Defenders of the Faith Page 10

  No, after meeting William Davonier, Paul believed that there was devil enough in man himself that an extraneous Satan need not be blamed. Evil, he thought, was how man began. And God was the living, separate spirit who was powerful enough to turn man's sight toward something higher than his own sinful self. God, and Christ, His Son.

  No, the devil was not within the walls of the Infinite Harmony Book Store, Paul thought, but unfortunately neither was God. Oh, in the universal sense, of course he was. He saw into the hearts and souls of David and Ananda, but he was not present in them as an active force for good. So it was a place to be shunned.

  Paul learned quickly that he was not the only Buchanan resident who believed that. Three weeks later the Buchanan Independent, which proclaimed itself “The Voice of Republicanism in Buchanan County,” ran a letter from the Reverend Ronald Wilber of the Church of the Holy Word. Its point, which had to be diligently sought among several paragraphs of multi-syllabic oratory, was that the Infinite Harmony Book Store and the godless shamanism it espoused was a blot on the Christian community. The Reverend Wilber added that young people should be kept from entering the place, and termed it a den of "spiritual pornography."

  Paul read the letter with a mixture of agreement and amusement. From what he had seen of the place, Wilber's description was accurate enough, but Paul drew the line at making it an adults-only store. Kids would always question, just the way that Holly and Susan did, and they might even leave the church for a short time in their confusion. But if their upbringing had been solid and moral, and their initial faith was strong enough, they would go through their time of tempting unscathed, and return with their beliefs made unshakable.

  Several days later there were two replies to Reverend Wilber's jeremiad. The first was from David Compton himself, who stated that he was glad for the publicity, but that Wilber was conveniently ignoring the right of freedom of speech and dissemination of ideas that was a cornerstone of American life. "Just as Reverend Wilber has a right to worship the way he pleases, so has every other American that right, whether that worship includes the worship of Jesus, Brahma, Buddha, Allah, or even the spirits of wood and field. We only ask that the gentleman permit us and our customers the same right that he would so firmly claim for himself."

  Paul found the second letter far more disturbing than the first. It was signed by Holly Good and Susan Darnell, and read in part, "Certainly spending time in the Infinite Harmony discussing philosophy and comparative religions with David and Ananda is a better way to spend time than in clubs or trashy movies or online websites. We and others like us feel that our parents and pastors should spend their time looking into these things we have mentioned, and leave people in peace who just want to talk about spiritual things and be peaceful themselves."

  Paul did nothing about the letter except worry. Two Sundays later he found that he had more to worry about. Holly and Susan had been less responsive in class the past several weeks, and on this particular Sunday they were both absent. When Paul spotted Jim Good, Holly's father, after church, he asked if she was sick.

  "Sick in the head, maybe," Jim Good said, trying, Paul thought, to appear flippant, but failing. "She didn't want to come today."

  "Didn't want to?"

  "No. She said, and I quote, that she would prefer to stay home and meditate this morning. I told her that I'd meditate the seat of her little pants if she didn't get going, but her mother was on her side..." Jim Good turned as his wife Jane came up to them. A soft smile lit her face as she overheard his words.

  "I don't believe in force feeding, Paul," she said. "Especially religion. My parents made me go to church and Sunday school every single day until I moved out of their house, and I didn't step into a church again until Holly was baptized. She'll miss it, and she'll come next week on her own. And if not next week, eventually. But making her come is only going to make her hostile to church, and I don't want that." She took her husband's arm. "And neither do you."

  "If you say so, dear," Jim Good said sarcastically.

  "Well, say hello for me," said Paul, "and tell her we missed her."

  But neither Holly nor Susan came the following week, or the next, or the next. It was July before Paul saw them again. He was walking down Term Street when he met them coming the other way. Susan said, "Hello, Mr. Blair," and he had to stop and look closely in order to recognize them.

  "Susan," he said. "Holly...I almost didn't know it was you. You look very...bright." He laughed, and the girls laughed as well.

  They were bright indeed. Holly's blonde hair was set off by a flame red, loose fitting blouse and a billowing pink skirt, separated by a blue macrame belt. Silver half moons dangled from her ears, and her eyes were lined and shadowed as to appear almost threateningly feral. Susan's makeup was similar. Her dark hair was bound with a band of bright metal, and over her loose, boldly patterned, purple dress she wore a pendant similar to the one Paul had seen Ananda wearing. Neither girl wore shoes, and Paul had never seen them smile as freely as they now were.

  "We've missed you in Sunday school," Paul said, and the girls' smiles became wider, but showed no teeth. He expected them to say that they were sorry they hadn't come lately, but they said nothing, just looked at him with those secret smiles. "So how was school this year?"

  "Good," they said simultaneously, and giggled at the synchronicity of their replies.

  "Keeping busy this summer?" Their self-possession made him feel like a fool asking these questions, like a snooping, dirty old man.

  "Mmm-hmm." From Susan.

  "Pretty much." From Holly.

  "Working, or just fun?"

  "Just fun," they said, together again, and again came the giggles. "Fun and...some studying," Susan added, and Holly nodded in agreement, her half moon earrings catching the sun.

  "Ah." He nodded too. Studying what? would be the next logical question, but he knew that he had already asked too much. Did he want to appear even more foolish than he already had? "Well, it was nice seeing you. Have a good summer."

  They gave cheery goodbyes and walked away while Paul walked ahead, hesitant to look back at them for fear they would be looking at him, see him watching, and giggle again.

  But he could not help it, and stopped, bent to check his shoelace, and stole a backward glance. He need not have worried. They were moving down the street as quickly as little birds, their heads together, sharing the happy secret they both had kept from Paul. What had happened, he wondered, to turn the Bronte Sisters into the Brothers Cheeryble?

  He was afraid that he knew. The half moon jewelry, the loose, free flowing clothing he had seen Ananda wearing in the store, the letter to the newspaper, and the girls' absence from church all pointed to David Compton's book store as the catalyst. What was it, Brahma? Buddha? What alien god had made their souls so lighthearted? He could not bring himself to ask, and doubted if they would tell him anyway, so he began to think about how to find out on his own.

  Were they, even now, going to the store? They were heading in that direction, and an urge impossible to ignore told him to follow them. He turned and stayed a block behind the two girls, but they never turned around, and, when they arrived at the Infinite Harmony Book Store, they walked up the three steps to the door and went inside with a firm purpose that would not have allowed them to recognize the rest of the city, let alone a man so far back in their serene and joyous wake.

  The store was on a corner, and Paul crossed the street diagonally and passed by the side of the shop, in the event Compton or Ananda might be looking out the single first floor window in that wall. But when he cleared the window's angle of vision, he stopped, reversed direction, and walked back until he stood just under the window. It was open, and through the screen Paul heard the high voices of the girls and Ananda, the lower, lubricous one of David Compton.

  With the competition of the street traffic, it was difficult to make out words, but Paul caught several, most of them Compton's, whose bigger voice carried over the
sound of the cars and trucks --

  "...in perfect trust...only way to...went through the test with..."

  From time to time he could also hear Holly's shrill voice carrying over the street noise. The voices moved back and forth over the cacophony of the city.

  "...was so scared...there like that, with no...just like outside down there..."

  "... to become one of us...never know such joy...company of wickeds..."

  Wickeds? Was that what he said? And Paul remembered the books behind the counter and their identifying sign, Wicca. Wiccans, then. He knew it had something to do with witchcraft, with --

  "...rites of the coven, now that you're..."

  The voices moved away, to another part of the store, perhaps, or to another room behind the beaded curtain. Or maybe, Paul thought, they were going to step outside, and he scuttled guiltily away from the window and the store until he came to an alley. He stood in its mouth, bent over, hands on his knees, trying to grasp what he had heard, relate the disparate phrases to one another to come up with a logical whole.

  Coven, Wicca, rites, become one of us...there was no other conclusion to draw. It had to be witchcraft, and how, Paul feared, could witchcraft be anything but Satanism? Yes, Holly and Susan had quite a little secret, all right. Studying, indeed.

  Paul could envision how it had happened, the girls coming in, talking about religion, and David Compton, with that silky voice of his, seducing them with the promise of...what? Power? A peace that passeth all understanding? Or a sense of belonging that their own Christian church did not give them? Perhaps simply a chance for two plain little creatures to be mysterious, exotic, even beautiful, and to become aware of the physical side of their natures. Compton and his slut had seen their needs, and offered them something to fill them, something ungodly and terrible.

  It was a horrible example of innocence polluted, and Paul wondered how far it had gone, what exactly the girls had done. It might have been something sexual, or violent. Holly had said something about being scared, there like that, with no... No what? No inhibitions, or morals? And what had she meant about something being just like outside, down there? Down where?

  The only thing that came to mind was the store's cellar, and he was sure that it must have one. All the buildings on that block of Term Street dated back to the mid-1800's. Maybe the answers lay there. Though he was not sure how to proceed, he knew that he would have to find out what the girls had done, and if they were involved in anything illegal.

  Years before, he had sworn to protect them both, and protecting them did not mean running to the police or their parents. Protecting them meant finding out what was wrong, and then making it right again. Tonight he would find out what, exactly, had gone wrong.

  Chapter 23

  David Compton's home address, Paul learned from directory assistance, was the same as the store. There were second and third floor apartments over most of the stores on the block, so Paul waited until the lights on the two floors above the store went out before he got out of his car and went back into the alley, the crowbar dangling straight against his leg. He was wearing running shoes, dark jeans, a deep brown shirt, and a baseball cap whose visor he had tugged down over his forehead.

  The building that housed the store had no cellar windows, but there was a stairway leading down from the alley's narrow sidewalk. A chain link gate covered it, but Paul's crowbar wrenched the U-latch away from the pole far enough to open it. He counted to ten, listening to hear if anyone had been alarmed by the sound of twisting metal, then opened the gate enough to step through it. He pulled it shut after him, bending the latch back into place as best he could. Then he felt his way down the concrete steps, and went to work on the cellar door.

  It took more time than the gate had, but he was in no hurry now. No one could see him from the alley unless they shone a light directly down the stairway. Eventually the lock snapped, and the door started to fall inward until he grabbed it. He waited, listened, sniffed the air.

  He had expected a damp smell to roll out through the cellar door, but instead there was a rich combination of cloying sweetness, burned wood, and the tang of artificial pine scent. He pushed the cellar door gently closed and stood for a moment in the darkness, trying to see if there was any other light source before he switched on his mini-flash.

  There was none, and he pressed the button, sending a thin, pure white beam into the room. The floor of the small room was hard, packed clay, and the walls were made of large and ancient bricks. Two bicycles leaned against the left hand wall, and shelves that may have once held canned goods ran the length of the other. There was nothing else in the room, and he crossed it, turned out his light, and opened the inner door. The scents were even stronger here, but no light trickled into his eyes. He turned on his flash again.

  What he saw made him hold his breath for a time, then release it in a slow and respectful sigh. The place seemed to be a temple, but a temple set outdoors, in a clearing in a forest, and for a moment Paul thought he might actually be outside. The turf under his feet had the soft give of a carpet of pine needles, and broadleaf and pine trees in large pots ringed the perimeter of the large room. Above his head, tiny reflectors caught the beam of his light and threw it back reduced a hundredfold, so that the ceiling seemed vaulted with first magnitude stars.

  In the center of the room, sunk into what Paul thought living turf, was a metal ring six feet in circumference. The ring itself was six inches wide, and was crudely engraved with a multitude of pictographs. Several feet away from it was a stone table, on which several items lay. There was something that looked like a tambourine without jingles, with the dried hoof of an animal next to it. There was also a metal cup, engraved with the same symbols as the huge ring, a pair of what appeared to be deer antlers attached to a leather band, a three foot piece of knurled wood, a double edged knife made of dull metal, and, leaning against the stone table, a long and gleaming sword.

  Paul shined the light on the table, then on the floor. It was only after he saw that everything was clean and tidy that he would admit to himself that he had been looking for blood. He shone the light over the potted trees, revealing a number of candles and incense burners, no doubt the source of the sickly sweet odor that filled the room.

  The far wall, he saw, was covered with artificial ivy, but something mirrored his flashlight's beam as he swept across it. When he investigated, he found that it was a camera lens of some sort, camouflaged by the dull green, plastic leaves. It took him a minute to find the latch of the door behind the artificial foliage. It was only a thumb latch, with no lock, and he pushed down on it, swung it outward, and shone his light into the little room within.

  Paul stepped inside and pulled the door shut after him. The room was eight by ten feet, and nearly filled with office furniture and video equipment. On a big and battered desk, whose wide top was hatched with scratches, was an older Gateway computer and monitor. Next to the desk was a green filing cabinet edged with rust, and on the other side a cheap rack system holding a small television monitor, five DVD player/recorders stacked on top of each other. The digital camcorder whose lens Paul had seen in the other room was attached to a bracket on the wall in such a way that it could still be moved, no doubt to pan around the outer room. There was also a small bookcase filled with several dozen cased DVDs, and several towers of blank DVDs sat on the concrete floor. A box filled with padded mailing envelopes was nearby.

  Paul switched on the computer, and when it booted up he quickly found a spreadsheet program with a list of names and addresses, all of them male, from all over the United States. There were financial transactions entered for each, some only one, but others as many as a dozen. The figures involved ranged from fifty to four hundred dollars.

  In the computer’s graphic files were a series of advertisements, some clearly intended for print, probably, thought Paul, in men's magazines or adult tabloids, and others that Paul assumed could be used as banners on websites. All of them had the sa
me thrust as the first Paul read:

  DVDS! -- YOUNG NAKED PRIESTESSES!

  Beautiful YOUNG Girls in Uncensored Ceremonies of BLACK MAGIC! ALL NUDE!

  Nothing Left to the Imagination! Send $20.00 for sample DVD to: ABRACADABRA P.O. Box 7B, Radio City Station NY.

  Some of the other ads promised voodoo ceremonies, Black Masses, demon worshippers in action, and young witches pledging themselves to Satan. The word, "young," was always capitalized, and was used at least twice in every ad. The online banners offered payment through Paypal, while the locations of the post office boxes in the ads intended for print ranged from New York to Philadelphia to Boston to Atlanta, with a number of smaller cities in between. Paul wondered over how many years David Compton had run his shabby business.

  But what he wondered more was how deeply involved Holly Good and Susan Darnell were in Compton's video productions. As he put the ads back into the filing cabinet, he saw that the answer seemed to lie before him on the desktop. There, next to a computer keyboard, was a DVD labeled "Holly & Susan Master." He took it out of its clear plastic case, put it into the player on the bottom of the stack, and fiddled with the buttons until an image appeared on the monitor.

  It was Ananda. She was standing at the stone table, perhaps eight feet away from the camera's lens, wearing a black robe. Although there were no candles visible in the frame, the room seemed aglow with yellow light, and Paul thought that there must be a dozen small flames burning just out of camera range.

  Ananda picked up the antlers and fitted the leather strap around her head, tightening the band so that they stood upright. Then she turned and looked toward the back of the room.

  Holly and Susan came in from the side, probably through the door that Paul assumed led upstairs. Their long hair was down around their shoulders, and they each wore a shapeless, brown shift that covered them from neck to ankles. They looked nervous, and cast little smiles at one another. They also looked very young, and very innocent.