The Department of Hate - A Love Story (13 page)

Jarrod sat on the bed beside Cassandra, still in a furious mood, though not at her of course. He put his arm around her shoulder

“Are you all right?”
She was shaking, still terrified. She managed to say

“One of them, or one just like them, has been stalking me all my life, ever since I was a young girl. I’ve never known why. I hate him so much, and I am so scared of him. And I can’t even remember his name.”
Jarrod consoled her

“They’re gone now. I won’t let them, him, come back.”
Cassandra shook her head sadly

“I was always pretty sure that this is where he came from. But now I know.”
Jarrod sat beside her for a few minutes holding her, waiting. Once she had stopped shaking he announced

“I’ve found a way out.”
Cassandra was shocked by this

“What! How?”
Jarrod was eager to explain.

“We are getting out of this mad slaughter house. There is a portal back to earth, in the plains around the city. There is some danger.”
Cassandra waved her hand, expressing indifference

“So what, lets go then
.” Jarrod continued to explain

“We can’t go now. We can’t travel at night – we’ll leave first thing in the morning. Also I have to pick up a compass first. We’ll need it to navigate.”
Cassandra smiled. She said

“That’s wonderful.”

They held each other for a long time neither of them saying anything further, then they fell asleep together.

Chapter 12 – Run Away Screaming

Robert McDowell came out of his office into the hallway. He was holding a newspaper – looking quite surprised. He could see Jarrod, just a few doors down, outside of his own office, talking to a young woman. She was strikingly beautiful - long jet black hair, slim and shapely, not too tall, around twenty-five, cute face, perfect breasts. She did have a bit of a hard look about her, a little too determined, but a lot of the female students were like that. He half-recognised her, a grad student from one of the other departments, but he couldn’t remember which one. As he approached them he heard her say

"All right then, I'll see you tonight".
Then she turned around and headed off down the corridor. He watched her beautiful ass sway from side to side as she walked away and sighed appreciatively, thinking

'Ah the simple things.'

He stood in front of Jarrod. He was, as usual, loud and confrontational. He grinned broadly

"So, got a date at last, limp dick loser.” He looked back down the corridor. “Not bad though." Jarrod grimaced

"Not exactly a date". He paused. "I'm going to a black mass."
Robert looked back at him incredulously. For a few moments he didn’t seem to know what to say, and then he burst out with

"That is fucking brilliant. Dancing around naked with all those pretty young things, all oiled up, humping each other senseless in one big gooey pile of bodies. You're a fucking genius. Why didn’t I think of that years ago?" Jarrod laughed

"I don’t think there's an orgy involved - but why don’t you come along, if you want? I'll have to check with Olivia. But I’m sure it will be OK. They seem fairly open." Robert looked back at him stoically

"I'm a happily married man - and if Wendy found out she'd
certainly cut my balls off. Still, shagging the Satanists - that is just brilliant!  And if it doesn’t work out you can find some wacked out scientology chicks - plenty of them everywhere. You're really onto something here. Fuck the crazy ones!" Jarrod laughed again.

"You have a one tracked mind. But that's not the reason I'm going. I'm actually interested in the ceremony, the rituals. Olivia says that they've been attempting to invoke Beelzebub. She seems to take it seriously. She's part of a small group. From what she says they all seem to take it seriously. It's hard to imagine really."
Robert looked at him coldly

"So, basically, you're studying them?"
Jarrod replied

"Yes, I am. Just like when I went to all those Anglican and Catholic masses last year. Same thing. Field observation of primitive subcultures
." Robert shook his head

"That's a bit harsh. What about Olivia?"
Jarrod asked

"What about her, what do you mean?"
Robert persisted

"Well, she asked you, didn’t she?  Is she interested in you?"
Jarrod looked back blankly

"Could be, I don’t know.” He sighed. “But do you think I could ever have any kind of relationship with someone stupid enough to believe in all that crap?" Robert stared back at him, he was sick to death of Jarrod's excuses.

"For god's sake - just fuck her a few times. You might even like it." Jarrod replied sarcastically

"You're the expert."

They stood there for a minute or so - a kind of standoff. Then Robert raised the newspaper in his hand.

"I came to show you this." Jarrod scoffed

"Who still reads newspapers?"
Robert replied tautly

"I do. I get it at the corner shop on the way in each morning. Will you just fucking listen?  This is serious! "
Jarrod nodded

"OK, what?"
Robert spoke slowly

"It mentions the ongoing investigation into the death of Dr Caroline Lerner. Apparently she was found murdered in her apartment, nearly six months ago. Someone cut her throat. They still don’t know who did it.”
Jarrod was surprised to hear this, he asked

“When was that?”
Robert answered carefully

“She was found on Friday morning, January twenty third.”
Jarrod caught his breathe

“But wasn’t that ..?”
Robert nodded

"Yes. We had dinner with her at the Golden Cat on the Thursday night, the twenty second. You walked her to her car. I'm going to have to call the police - they're asking for information. It
’s strange that Wendy didn’t know about it. She would have said.  Strange the police haven’t called us yet. We had a booking at the Restaurant. A lot of people saw us all there together. We might have been the last ones to see her alive. In view of, well, you know, what happened to you in Knightsbridge I'm sure they'll want to talk to you too." Jarrod smiled glumly

"Of course they will."
Robert looked at him mockingly

“I’m surprised that Detective Chief Inspector Boone hasn’t been snooping around already.”
Jarrod grimaced

“No. He’s retired now. Forced retirement. Years ago.”
Robert looked at him evenly

“Well, that was inevitable.”  He wasn’t going to ask Jarrod how he knew about Boone. He looked at him with mock seriousness.

"Maybe you don’t want to be seen at a black mass right now.” He paused. “You didn’t actually kill her did you?" Jarrod responded

"Don't be ridiculous
." Now it was Robert's turn to be sarcastic.

"Are you sure? You could be some kind of deranged serial killer, a full blown psychotic? Completely off your nut! Wouldn’t even know it
." Jarrod looked at him disdainfully and then replied sharply

"Fuck off".
He turned around and went back into his office, slamming the door behind him.

He met Olivia later that night at Faringdon station. She was wearing a long black dress. Jarrod couldn’t fail to notice that she really was quite attractive. They walked together to an old church several blocks away. Olivia looked at him carefully

"So do you really believe in this, or is it just curiosity?"
Jarrod replied simply

"I'm keeping an open mind."
Olivia shrugged

"I think you're too analytical to really get it."
Jarrod smiled.

"Why did you ask me then?"
Olivia looked at him a little strangely

"I saw you here with us in a dream - a very vivid one. We've been performing the invocation for a few months now. In my dream you were here when we finally succeeded. We take that sort of thing seriously. I discussed it with some of the others. And, he
re you are." This surprised Jarrod, he replied simply

"Oh! That's good. I was worried I might be the sacrifice."
Olivia smiled back.

“We don’t do that.”
Jarrod replied

”Good to know.”
  Olivia took him by the hand and led him into the church nodding to several people they passed. They weren't surprised to see Jarrod with her - clearly they had all been told about him. McDowell wouldn’t have been allowed in. Jarrod thought about Olivia. She really was quite delightful in her own dark and quiet way. He could feel her presence beside him. A few times she pushed up against him and he felt her hips pressing into him.  He had a sudden image of being in bed with her back at his apartment. They were both naked. Oh yes! That wouldn’t be too bad. Possibly quite delightful even!

They were inside the Church now.  It had been emptied of seats and furniture and seemed quite large. There was some kind of table set up at the front. Clearly this was to be the altar. The walls were bare - all pictures removed. Several dozen people were milling about - they all seemed to know each other. Jarrod looked about trying not to allow his unbounded curiosity to be too blatantly obvious. Olivia introduced him to a few of the others. They were all reasonably pleasant and well dressed. They could be teachers, doctors, accountants, lawyers – anyone. It all seemed so ordinary - it could have been just another get together after work or an ordinary church meeting. But looking a little closer Jarrod could see something in their expressions and in their eyes that was different and quite uncommon - a deep longing for something more than the ordinary, a hunger, and a willingness to do whatever it took to put it into effect, a craving to transcend the mundane everyday world along with a casual indifference to the timid conventions and limitations of the unthinking herd. He could appreciate that. It occurred to him that in a way they were his kind of people, however misguided. What a pity it was all based on such utter nonsense.

From the front of the church someone called for silence. He was dressed as a priest. He looked very old but his eyes were shining brightly.  He called out

"Let us begin
." All conversation stopped and everyone turned towards the priest - giving him their full attention. Jarrod felt Olivia let go of his hand. He glanced at her and at some of the others. They were all staring straight ahead. The priest's voice rang out over the church

"We are here to invoke the mighty Beelzebub
." The congregation responded with one voice

"Hail Beelzebub."
Jarrod knew immediately that something strange was going on. It was as if they were all slipping into some kind of hypnotic trance. No one was moving at all, their faces were blank, their eyes glazed over. The priest intoned

"We call thee forth Lord Beelzebub, Prince of darkness, Master of Evil, Lord of Lies, Harbinger of death. Come to thy servants. We beg of thee. Come forth. We long for your presence. We worship you. We devote ourselves to your service."
The congregation responded again

"Hail Beelzebub
." The priest then started chanting the single word 'Beelzebub' over and over again. They all joined in so that now everyone in the Church was chanting

"Beelzebub, Beelzebub,
Beelzebub." Everyone that is except Jarrod. He looked at them with astonishment - their blank empty faces, their fixation on the priest. Clearly this was something they'd built up to over quite some time. Even Olivia, standing beside him, was lost in it all. This was very weird. It felt like some kind of dream - a very odd dream, uncertain, vaguely threatening. He was still looking around at the others in the room trying to make sense of what he was seeing when suddenly with a roar of sound and a burst of bright light a large demon appeared at the front of the church.  It was tall, large - thick grey skin, horns, fiery red eyes, a short tail.  A demon!  Jarrod felt his jaw drop, he could only exclaim

"Sweet Holy F
uck!"

The demon wasn’t wasting any time. He strode into the congregation - brushing the old priest aside. He grabbed one of the young women and one of the young men and took them back to the altar. They didn’t resist. No one resisted. No one reacted in any way. They were all too stunned. He took them around to the far side of the altar and then bent them down over it. He wanted to watch everyone else in the room while he fucked them. He wanted the rest of them to see him enjoying his triumph. He wanted to savour their reactions while deciding who was next. He ripped away the clothing of the first two victims. Nice soft white plump asses. Male, female - made no difference to him. He mounted the first one, thrusting into him. His victim actually squealed. The demon found this deliciously exquisite and continued thrusting. He remembered a fragment of some human song he'd heard

"I
f you dance with the devil baby." He was very pleased with himself. With a bit of luck he'd get through half a dozen or more before being pulled back down. The other members of the congregation watched on with horror. Jarrod could see that they were still in some kind of trance and seemed unable to do anything but watch. Olivia was the same as all the others. He didn’t feel any of it himself. But he didn’t know what to do. He stared at the demon – immensely puzzled. There was some kind of strange mix up of identity going on here but he couldn’t fathom it.

The demon was Raum, a minor functionary from the Department of Envy. When Satanist groups try to invoke Lucifer or Beelzebub they almost invariably get some lesser demon masquerading as one of their masters. Raum had been listening to this group for months waiting for just the right pattern of correspondences and coincidences. Their state of mind had to be just right. Then tonight, something strange – the door was suddenly wide open. To spend some time amongst the living, even just a few hours, was a rare enough treat. There were plenty of slaves in Hell, but it was so much better fucking them while they were still alive. He was doing the first of the women now – thrusting away vigorously, thoroughly enjoying himself, thoroughly enjoying a great sense of power and dominance. He cast his gaze over the congregation, enjoying also his absolute mastery of them, soaking in their craven obeisance. Then his eyes met Jarrod's. He stopped abruptly. He froze for a few moments then he let out a loud piercing shriek, managing only to say one word clearly

"Master!"
He stumbled back from the altar - eyes wide with absolute terror. He shrieked again and then vanished as suddenly as he'd arrived.