Divine Evil

two had a portion remaining of what some might call conscience, the thirst for power would overcome it.
    “Our Master is displeased. His fangs drip with vengeance. Betrayed by one of His children, by one of His chosen. The Law is defiled, and we will avenge it. Tonight, there is death.”
    When he lowered his hands, one of the cloaked figures brought a baseball bat from beneath his robes. Even as Biff opened his mouth in surprise, it cracked over his skull.
    When he regained consciousness, he was tied to the altar, and naked. The drizzling rain soaked and chilled his skin. But that was nothing, nothing compared to the frozen fear that squeezed his heart.
    They stood around him, one at the feet, one at the head, one on each side at the hip. Four men he had known most of his life. Their eyes were the eyes of strangers. And he knew what they saw was death.
    The fire had been lit, and rain splattered and sizzled on the logs. The sound was like meat frying.
    “No!” He squirmed, straining his arms and legs as he writhed on the smooth slab. “Jesus Christ, no!” In his panic he called on the deity he had spent twenty years defiling. His mouth was filled with the taste of fear and the blood from where his teeth had sawed into his tongue. “You can't. You can't. I took the oath.”
    The leader looked down at Biff's scarred left testicle. The sign would have to be…erased. “You are no longer one of the few. You have broken the oath. You have broken the Law.”
    “Never. I never broke the Law.” The rope cut into his wrists as he strained. First blood stained the wood.
    “We do not show our fangs in anger. That is the Law.”
    “That is the Law,” the others chanted.
    “I was drunk.” His chest heaved as he began to weep, the thin, bitter tears of terror. There were faces he knew, shadowed by the hoods, hidden by masks. His eyes darted from one to the other, panicked and pleading. “Fucking Christ, I was drunk.”
    “You have defiled the Law,” the leader repeated. His voice held no mercy and no passion-though the passion was rising in him, a black, boiling sea. “You have shown that you cannot hold to it. You are weak, and the weak shall be smote by the strong.” The bell was rung. Over Biff's sobs and curses, the leader lifted his voice.
    “O, Lord of the Dark Flame, give us power.”
    “Power for Your glory,” the others chanted.
    “O, Lord of the Ages, give us strength.”
    “Strength for Your Law.”
    “In nomine Dei nostri Santanas Luciferi excelsi!”
    “Ave
, Satan.”
    He lifted a silver cup. “This is the wine of bitterness. I drink in despair for our lost brother.”
    He drank long and deep, pouring the wine through the gaping mouth hole of the mask. He set the cup aside, but still he thirsted. For blood.
    “For he has been tried, and he has been judged, and he has been condemned.”
    “I'll kill you,” Biff shouted, tearing flesh as he struggledagainst his bonds. “I'll kill you all. Please, God, don't do this.”
    “The die is cast. There is no mercy in the heart of the Prince of Hell. In His name I command the Dark Forces to bestow their infernal power upon me. By all the Gods of the Pit, I command that this thing I desire shall come to pass.
    “Hear the names.
    “Baphomet, Loki, Hecate, Beelzebub.
    “We are Your children.”
    Blubbering with fear, Biff screamed, cursing them in turn, begging, threatening. The priest let Biff's terror fill him as he continued.
    “The voices of my wrath smash the stillness. My vengeance is absolute. I am annihilation. I am revenge. I am infernal justice. I call upon the children of the Dark Lord to slash with grim delight our fallen brother. He has betrayed, and his shrieks of agony, his battered corpse shall serve as warning to those who would stray from the Law.”
    He paused, and behind his mask, he was smiling.
    “Oh, brothers of the night, those who would ride upon the hot breath of Hell, begin.”
    As the first blow shattered his kneecap, Biff's scream tore through the air. They beat him mechanically. And if there was regret, it did not outweigh the need. It could not outweigh the Law.
    The priest stood back, his arms lifted as he watched the slaughter. Twice before he had ordered the death of one of the brotherhood. And twice before the quick and merciless act had smothered the flickering flames of insurrection. He was well aware that some were discontented at the coven's veering away from its purer origins. Just as there were some who