“My research on that isn’t complete yet,” Frank said. “In fact, it’s pretty fucking hard unless you can read ancient Sumerian. Hanbi is said to be the father of a more well known Sumerian God named Pazuzu, who was the devil-god of the southeastern wind and brought drought and pestilence. Ever see The Exorcist?”
Vince nodded.
“The little girl in that movie, Regan, was possessed by Pazuzu.”
“So… Pazuzu is just another name for the Devil?”
“That’s what it all boils down to.” Frank took a sip of his drink. “The devil has gone by numerous names throughout history. Azazel, Beelzebub, Shaitan, Behemoth, Satanael, Melek Taus. With each name he goes by a different appearance but he’s pretty much more or less the same.”
“A fallen angel,” Vince said, the Bible lessons his mother forced him to partake in coming to mind.
“So they say, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I’m still trying to chase that end down too. Needless to say, he’s been worshipped since the dawn of time. In fact, my evidence suggests he was worshipped well before our concept of God even developed.”
“Oh yeah?” Vince looked at Frank curiously.
“I’ll tell you more about that later. Let’s stick with what we’re going on now, which is the group our parents were involved with. The first tangible evidence of our group is from Europe around 1914. It’s alleged that Aleister Crowley associated with them and later left, some say, out of fear, which was out of character for Crowley. There’s evidence of cult activity in the U.S. in the 1920s, especially regarding the Archibald Lasher serial killing case in Los Angeles. By the 1940s, the cult was very active and it’s alleged that Adolf Hitler and several key SS personnel were members. The cult was largely inactive after World War II until the late 1960s. That’s when you had the End Times Church, who worshipped Jesus, God, and Satan simultaneously, their reason being that you can’t have one without the other, that all of them worked together in some sort of tandem. A group called the Four P Movement broke away from yet another cult, one called the Process Church of the Final Judgment and was largely blamed for the rise of cult killings in the US in the late sixties and early seventies. I studied both groups and that’s when I saw that The Children of the Night had re-emerged within this period. By then they’d seamlessly blended into the background of mainstream society. Folks like Charles Manson and his cult were popularly attributed to belonging to one or the other.”
“Oh yeah?” Victor had watched a documentary on Charles Manson a year or two before Laura’s murder.
“Yeah,” Frank said. “There’s no hard proof, of course, but the evidence is pretty strong. There’s even stronger evidence The Children of the Night rubbed shoulders with members of the Japanese Yakuza, various Islamic splinter groups from the Middle East, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Army of God, Jim Jones, and serial killers like Henry Lee Lucas and Son of Sam. Their leader was—and still is—Samuel F. Garrison, the “Grand Chingon,” or “Head Devil.” You wouldn’t know he was involved in this stuff from looking at him.” Frank leaned back in his leather bucket seat. “Very suave looking man, early seventies, in great shape for a man of his age. Sharp minded. Very cultured, polite, respectful. A man who has contributed immensely to the business world and the community. A man who is an icon of respectability. But beneath that the guy is the fucking devil.”
Vince was silent for a moment. He was just about to ask a question when Frank continued.
“They’re also connected to similar sects around the world, all involved in the same thing. Are they responsible for all the child abductions and murders you hear about from Christian fundamentalists? No. But they do prey on runaways for their rituals. They’re the easiest targets. Do they keep women in compounds as ‘breeders’ for infants that are later sacrificed to the devil? No fucking way. They probably had a hand in spreading such a rumor because doing so takes all suspicion off of them. But they have used infants in sacrifices.” He stopped himself and for a minute Vince thought he was going to collapse again, but he managed to get under control again. “They are in our government and military. They are experts in mind control, Physiological experimentation on humans and controlling via biochips. They are deceptive and infiltrate the government, modern society, and the Christian church intentionally to pervert it and cause divisions. And the reason they’ve been able to survive for so long is because they are incredibly organized and by outward appearances are outstanding citizens: doctors, lawyers, CEO’s, Law Enforcement Agents, Government Officials, members of the clergy.”
Vince was shaking his head. “This sounds so unreal.”
“I know,” Frank said. “How do you think I felt when we started uncovering it? I’m starting to feel like Whitley Strieber.”
“Who?”
“Whitley Strieber… the guy who wrote Communion. He’s a very high profile horror and science fiction writer. Wrote a couple of great novels: Wolfen, The Hunger. In his book Communion, he claims he was actually abducted by aliens and was used as a guinea pig in their experiments. He claims they’re still doing this to him, tracking him down. All this from a guy who makes a great living making this kind of shit up.” Frank patted his chest. “That’s how I feel.”
So he feels funny believing in it, too, Vince thought. Still, he found it even hard to consider what Frank was telling him. It was just too crazy. But he couldn’t voice that to Frank. He had to deal with whatever doubts he had himself. Maybe tonight he would do some research on what Frank was insinuating.
Vince let out a careful sigh. “This stuff sounds pretty heavy.”
“It is,” Frank said. He finished his Dr. Pepper and set the empty in the cup holder. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff Mike and I have discovered. Did you know the Son of Sam killings in the late 1970s are vaguely connected to an offshoot of this group?”
“No.”
“There’s evidence that suggests that David Berkowitz didn’t act alone when he gunned down those people in ’76 and ’77. In fact, witness descriptions place three or four other gunmen at the scene of the crimes. One theory is that the shootings were committed by order of the cult to enact something—exactly what, I have no idea. The attacks were all committed on a day that corresponds with a holiday or festival on the occult calendar. Berkowitz, on the other hand, was most likely fingered to take the fall before he even knew it. He initially clammed up and claimed to have acted on the order of his neighbor’s dog, which he said was possessed by a demon. Psychiatrists dismissed that as a ploy, but a few years later when he began talking to an investigative reporter about the murders and hinting he was involved in a large nationwide satanic cult, he was attacked in prison. His throat was slashed and he almost died.” Frank looked at Vince. “As you can imagine, he kept quiet about the cult after that.”
Vince was silent, taking this all in.
“There’s more. I can go on and on about what we’ve found out. The Manson family, the Metamoros thing down in Mexico, the Edwin Groose serial killing case, all that stuff had some trail leading back to The Children of the Night. Did you know that they even own a major Christian Broadcasting system?”
Vince shook his head. This was all sounding like the paranoid delusions of a bad dream. The events of the past week raced through his mind: his mother’s sudden death, rushing to Pennsylvania, Lillian’s sudden death, talking to the detectives and his mother’s friends in Lititz, the visit from the attorney, the crazy guy at the airport that tried to kill him and Tracy. And now this.