by Gavin Graham
They would all fall, for she had no intention to stop…
Chapter 70
A bloodbath in a Church
You can run, but you cannot hide, from your sins…
Billy ‘The Handyman’ they called him, always just a telephone call away.
Reliable, was our Billy, a good man too.
He did the shops for the old dears during the winter months, he filled in for the school janitor when he got taken by cancer of the lungs, and he did charitable works in conjunction with the local Church community as well as being the official caretaker for the Partick South Parish.
Friday nights and Saturday afternoons were his Church days. It was good to have a presence there on Friday nights as the local ‘Young Team’ – a violent cell of young thugs who were prone to vandalism and random attacks against innocent strangers – often gathered at the side wall to drink Buckfast, smash bottles, fight, and invite young girls for sex only to leave their used condoms strewn across the surrounding walkways. Every now and then he’d patrol the area in his overalls, carrying a hammer in his right hand, just whistling the tune from Tarantino’s Kill Bill, barely visible from the outer gates, all they’d see from the street was this creepy figure of a gigantic man, his shadow, carrying a hammer that was fit for a harsh and bloody killing.
He’d been there since just before five pm, did the offices, the halls and the sanctuary. The entire community had pulled together since the recent spate of killings. He was on edge, as many of them were, but he just got on with it as they all did.
“Just act normal, and get on with it…” was the general advice.
He was sweeping his way through the narrow pews when he heard a noise, like two planks of wood clapping together. That’s the thing, see, about empty Churches, of course, they are a little spooky to begin with, but they echo in the night like the lonesome Chambers of Hell. Every little noise, however slight, the soundwaves reverberate off the high walls and the waves linger in your bones. “Who’s there?” he shouted, his own voice rippling back to him in loud, bellowing waves. He went rigid, tried to think what the noise could be, but he had no idea. He looked at the rear-left corner where he’d left the door ajar, he should have been looking at nothing more than a grey shadow, but a light was on.
He hadn’t left any light on, had he?
He frowned. “Who is it?” he shouted again, feeling suffocated now by the open space, the emptiness. A cool envelope of air touched his skin and the hairs on his arms stood on end, like some kind of a presence had entered the grounds and had passed right by him, his face fell white. His instinct was telling him to get the hell out of there but he didn’t, he told himself to stop being stupid, that he must have left a light on, to just go back and check it out.
He looked down at his broom and walked back to the door, suddenly wanting it to be the hammer that he had in his hand, not the old, wooden broom. Nevertheless, he held it up like it was a cricket bat, although he’d never played cricket once in his life. He approached the area and pushed at the base of the door with his foot, unaware of the black figure that had now walked up behind him, wearing a shiny and sleek motorcycle helmet. He walked silently toward the secretary’s office where the light was on, but the figure that followed took silent steps and cast no shadow. He crouched down as he entered the office to peer beneath the desk, he saw nothing. As he stood up, he turned for a quick glance back into the sanctuary, but all he saw was the blunt end of his own hammer as it appeared as a small dot, the rest was a shadowy blur.
He was struck hard across the forehead, a forward cracking of the skull, and a brilliant spray of blood ensued.
Chapter 71
Retribution is the word
And, the horsemen said: You will know my name when I come and taketh revenge…
McGreavy was in walking distance of the Church when he took the call. He’d been at the pub, drinking.
He’d never been to a Church, well he had, but not one that was a murder scene.
It was The Unsung Satanist, he’d struck again, he needed no confirmation. What he really wanted to understand, however, was the underlying motive and justification – revenge and retribution – but, why? Had the killer himself been the victim of an unthinkable crime? A child molestation, perhaps? He didn’t want to make assumptions. Perhaps, it was just the work of a cult, an evil, blood-thirsty sect, brainwashed and delusional, led into vile practices of ceremonial black magic that utilised the bodies of dead Christians.
Jimmy was on-site as he entered the main doors. “Boss.”
“Jim. What have we got?”
“The caretaker, he was killed back there,” he pointed to the rear door in the corner.
“Same killer?”
“Aye, same drill, they plastered the walls with blood, writing all that Satanic garbage again.”
“Show me.”
“Aye, c’mon, let’s go,” they walked, retracing the trail of blood that had been left behind where the body had been dragged to the front door.
“How was he killed?” McGreavy asked.
“Beat to death with the blunt end of a claw-hammer, it would seem, smashed his brains in then cut him to pieces with some form of a blade and collected his spill in a bucket, same deal. The hammer was left on the desk, remnants of brain and whatnot all over it,” Jimmy explained.
“The knife?”
“No sign of it.”
They arrived at the office where the caretaker had been murdered; again, the writing was on the wall. “Here it is, make of it what you will.”
McGreavy stood and read the poetry, word-for-word.
I am The Unsung Satanist. Satan’s kiss will guide thy pulse, to hunt and kill, in our Unholy name. The eternal love of His Highness. Our serpent. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Crimson stained. Spirits rise. Pigs, slaughtered after The Black Dawn. Squealing. Screaming. Crying. Fuckery, fuckery, fuckery…kill them all...swim in the blood of your neighbour, black as oil, the righteous know thy name. Esoteric meaning in symbolic defilement, brutal mutilations, unimaginable. Bloody and malign. Finality. Beauty to behold. Swim, I tell you, swim in the blood of hypocrites. Come with me and walk thy Path. Fires rage, a serpent’s tongue fiends on the flesh of virgins, soaking up the night, galloping into aforesaid raging flames of Greatness. What is the doubt of a heathen but the informed intelligence that strikes down upon misinformed followers? Trail thee and follow thee and know the Circle of Life and Death, unto thou I shall give darkness and the eternal river shall flow. You unwittingly talk with The Devil in your darkest dreams, with your fears and falsehoods, as sheepish followers of the false God. The beautiful stupidity of the human condition, unseen to most, yet nurtured by one and all, so it seems. Embraced and tolerated by the ignorant masses. You fool…you know not what you do…you see not the greatness…even as it stands when it was asked for and granted…spoiled is the soul and tainted the spirit of ignorant fools like you…it makes me sick to the pit of my vile gut. Do not lie nor tell me why, but show me with your body, give yourself in all your glory, as I disclose to thee my story. Die for me, I will show you the darkness, as we walk His Path to Greatness. In the flames of purgatory as Guardians of the Goat, uphold, for thee and thy Master will endorse all bloody doings. Embrace them. Indulge in them. Strike, from the continuous shadow, consume the enemy in thy thieving neighbour. Thieves of Knowledge and the Almighty Crow; it is a certainty that they shall fall. A garden of snakes in a pit of fire, I see a horseman risen from the almighty flame to gallop onwards to a silver crescent. A dark angel lurks in wait. The horseman holds high a golden sword, of occult science, and he reveals His name unto thee. In that moment, I am worthy, of your blood and your soul. I know I will be free, to stalk and kill, for I was graced with a number of esoterica, and I will always have His fiendish blessing. Hail Satan! 666.
“He’s a ranting, raving lunatic,” Jimmy offered.
“Why are we assuming that it is a male killer? You don’t think a woman could
be capable of doing this?”
“A woman? Nah, I can’t see it.”
“I am the Unsung Satanist. Satan’s kiss will guide thy pulse,” McGreavy read from the first line. “I don’t know, would a man say that?”
“You’ve got a point, Mac. I haven’t analysed it from that viewpoint.”
“We need to understand what’s driving this psycho, he hates mainstream religion, that much is clear. But there is something personal to this, the victims must be linked in some way, we need to connect the dots.”
“Nothing has been turned up, so far.”
“No witnesses?”
“Nothing.”
“So, they just dragged a dead body out of a church and disappeared? Vanished into thin air?”
“Exactly.”
“Pretty bold, wouldn’t you say? What makes a person do it, all of a sudden, just appear like this on the scene with such a vehement cause? I mean, we’ve never had any intel on such cults and whatnot in Glasgow, any groups or individuals that could be even remotely capable of anything like this. This kind of sentiment, this hatred, this evil, it isn’t just formed overnight, is it?”
“Some people snap, I suppose, just like that, all of a sudden, like they become possessed by a demon…”
“Yes,” replied the Inspector, nodding thoughtfully. “A demon…”
Chapter 72
Never second-guess the esoteric prophecies of a blind fortune-teller
Be cautious and respectful of any person who has a knowledge of occult magic…
After seeing that room in the Church, awash with blood, he was badly in need of a drink, a shag and a smoke. He’d been having intimate relations with a blind woman for a fair bit of time and he hoped it would last for many years to come. He’d looked at himself in the mirror one day, stood naked and drunk in the bathroom, and said to himself: “Good job that fortune-teller is blind, Son, because you’d have no chance if she ever saw that grotesque fucking belly…”
He took her the way he always did, over the table, where her crystal ball was, and the tarot cards. She may have been blind, but she could see things in the ball, when she placed her hands upon it.
Magic Maggie.
She had wild hair and wore black lipstick. For all the charity-shop clothes that she wore, her gothic appearance, her wrinkled skin, she was the most beautiful woman that he’d ever seen. She looked like a witch, a beautiful, blind, sexy witch, and he felt guilty for wanting her so badly.
Why?
Because, there he’d been, over and over again, inside her, deeply inside her, clutching onto her and never wanting to let go as the spirit of his dead wife watched it all. Yes, she’d been there, and she’d watched him at it, not just a spectre, but a ghostly spectator. He’d seen her there and he hadn’t held back for one bloody second. “Make me pregnant, Mac, give it to me,” she always coaxed him, with dirty talk, with false words of fanciful intimacy, this mystical woman, this magical lady with occult powers, one of his secret weapons in the complex world of solving crimes and catching serial killers. That’s right, she saw things and she told him things, the same way that Professor Sinclair did, and he knew that he was a fraud for always taking the credit, the lime-light was his, the illustrious Inspector – Glasgow’s mastermind Detective.
“Oh God, Maggie. I love you so much Maggie,” his shirt was unbuttoned and his trousers were at the floor, his hair was all over the shot and a fag hung from his mouth, the ash flaking down into the valley of her behind as he jerked and stabbed into her in the dimly lit ‘reading-room’.
“Fuck me, Mac, deep. Fuck me like you fuck your young whore…”
He’d never even told her about the dancer, but she knew it all, she knew everything and she saw everything, and she didn’t care, because it was her time now and nobody could take it away from her.
“Oh God, Maggie, I’m coming.”
“Come, Mac, come inside me.”
The cigarette fell from his lips as he melted into an orgasmic stupor and the burn stung against wrinkled skin at her lower spine. She yelled in the pain that was the bitter-sweetness of erotic pleasure, for she enjoyed it, it made her feel alive, wanted, and she imagined Mac to be the man of her dreams.
His legs trembled and he slapped her hard on the side of her frail buttock, leaving a red mark as he pushed-on to the very end.
She moaned in a way that was worldly more than unworldly, pushing back onto him, hard, as she felt her own sudden eruption, bodily electricity in a blind state of blind-orgasm. It was chaotic and hard, as always, weird and wonderful, two oddities, two social misfits, kindred spirits, together…
“Tell me, tell me what you see in the future,” the reading always came in the aftermath of their lustful encounters, they’d smoke a joint and drink blended whisky straight from the bottle. “I see a figure in black, all in black, but I see no face, I see a cloud of ash and a shadowy figure that stands behind this figure, a young man, I see blood, so much blood, and a house, a house that is on fire.”
Mac listened intently, to every single word that she said. “What else? Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m getting a message, a strong message, a voice is telling me something that could be critical to solving this murder case.”
“What is it?”
“The killer, Mac, the killer is someone that is close to you, a person that you know well…”
Mac sat there, flinched, screwed-up his face, he wanted to explore it further, to question her, to ask her if she was sure, really sure about it, but he didn’t. Why? Because, one thing that he’d learned over the years, working on the mean streets of Glasgow, and that was that you never second-guess the esoteric prophecies of a blind fortune-teller.
Chapter 73
The Order of the Black Chapter
Never refuse a call from a Good Samaritan…
Shortly after eight am, when he’d been intimate with his stripper and secretly thought of his blind lover, when he’d had his coffee and craved alcohol, he got a call from a Church Minister who claimed to have information relating to the murders.
Mac agreed to meet him at the pub: “Whatever you decide to say, it can be on or off the record, and we can work it out together.”
The Old Highland boozer was practically empty, just one-legged Wully who sat in his usual seat with a Daily Record and his now-cold Scotch Pie, and a ned who drank Iron-Bru from a can and pummelled money into the ‘puggy’ machine, all lights and electro-noise.
“Do you drink, Minister?”
“Aye, I’ll take a Guinness.”
“Good man,” said Mac, he didn’t trust people who didn’t drink, didn’t even trust himself when he didn’t drink. He felt better on the sauce, more stable. They took the beers and a half whisky for himself into the backroom, where the aftermath of a Masonic post-ceremony party was still visible. Mac had been in attendance and won a bottle of Glenlivet single malt in the raffle. He had every intention of drinking it, very soon. “Talk to me, Minister.”
“Satanism, murderous rituals, evil cults…”
“You have my attention, what do you know, I want details.”
“There’s a coven, I know of its location,” said the Minister. “I saw a person, dressed in black, helmet and all, they were dumping something that looked like a body at the side door. As the person drove away the door opened and the body was dragged inside.”
“First off, what is a coven? Some kind of gathering of witches?”
“They are a Satanic cult, if you may, they call themselves The Order of the Black Chapter. They are not witches and they are not strictly Satanists, either. They are a part of the pseudo-satanic conundrum, which refers to the true ‘Satanic panic’, by this I refer to the actual abuse of esoteric rituals…”
“Abuse of esoteric rituals, what does that mean?”
“Primarily, they twist it all to entertain their own deviance, they make it about sex, for example. Initiation ceremonies involve all kinds of group
orgies and female members are even outwardly raped by male members of The Order. I’ve heard rumours that they indulge in murder, that they have a hunter, one of their own, who goes out and kills innocents to provide them with a corpse for ceremonial defilement. They do whatever it is they feel like doing, free will and all that, that is the level of ceremonial abuse that I refer to…”
“Free will, are you referring to Aleister Crowley?”
“Yes, that means nothing is off the table, it depends what the flavour of the month is. They light candles and stand around in black robes with holes cut out at the eyes and the mouth. A member may have to murder someone as the others watch and as a group they may further dismember them, limb-by-limb, finger-by-finger, eye-by-eye…can you imagine the level of depravity?”
“Sick bastards, but, how do you know about all this?”
“As a Soldier of God and The Divine Light, it is my duty to know thy enemy, and those who practice The Devil’s work. My daughter, she was a member…”
“Can I talk to her?”
“She is dead,” the Minister lied, bowing his head in shame. “I suspect she was sacrificed by the group, as part of a ceremony, ceremonial abuse rather – sex, murder, even cannibalism…”
“How did she die?”
“Her head was sent to me, in a box.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Shame, it was pure shame. I didn’t want the publicity, as a Man of God, I know that must be difficult for you to understand. Initially, I wanted revenge, Inspector McGreavy, I wanted to hunt down the coven and kill them all.”
“So, what, then you just decided to back-off and stay quiet about the whole thing?”
“I suppose, ignorance is bliss…I thought I could ignore it but I can’t…now, when I see these things happening…these murders…I can’t stay quiet any longer…the good Lord came to my bedside and he said that I must now stand up and be counted as a bold disciple. I’m here to help, Inspector, with your investigations. I believe the person in black that I saw dumping the body is Glasgow’s Satanic serial killer. Now that you know about The Order of the Black Chapter, you should have a better chance in tracking down the killer, that is what I believe Inspector.”
