"Tell us your name," Schuyler said, pleasantly But something seemed coiled within "Andrew Hobbs," the young man said. "I coming here in March.”
Something Southern in his speech. The lilt. intonation. Something else as well. A more lilt.
"Jeremy Sachs introduced me here.”
Sachs. Jeremy Sachs. Schuyler s memory for an image to connect with the face. A character trait. A verbal tic. Nothing "Yes?" he said.
"Yes.”
"And the gate?”
"I did it," he said.
Through confession, condemnation.
"Why?”
"Because of her.”
"Who?”
Was it possible, then, that he was not one of Dorothy's friends? And yet the look of him, and the cleverness of the thong, the understatement of it. But he hadn't yet said "her" name. And among those ho roamed Oz, the female pronoun was often substituted for the... "Her," Hobbs said.
"My mother.”
Ah, then. Were we still on the yellow brick road? . "What about her?”
Schuyler asked.
They often nursed long-term grievances against "She went to him.”
"Went to who?”
"The priest. And told him.”
"Told him what?”
If only this wasn't so much like pulling teeth.
"That I've been coming here. That Jeremy took here. That we've been doing.., things here.”
Jeremy. Sachs. And now the name took on visual sions, Jeremy Sachs, a squat, rather looking young white homosexual'm without one of Dorothy's friends, a longtime traveler the Munchkins'm who'd declared fealty to Devil by reversing his own natural preferences going down helter-skelter and willy-nilly on every naked snatch offered to Satan within the: sacrosanct walls.
Schuyler could not recall seeing his young friend at any of the masses before tonight, but there was wholesale confusion and resulta obscurity.
In any case, here he was now, the friend of a friend of Dorothy, perhaps himself, who had just now confessed defiling dead priest's gate because of his goddamn All mothers should be forced to suck a horse's Schuyler thought. Including my own.
"But why did you paint the gate?" he asked.
"As a statement," Hobbs said.
Schuyler nodded. So what this was, it was a case of someone telling his Mama to keep out life. Completely understandable. This was someone with any hard feelings for the priest. bad intentions here at all. Just somebody makin personal family statement. But nonetheless... "The statement you have to make now," said, "is to the police. To let them know you paint that pentagram as any kind of warning anything. This priest was killed, see, and we want his murder connected to this church in any So what I suggest you do is leave here right minute, see, and go home and change clothes...”
"What's wrong with my clothes?" Hobbs "Nothing," Schuyler said. "In fact, what wearing is well-suited...”
He didn't know he was making a pun.
"... to the ceremony tonight. But it might be misunderstood by the police, see, so go put on something that'll make 'em think you work in a bank.”
“I do work in a bank," Hobbs said.
There was laughter in the assemblage. Laughter of relief, perhaps. This wasn't going to be as bad as it had appeared at first. Young homosexual here had argued with his mother, had gone off in a snit, and in defiance had painted the sign of his religious belief on the enemy's gate. He'd explain all this to the police and they'd understand, and send him on his way, and everyone could go right on practicing his chosen religion in freedom again, this was a wonderful country, the U.S. of A. It was four minutes to midnight.
Hobbs asked where the nearest police station was, and from where he was standing behind the living altar, Stanley Garcia who had been there early yesterday morning gave him directions to the 87th Precinct. Hobbs asked if he could come back here for the mass after he'd talked to the police, but Schuyler pointed out that the doors would be locked at the stroke of midnight, which in fact was now only three minutes away, so perhaps Hobbs had better get moving. Hobbs appeared to be sulking as he left the church. One of the worshippers closed and bolted the door behind him, and then dropped the heavy wooden crossbar into place, in effect double-locking the doors.
It was a minute to midnight.
The church was expectantly silent.
The red-head in the grey slacks sat with her knees pressed closely together, her head bent.
"It is the hour," Schuyler said, and signaled to hi sub-deacons to come forward and light the candles.
The sub-deacons tonight were two nineteen-y girls who looked like sisters but who weren't cousins. Both brunettes with brown eyes, they wearing the customary black robes of the naked beneath them, for it was ritual that consecration of the altar by the minister, sub-deacons (traditionally female) would then turn and in sequence be consecrated by the Solemnly and silently, the girls whose were Heather and Patrice went to the altar, in reverence before her, and then parted, one to the left, the other to the right, where Coral's clutched the thick phallic candelabra. sputtering, they lighted both black candles, and went behind the altar to where Stanley Garcia with an oxidized and blackened brass censer in hand. The girls lighted the incense, and accepted the thuribles from Stanley. Swinging on the ends of their short black chains, sweetened with incense first the altar and surrounding apsidal chapters and then went up center aisle to spread the cloying scent throu Ce entire church. They returned then to stand flanking theft deacon.
It was time for the Introit.
The word itself derived from the Middle English word for "entrance,” from the Old French introit from the Latin introitus. It was pronounced not in the French manner but rather to rhyme with ln-blao -It," as many in the congregation were fond of explaining. In Christian churches, the introit was in fact an entrance, the beginning as such of the proper, and it consisted either of a psalm verse, an antiphon, or the Gloria Patri.
In the true church of the Devil, however, the introit was a short and personal opening dialogue intended as a despoliation of innocence and an introduction to the Devil, who would be invoked more seriously later tonight. The ritual blasphemy that Schuyler and the four child acolytes were about to perform was, in essence, a rude dismissal of Jesus and an acknowledgment of Satan Daemon est Deus Inversus: The Devil is the other side of God.
Schuyler nodded to his deacon.
Stanley rang the heavy bell nine times, three times facing south and the altar, and then kept turning counterclockwise to ring the bell twice at each remaining cardinal point of the compass.
The air now purified, Schuyler went to stand in the open angle formed by the naked legs of the altar.
Facing the assemblage, he lifted both arms, and a the sign of the goat with the fingers of both hands. At this signal the four acolytes came to face him, a boy and a girl on each side.
In Latin, Schuyler said, "In nomine magni dei nostri Satanas...”
In the name of our great god Satan... "... we stand before thy living altar.”
And in their piping voices, the acolytes responded in unison and in Latin, "We beseech assistance, oh Lord, save us from the wicked.”
"To our Lord who created the earth and the heavens, the night and the day, the darkness and light," Schuyler intoned, "to our Infernal Lord causes us to exult...”
"Oh Lord, deliver us from unjustness," children chanted.
"Lord Satan, hearken to our voices," Schu' said. "Demonstrate to us thy terrible power...”
"And give to us of thy immeasurable largess.”