"All right, how much can you raise?”
"If I sold off all the stock I have, let's say four, five hundred. Plus whatever I can get on a second mortgage. Unless somebody buys the house tomorrow. Even so...”
“Maybe they'll settle for that," Willis said.
"I don't think so.”
"Because if not...”
She looked at him.
"I can't let anything happen to you," he said. love you too much.”
The worshippers had been informed that the before tonight's mass would begin at and so they had begun assembling in the old church at twenty past the hour. It was written in sacred Black Book that all church business perforce be concluded before the hour of midni when it was further ordained that the Introit be said and the mass begun. On most oc there was scant church business to discuss. Toni there was the matter of who, if anyone, in congregation had painted the sign of Baphomet the murdered priest's gate.
The assemblage numbered some fift, people... If divisible by two, impure... among whom were the nine who would preside over and participate in the ritual of the mass... If divisible by three, sublime.
The remaining forty-two were worshippers who had been told that the mass tonight would be more expressive of the joys of Satanism than had the more solemn Mass of the Expulsion earlier this week. But in contradiction to the announced purpose of the celebration tonight, the clothing they wore appeared conservative if not austere, the hues black or grey or dun for an overall appearance of unrelieved drabness, the cut angular and restrictive for an almost uniform look of severity.
It was only when one looked more closely... A man standing at the rear of the church seemed to be wearing a long leather blacksmith's apron over black leather trousers. But when he turned in profile to greet a newcomer, it became evident that the trousers were in fact high boots and that between the tops of those boots and the hem of the apron there was naked flesh and nascent tumescence.
Through summise, surprise.
A redheaded woman sat with her legs crossed on the aisle some three rows back from the altar, her auburn tresses caught and contained in a heavy black snood that added to them the seeming weight of mourning. She was wearing as well a black silk , tailored grey slacks, and high-topped, laced, leather shoes. But when she uncrossed her legs to lean forward and whisper something to a man on the row ahead of her, it became apparent that the slacks were crotchless and that beneath them she wore nothing. The revealed thatch of her fiery red pubic hair and lipstick-tinted nether lips were in direct contrast to the trapped hair on her head and the plainness of her unpainted mouth.
Throughout that vaulted holy place, then, were unexpected... Through ignorance, knowledge... glimpses of the flesh these celebrants wt here tonight to honor. In Satan's name. they discreetly and posed ingenuously. Speaking whispers as befitted the sanctity of the Lord'!
meeting place, candid eyes met and held, neither roamed nor wavered, expressions never indicated that a promised later offering to Satan now being shown in fleeting preview: A woman's severe black gown, cut high on neck and low on the ankle with a cutout circle size of a quarter exposing the nipple of her left painted a red as deep as blood... A black man's grey homespun trousers, with a long-sleeved black shirt and a han hood, his penis thrusting through an opening in trousers and held in an upright position by the white ribbons wrapped around it and tied about waist... An exquisitely beautiful Chinese woman a loosely crocheted black dress, pale diamonds flesh showing everywhere except where tightly woven patches of black covered her Venus mound and breasts... Through concealment, revealment.
In many respects, this socializing before the mass began was not too very different in tone or appearance from the little parties and gatherings occurring all over the city tonight. Except that here in this group, among these people openly worshipping the Devil, there was in the reverse order of their beliefs an honesty of intent that Schuyler Lutherson considered less hypocritical. Coming through the black curtains at the rear of the church now, he reflected solemnly upon the fervor of those who spoke most righteously for any God they claimed to admire be it Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha or Zeus and wondered if these people might not find a better home here at the Church of the Bornless One. Because it seemed to him that those who most vehemently denounced the sinful actions of unbelievers were those who most vigorously and secretly pursued those actions. And those who defended their religions against the imagined onslaughts of infidels were those who, in the very name of whichever god they professed to serve, most often vilified the sacred teachings of that god.
Come to Satan, Schuyler thought, and made the sign of the goat in greeting, and then went directly to the living altar and faced her, and passed his tongue over the forefinger and middle finger of his left hand, the Devil's hand, wetting his fingers, and then ran both fingers slick and wet over the lips of Coral's vagina, from my lips to thy lips, and said in Latin, "By your leave, most beloved Lord, I beseech thee,” which was a plea upon Satan's own altar for the Unborn One to please remain patient yet a moment longer while this tiresome church business was attended to.
The worshippers fell silent as Schuyler stepped forward. Immediately behind him was the living altar, Coral, with her legs spread and bent at the knees, bare feet flat on the velvet-covered arms at her sides, clutching in each hand phallic-shaped candelabra in which was as-yet-unlighted black candle. The beginning of mass would be signaled by the lighting of candles, followed by the recitation of first the and then the Invocation. For now, the deacon sub-deacons stood ranked behind the altar readiness.
The four acolytes (four tonight rather than customary two, in that this was a special following the high holy Feast of the Exp stood seriously and solemnly in boy-girl pairs either side of the altar. Two eight-year-old girls, of whom was tall for her age, a boy who was eight, and another who was nine, all of barefooted and wearing silken black tunics which they were naked. Coral's long blonde cascaded over the pointed end of the trapezoid, almost touching the cold stone floor.
Without preamble, Schuyler said, "The death of this priest is troublesome. It may bring unwanted, unneeded visitors to the church. It may lead to suspicion of our order, and possible harassment, see, from the police. Or perhaps even more serious measures from them, I don't know, I don't care.
What I'm asking tonight is for anyone here among us, if he or she is responsible for painting an inverted pentagram on the gate of St. Catherine's church, to come up here and say you did it. If you did it, then you know who you are, and I want you to come forward and explain why you did it. So we can straighten this out.”
There was silence out there in the congregation.
Hesitation.
And then a blond giant of a man rose and stepped out into the aisle. He was in his early twenties, weathered and suntanned and muscular and lean, wearing a pair of faded grey jeans and a T-shirt tie-dyed in varying swirls of black, black headband and black leather sandals. In further keeping with the tone and stated purpose of the mass tonight, a black leather thong was tied tightly around his left thigh some three inches below his crotch. No one so much as glanced at the thong, no one seemed to notice that it held fastened against the man's leg... Through bondage, freedom... a penis enormous by any standards, course by the fabric of his jeans... Through disguise, discovery... but clearly discernible in massive outline.
"I did it," he said. "I painted the priest's "Come on up," Schuyler said in afriel manner, but he was scowling. Perhaps because, himself was blond and considerably handsome so was the young man, and he may have felt constituted a threat to his leadership. Or sensed, even before the young man reached the of the church, and even though he'd only heard speak eight short words, that here in the the Bornless One was yet another of Mends, too damn many of whom had been to the services here in recent weeks.