Free The Cult by Arno Joubert

we, anyway?”
    Father Timothy Casanellas closed his eyes for a moment, his lips moving as if he was talking to someone. He took a deep breath and turned to Garland. “We’re in your abortion clinic.” He checked his watch before picking up a scalpel from an assortment of tools in a tray. “It is one AM, so we better get a move on.”
    “What? I don’t have an abortion clinic.”
    Casanellas chuckled. “Call it what you want. A freedom of choice clinic, an early termination clinic, semantics, same thing.”
    “They’re not even human yet, they’re bloody cystoblasts when we remove them,” Garland shouted, feeling a dull throb in his head.
    “Well, you’re not human either,” Casanellas said with a wry smile. “Think of the irony of dying in your own clinic and being incinerated by the same oven that has extinguished so many thousands of lives.”
    Garland tried to kick himself back, tried to tip the gurney to the side, but Casanellas grabbed his leg in a vice-like grip. “Now, now, Bishop. Let us say the Lord’s Prayer together and beg that he has mercy on your worthless soul.”
    Garland screamed as the cold blade plunged into his chest, just below his breast bone, shrieked as Casanellas dragged the scalpel all the way down to his pubic area. He looked up as the blood pumped from the exposed flesh, over his stomach and his hips and onto the metal trolley, but the cut wasn’t deep enough to kill him immediately. He shook his head in silent and shocked anguish, tears streaming from his eyes.  
    “Relax, this will take some time,” Casanellas said with an evil grin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

    Vatican City, Rome

    Casanellas drummed his fingers impatiently as the phone rang in his ear. “Hello?” a groggy voice answered after the seventh ring. “Who is this?”
    “Good morning, Director Scarpa.”
    “What time is it?”
    Casanellas checked his watch. “It is eighteen minutes past three. How is Donna doing?”
    Scarpa didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, probably gathering his thoughts. “Father, good morning. My daughter is recovering, thank you.”
    “No relapses?”
    Scarpa hesitated. “None that I know of.”
    Casanellas smiled. Not that he would know much about his daughter’s drug problem, being so engrossed in his bloody job all day long.
    “Thank you for putting her on the program and keeping it discreet, Father.”
    Casanellas chuckled. “No thanks necessary. Do you want to do a confession?”
    “Over the phone?”
    “Why not?”
    Scarpa sounded hesitant. “I just thought that—“
    “Now is as good a time as any, don’t you think, Director?”
    Scarpa sighed. “Hang on a second, let me get out of the bedroom, Lina is sleeping.” A couple of seconds later he said hesitantly, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
    “Yes, yes. I know about the whore. Fifty hail Mary’s and five Our Father’s. How is the case doing?”
    “Thank you, Father. They found some CCTV footage with what looked like a man wearing a cassock leaving the Plaza Hotel a couple of minutes after his murder, but I managed to erase the footage.”
    Casanellas gripped the edge of the table. “All of it?”
    “Yes, don’t worry.” Casanellas heard Scarpa light a cigarette and inhale the smoke. “It looked like the man had been stabbed by a blunt object, but we can’t figure out with what.”
    “Is that a question?”
    “I just don’t want the murder weapon to pop up with some incriminating fingerprints on it, that’s all.”
    Casanellas chuckled. “Do not fret, Director. That will not happen.”
    “Well, okay, if you say so.”
    “Thank you so much for your time, Director. Have a good rest now.”
    “Thanks, I wanted to—“
    Casanellas disconnected the call. He ambled to the kitchen and started preparing a cup of tea, humming. They had nothing on him, blessed Mother Mary. Nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

    Gateway Commune,
    Las Vegas

    Ted Olson banged on the door, but nobody answered. The