The Satanist mf-2

by Dennis Wheatley

  She knew little about international politics but enough to tell him that, if Churchill had had his way, and Roosevelt not been a gullible fool, Stalin would never have been allowed to get his claws on Central Europe; so the massacre of the Hungarians and the enslavement of millions of Czechs, Poles and Rumanians lay at America's door. And that if only their sanctimonious moron, Dulles, had not prevented the British from putting in a 'stitch in time' at Suez, hundreds of honest, intelligent Arabs would not since have been murdered and the whole of the Middle East fallen under Soviet influence.

  Amazed and intrigued by her vehemence he entered into a man to man argument with her and, although she spoke more from instinct than from knowledge, he found it impossible to reason soundly against her reiterated assertion that the 'proof of the pudding was in the eating' and that he had only to look at the shrinkage of the territories free from Communist domination, since the United States had assumed world leadership, to realize what a mess his countrymen had made of things. On the other hand, she could not honestly deny his charge that, when Britain had had the leadership of affairs between the wars, she had done little better, and that her refusal to back the French, when they wanted forcibly to resist the re-entry of the Germans into the Rhineland, had been the key error from which had sprung Hitler's confidence that he could tear up Treaties with impunity, and so led to the Second World War.

  This acrimonious discussion occupied them until three o'clock then, by mutual consent, they broke it off and, turning over, went to sleep again. Soon after five they roused up and went into the bathroom. He had a shower while she had a bath and when she had finished, instead of getting back into bed, she began to put her clothes on. Suddenly realizing what she was doing, he exclaimed: 'Hi, what's the big idea?'

  Endeavouring to make her voice sound indifferent, she replied:

  'You said last night that today you meant to take me back to the Temple, and there's not much of the day left; so I thought we would be starting soon now.'

  Actually the last thing she wanted was ever to enter the Temple again, but knowing that the Sabbats took place only on Saturdays she was hoping to persuade him that there was no point in his delivering her there so, instead, he should drop her at her own flat; or, if that failed, once they were back in London she would find a better chance than she had the night before to get free of him.

  'You sound as though you want to go back,' he flung at her with a frown.

  'No,' she lied hastily. 'Of course not. But I thought you had made yourself liable to some sort of penalty for having carried me off, and that the longer you kept me the heavier it would be.'

  His frown deepened into a scowl. 'Yeah. I'll have to pay a forfeit; but not for having snatched you. The Great Ram is quite a buddy of mine, so I can square that one with him. It's cutting the Walpurgis Eve party that's put me in the red.'

  'If you hadn't been so impatient. . .' she began.

  'I know. I know. Sure, I could have parked you at your flat and picked you up this morning. But patience isn't in my make-up. If it had been I'd not have got halfway up to where I am now.'

  She shrugged. 'Well, you've had what you wanted as far as I'm concerned. I hope it's been worth it.'

  'And how!' His scowl gave place to a sudden grin. 'Sure; sure. But mighty few of the best-looking dolls have anything inside their heads. And you've got everything, honey. I'm a man who likes to get fresh angles on things, and if the angles come from someone who's got the right kind of curves as well, what more could a guy want? I want to see a lot more of you yet; so how about staying on here with me for a while?�

  At that her hopes of being through with him in a few hours' time sank to zero. But she dared not show it. Although his latest idea had been couched in the form of an invitation, she knew that he would not allow her to refuse it, and that her only chance of getting away now lay in not letting him suspect that she wanted to. It meant that she would have to spend at least one more night with him, but it seemed certain that tomorrow he would have to leave the house to attend to his duties, which would then give her a good chance to escape. Summoning up a smile, she said:

  'Yes, I'd love to do that. I'm sure we'll find lots to talk about.'

  'Fine oh!' He gave her a resounding slap on the bottom. 'Would you like to eat up here or downstairs?'

  'Let's go downstairs, and you can show me the rest of the house.'

  Half an hour later he was mixing Vodka Martinis for them in a sitting-room below the big bedroom. Like the other rooms it had been furnished expensively, but without taste. In the bay window stood another big television set, a separate radio and a walnut gramophone cabinet for long-playing records. As he handed her a drink she said:

  'You know, I don't even know your name!'

  'Among the blessed of our Lord Satan, I'm known as "Twisting Snake",' he replied with a grin. 'But in these parts it's Colonel Henrik G. Washington of the U.S.A.A.F.; though, among themselves, my boys call me "that big bastard Wash".'

  She could not help laughing and, lifting her glass, said: 'Well, I much prefer that to Twisting Snake; so here's to you Wash!'

  He sunk his first cocktail at a gulp. 'That's to your blue eyes, Circe. I recall that's the name you took as a neophyte. But what'll I tell Jim and the others to call you while you're my house-guest here?'

  'Mrs. Mauriac; Margot Mauriac. Tell me, why did you choose such an ugly Satanic name as Twisting Snake?'

  'The original was an ancestor of mine. Maybe you've guessed that I've got Red Indian blood, and that old medicine-man was the greatest ever wizard of the Five Nations!'

  Mary nodded. 'Yes, I can imagine you looking magnificent in a feathered head-dress and all the trimmings. Where did your very fair hair come from, though?'

  'I'm a thorough-bred half-caste,' he told her, 'born in an Indian reservation of a squaw. My father was some kind of a crook. Leastways, he was hiding up in the forest when my Ma came on him. She was only about fifteen, but that didn't worry him any. I was the result. I guess she fell for him though, as she took food to him in secret for around a month, and insisted on calling me Henrik, which was the only name she knew him by. One day he took a runout powder on her and was never seen again. He must have been some sort of Nordic, and he'd talked to her of a big island where he'd been a fisherman before he hit the States, so maybe he was an Icelander; but that I'll never know for certain.'

  'It's a big achievement for a little boy, brought up as you must have been in an Indian reservation, to have become a Colonel in the United States Air Force.'

  'Yeah. It weren't easy; but I made it. I owe that mainly to my Granddaddy. He was the medicine-man of the tribe. I'll bet he beat hell out of my Ma when he knew the games she had been up to in the forest; because, of course, no brave would take her as his squaw after she'd had a child that way, and she must have been worth quite a few head of cattle to him. But he brought me up. Taught me all he knew, and by the time I was fourteen I was a better medicine-man than he was.

  'Nominally all the red folks are Christians these days; but that's only lip-service to gip free blankets and baccy out of the padres. They know what's best for them and still practise the old religion on the side - totem rites, palavas at the full of the moon, and the rest. My Granddaddy could kill or cure plenty and he wanted me to follow him as Our Lord Satan's top priest in the reservation. But he was old and ailing so he had to give me the red feather of initiation much earlier than he would else have done. I earnt it though. Makes me sweat now to recall some of the ordeals I went through. All the same, I took to making magic like a heron takes to diving for the fish.'

  As he paused, Mary asked: 'And did you succeed your grandfather?'

  'Not me. Leastways, only for a few weeks. Taking dimes off our poor folk for curing cattle, or causing some old joker to turn up his toes a bit sooner than nature meant him to, was too narrow an alley for me to be happy playing ball in for long. One night I lit out with a travelling circus, and I never went back.'

  'At s
ixteen I was already as big as most men ever come, and still growing. Add to that I met few people I couldn't hypnotize into doing what I wanted. I'd brought Granddaddy�s ceremonial feathers with me and I made the circus boss let me put on an act of my own. It was lassooing, bow and arrow, and throwing the tomahawk. I got a programme girl to stand in for me to shoot and throw round. Poor kid, she was so scared she near died of fright every time before we went on. She needn't have feared. Once she had her back to the target I could hold her there with my eyes, as rigid as an iron bar, and long as she didn't move she was in no danger. But she hadn't enough of what it takes to keep me for long with her under a blanket. I decided to team up with the Gipsy Lee of the outfit and move into her caravan. She was near twice my age but she had "it" all right, all right. Trouble was she had a husband. Sid was his name. So I carved a little wooden doll and scratched Sid on it. Then I talked magic talk to it all night long and took it out in the morning and buried it. Within a week Sid caught a cold and started coughing. That was before the days of penicillin. In a fortnight pneumonia had taken him, and I was in the caravan teaching his woman the quick way to forget him.'

  At the mention of the doll, Mary had guessed what was coming, so she had time to glance away and repress a shudder at this confession of cold-blooded murder. Now happily launched on his life-story, the hook-nosed giant went on.

  'Come the fall, the circus went into its winter quarters at Detroit. Gipsy, as was her custom, took a room for telling fortunes. She was mighty good at it. Could have done far better for herself that way all year round, but she had real gipsy blood in her and preferred a roving life. What I knew of magic put me wise to it that she was pulling in power from some source outside herself. One night I got out of her the how and why. She was an initiate of a Satanic Lodge there in the city. I made her take me along. That's how I became a Brother of the Ram.'

  He poured Mary another cocktail, and resumed. 'It was by way of a guy I happened on in that Lodge that I got my first real break. He ran a big brothel. Seeing I was strong as a young bull, he asked me if I'd like to take a hand breaking in new girls. Most of those that get to the houses know what to expect; but there's some that don't, and make trouble. They have to have their heels rounded off, and it's strong men's work to do that. After I'd been at this dame busting game for a while it hit me that I was a sucker to do it for another guy when I might be doing it for myself.'

  'Gipsy was making enough to keep me, but I felt it would be good to have some extra dough to throw around; and setting up as a knife-thrower in a booth wouldn't have paid the sort of dividends I had in mind. Within three months I had a string of five girls working the streets for me. From then on I never looked back. I made Gipsy cut out the fortune-telling and set her up as the Madame in a place of our own. By the time I was nineteen

  I'd gone into the export business, and was shipping as many as eight judys a month down to S.A. The Feds were always after us, of course, but Gipsy had only to look at a girl to judge if she was too hot to handle, and as a seer myself I always got wise to it in advance if danger threatened our organization. Time war broke out I had tie-ups with all the big operators in the States and was one of the biggest shots in the racket.'

  Revolting as his disclosures were, Mary had to simulate interest, so she said: 'No wonder you have lots of money. But this doesn't explain how you became a Colonel in the United States Air Force.'

  'It was the yen to fly, honey,' he smiled, 'and ambition. From the time I was a kid in the reservation, I'd thought nothing could thrill like being a bird-man. The war was my chance. I'd a partner who's half Puerto-Rican and half Jew. I told him to carry on and he knows that if he bilked me for ten cents I'd have him die in a fit. I flew out to California where no one knew me, and joined up. As a pilot I proved a natural, as I knew I would. Soon as they let me go into battle I became an ace overnight. They gave me a commission and decorations. Maybe you noticed them on my tunic. Everything from the Purple Heart to the Legion of Merit -the whole works.'

  'And that decided you to stay in after the war?' 'That, and ambition. The old set-up is still working. Must be hundreds of judys back in the States earning me a dollar or two every night; but dollars isn't everything. I wanted to go places and meet people as a guy who is somebody apart from what he can spend. As Colonel Henrik G. Washington, I am that.'

  He then told her of some of his experiences during the war, and of how he had at times used his occult powers to restore the morale of other pilots who, after many missions, had nearly reached breaking point; and also that he devoted a percentage of his income to helping the widows of ex-comrades who had been killed while serving with him. He mentioned this last matter as casually as he had spoken of breaking down the resistance of unfortunate girls who had been trapped into brothels, and Mary found it quite beyond her to reconcile such opposite traits in one personality.

  The negro Jim, dressed in a spotless white housecoat, duly announced dinner and waited on them while they ate an excellent meal. Afterwards 'Wash' entertained Mary for two hours with long-playing records, mostly pieces by serious composers of whom she had never heard, and it was obvious to her that he knew very much more about music than she did. They then went up to bed.

  On the Monday morning they were called at six and by half past seven Wash, now again a truly martial figure, was ready to be driven to his office. He had told Mary that there was no point in her getting up until she felt like it; so she had drifted off to sleep again. But before leaving he shook her into wakefulness and said:

  'Look, honey; make yourself at home in the house, but don't go outside it. My General's not a bad scout about giving leave to London or Paris, so his officers can blow steam off, but he's a stickler for them setting a good example while in the area; so I don't want it to get around that I've got a dame here as a house-guest.'

  As soon as he had gone she set about planning her escape. It looked as if he had no suspicion that she might wish to, but of that she could not be certain, and it was possible that he had told his coloured boys to keep an eye on her. Anyway, they might think it strange and stop her, or telephone to him, if she got up at once and walked out of the house. Anxious as she was to get away, she decided that her chances would be better if she remained there during the morning while the boys were doing their routine jobs, then try to slip away unseen early in the afternoon as soon as they had settled down for their easy.

  At eleven o'clock she got up, and when she was dressed went downstairs to the sitting-room, where she put on a record. It had been playing for only a few minutes when Jim appeared accompanied by an older, fatter negro, in a white apron and chef's cap, who introduced himself as Buster. Both gave her friendly grins; the one asked her what she would like to drink and the other what she would have for lunch. Having asked for their suggestions, she made her choice and they left her to go about their work.

  At the unexpectedly early hour of half past twelve, Jim came in to tell her that lunch was ready. She remembered then that Americans both started and finished their day's work earlier than the British; so Wash might be expected back in mid-afternoon. A little nervous now that she might be leaving herself too narrow a margin to get clear away, she got through the meal quickly, then went back to the sitting-room and, leaving its door ajar, waited there listening impatiently until all sound of movement should have ceased.

  By half past one, the house had fallen completely silent. Tiptoeing across the hall, she let herself out of the front door. As she walked down the drive, she did not dare to look back for fear that one of the boys was watching her from a window. He might take such a gesture as an indication that by going out she was disobeying his master's orders. Every moment she expected to hear the sound of running footsteps coming after her but only her own crunched faintly on the gravel.

  When she reached the road, she glanced quickly from side to side. In the distance to her left there were low hills and below them, about two miles away, the roofs of some big aircraft hangars. To h
er right there was flatter country and the road ran along one side of a long shallow valley into which three aircraft were gliding. The hangars obviously formed part of the U.S. Air Force base, so turning her back on them she set off at a swift pace in the opposite direction.

  She still had her handbag and in it ample money to get to London; but as soon as she came to a village she meant to telephone to Colonel Verney. There was no reason whatever to suppose that during the past forty-eight hours Ratnadatta had disposed of those incriminating shoes, and if he could be caught with them still in his possession she would have won her fight against at least one of Teddy's murderers. She would tell the Colonel too about the house in Cremorne, so that he might rope in the whole Satanic crew and, perhaps, find evidence there against others of them. But what about Wash?

  The thought of the genial but evil giant presented her with an unexpected problem. Her sense of justice compelled her to admit that she had no personal cause for complaint against him. He had not taken her by force. Even his carrying her off from London had been largely due to her own folly in overplaying her hand with him. He obviously believed that she had been perfectly willing to stay with him and was thoroughly enjoying herself. More, he had both rescued her from Ratnadatta and saved her from initiation.

  To that it had to be added that he was not a Satanist in the same sense as the others. He had not thrown off the tenets of a decent upbringing and all moral scruples to join a Lodge in order to acquire wealth or satiate his lust in wild orgies. He had been brought up from his childhood to worship the Devil, to practise magic and follow a creed, the only dictum of which was, 'Do what thou wilt shall be the Whole of the Law.' It was evident that he had never regarded the world as anything but a jungle in which the strongest and most determined were fully justified in living well at the expense of weaker animals. That his mind had developed from infancy completely lacking all moral sense must be taken at least as some mitigation of his having shown no trace of scruple in bull-dozing his way to affluence by criminal means.