woman’s stentorian command. All of the grinning faces abruptly shifted expression, turning stony and sober. Mike found the instantaneous and unquestioning obedience of the others disturbing. It was clear everyone here respected and feared this woman. Which was more than a little creepy. Because none of this weirdness came across as some kind of prank or put-on, despite how absurd it seemed on the surface. No, whatever was happening here, these people were deadly serious about it. By now Mike was giving serious consideration to just getting up and leaving. He had come along tonight at the invitation of Marnie, the cute blonde sitting to his immediate right.

He liked Marnie a lot. They were just friends, technically, and had been since becoming acquainted just over a year earlier. It had been a very close relationship at various points over the course of that year. Though on average they only saw each other once every week or so, they talked a lot on the phone, sometimes for hours at a time on an almost daily basis. And then there were the endless text conversations that invariably began almost immediately after one of the phone talks ended. These often continued deep into the early morning hours. They talked about everything imaginable. Everything in the world, seemingly. Every aspect of their personal lives. It was obsessive behavior, Mike knew, and they were both guilty of it. They were addicted to talking to each other. And yet she had rebuffed him the one time he made an overt romantic gesture. Not in a mean way, but in a way that made it clear he shouldn’t do it again any time soon.

So he hadn’t.

In fact, he hadn’t talked to her at all in the three weeks since that feeble attempt at a seduction. Three weeks plagued by doubt and soul-searching. Just a couple days ago, he had arrived at the bittersweet conclusion that he was better off without Marnie in his life. He could move on now and maybe eventually meet someone who wouldn’t string him along so inexplicably. So, of course, the very day after coming to that difficult moment of acceptance, she called him--seemingly out of the blue--and invited him to this meeting. After a brief hesitation, he initially turned down the invitation. The rejection startled her. She couldn’t believe he’d said no to her. Some actual pleading on her part ensued, which a not so remote part of him found immensely gratifying. He finally relented when she told him he could take her on a “real date” if he agreed to come along with her to this thing. Even with the sting of the recent romantic rejection still fresh in his memory, he was unable to pass up this opportunity. His instincts told him it was a bad idea, that she was just using him somehow, but saying no was just impossible.

She had turned cagey when he pressed her for details on the nature of the group, telling him only that they were doing “important work” and that he would find the experience “literally life-changing.” Yeah, right. He figured the group would be comprised mainly of pretentious weirdo snobs and that the evening would be spent drinking wine and eating artisanal cheese while listening to the weirdoes spout a bunch of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. He still had no clue what these people were all about, but it turned out his prediction that he would find himself among a bunch of flaky oddballs had been bang-on-the-money. In addition to Marnie, he knew two other people here. Blake Carter and Cynthia Everson. They were friends…but friends he had met through Marnie. Blake and Cynthia seemed normal enough on the surface, but now he was questioning how well he really knew them. They were obviously established members of this…whatever the hell it was. Which meant he had to be wary of them now.

Mike glanced at Marnie, but she wasn’t looking at him. Like everyone else in the room, her gaze was riveted to the dark-haired beauty. He saw something like awe in her expression. More than that. Awe and…adoration. She worshipped this woman. They all did. He kept looking at Marnie, hoping his gaze would draw her attention in his direction. He needed some kind of reassurance, some indication that she wasn’t a hopeless flake. But, though she had to sense what he wanted, she kept staring straight ahead, never once sliding her eyes in his direction, not even for a fraction of a second.

So he gave up and looked at the group’s beautiful leader, too.

The faintest hint of a smile briefly dimpled the corners of her scarlet mouth when their eyes met. “Please forgive the outburst of my fellow circle members, Mike. It has a rather simple explanation. You see, though your comment was likely made in jest, you came very close to guessing our true mission.”

Mike frowned again. “So…you
are
Satanists?”

That tiny, almost imperceptible smile briefly surfaced again. There and gone in the space of maybe a full second. “Oh, yes.”