Defenders of the Faith Read online

  Ananda picked up the tambourine-like drum and struck it with the dried hoof three times. Paul had turned the volume very low, and the resultant sound was confined and flat, like hitting an empty shoe box. "The apprentices come," she said, and set down the drum. Then she turned toward the camera, undid a bow that held her black robe together, and let it fall from her shoulders, so that she stood before the stone table naked, her body fully visible in the frame.

  In spite of himself, Paul felt a rush of sexual excitement at the sight, and his hands began to sweat inside the thin plastic gloves he wore. The girl's breasts were round and perfect, tipped with large nipples, whose reddish brown color was still easily discerned in the yellow glow. Ananda's shaven pubis let the camera detect the pouting line of her vaginal lips. Paul pushed back his lust by thinking about how Compton and Ananda must have worked for hours to get their lighting just right.

  "Oh Great Goddess," Ananda said in her absurd, piping voice that crushed any sense of mystery from the rite, "two apprentices come before you, virgins both, to dedicate their lives and their bodies to your service." She turned and looked at the girls, so that her tight buttocks and smooth back were revealed to Paul, who moved his tongue around his mouth, trying to relieve its dryness.

  "Approach the stone table," Ananda said, then stood to the side, at the very edge of the frame, so that both young girls were fully visible as they stepped forward. "Approach in love that knows no limits, in trust that knows no bounds. Now, stand before the Mother in pride, and shed your earthly garments. Come unashamed and free."

  Holly and Susan looked at each other again, but the smiles would not come. Together they reached up to their throats, undid bows, and tugged the shifts downward, over their small breasts, thin waists, and narrow, girlish hips, until the garments vanished from camera range, and they stood there naked, their clasped hands between their legs, as if attempting to hold something in.

  Paul wanted to look away, but at the same time wanted to keep watching, wanted the girls to move their hands and let him see everything, hating the desire even as it flooded his brain, his body, and came to rest in his groin. He continued to watch, knowing that he had to. He had to know everything.

  "Do you wish to join the Covenant of Wicca?" Ananda said.

  "We do," the girls replied raggedly.

  "Then drink the wine." Ananda, careful to avoid getting between the girls and the camera, picked up the metal cup from the table and handed it to Holly, who kept her hands over her groin for a moment, hesitant to reveal herself. Then she took the cup with both hands, revealing a nearly hairless pudenda, and drank. She passed the cup to Susan, who took it with just as much hesitation, and also drank, then passed it back to Ananda.

  "Now," Ananda said, "stand within the sacred circle while I bind you. Stand in trust that knows no bounds."

  The girls stepped into the circle, closer to the camera's eye, and placed their hands behind their backs. Ananda disappeared for a moment, then returned holding two leather straps and two strips of red cloth. She stepped behind each girl and tied her hands. She was not there long enough to do a good job, and Paul assumed the binding was loose and mainly symbolic. Then Ananda wrapped the strips of cloth around the girls' eyes, blindfolding them.

  "Holly," she said. "Do you trust?"

  "I do," the girl said in a shaking voice.

  "Then come where I bid." Ananda took Holly's arm and led her out of the circle, and around the table, on the side closest to the camera. She gently pushed the girl back so that her legs pressed against the table, then made her sit on the stone slab.

  "Lie upon the altar in trust," Ananda said, pushing the blindfolded girl down so that she lay on the stone, her knees, pressed tightly together, dangling over the edge.

  "Do not fear. Part your legs so that the goddess may see the very heart of you."

  As Holly began to wiggle her legs apart, the camera moved for the first time, zooming in slowly on the girl's vagina, holding for several seconds, then coming out again to take in her prone form, and then Ananda, picking up the double edged knife and standing over Holly so that the girl's head was only inches away from Ananda's bare hips.

  So Compton was in here, Paul thought, operating the camera. It made sense. It would have been easier for the girls to take off their clothing if there was no man present. They probably thought Compton was nowhere around, and they certainly never guessed they were being videorecorded.

  Paul drew his attention back to the monitor as Ananda pressed the point of the knife to Holly's throat, and the girl gave an involuntary start.

  "What is thy name?"

  "My name," said Holly, swallowing hard, "is Alietha."

  Ananda began to run the knife down Holly's body, hard enough to make an indentation in the girl's white flesh, but not so hard as to break the skin. The point descended between Holly's breasts, and the camera zoomed in again as it circled the left nipple, then touched the tip, and did the same to the right. The knife moved down Holly's body, ever closer to the camera in the wall, riding over her stomach and then coming to rest between the lips of her vagina in an extreme close-up, as Ananda asked, "What is thy purpose?"

  Holly did not answer immediately, and when she did, her voice was shaking. Paul did not know whether it was with fear or excitement. "To...to embrace the life of Wicca...to worship the Great Goddess...and...and to draw down the moon."

  The camera pulled back as the knife worked its way up Holly's body again in a straight line, until it came to rest upon her lips. She kissed the blade, which Ananda then withdrew and placed out of sight. "Rise, Alietha," Ananda said, and Holly sat up. "Remove thy bonds, open thy eyes to thy new life and purpose."

  The girl wiggled her hands behind her back, and in a moment they were free. She dropped the leather strap onto the floor, then reached behind her head and removed her blindfold. She was smiling now, and her face was flushed. The track of the knife was still visible as a thin, pink line on her body. She came around the table to Ananda's open arms, and the two girls hugged one another, the camera adding sexuality to the sisterly embrace by zooming in on Ananda's breasts pressing against Holly's flat chest.

  "Welcome to the coven of true believers," Ananda said, "and to the sisterhood of Wicca."

  Holly stood in her former place, her hands at her side, unashamed now, as Ananda held up a black robe for her to wear. She slipped it on, and tied it at the neck, beaming proudly.

  Then Ananda took Susan through the same procedure, the supine and vulnerable position, the knife wending its way downward, the meaningless words, the foolish ritual. And always the omnipresent camera, invading the flesh, violating the girl's ignorant sincerity, making what was merely misguided filthy and pornographic.

  Eventually, the three of them embraced, Ananda helped Susan, rechristened "Vondara," don the black robe, and the disc ended with the same lack of artistry with which it had been made, leaving an abrupt silence and darkness.

  Paul took the DVD out of the machine. His penis was still semi-erect inside his pants, and he felt dampness in his underwear, a tiny, moist spot of self-betrayal, a spontaneous admission of sin that he would smother with righteous acts.

  He looked over the other DVDs quickly to see if any copies had been made of the one he had just seen, but there did not seem to be, and he assumed that he had come in time, and that the unopened tower of blanks had been destined to make duplicates of Holly and Susan's humiliation.

  That was the proper word. What he had just seen, what the girls had experienced, was no initiation, no rite of trust and love, no exercise of faith, no matter how misplaced. It was humiliation and treachery, seduction of both soul and body. Ananda and Compton were people to whom even their own perverse religion meant no more than an opportunity to sell soft-core child pornography, for Holly and Susan were little more than children.

  Even this travesty of belief called Wicca could mean nothing to Compton and Ananda. How could you use your faith to produce smut? How could anyone tu
rn a credo in which they placed their conviction into a tool for middle aged masturbators? And the thought that someone could use religion -- any religion -- to such terrible ends enraged Paul almost more than did the violation of his young charges.

  He could imagine Compton's procedure, moving into a new city, opening a store where spiritually vulnerable youth looking for answers would gather, telling them about his faith, his and Ananda's, both so serene and attractive and worthy of emulation by little girls seeking their own identities, looking to fit in somewhere. It was precisely the way in which these cults he had heard about operated. And then an offer to join them, and Ananda saying of course you're shy about it, honey, but David won't be there, it'll be just us girls. But of course David was there, hiding behind a wall with a videocamera and duplicating facilities and a list of smut buyers.

  And what happened now? Did the "rites" get a little hotter? Did the knife go inside next time? Was blood shed? Did Compton participate? Or would Ananda get the girls to do something with each other?

  Paul slammed his hand down on the desk top, and immediately regretted his outburst. He hoped the room was soundproofed enough so that no one above heard the hollow boom. Although he listened for several minutes, he heard no reaction, and started to think about what to do next. Compton and Ananda had to be stopped, but how could he do it without bringing in Holly and Susan?

  And then he had it. Send one of them the DVD anonymously, along with with a note saying that it was the only copy, and that they should learn from it. Then they could see how they had been betrayed. And if he sent a suitable line of scripture, then certainly the girls would come back to the loving arms of the church again, their church, the only true church.

  But before he left this den of perfidy, there was something else he had to do, and that was close down the Infinite Harmony Book Store and drive away the human swine who were its proprietors the same way Christ drove the Gerasene swine into the water to drown. He found a pen and blank paper in the desk drawer, and wrote in block letters:

  Using children for this purpose is illegal. I have evidence.

  Leave this town before I use it.

  He left the sheet on the desk, then picked up the DVD and turned off the desk light. Paul switched on his flash, opened the ivy-covered door, and stepped into the other room. He had taken only a few steps when a fluorescent tube came on, washing the sylvan room with light.

  David Compton stood by the side door at the far end of the room, one hand on the wall switch, the other holding a semi-automatic pistol.

  Chapter 24

  Compton was wearing only a pair of red briefs, and was smiling as he walked slowly toward Paul.

  "It's okay," he said, turning his head to the right, but keeping his eyes on Paul. "Looks like some old guy who wants a freebie. Whatcha got there, pop?" He stopped walking, and nodded at the DVD Paul was holding. "Why don't you toss that here."

  Paul responded by hugging the disc tightly against him, but Compton shook the pistol in an unmistakable gesture, and Paul lofted the cased DVD toward Compton's open hand.

  He caught it easily. As he was reading the label, Ananda stepped into view. She was wearing a short nightie that barely covered the thong beneath. Her face was flushed, and Paul thought she looked afraid.

  "Holly and Susan," Compton said. "So you like the new stuff, huh?" He came a few steps closer, making Paul back up until his legs struck the stone table. "You look familiar. Take off that cap." Paul reached up slowly and removed his baseball cap, dropping it on the floor.

  "It's that old guy, David," Ananda said. "He was in the store looking for religious stuff, remember?"

  "I remember." Compton's smile was gone. "All right, man, what are you doing here?"

  Paul nodded toward the DVD Compton was holding. "Looking for that, like you said."

  "And what were you going to do with it?"

  Paul said nothing.

  "Blackmail us maybe? Run us out of town? What? We have a pretty good thing going here, man. Nice city, nice little store, nice business on the side, and you break in here and think you can end that? Man, I've faced a whole lot meaner guys than you and walked away. I mean, this is an easy one. You broke in here, I came down, saw that flashlight, thought it was a gun -- "

  All the time Compton was talking, Paul was trying to remember where the long, shining sword was leaning. He knew that the man would kill him, knew it from the moment the light went on, and he knew too that the sword was his only chance. He pushed himself back a half hour in time, coming into the dark room, seeing the stone table and the items on it, the sword, gleaming in his flashlight's beam, its point on the floor, leaning against the edge of the table...

  There.

  He grasped the hilt with his left hand, swung the sword up, and lurched to the right, all in less than a second. Compton, slowed by his words, fired the pistol a moment too late, so that the bullet flew through the space where Paul had been, and buried itself in the thick, ivy wall. He did not fire a second shot.

  Though the ceremonial sword's edge was dull, it was sharp enough and had been whipped through the air with enough speed to slice an inch into Compton's neck just below his right ear, severing his jugular vein and tossing him to the side like a doll.

  Paul had hung on to the hilt, and dragged it downward so that the point ripped into Compton's windpipe as he fell, and the first sound Paul heard after the echoes of the shot died was the loud whoop of air being sucked into Compton's lungs through the hole in his throat before the blood left his brain and he died.

  On his hands and knees, Paul started to straighten up, the sword still in his left hand, as Ananda ran without a sound to Compton's body. There was no serenity in her lovely face now, only fury, as she reached over the dead man for the gun that lay on the floor. Paul twisted himself around and thrust upward toward the girl.

  The point of the sword was sharper than the edge, and it sank into the softness beneath her sternum like a stake into wet sand. She fell on top of it with a single, quick moan, her weight pulling the sword from his hand.

  It took her longer to die than it had Compton. After Paul stood up, she looked up at him. All hatred had gone from her features, and she looked nearly as young as Holly and Susan had on the DVD. There was a question on her face, and she shook her head slightly, as though she could not hope to find the answer, but she did not speak. Paul did not think she was capable. He was glad not to hear that babyish voice again. He thought he would have cried if he had. The closest she came to speech was her last breath, taken in raggedly but released as smoothly as a spring zephyr, a long, soft, "ahhhhhh," that left a silence in which Paul could hear her drops of blood falling an inch from the sword blade onto the turf.

  He went to the outside door, opened it several inches, and listened, but there were no strange noises in the night. The sound of the gunshot must have been imprisoned by the windowless cellar. He had time, then, to do what he had to do.

  First, he prayed. He could not bring himself to ask God to spare Compton, but he did pray for the girl who had called herself Ananda, knowing that not all that long before, she had been as innocent as his girls.

  Then he went into the office, picked up his now pointless message, balled it up and put it in his pocket. Then he left the office, leaving the door ajar so that the police would easily find it.

  In the large temple room, he took the metal cup from the stone table, and held it under the wound in Ananda's chest. In a few minutes, there was an inch of blood in it. He dipped the piece of knurled wood into it, and drew on the turf within the metal circle some of the symbols that he recalled seeing on Compton's cloak.

  Then Paul cleared the other items from the stone table, and dragged the two bodies on top of it. There was just room to lay Compton and Ananda side by side. He put the bloody sword on Compton's chest, the hilt at his slashed neck. Then he placed the knife on Ananda's breast, just over her fatal wound. Finally he folded their hands over their chests, interlocking their stiff
ening fingers so that they would stay. When he was finished, he thought they looked somewhat like the effigies on the tombs he had seen when he and Evey had visited England.

  He lit every candle and every incense burner in the room, then picked up the DVD of Holly and Susan, retrieved his baseball cap, turned out the light, and left the room. Compton's pistol he let lay where it had fallen.

  He picked up his crowbar at the bottom of the stairs, and walked up into the clean air of night, leaving the door and the gate open wide. On the way home, he stopped at a pay phone, called 911, told the switchboard operator that there was a medical emergency in the cellar of 401 Term Street, and hung up before she could ask any questions.

  By the time he got to his house, he had decided that he would destroy the DVD of the two girls. The police would find the room that housed Compton's clandestine business, and the truth of what he was would come out -- devil worshipper, pornographer, killed by his own. There was a whole computer file full of suspects, their names and addresses. And maybe the police investigation might put some of those people away for kiddie porn violations as well. As for the girls, they would also learn, realize that they had been duped, and turn back to the arms of the church.

  Practically speaking, it had been a productive night. God had been with him, had once again guided his hand, placed it on the hilt of the sword that had saved his life and sent an irredeemable sinner to judgment.

  Still, his stomach churned. He could not forget the look in Ananda's eyes as she died, and that night he thought about her naked, as she was in the DVD, and got up, sweating, just before dawn.

  He went into his den, took the DVD, held it in his hand, touched it as a man would a woman, looked at the empty DVD player and the television set next to it, thought about Ananda and Holly and Susan and the knife, and then smashed the disc against the bricks of the hearth, turning it in his grip and bringing it down over and over again until it was nothing but a small pile of plastic and aluminum strips fallen from his bleeding hand.