The Diabolical Conspiracy (12 page)

But that was far from the end of the festivities. They plied him with wine and pot and had him watch while they went at each other with an invigorating animal ferocity that soon enough had him ready for action again. It went on that way for hours more. By the time they finally did allow him to rest and drift off to sleep, it felt like a miracle that he had managed to hang on to any shred of sanity. Thoughts of the girl in the barrel remained at bay as he began the spiral down into unconsciousness. There was room for little else in his mind beyond exhausted reflection on what these women had done to him. If, over the course of his entire lifetime, he had managed to bed just one woman capable of doing the things Nadia and Marnie had both done tonight, he would have counted himself as extremely fortunate. Yet, somehow, he had bedded two such women
at the same time
. Just now. Tonight. It was nearly impossible to believe, even as his gaze roamed over the sleek, nude forms of the goddesses snuggled up to either side of him.

A moment of reckoning was bearing down on them all. But whatever happened within the next twenty-four hours, there was one thing he would never be able to deny--sex with fully committed gorgeous Satanists was unquestionably the best kind of sex anyone could ever have. And this was the last conscious thought that followed him into the shadowy abyss of sleep and unremembered dreams.

When he awoke, sunlight was filtering in through the gauzy curtains above the bed. Nadia was still asleep--and still nude--next to him. Marnie was missing and for a moment he absently wondered what had become of her. But then the sound of a shower running somewhere nearby penetrated his consciousness. Mystery solved. The girl was a machine. Regardless of how hard she partied the night before--or how little sleep she’d had--she was always the first one up and always seemed none the worse for wear. One morning he asked her how she did it and she told him she’d made a deal with the devil. It was a sign of how upside-down reality had become for him that he wasn’t completely sure whether the comment was a joke or a statement of fact.

A glance at the bedside clock made his heart lurch.

7:07 a.m.

Less than an hour before the start of his shift at the call center and he was still in bed. He gingerly disengaged himself from Nadia. She groaned and stretched out a little, but she did not wake.

Thank God.

The last thing he wanted now was to have to deal with all the potential distractions a nude and fully awake Nadia would present. Getting his shit together sufficiently to make it to work on time was going to be an iffy proposition as things stood now. So he did his best not to jostle the bed as he got up and searched the floor for his clothes. As he dressed, he couldn’t help staring at Nadia’s gloriously unclothed body. He remembered that old adage about how some things are better left to the imagination. Nadia was emphatic proof that this was not always true. Seeing her nude did nothing to dispel his original impression that she was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. To the contrary, it enhanced the impression. She was a goddess. It was really too bad about the whole servant of evil thing.

After patting his right hip pocket to verify his keys were still there, he walked out of the bedroom. In the hallway, he paused next to a closed door to the left. Here was the source of the running water sound. He imagined Marnie in there, standing beneath the shower nozzle as the hot water spray needled her nude body. It was another erotically powerful image and for a moment he felt almost irresistibly compelled to go in there and join her in the shower. He even put a hand on the doorknob for a moment, then jerked it away as he realized what he was doing. Acting on the impulse would be insane. He would be late to work for sure if he let that happen. But that wasn’t the only reason it would be a bad idea. He needed some time away from these women so he could hopefully start thinking straight again and maybe begin figuring out a plan of action. But even knowing that didn’t send him running out of the house right away. He stared at the closed door a few moments longer and thought some more about Marnie’s dripping-wet flesh. It baffled him that he could be so horny again so soon after last night’s prolonged indulgences, but then it occurred to him that he was experiencing a kind of sex hangover. And what did they always say was the best way to recover from a night of indulging in powerful intoxicants?

Have a little hair of the dog that bit you.

In this case, that would mean another taste of Marnie’s sweet flesh rather than a nip of booze. His hand drifted to the doorknob again as he moved closer to the brink of surrendering to his basest instincts.

But then he thought of the girl in the barrel.

Shit.

She had spent an entire evening sealed away in that goddamn thing. Bound and gagged. Helpless. Deprived of food and water. Who knew how long she had already been in the barrel prior to his arrival at Olson’s restaurant? Way too long was the only real answer to that. He wondered whether she had voided her bowels or bladder during the night. It was a disquieting thought that made his face twist in disgust. It was very possible. And maybe she had spent the entire night literally stewing in her own juices while he was busy fucking Marnie and Nadia. The thought filled him with an intense self-loathing and extinguished the remnants of his lingering horniness.

He turned away from the bathroom door and hurried down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to stare briefly at the front door. He could still get to work on time--making it in just under the wire--if he walked out of here now and got in his car and got moving without further delay. Rescuing the little girl remained his ultimate aim, but now he was wondering whether he should wait until tonight’s meeting of the Diabolical Conspiracy to make his move--as he’d originally assumed he would do--or instead do something right fucking now.

A sudden squelching sound told him water was no longer running through the pipes overhead. Marnie had just finished her shower. If he had a window of opportunity here, it was closing fast. A mental image of the girl squatting in a puddle of her own piss decided the issue for him. He glanced at the front door one more time, cursed under his breath, and headed for the garage. Once he was there, he eyed the blue metal barrel with increasing trepidation as he approached it. What if she had died during the night? It didn’t seem likely. She was young. Healthy. But there could have been complications arising from the conditions of her captivity. Maybe she had choked on the gag. Maybe whatever drug they had used on her had overwhelmed her system. The possibilities deepened his already considerable anxiety. It was too easy to imagine the girl dead inside the barrel. But one way or another--and regardless of whether he wanted to--he was going to find out.

He used the crowbar to pry the lid off the barrel. He closed his eyes and issued a desperate prayer before taking a look inside.

Please, please, please let her be okay.

He put the crowbar down and slid the lid aside to look in at the girl, flinching at the acrid piss stench that drifted out. The odor shamed him and made him wish he had acted last night. The good news, though, was that the girl was alive. She peered up at him with eyes that didn’t look as dazed as they had the night before. A good thing, of course, but the downside to that was seeing the obvious terror in her expression, which hadn’t been there before. She whimpered and cringed away from him as he peeked in at her.

“
Don’t worry,” he whispered in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “I’m not going to--”

The rest of it went unsaid as heard the door to the garage open again.

Aw, shit.

“
Sneaking another look at the vessel, are we?””

Mike frowned.

The what?

Mike glanced to his right and saw Marnie approaching him. She was smiling and her tone was light and apparently carefree. Either she didn’t suspect him of rebelling against the conspiracy or she was exceptionally good at concealing suspicion.

She sidled up next to him and looked in at the girl. “My, but she is a cute one. Stinks, though.” She laughed and waved a hand in front of her face, then nudged Mike with an elbow. “We’ll have to clean her up before the ceremony. I bet Olson volunteers for that duty. That’d be right up his alley, the fat little perv.”

Mike was still holding the barrel’s lid and now he gripped it tighter as he struggled to keep his disgust at that comment from showing. A voice in his head was shouting at him now, urging him to smash the lid against Marnie’s head, then grab the girl and get the fuck out of here. Incredibly, though, a reluctance to physically harm Marnie lingered. It was insane. She wasn’t just a bad person. That had been understating it by quite a lot. She was a horrible, despicable person, possessed of an almost indescribably vile excuse for a soul. And yet, she was still Marnie, his former all-consuming obsession. It might not be enough to stay his hand, but it
was
enough to make him hesitate.

Marnie nudged him again. “Aren’t you gonna be late for work?”

“
Fuck work.”

She laughed again. “Wow, Mike, that’s so unlike you.” Another laugh. “I dig it, though. You don’t need to be Mr. Responsible all the time.”

“
The ceremony tonight…what’s it all about? You said Nadia would tell me last night, but that never happened.”

“
Gosh, I wonder why? We were all kind of otherwise occupied, you know. Speaking of that…I take it you had a good time?”

The girl in the barrel kept staring up at him. She wasn’t looking at Marnie at all, as if she sensed there was no hope of help from that direction whatsoever. Her eyes were opening pleading with him. It made Mike nervous. What if Marnie noticed and somehow realized he’d given the girl reason to believe he might help her?

He had to distract her while he worked up the nerve to act.

“
Yeah…a good time. Definitely.” He glanced at her. “So come on already, give me the lowdown. What’s up with this ceremony? What did you mean when you called this girl ‘the vessel’? And why was it so goddamn important that I be the one to transport her here. That was some stressful shit, by the way, and I’d love an explanation.”

Marnie pursed her lips for a moment as she appeared to think it over. Then she shrugged and said, “Nadia really meant to tell you last night, but we got sort of carried away with all the drinking and fucking. I guess she forgot.” She smirked. “Hazards of the lifestyle.”

“
The satanic lifestyle, you mean?”

“
Yeah. What else? Anyway…” Marnie flipped long blonde locks from her face and looked him in the eye. “That shit with you yesterday, the whole transport thing, was a crucial piece of the puzzle Nadia has put together. It’s all based on stuff from the Satanic Bible. You’re the Thirteenth, remember? Your initiation into the group completed the infernal circle. As the Thirteenth, it was necessary for you to deliver our vessel.” She flicked a quick glance at the girl in the barrel and smiled again. “This little sweetheart being the vessel. Delivery of the vessel by the Thirteenth opens a direct channel with realms beyond this world, including the infernal hierarchy of Hell. But opening the channel is just the first phase. When you kill the vessel tonight, we’ll be able to request an audience with Satan himself. Imagine it, Mike. A chance to communicate with the single most powerful entity in the universe. The lord of darkness. Our beautiful master. It’s an incredibly rare opportunity for those of our faith.”

Marnie radiated a palpable live-wire excitement throughout this speech. Mike had never seen her anywhere near this enthusiastic talking about anything else. She sounded like a person breathlessly discussing the imminent occurrence of some massively historical event. From her point of view, of course, a summoning of the devil would be on that level. Mike didn’t believe Satan himself would actually be present in Nadia’s garage tonight, mainly because he didn’t believe in the existence of such a being. But Nadia was a master manipulator. It was possible she had some kind of theatrical trickery in mind to make the rest of these loonies believe it was happening. How she meant to pull the deception off was an interesting thing to contemplate, but it didn’t really matter much because the ceremony would not be happening. Not tonight and not ever.

He looked at the girl in the barrel again. She was still watching him in that obviously beseeching way. “So I’m supposed to kill…the vessel?”

“
Of course.” Marnie was still going on in that bubbly, giddy tone. How could she sound that way when discussing something so monstrous? “You still don’t understand how integral you are to everything as the Thirteenth. I envy you so much, baby. Tonight, when you slit this thing’s throat and bathe in her blood--”

There was a cracking sound as the edge of the lid’s barrel connected with the center of her face. Blood jetted from her nostrils as the blow broke her nose and sent her stumbling backward. Mike pursued her as she crashed against a work table and then pitched forward, dropping to her knees. He swung the lid again with all his might and it smacked into the side of her head with a resounding thump. She toppled over and stared up at him with dazed, uncomprehending eyes. A flicker of sick sympathy flared within him as he took a good look at the damage he’d already inflicted. He experienced a moment of terrible doubt. She had never seen it coming. It stunned him to realize how completely she had accepted the sincerity of his immersion into her “faith”. This was a betrayal. Didn’t matter that it was a righteous one. It was a betrayal nonetheless. But he understood there was no taking it back now. He’d chosen his path and the only thing left now was to see it through to the end. So he dropped to his knees next to her and choked back bile as he raised the lid above his head and brought it down again. Tears blurred his vision as he watched her body convulse and then stop moving.