Dark Debts (34 page)

“Then you've got the dabblers. People who think it's cute. I've seen more than a few heavy-metal teenagers who've conjured up something they don't know what to do with. I'd be willing to bet that's what happened to your Danny Ingram.”

“How did you—”

“
New York Times
. You look better than your picture, by the way.”

Thanks?

“Then you've got your pop Satanists,” she continued. “The Anton LeVey crowd. They're basically dabblers with enough money for robes. They think they're bad, but they're mostly silly.

“The gang to worry about are the traditional Satanists. You'll rarely hear about them, and very little has been written. But they're out there. They've been out there for a long time. They're very quiet and very careful. They have to be, or they'd all be in jail.”

“So you're one of those people who believes they're out there in organized droves, killing people and throwing them into portable incinerators?” Michael asked. Vincent had been one of those people, too. They'd had several fierce arguments about it.

“Michael, I've been studying this stuff for decades. And things are becoming clearer lately. The baby boomers are starting to remember, and a lot of them are starting to talk.”

“Yes, about their ‘recovered' memories that they've discovered with the help of expensive therapists.”

“You asked me to tell you what I know.”

“I meant what you know about Vincent.”

“I
am
talking about Vincent.”

Michael chuckled. “What? Are you going to tell me Vincent was a transgenerational Satanist?”

“Not exactly.” Her face didn't change.

“What does that mean?”

“Your great-grandfather, Andrew Kinney, was a transgenerational Satanist. He was the high priest of a Satanic cult.”

Michael stared at her. She might as well have said his great-grandfather was a hyena.

“That's absolutely insane.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, Andrew Kinney was a militant Catholic. Vincent told me he went to Mass every day of his life.”

Charlotte nodded. “They do that. They go out of their way to look like pillars of society. It diverts suspicion. I've even heard of
priests
who were Satan worshipers. The cults love infiltrating the Church, because then they can steal relics and consecrated hosts and defile them in every way imaginable.”

Michael didn't know what to say. It was all too incredible to take in.

“Vincent was raised in the cult,” Charlotte continued. “He received the standard treatment of children raised in Satanic cults—he was ritually abused, emotionally blackmailed, made to participate in all sorts of atrocities, and then they convinced him he'd be killed if he told anyone. Meanwhile, he was being groomed to take Andrew's place. If it makes you feel any better, he hated it from day one. He went along because he had no choice. He thought they'd kill him if he resisted. He was probably right.”

Michael shook his head. “It's just not possible.”

“Michael, why are you sitting in my living room?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who sent you to me?”

Michael thought about it. She was right. Tom Graham was not only Vincent's friend. He was also Vincent's confessor. There was nothing about Vincent that Tom wouldn't know, which was why Michael had gone to Tom in the first place.

“Monsignor has been known to embellish the truth,” Michael offered.

“I didn't hear the story from Tom, for the same reason you didn't.”

Of course not. She had to have heard it from Vincent.
Jesus . . .
He sat back, bracing himself. “What else did Vincent tell you? Is Rebecca a part of all this?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Rebecca lived in Charleston. I don't know whether Vincent knew her before it all happened or not. They were in such different social classes that I seriously doubt it. She was one of about thirteen children; her parents were sharecroppers. She was apparently very beautiful, but fragile. And she was only thirteen when it happened.”

“When
what
happened?”

“Rebecca was abducted by a couple of the men from the cult. They took her into the woods behind Andrew's house. Andrew had built a barn way back in the woods, which was where they held all their rituals. The two men locked her in a room of the barn and waited until around three in the morning, when they all convened for the ritual. There's a specific ceremony for the purpose of consecrating to Satan the heir to the throne—to Andrew's throne, so that meant Vincent. They do all the usual stuff. Black Mass, animal sacrifices, they drink and eat things you don't even want to know about. The rest of the ritual involves a mock wedding between the chosen heir and an unwilling virgin. In this case, Rebecca. Drugs and alcohol are often involved, and between that and the ritual itself it's a very frenzied thing. At the end of which, the marriage is consummated.”

It took Michael a moment to recover enough to speak. “You're telling me . . . that Vincent raped a thirteen-year-old girl?”

“Well, he was only seventeen himself, if that makes any difference.”

“Hell, no, it doesn't make any difference.”

“Then yes. That's what I'm telling you.”

Michael looked at her. She was dead serious. She was real. He wasn't going to wake up, and no one was going to tell him this was someone's idea of a sick joke.

He stood up. “I need some air,” he said, and made his way out the front door.

After a moment, Charlotte came out onto the porch and sat on the stoop beside him.

“I realize this is horrible for you,” she said, “but there's more. You need to know why Tom sent you here.”

“I don't care.”

“You'd better care, Michael. This is all a lot more personal to you than you realize.”

“It feels pretty damned personal.”

“I mean, there are consequences for you. More than just having to live with the knowledge of what happened.”

He looked at her. She went on.

“Rebecca got pregnant—”

“I figured that much.”

“—and Vincent helped her escape the cult and the two of them ran away. Vincent wanted to marry her and try to start a decent life. But she ran away from him the first chance she got. It took him years to find her again. Meanwhile, he married your grandmother, settled down, tried to leave it all behind him. Except he didn't have that luxury. And neither do you.”

“He ran away with Rebecca?”

“Yes.”

“So he could have run away before that.”

“Michael, he was right about the danger involved. These people don't kid around. But there was finally something that scared him more than what they might do to him.”

“Which was?”

“He knew what they'd do to the baby when it was born.”

He looked at her. “They'd kill it?”

She nodded. “As a sacrifice to Satan. They probably would have made Rebecca kill it, as these things go. And then they would cut it open, take out its heart—”

“Stop,” Michael said.

“—chop it up, and eat it.”

“Stop.”

“The reason Vincent knew they'd do that is he'd seen them do it before. He'd been forced to participate—”

Michael stood up. “I can't hear any more of this—”

“You have to hear it. You have to know that you're in danger.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The reason Vincent knew what was happening to him is he'd seen Andrew do it before. He'd seen the consequences.”

“Of what?”

“Andrew's cult had a ritual where they would conjure a demon and attach it to someone. The demon's job was to destroy the bloodline.”

“Oh, please,” Michael said, turning to walk away.

“Michael, think about it. Do you think it's just a coincidence that you ended up involved in the Danny Ingram thing? He was trying to get you then. He wanted you when you were unprepared—before you knew the story. You saved yourself by calling Father Curso in, because as long as he was the exorcist, you were sheltered. But he's not going to give up.”

“I have to go,” Michael said. She was still saying something to him as he made his way to his car, but he didn't hear her. He refused to hear another word.

He tried to take a shortcut and ended up lost on a country road that might have worked had he wanted to get to Atlanta by way of Egypt. The fuel tank and his nerves were both on empty by the time he finally saw the light of a two-pump gas station and convenience store.

When he got out to pump gas, he could hear the sound of the interstate, so he figured he should be able to find it without compromising his manhood and asking for directions. He listened to the ticking of the pump and tried to calm down.

Why was he having such a hard time believing what was happening to him? He was a priest, for God's sake; it wasn't like the Devil was a new concept. And as for Andrew Kinney and his cult—look at Nazi Germany. If people could throw women and children into gas chambers and then skin them and use their skin for lampshades, why was it unthinkable that they'd kill a baby and chop up its heart and eat it? People were capable of doing inconceivably despicable things, and in an organized and ritualized manner.

But Vincent . . . not Vincent, not even Vincent as a teenager . . .

He heard a noise and looked up to see a lanky kid in a blue uniform with
RUSTY
stitched on the pocket. He had matching coffee and tobacco stains down the front of the shirt and looked like he hadn't drawn a breath through his nose since the third grade.

“Need me to check under the hood?” he asked.

“I've got it, thanks.”

The kid looked disappointed but didn't argue. Didn't leave, either. He stood there, staring at Michael.

“You're Ricky Reynolds's cousin, ain't you?”

“No.”

“I know you from somewhere.”

“I don't think so.”

“You kin to any of them Reynolds?”

“No.”

“You know who I'm talkin' about?”

“Yeah,” Michael lied. “But I'm not related to them.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, am I anywhere close to I-Seventy-Five?”

The kid grinned like he'd just laid down a royal flush. “Depends on what you call close, I reckon.”

A comedian. Thanks, God.

“Are you kin to Jackie Brumfield?” the kid asked.

“No,” Michael said, starting to get testy. “I'm not kin to anyone left on the planet.”

“I must have you mixed up with somebody else, then.”

“Evidently.”

Now crawl back into the swamp and leave me alone.

The kid leaned toward Michael and spoke in a voice that was suddenly lower, deeper than before.

“People don't always turn out to be who they look like they are, right?”

“I don't know.”

The kid grinned. “I think you know,” he said. “I think you know 'bout as well as anybody.”

He gave a rattling chuckle and walked away.

It landed on Michael like someone had spit on him from a nearby window. For a moment, he was too stunned to move. Then he moved fast. Shoving the gas nozzle back into its niche in the pump, he took off after the kid. He'd be damned if he was going to let another of these encounters go unchallenged. The kid was walking fast now. Michael quickened his pace, but so did the kid, who reached the men's room and disappeared inside. A few steps later, Michael grabbed the doorknob and found it locked. He pounded on the door with his fist. “Open this door! Now!”

An elderly attendant was passing by, staring at Michael.

“You need the key?” he asked.

Michael looked up. “Yes. Thank you.”

The old man shuffled over, reached into his pocket, and came out with a key attached to a lime-green rabbit's foot. He handed it to Michael.

“Just bring it inside when you're done.”

Michael nodded, took the key, gave the old man a few seconds to shuffle off, then unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The room was dark. He found the light switch and turned it on. A single small room. A toilet. A sink. An empty towel dispenser. No window. No other door. No Rusty.

With the most normal stance he could fake, Michael returned the key to the old man and was informed there was no employee by the name of Rusty or fitting his description. The only people working were the old man and his son, who was in his midforties. They had both watched Michael fill his tank. Alone.

The minute he got home, Michael called Bob Curso. He got his machine.

“Bob, it's Michael Kinney . . .”

There was a loud snap, followed by a lot of static. “I have a bad connection,” Michael said. “I don't know if you can hear.” The static got worse. “Damn,” Michael said. He hung up and tried again. Bob's outgoing message was perfectly clear, but as soon as Michael started to speak, the static returned. “Bob, I need to talk to you,” he said. “Call me.” He left Vincent's number, but seriously doubted Bob would be able to understand it over all the noise. Michael put his face in his hands. He couldn't think.

Danny.

A voice in his head. Not his own.

What do you mean, Danny?

The voice was silent. Michael thought about it. There were a couple of things he'd like to ask Danny, but he knew from experience that getting Danny on the phone required something just short of an act of Congress. He felt compelled, just the same. At least it would give him the illusion that he was doing something. He hunted for the number, found it, dialed. He talked to three Officer Somebodys, a Coordinating Officer Somebody, the prison chaplain, and, finally, the assistant warden, who assured him that Inmate Ingram would be allowed to return Michael's call within the hour. Ten minutes later, the phone rang.