“It’s useless to speculate further at this juncture,” Viktor said. Grey pursed his lips but said nothing.
Viktor pulled out the witness list and the membership ledger, and started comparing names on the two lists. He found one and marked it with an asterisk, then marked another.
Grey leaned over. “What’re you looking for?”
“The oldest and newest members present the night of the murder. I find that gives the broadest range of insight into cult activity.”
Grey filed away the information, and Viktor put his finger on the name Douglas Oakenfeld. There was an address next to the name.
“Oldest first,” Viktor said.
The fog deepened, the waning sun a penumbra of ambient light as Grey and Viktor took a taxi to Haight-Ashbury. Cocooned in mist, they sped through the blighted streets of the Tenderloin district, past Buena Vista Park and into the Haight, the low gray buildings wraithlike as the taxi glided through the fog.
The earthy smell of marijuana seeped into the taxi. As Grey watched through the window he wondered wryly if there were more shops in the Haight selling Tibetan wares than in the entire Himalayas. They turned right just past a vinyl record store, gathering stares from a group of dreadlocked white kids lounging on collapsed cardboard boxes. Two blocks later the taxi arrived at the address for Douglas Oakenfeld, member of the House of Lucifer since 1966, the year of its founding.
The first thing Grey thought was that Douglas Oakenfeld was doing nothing to conceal his religious persuasion. A spiked iron fence fronted the property, the ironwork on the gate crafted into the image of a man with bat wings and the horned head of a goat, the man sitting cross-legged and grasping a snake in each hand. Behind the gate a yard full of sticks and scraggly grass sloped upward to a large Victorian. Ebony drapes obscured the windows, and every inch of wood had been painted black, including the porch, peaked roof, turret, wide stone steps, and gutters. A reverse pentagram hung above the doorway.
There was no buzzer, so Grey checked the gate. Unlocked. They stepped inside, closing the gate behind them. Worn stone steps led to the front door, but as they started up the path the door opened and a huge mottled dog burst into the yard. It looked like a cross between a pit bull and a rottweiler, and it came straight at Grey without a sound, scrabbling on the steps as it built speed.
There might have been time to open the gate and back out, but Grey wasn’t going to chance a monster pit bull snapping his leg in half from behind. He moved ahead of Viktor, yanking off his Windbreaker and pulling it taut by the sleeves. He shoved the tightened center of the nylon coat into the back of the dog’s mouth as it lunged.
The dog whipped its head back and forth with incredible strength, but Grey kept shoving, moving the dog’s weight to its rear as he lowered and swept the dog’s hind legs with his right foot. The dog yelped and crashed to its side. Grey leapt on top of the animal and held its massive throat at bay with the jacket, kneeling on the dog’s rib cage to keep it pinned.
A man in a skullcap and biker’s leathers rushed out of the house waving a baseball bat, long gray hair flying as he yelled at Grey not to hurt his dog. Viktor stepped between Grey and the man, Viktor’s nearly seven-foot frame towering over the shorter but thicker man. Grey could tell by the way the man held the bat that he wasn’t a real fighter, so he decided to hold his position and not incapacitate the dog if he didn’t have to.
The man stopped five feet away, the bat still raised above his head with both hands. “What’re you doing in my fucking yard?”
“We’re with Interpol,” Viktor said, pulling out his identification.
“I don’t care who you’re with, you let go of my goddamn dog.”
Grey had been soothing the dog with soft words. The dog kept growling, but Grey felt the tension leave its body, and the growls lost their edge. Some dogs would never have stopped fighting, but dogs tended to mirror the personality of their owners, and this dog, like the bully who owned him, had no interest in facing off against someone who could fight back.
Grey rose, keeping one hand wrapped around the dog’s collar. “Maybe you should think twice before loosing your animal on strangers. The gate was unlocked and we didn’t see a buzzer.”
“Christ,” the man muttered, pulling at his beard. He had mean eyes and a gimpy left leg. “What the hell do you want? I already talked to the cops about Matty, and I don’t see a warrant in your hands. And what the hell does Interpol have to do with any of this?”
“Douglas Oakenfeld?” Viktor said.
The man hesitated as if he didn’t want to give his name, then realized he just had. “Just Oak.”
“Local police answers to Interpol under international law,” Viktor said, which Grey knew was stretching the truth. Local police were obligated to heed an Interpol request for information, but Interpol itself had no jurisdiction on the ground. “I can contact SFPD and we can discuss matters in the police station, or you can answer a few questions for me right now.”
The man’s small eyes flittered from Viktor to Grey, with the wariness of someone used to dealing with liars and criminals. “Why don’t you ask your questions, and I’ll let you know if I feel like answering them. And if you don’t let go of my dog I’ll—”
He cut off as Grey let go of the dog. The dog scampered behind his owner and growled from behind his leg, but Grey knew the dog no longer sensed fear and wouldn’t attack again. Grey moved to stand a few feet in front of Oak. He didn’t like people who used their animals as weapons, and he didn’t like this man, period. “It’s better to answer the questions.”
Oak tried to stare Grey down, but after a few seconds he looked away and cursed. Viktor pulled a sheet of paper from his suit pocket. “The membership records state that you’ve been a member of the House of Lucifer since 1966. After the death of Matthias, you’re the longest-standing member.”
“So?”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened the night Matthias died?” Viktor said.
Oak sniffed. “Like I told the cop on the phone, we all saw the same thing. Right at midnight Matty was in the middle of a sermon, and next thing we knew he was a living inferno. It was crazy shit. I wish I could say I’d dropped a hit that night, but I hadn’t. Some people are saying they saw a figure in black robes right before Matthias lit up, but I didn’t see a thing. They probably dropped a hit. Lots of us do before we meet.”
Grey said, “You’re saying you didn’t see anyone else besides Matthias?”
“What do you think, the Devil came and got him? Matty was a charismatic man, had a lot of devoted followers. I suppose some people need to think he didn’t kill himself.”
Viktor stepped forward, his looming height causing Oak to crane his neck upward to meet his gaze. “Do you have any idea why Matthias might have had cause to commit suicide?”
“Nope.”
“Any other recent death threats, enemies you didn’t disclose to the police?”
“If I didn’t tell the cops, why would I tell you?”
It was Viktor’s turn to lock stares, again causing Oak to look away.
“Look man,” Oak said, “there’s nothing to tell. Just the usual crap from the Tammy Fayes.”
“Anyone in particular?” Viktor said.
“They’re always anonymous.” He tapped the bat against his right palm, causing Grey’s hands to tense. The moment Oak reared back to swing, Grey would strike him in the throat and strip the bat, using it to fend off the dog as necessary. “Not many people are stupid enough to insult us to our face,” Oak said.
“Had Matthias been depressed or moody, any change in behavior?”
“Nope.”
“Surely,” Viktor said, “as long as you’ve known the man, you have some speculation as to why he might’ve taken his own life, if that’s your theory?”
“These things happen, people crack.”
Grey said, “Why would he crack?”
Oak threw his hands up. “Life, man. I don’t know, maybe h
e dropped one too many bad hits, fried his circuits. The man’s done a lot of heavy shit.”
“I suppose you didn’t notice Matthias start the fire?” Viktor said.
“You suppose right.”
“Did anyone try to help him?”
“Seriously, what do you think? Of course we ran up there, took our shirts off and tried to beat the fire down, but he was already cooked. He must’ve soaked himself in lighter fluid, because that fire was hot as Honduras, and we had a helluva time getting the fire out.”
“But you didn’t see how it started?” Viktor said.
“It’s not hard to figure out. He was behind the pulpit, and he lit a match.”
Oak’s diction was odd to Grey, like a cross between an aging Berkeley hippie and a biker thug. Grey also thought Oak didn’t seem very upset about the death of his church’s founder.
Viktor said, “How long had you known Matthias?”
“Nearly fifty years. Since the beginning, man. We started this thing together.”
“You’re the lead bishop,” Viktor said.
“That’s right.”
“Is this your only employment?”
Oak lifted his head towards his house. “I do all right, if that’s what you’re asking. The House has some generous members. And I got this place back when the Haight was no-man’s-land.”
“Have you assumed Matthias’s duties?” Viktor said.
“I’m too old to handle all this shit. I’ll do it until we find someone else.”
“Did you remain close friends during all those years?”
“What kind of question is that? Goddamn, show some respect.”
Viktor’s lips creased. “Forgive me, but you don’t sound too distraught.”
“Are we done here?”
“Perhaps it’s because you didn’t share the same theology?”
Oak pointed the bat at Viktor, and Grey stepped forward. Oak hesitated, then took a step back. “It’s time you got off my property.”
“That ring on your right index finger, the image of which has no doubt been branded somewhere on your body,” Viktor said. “That’s a symbol of allegiance to Lucifer.”
Grey followed Oak’s eyes downward, glimpsing a square-faced silver ring with an engraved image of a dragon intertwined around a black cross.
“I’m with the House of Lucifer, man. What the hell you think I’m gonna wear?”
“I think you’re going to wear a ring that aligns with the tenets of your religion,” Viktor said, “rather than a ring symbolizing a secret initiation rite involving the Black Mass, blood sacrifice, and swearing lifelong allegiance to Satan, under the aegis of L’église de la Bête.”
Oak ran a hand over his hair and tried to look nonchalant, but Grey saw the shock in his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re smoking. I picked this ring up at a pawnshop, liked the way it looked. I’m sorry Matty’s dead, but I don’t know what else I can tell you.” He shook the bat at them. “And don’t you dare come back here and tell me I’m not grieving enough for my friend.”
Viktor dismissed him with a thin smile. “We’ll be in touch.”
Through a split in the shades, Oak watched his two visitors walk towards the center of Haight-Ashbury. Oak was intelligent, but he was also larger and angrier than most people, and after he graduated from Cal Poly he decided he would rather deal drugs and join a biker gang than waste away behind a desk. It was California in the sixties, and his decision had seemed almost normal, an alternative career path. He met Matthias a few years later, and it was a natural fit.
The House of Lucifer stood for anarchy and personal freedom, two things Oak valued above all else. Most of the public thought the members of the House bit off the heads of chickens and sacrificed babies, and that suited him just fine, even though the sacrifice of living creatures was taboo under House doctrine.
Oak prided himself on being a badass, and he had wanted to swing his baseball bat at that skinny asshole’s head. But something in the guy’s hard green eyes told Oak that taking a swing would have been a very bad idea, and that was a feeling Oak hated above all else. He was the one who made other people feel that way.
That was fine. He had something special for those two. Someone, that was.
He grabbed a Coors Light and a shot of Jäger, working up his courage for the phone call, still on edge after the craziness of the last few weeks. As the alcohol loosened his mind, he thought about how it had all come to this.
To most of the members, the House of Lucifer was a fad, an alternative lifestyle, a way to protest anaesthetized suburban living and conformist religion and politics.
To others, the House of Lucifer was a gateway drug.
As the years went by, Oak yearned for something real, something other than intellectual back-patting and Dungeons & Dragons occult bullshit. He searched the Internet for organizations more in alignment with his true desires, tried a few things here and there, found a few cults that went a step or two further down the Left-Hand Path. But none had the ring of authenticity.
Then, just last year, he found the Church of the Beast. No, that wasn’t true. The Church found him. He had heard about the Church and was intrigued, but he knew membership was by invite only, and there was zero information out there. He hadn’t even realized the Church had a presence in the United States. Now, of course, he knew they had a chapter in every major American city.
Oak’s invite had been a letter slipped under his door, sealed with a symbol he hadn’t recognized. The same symbol that was on the ring the giant dude had noticed. That had stunned Oak; no one outside the Church of the Beast was supposed to know about that symbol.
The letter contained a date, a time, and an address. At midnight on the date in the letter, Oak had approached a Russian Hill mansion set behind an ivy-covered wall. He was terrified by what he might find, but feverish with curiosity. He wanted what he assumed everyone wanted: evidence of something secret, something real, something else.
He had not been disappointed. The San Francisco chapter of the Church of the Beast, fifty members strong, had heard his plea, knew his background, and extended a rare invitation. At that first ceremony, he had participated in the Black Mass as it was meant to be done, not symbolically like in the House of Lucifer. He had watched the sacrifice of the goat and drunk its blood and cavorted, naked and unrestrained, around the basement of the mansion. It had been a bacchanal worthy of the true Dark Prince, ending with an orgy that left Oak giddy with sated desire, trembling for more.
He had found his church.
Was he evil? he briefly wondered. Yet how could satisfying his natural desires, even taken to the extremes offered by the Church of the Beast, be evil? And how was the worship of Satan worse than the veneration of a God who allowed the Holocaust and who, if most Christians were to be believed, condemned billions of His own creation to eternal damnation? Who didn’t feel some affinity with Satan, the rebellious teenager kicked out of his parents’ basement, doomed forever?
Oak enjoyed the notoriety that came with his position in the House of Lucifer, and saw no reason to give it up. Matty, the old fool, had no idea anything had changed.
Then everything changed.
Oak was asked to attend a different kind of ceremony, an initiation for a woman who had been attending the Church of the Beast a few weeks longer than Oak. Oak knew what this meant; he knew the requirement for membership was to make the final cut on the throat of the sacrifice. He also knew why they had brought him along slowly, because he was familiar with fringe-group psychology: Like any perversion, sexual or violent or otherwise, acceptance and addiction required a gradual approach.
Only it wasn’t an addiction, he told himself, and it wasn’t a perversion. Satan reflected the true nature of humanity, and it was intellectually dishonest to believe otherwise. It was weak.
He wanted to be part of the Church of the Beast more than he wanted to be in alignment with his artificial, socialized Western morality. He would see for himself wh
at the real Prince of Darkness was about.
Oak didn’t remember much from that night, due to both intoxication and denial. They had brought in a homeless man, a drain on society, and performed the Black Mass while the homeless man hung upside down from the cross. Then the new initiate had completed her task. There was no torture, just a swift kill. A simple offering. The ultimate act of love and devotion to his new Prince, Oak told himself, far cleaner than the wholesale slaughter in which organized religion had engaged over the centuries.
Oak had almost vomited when they passed around the cup filled with warm blood, but he managed to let the liquid trickle into his mouth. After the sacrifice, there was an orgy that helped Oak forget what he had just seen and done, and when it was finished Oak stumbled out of the basement and into the moonlit night, gibbering with spent emotion, his frail humanity conquered.
After that night, Oak stopped wondering whether he was evil. Not because he had come to any conclusion, but because he no longer cared.
The next night, the same night on which Matty received the letter, a man named Dante approached Oak in the shadows on the street outside Oak’s house. He shuddered as he formed a mental picture of Dante: lean and hard as redwood bark, swathed in black clothing, nose and lips and ears filled with piercings, incisors filed to points, and that awful and powerful tattoo covering his shaved head, a red pentagram stuffed with the severed head of a goat.
Oak knew the rumors: that Dante was a master with his hidden knives, the right-hand man to the Black Cleric himself, enforcer of an already terrifying organization. He couldn’t wait to see Dante slice Dominic Grey into little pieces and offer his lifeblood in ritual to the Beast.
Yet even Dante no longer struck the most fear into Oak’s charred heart. That night, Dante had told him of someone else, a man who had transcended his human shell and become something more, a man who would one day lead his followers into the mainstream and finally allow their religion to take its rightful place in the world. Oak loved the idea of a revolution, but he had not really believed what Dante had said about the man’s powers.
The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) Page 5
