Ritual (48 page)

There was a
moment of utter silence. Then a hair-raising voice spoke all the way around the
room, a soft, deep voice that was everywhere and nowhere at all. Charlie wasn’t
sure whether he was hearing it with his ears or through his bone marrow.’

‘ You
have summoned Me here. You have called upon
Me
and I have heard your voices.’

M. Musette let
out a cry of sheer ecstasy. ‘Oh Lord, you have returned to us! We thank you,
Lord, for hearing our cry! Everything is ready, we have consumed the thousand
thousand, but for the very last, and your earthly temple awaits
You
!’

There was
weeping and shouting and clapping in the hall. Many of the Celestines dropped
to their knees. But none of them could take their eyes away from the bright,
pure light.

‘Where is this
last sacrifice?’ asked the soft, deep voice.

M. Musette
stepped back from the altar and took hold of Martin’s shoulder, turning him
around so that he was facing the light. ‘Here, O Lord, a boy pure in body and
spirit.’

‘And who gives
him to
Me
?’

‘We do, oh
Lord, the church of the Celestines.’

There was a
pause. Charlie could see M. Musette biting at his lower lip in tension. Then
the voice said. ‘Only the boy’s father can give him to
Me
.
It is the law – just as Abraham offered Isaac in the old writings.’

‘My Lord, he
mill give you the boy,’ said M. Musette.

‘The boy must
be untouched, and whole,’ the voice insisted.

M. Musette
looked around in panic. ‘Charlie?’ he said. ‘Charlie? Did you hear that?’

Charlie was
staring at the light. A remarkable feeling had come over him; a feeling of
bottomless peace and wholeness. He relaxed his arm, and the man with the close-cropped
hair, sensing that something extraordinary was happening, released him. Charlie
could see his whole life behind him like a tangle of black briars: all the
lies, all the cheating, all the cowardice, all the aimless driving from place
to place. He saw himself in hotel rooms all across America, thumbing through
Polaroids of his son he hardly ever saw. He saw himself in Milwaukee, betraying
the only woman he had ever really loved. Yet he knew that this part of his life
was over now. He understood what it meant to have your sins redeemed. He felt
as if he were being healed all over, mind and body. There were tears running
down his cheeks, but he wasn’t even aware of them.

‘Do you have to
take my son, Lord?’ he whispered.

The voice
replied, ‘Do you believe in
Me
?’

Charlie nodded.
‘I don’t believe in what the Celestines have been doing, that’s all. I don’t
believe that
You
could condone such pain and
suffering.’

‘If that is
what you believe,’ the voice told him, ‘your choice is as clear as the day.’

Charlie
frowned. And then he understood.

At least, God
Almighty, he hoped he understood.

‘Take him,’ he
said, so quietly that not even Mme Musette could hear him.

M. Musette
snapped, ‘What? What? What did he say?’

‘Take him,’ Charlie
repeated, more boldly now.

M. Musette’s
eyes widened. ‘You’re going to give him to us?
Freely,
willingly?’

‘Not to you,’
said Charlie.
‘To the Lord.’

M. Musette
grasped Martin’s bare shoulders in unconcealed glee. ‘Now, Martin!’ he whooped.

‘Now is your
time!
Now!’

Martin lifted
the shining knife, and held himself out in preparation for the first cut. M.
Musette rushed back to the altar, and abased himself in front of the dazzling
light, and cried out, ‘Lord!

O, Lord! The
very moment of your second coming has arrived!’

But the soft
voice was suddenly stern. ‘You have not summoned
Me
,
you evil man. I came because I was aware that you had summoned another.’

M. Musette
slowly raised his head. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What do you mean? What do you mean
I’ve summoned another? What other?’

‘You have
performed today the culminating ritual of him whose day is the sixth day, a
spirit long banished for his cruelty and evil. Your devouring of human flesh is
the greatest of all sins; and your love of its taste is the deepest of all
iniquities. I came today to save the innocent and the pure, and he stands
before me, freely sacrificed to
Me
by his father, as
Abraham freely sacrificed Isaac.

‘For this man
knows, as Abraham knew, that your Lord is neither cruel nor murderous; that He
gave His body and blood in order that man should no longer kill or maim or
cause suffering to the defenceless and the innocent.

‘And I say to
this man, as My Father said to Abraham, ‘Indeed will I greatly bless you,
because you have obeyed
My
voice.’ And I say to him,
go now, and take with you those whom you love, untouched, unharmed, and always
be blessed.’

M. Musette
stood aghast. He turned to Charlie, and then to 353

Martin, and then to Mme Musette.
Mme Musette came over and
held her arms around him, and stared at the light in mounting horror.

M. Musette
screamed. ‘You can’t do that! You can’t do that! I – I am your earthly temple!’

The voice
remained completely calm. ‘It is time that the temple gates were opened, and
the souls of those you have taken prisoner were released, in order that they
may take their rightful place by the side of their Maker. And – since you have
summoned another, I shall leave you with him, in order that you and your sinful
disciples may suffer the punishment which you have brought upon your own
heads.’

M. Musette
shrieked, ‘You aren’t the Lord! You aren’t Christ! You’re nothing but a
falsehood!

You’re nothing
but a liar and a deceiver!’

But the
brilliant light began to rise up, and as it rose it faded, until the feasting
hall was once more drowned in the eerie darkness of the electric storm. There
was a terrible silence. M. Musette looked all around him, like a caged animal,
and then he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Martin around the neck.

‘A false God!’
he shouted to the silent Celestines. ‘That was a false God! If we sacrifice
this boy, we’ll summon the real God!’

Charlie,
however, without hesitation, and without being hindered by any of the Celestine
assistants, strode forward and punched M. Musette hard in the side of the head.
Then he twisted the sacrificial knife from Martin’s grasp, and went after M.
Musette with nothing in his heart but bloody revenge. Whimpering, M. Musette
picked himself up, dodged back behind the altar, and fell to the floor.

‘That was a false
God,’ he babbled. ‘That wasn’t Jesus, that was a. false God
!;
Charlie, maddened, went after him. But Robyn had left her seat and was tugging
at his arm and saying, ‘It’s over! Charlie, it’s over! All we have to do is get
out of here!’

Charlie
stiffened, and stood straight, staring at M. Musette like Captain Ahab staring
at Moby Dick. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he breathed. ‘By God, I’ll kill him.’

But it was then
that M. Musette stood up, and he was staring at Martin with bulging eyes. ‘I
can’t,’ he retched. ‘I can’t…!’

The room
darkened. The shadows could have been filled with clotted blood. And then M.
Musette clutched at his throat, and vomited blood, and chewed-up flesh.

‘Oh, God,’ said
Mme Musette, and tried to take hold of Charlie’s arm, but Charlie wrenched her
away.

M. Musette’s
body heaved and shook in terrible convulsions. He tried to scream, but his
screams were choked and gargled with half-digested human tissue. Then he arched
his neck back, with his veins bulging, and began to sick up not just everything
that he had eaten, but every human being that had been ingested by the
Celestines, a thousand times a thousand. In the words of the voice that had
spoken from the dazzling white light, the temple gates were opened, and the
souls of all those who had been taken prisoner were released.

M. Musette’s
mouth stretched wide. He couldn’t speak. Only his eyes betrayed his agony. Out
from his lips fountained blood and brains and human flesh, gallons of it, dark
red and pungent, hosing the floor of the feasting hall. The Celestine Guides
screamed and shouted and began to elbow each other toward the doors.

Then, however,
two eyes appeared. Two scarlet flaring
eyes,
and the
smoky outline of something grisly and bizarre. The Celestines fell silent
again, and turned and stared at the altar. The eyes flicked this way and that,
reddened as coals, mesmerizing everybody they looked at.

‘Baron Samedi,’
breathed Robyn. ‘They’ve summoned up Baron Samedi.’

A deep rumbling
noise shook the building from end to end. Lightning crackled and blasted
against the roof. The scarlet eyes glared this way and that, and everywhere
they glared, people people burst into flames, as if they were made out of
nothing but sawdust and sticks. Charlie grabbed Robyn with one hand, and Martin
with the other, and said, ‘
Let’s
goThis whole place is
going up!’

They struggled
their way between screaming, hysterical Celestines. On either side of them as
they pushed their way towards the exit, people were spontaneously exploding
into flames. Their shrieking was so intense that at times it was inaudible,
like a hundred-strong chorus of dog-whistles.

They reached
the doors; Robyn whimpering, Martin silent and still and robotic in his movements,
but obedient. After all, hadn’t M. and Mme Musette taught him obedience? From
now on, he would do everything that he was told.

Charlie turned
around. He saw M. Musette, thigh-deep in regurgitated tissue, still endlessly
vomiting one thousand times one thousand. He saw Mme Musette, with her wimple
alight, rigid with hysteria and fear.

Behind them
both, smoky and vague, but with eyes that burned like coals from hell, he saw
Baron Samedi, the voodoo devil, wreaking his revenge on all those who had disturbed
him from his thousand-year sleep.

They let the
doors swing shut behind them. Then they hobbled and ran across the compound. A
Cherokee four-wheel-drive was parked down at the end of the accommodation
block, with the keys still in it. Charlie wrenched open the doors, and said,
‘Come on. Let’s burn rubber.’

They drove into
a day that loomed all around them as dark as night. Lightning crackled down on
either side. In the rear-view mirror, Charlie saw the Celestine building
blazing from end to end, and even before he reached the bend in the track, he
saw the roof collapse, showering fire and molten metal on the congregation who
called themselves the Heavenly Ones.

He drove
straight through the metal barrier which protected the property, and headed
east.

Baton Rouge,
Hammond, and then Route 59 back towards New York.

They had driven
only two miles before Martin began to shiver from cold, and weep. Robyn helped
Charlie out of his coat, and draped it over Martin’s shoulders. She looked at
Charlie with that expression which convinced him that he loved her, and smiled.
‘Martin’s fine, Charlie.
I do believe you’ve managed
to get your son back.’

After ten miles
of high-speed driving, just east of the At-chafalaya, Charlie pulled the
Cherokee off the road and killed the engine. The storm had passed over, the sun
was beginning to drift through the clouds, and there was a smell of sassafras
and dust in the air. Charlie bowed his head over the steering wheel for a
moment, in exhaustion and delayed shock, and then turned to Martin and touched
his face.

Martin didn’t
respond first of all; but then his eyes glittered with tears, and he took hold
of Charlie’s hand, fingers intertwined with fingers, and said, ‘Dad.
Dad.
I love you, Dad.’

Charlie gave
him a tight smile. ‘Why don’t you call me Charlie?’

‘Charlie,’ said
Martin, and then they both held each other tight and neither or
them
was ashamed of crying.

‘Do you know
what I’m going to do?’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going from one Celestine church to
another, one by one; and I’m going to burn them all to the ground. And, believe
me, there isn’t one police officer or one politician who’s going to lift a
finger to stop me.’

Robyn reached
across the front seat and held his hand, and said, ‘You’re a brave man, Charlie
McLean.’

I
t was evening, three days later, when Charlie parked the Cherokee
in the driveway outside
Le Reposoir
.
The sky was the coldest of pinks, and the trees stood tall and naked around the
building’s silhouetted spires. Charlie opened the Chero-kee’s tailgate, and
dragged out two metal jerry cans, both sloshing full with gasoline.

He carried the
jerry cans one after the other up the front steps. He tried the door handles,
and to his surprise the doors were unlocked. He opened them up, looked into the
dark echoing hallway and called, ‘Hallo?
Anybody there?’

There was no
response. He waited for a little while, listening, and then he hefted the jerry
cans into the hallway, and set them down. Only the faintest of lights filtered
down the stairs from the medieval stained-glass window. Only the faintest of
breezes blew through the building that had once been called ‘the little altar’.

Charlie opened
up the first jerry can, tipped it over, and poured gasoline all over the floor.

When it was
half empty, he was able to pick it up and slosh more gasoline over-the
staircase and wooden panelling. He coughed once or twice. The fumes were almost
unbearable.

He was about to
open the second jerry can when he thought he heard a clicking noise. He stood
up straight, listening hard. It was probably a rat, or a bird. He waited a
couple of moments longer, and then he began to slosh out more gasoline.