Outer Darkness

The phone didn’t ring once Sunday morning. It rang a hundred times. Each reporter left a message and after reporter twenty-five, the machine was full. Thank goodness I’d turned the ringer off the night before. I emptied the machine then went to take a shower. When I finished showering, I got dressed slowly, prolonging the inevitable. I took my time having breakfast (a bowl of cold cereal). Finally, I sat down to listen to more messages. Most of the callers wanted to know more about The Order, some wanted to know if the Senator was an active member. The last message catapulted me out of the chair.

“Hello. I’m Gary McKenzie from the Chicago Sun,” the gruff voice said. He sounded like he’d already rehearsed what he was going to say. “I am curious about your Order’s reaction to the Satanic murder of Chloe Brigid and Colorado Senator Mitchell’s arrest. Please call me back. My number is…” I jammed my finger down on the stop button so hard that a pain shot through it. My breath caught in my throat and the shock of the news sent waves of nausea through my gut.

“Oh Gods,” I whispered, remembering the ‘thing’ in my skrying mirror the night before. That thing had been a warning something terrible was going to happen and I had misinterpreted what I’d seen. I should have known and yet, hindsight is twenty-twenty and there was no way the imagery I saw could have foretold this. My visions weren’t always crystal clear in their meaning anyway. That same cold chill ran through me again, this time making me light headed. Trembling, I grabbed the TV remote and turned it on.

There it was, splattered all over the 24/7 news channels. Fox News even reported Senator Mitchell as a Democrat, already disowning him as they were famous for doing when a conservative politician did, or was accused of, something so appalling that no one in their own party wanted to claim association. Senator Steve Mitchell, fifty-one-years-old, recently outed as an alleged Satanist (evidently the murder put the Halloween pictures defense on the back burner), was the prime suspect in the occult style murder of his thirty-two-year-old girlfriend Chloe Brigid, heiress to the Brigid printer cartridge empire. I fell back onto the couch in shock. My cell phone began to ring with AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells, a ringtone I assigned to all members of The Order.

The screen quickly told me it was Aaron McCray, Senator Mitchell’s Aide and fellow sect member. I reluctantly answered. Evidently we’d thrown the guidelines for anonymous communications out the window?

“Hey, Liz, it’s Aaron McCray. I just finished talking to the police,” he started abruptly. “They’re on their way to your house right now.”

“My house? Why? How did they find out about me and what did they ask you?” My face tightened and a throb started in my left temple, probably due to a surge in my blood pressure.

“I was asked who to contact from The Order for information. You’re head of Order publicity. They asked if I had been at the ritual the pictures were taken at and where I was last night. I gave them my answers. They’re your problem now.”

“I thought they thought it was Steve who killed her. Furthermore, wasn’t there an official story about Halloween pictures we were all sticking to? And who told you that you could talk about The Order publicly?” I didn’t pull any punches. I was pissed. This guy had a lot of nerve.

“Look, I’m not lying to the police, not for you or The Order. Besides, I think they’re just making sure he didn’t have an accomplice or they’re trying to figure out his motivation, or maybe they just don’t want to rule anyone else out. They’re police, it’s what they do. Look, my girlfriend was here and we went to a movie last night. Had our ticket stubs. They said they’d get back to me with any additional questions.” Aaron stopped short, as if waiting for my reaction to his defensive attitude.

I hadn’t accused him of anything so why he was defensive with me and giving me his alibi was anyone’s guess. What a weirdo. I never did like the guy. I’d only met him once or twice before and each time he gave me a nasty feeling.

Finally I managed, “Great. Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I should go.” I could have said a lot more to Aaron, but it was clear to me he had no loyalty to The Order, or the senator and clearly he thought the senator did it. It was every man for himself, and as far as I was concerned Aaron threw me under the bus for a clean getaway. Coward. I’d remember that next time he came to me wanting something. Or when someone asked me about his character.