The Diabolical Conspiracy (6 page)

None of which made the notion of killing a man he knew--a man he believed was a good man--any less horrible.

Blake and the other man pressed Wilkerson’s head to the chopping block. He didn’t struggle. He just stared at the cement floor and breathed raggedly through the gag in his mouth. Mike stared at the sprinkling of age spots and moles on the man’s back and bony shoulders and felt another sharp twinge of pity. The ugly man who looked sort of like a diminutive Hitler stepped into the circle, approached Mike, and proffered the axe.

Mike’s heart hammered away in his chest as he stared at the heavy, razor-sharp blade. The beating of his heart seemed amplified, almost deafening. He knew this was a false impression, a product of intense stress, but that hardly mattered. In those moments, it sounded to him as if his heart might explode. Which, given the circumstances, might not be the worst thing that could happen.

He glanced around at the faces of the others. They were no longer in those prayerful poses. They were all watching him now, their expressions expectant and…hopeful? Yes, hopeful. They wanted to see him do this awful thing. And why? Because they were all equally eager to see him join the cult as its thirteenth member? Maybe that was part of it. Nadia had repeatedly emphasized how important it was to complete the “infernal circle”, whatever the hell that meant. But Mike suspected there was another layer to this and that was the simple, primal thrill of bloodlust. They wanted to look on as another human being met a grisly end right in front of them. Yes, he could see it in their eyes now, it was excruciatingly clear. These people were monsters. The worst kind of sadists. Suddenly he was seeing other things in a new light, as well. The chopping block, for instance. No one created or kept a thing like that around for a one-time use. They’d done this before. Maybe many times. And now he understood why they held their meetings out here in the garage rather than inside Nadia’s house--because hosing blood spatters off a cement floor was much easier than getting those pesky stains out of a living room carpet.

Nadia sighed. “We’re waiting, Mike. We understand this isn’t easy, but our patience is not infinite. Take the axe.
Now
.”

The ugly man pushed the axe at him and muttered under his breath, “Take it. You won’t get another chance.”

Mike reluctantly accepted the axe and held it loosely by the handle. It was heavier than he expected. He had chopped firewood some as a boy. That was the last time he had used an axe. They were primarily intended as tools, of course, not as weapons. This one’s axe head seemed heavier than normal, and larger. Of course. If these freaks really did make a regular thing of decapitating people, they would want to have the biggest, baddest axe available.

Marnie leaned toward him, touched his arm. “Do it, Mike. For me. For both of us. Render glory unto Satan.”

Fucking hell.

He was still stunned by how thoroughly Marnie was invested in this Satanism thing. Prior to tonight she had always seemed so intelligent and rational, but that had just been more role-playing.
This
was the real Marnie, this bloodthirsty devil worshipper. She believed in it all absolutely. Satan was her lord and she loved him. She had since childhood. The world was upside down. Nothing made sense anymore.

He looked at the mayor’s slack-featured, drugged face. He still wasn’t struggling.

Can I kill this poor bastard? Can I really?

Nadia cleared her throat. “You are out of time, Mike. Do it now. Or die.”

Mike heaved a breath and got to his feet. He felt detached from his body as he approached the chopping block. The eyes of the others followed him as he moved. But he felt like one of them, just another observer, watching and wondering how this would play out. Because he still didn’t know, not even as he raised the axe and placed the sharp edge of the blade against the exposed back of Donnie Wilkerson’s neck.

He looked at Nadia. He felt like there were still things he had to know before this could happen. “Why am I doing this? Why this man? Why tonight?”

“
To prove your worth, as you have already been told. And also because I fucking told you to do it. You don’t need any other reasons.”

The tone of her voice was sharper than it had been in a while and this was the first time she had seemed truly angry since her assault on Blake. It scared the crap out of him and he had to tighten his grip on the axe to keep from dropping it. He had the sense she wouldn’t put up with further delay much longer.

Still, he hesitated. “This man is an elected official, which means this amounts to an assassination. This won’t be the same thing as killing Nicole.” He noted Nadia’s look of surprise at the mention of that name and nodded. “Yes, Marnie told me about her. Nicole was a nobody. Just another citizen. This man’s death will be big news. There’ll be an investigation, possible risk of exposure. Surely--”

“
Shut up.”

Mike closed his mouth, swallowing the rest of his argument. Nadia’s tone was more stern--and more laced with lethal, unforgiving intent--than ever. Saying anything else would be useless now. Everything he’d said had been useless. This woman couldn’t be reasoned with, nor could her mind ever be changed.

Her expression was fierce as she addressed him again. “This man stands in opposition to the cause of evil. His own actions brought him to this point. He must die. He will die. Do it now.
Right fucking now!
”

She was on the edge of her seat now and her hands were clenched into fists. She looked ready to launch herself at him at any moment. The memory of what she had done to Blake made that a chilling prospect. Mike lifted the axe from the mayor’s neck and propped the handle on his shoulder.

He looked at Marnie, saw her smiling and nodding her support.

And he looked around the circle one last time, at all those eager faces…at all these vultures masquerading as humans. One of the female members--a shapely blonde in a red party dress--had produced a gun from somewhere. Its barrel was aimed at his midsection. Insurance, he supposed, a safeguard should he abruptly snap and decide to wield the heavy axe on the cult members instead of the mayor.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

His course was set now.

He truly had no choice.

Mike gripped the axe’s handle tighter and lifted it high above his head.

Then he swung the axe down.

6
.

Later Mike would realize he should have taken at least another moment to accurately line up the arc of his swing with the back of the mayor’s neck. The whole thing might have gone more smoothly if he had just done that. But he didn’t. So instead of chopping into his neck, the blade slammed into the back of his head, penetrating his skull but failing to instantly kill him. The shock to the man’s system overrode the effects of the drug. His body spasmed and Blake and the male cult member assisting him struggled to keep his neck pressed against the chopping block. People were yelling. Screaming. One voice was louder than all the others. Nadia, of course. Ordering him to extract the axe from the mayor’s head and swing it again, to finish the fucking job. Mike glanced at Marnie. She was screaming at him, too. In general, these crazy motherfuckers were making a hell of a lot of noise, which seemed odd for a bunch of people so worried about “exposure”.

Mike dragged his gaze away from Marnie and focused again on the mayor’s still-twitching body. About an inch of the heavy blade was buried inside the dying man’s skull. A lot of blood was leaking out around its edges. He pulled at the axe handle, but it didn’t budge. So he braced a foot on the edge of the chopping block and rocked the handle up and down until the blade came out. Then he repositioned himself and lined up the blade with the back of the man’s neck again. This time he took a couple of careful practice swings, making sure he had the arc right before he swung in earnest again. There was still a lot of frantic noise in the garage as he did this. Everyone seemed anxious that he get finish killing the man as soon as possible. By now he couldn’t blame them.

He let out a fearsome yell of his own as he brought the blade down again. This second attempt was right on target. The blade met with some resistance as it hit Donnie Wilkerson’s spine, but the force of the blow rendered the effect of the resistance essentially nil. The blade passed through the spine and thunked into the chopping block, successfully separating Donnie’s head from the rest of his body. This time there was a lot more blood, a short-lived geyser of it shooting from the neck stump and spraying all over the cement floor. Now Mike understood why they had widened the circle of chairs. The body twitched another few times as the blood jetted, then finally went still.

A few moments passed before Mike realized all the screaming and yelling had stopped. But his ears were still ringing as he dropped the axe and staggered away from his own grisly handiwork. He was dizzy as he banged into one of the chairs and only managed to remain upright with assistance from the chair’s female occupant. Then he was out of the circle and stumbling over to a corner of the garage, where he braced himself against the wall with a forearm and hung his head as his stomach heaved and expelled its contents. Sweat formed on his brow and ran down his face as he continued to heave for a while. His teeth chattered and his body trembled. Tears stung his eyes as childhood images of Donnie and his father drinking on the deck again surfaced.

I’m a murderer
, he thought.
A goddamn, no good motherfucking murderer
.

Inhuman scum
.

A harsh assessment, but an undeniable truth. It was how he’d always viewed others who took the lives of innocents. No way could he give himself a pass on that count. And it didn’t matter that he had been coerced. The bottom line was he had committed an act of brutal murder. He was a killer. It was one of those horrible things that, once done, you could never take back. He would carry the label to his grave.

Then he felt a small hand at the center of his back. It was moving gently, stroking, caressing, soothing. Next he heard Marnie’s voice in his ear: “It’s okay, it’s okay. You did good. I’m proud of you, Mike. So proud.”

He sniffled and said nothing.

I’m not. I want to die. I deserve to die.

But even as he thought these things he knew he didn’t mean them. He was deeply ashamed of what he had done, yes, but he wanted to live. And he wanted to get away from these people and back to some kind of normal life, even if that meant he had to split town and disappear for a long time, maybe forever. Start over somewhere new and try like hell to avoid ever associating with Satanists again.

“
She’s right, Mike. You should be proud of what you’ve done.”

Nadia. Right behind him.

He took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and turned to face her. He kept his face as blank as possible as she studied him, recalling her eerily accurate powers of intuition. He swallowed with some difficulty and made himself say, “Thank you. I…am.”

She snorted. “I doubt that. I’m sure some part of you is thinking you’ll just keep playing the part of the willing new initiate until you can get clear of us and then you’ll head for the hinterlands.”

Mike managed to avoid a dramatic visual reaction, but he felt like shitting himself.
Goddammit, what’s the deal with this chick, how does she do that?

Nadia smirked. “Just remember you are now as culpable as the rest of us. You have taken a life. Which means you can’t expose us without sealing your own fate. And I have a hunch you’d prefer not to spend a big chunk of your life behind bars. So you’re not a threat to us. You’ll be safe from us as long as that remains the case. Understand?”

Mike nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

Nadia stepped closer to him and he had to resist an impulse to shrink back against the wall. She was almost close enough to touch. Had he thought she was intimidating before? She had been, of course, but at this range the effect was infinitely more intense. He had never been this close to anyone so mind-bendingly gorgeous. The feelings her proximity caused were nearly powerful enough to entirely blot out any memory of the horror that had just transpired. His throat felt dry, constricted. He was shaking and felt like he might fall over if she came even one inch closer. She reached out and calmly flicked a speck of dust off the front of his shirt, making him flinch.

Then she touched his arm and said, “But I’m confident that won’t be an issue. In fact, I’ll make a prediction. By the time you leave here much later tonight, you’ll be a genuinely eager convert.” She stroked his arm and said, “And you’ll be counting down the days until our next meeting.”

Mike nodded again and forced out a sound meant to indicate a certain level of open-mindedness, if not actual agreement. But his throat was so tight it came out as a caveman-like grunt. Speaking was still not even a possibility.

Nadia laughed softly and touched his cheek. “You belong to us now, mind and soul. Never doubt it.” She glanced at Marnie, who was still standing off to the side. Mike had almost forgotten she was there, he was so overwhelmed by Nadia. “I’ll see you both inside. Hail Satan.”