you were abused by the Knights in Satan’s Service, correct?”
“Yes,” Frita Babbit said.
“And they were led by a man you referred to as the Dungeon Master.”
“Oh, these names are bringing it all back,” Frita shuddered.
“Would you like to take a moment?” Nero asked, all supercilious concern.
“No, I’m all right. I just have to keep telling myself to be brave and give voice to all the voiceless victims of Satanic ritual abuse out there.”
“The leader of the Knights in Satan’s Service was the Dungeon Master?”
“Yes, but Joe Biden was there, too.”
“I haven’t forgotten Vice President Biden,” Nero said. “What kind of robes did he wear? Something vice presidential?”
“No,” Frita said. “Joe Biden wore dark robes and a horned helmet, just like everyone else.”
“Dark robes and a horned helmet,” Nero said. “And they chanted?”
“Yes,” Frita said.
“What did they chant?”
“Oh, the usual chants. You know, ‘Hail Satan,’ and ‘Do Me Lucifer,’ and ‘Eat My Babies,’ that kind of thing.”
“And their Devil Church was underground?”
“Yes, it was in a system of tunnels that stretched beneath our entire town.”
“Here in Nevada?” Nero asked.
“Right,” she said. “Springfield, Nevada.”
“I put it to you then, Ms. Babbit, that you are lying!”
It was a masterful blow and Nero spoke it in masterful tones. He shouted it out. It split the air of the courtroom in two.
Everyone gasped.
“The Knights in Satan’s Service never wore long black robes and horned helmets but rather, short white robes and no helmets at all. Their chants were the reform Satanic church chants which would never include ‘Hail Satan’ or ‘Eat My Babies’ but instead were entirely in Latin. In addition, the leader of the Knights in Satan’s Service was not known as the Dungeon Master but as the Master of Mazes and Joe Biden was never a member.”
The silence in the room was absolute. Satan felt his heart floating up out of his chest like a balloon. Like he had said to Gabriel, they had given him a chink and sometimes a chink was all he needed. At the prosecution’s table, Eddie Horton looked like a headache was clamping big steel bands around his skull and tightening.
And then:
“I remember,” Frita Babbit said. “I had suppressed the real details of what happened all my life, but now I remember. Thank you, Mr. Defense Lawyer. And thank you, Judge Cody Gold, for giving me this chance to recover my memory. I didn’t go underground for the rituals at the Devil Church with the Knights in Satan’s Service.”
“What?” Nero said.
“They took me away in a hot air balloon. Every night the Dungeon Master came to my bedroom window in a hot air balloon with a giant Pentagram and a goat’s head painted on the side and he took me away to the real church of the Knights in Satan’s Service one hundred miles away. I remember now. I remember!”
“Your honor, this is outrageous!” Nero shouted.
“It’s outrageous that we’ve helped this fine young victim of Satanic ritual abuse recover her suppressed memories?” Judge Gold roared. “I don’t find that outrageous at all, I find it powerful and moving.”
“I’m whole again,” Frita Babbit shouted, turning her face up to the ceiling. “At long last, I’m whole again. I have my memories back!”
The entire courtroom went bonkers. Everyone was so moved by their role in helping Frita Babbit recover her repressed memories that even the sheriff’s deputies were hugging each other and crying.
“Your honor,” Nero shouted. “This is not appropriate behavior. This has become a kangaroo court.”
“You’re out of order,” Judge Gold shouted back.
“You’re out of order!” Nero yelled. “You’re out of order. He’s out of order. This whole trial is out of order.”
Deputies grabbed the shouting Nero and dragged him backwards out the door of the courtroom. As they muscled him into the hall he yelled:
“No further questions, your honor.”
By the time he reached the exit from The Room, Michael was crawling on his hands and knees across the wet, steaming carpet. His lungs were seared and bleeding, there wasn’t an inch of his skin that wasn’t burned or bruised. Every pore of his body screamed in agony. Angels are ageless but Michael had aged in the time it had taken him to cross that benign-looking expanse of gray, corporate carpeting.
He reached up and grabbed the handle of the door, pushed it open and dragged himself into a plain, white cinderblock corridor. At the end was a metal door.
Michael started walking. The fact that the walls passed by at a normal rate of speed struck him with a bone-deep