Reverend Owen was about to take another step up the ladder when he heard shouting coming from the basement. He looked down at his grandson and rolled his eyes. “Had a bad feeling about that divorce counseling shindig from the outset. Get together a bunch of bitter women and there’s always bound to be trouble.”
Cindy burst through the chapel doors and collided with Mrs. Powell, knocking the tray of candles she was carrying from her arms and onto the floor.
“Scott, get over there quick! Get them candles put out!” Each year the reverend tried to talk them out of using all those candles, and each year Mrs. Powell and her Seniors Decorating Committee insisted on lining the windowsills with them, claiming it was tradition, just like the popcorn streamers. And the old-timers clung on to their conventions like ticks to a dog’s ear.
Cindy slapped out the candles on the floor and jumped to her feet, looking as though she might hyperventilate at any moment. The reverend tensed; Cindy was prone to hysterics, and he braced himself for her latest round of drama. “There’s one of them devil people in the basement!” Cindy cried. “And it’s got hold of a little girl. I ain’t fucking shitting you! Call the police! Someone call the goddamn police!”
Reverend Owen thought about calling the police on Cindy’s foul mouth. He took a step down, doing his best not to drop the disco ball, doing his best not to fall off the ladder, got one foot onto the floor, and that’s when the devil walked into his church.
It pushed right through the double doors, stomping past Cindy and Mrs. Powell, and headed up the center aisle. Satan was a lot larger than the reverend had imagined, standing seven feet tall, with wild, stringy black hair, pitch-black skin, a tail, glowing red eyes, and massive horns twisting up from his forehead.
All commotion ceased, the chapel fell quiet, even Cindy was speechless. They stared: the kids, the adults, all of them. Their faces shocked and fearful, backing away, giving this devil all the room it wanted, but not the reverend, not Owen Augustus Elkins. No, sir. Satan had just picked the wrong church, the wrong preacher to tread on. If the devil wished to scrap, to pit its black dogma against the reverend’s faith, then it was in for a brawl, for the reverend was a soldier of the Lord. And for the first time in nearly twenty years Reverend Owen felt the Holy Spirit pumping again in his veins. The reverend stepped forward, blocking the devil’s path.
The devil glared at the Christmas tree, tried to sidestep the reverend, but the reverend held his ground, struggling not to be cowed by the very size and vileness of the beast before him, calling on the Lord to give him strength. The devil locked eyes on him. “I have come for my tree,” he pronounced in a deep, gravelly voice. “Now out of my way you wretched little man.”
The reverend wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Tree? Satan wanted . . . the tree? The reverend had no idea why Satan wanted his Christmas tree, but he sure as heck wasn’t about to let him have it. The reverend shook his head and stood his ground.
“It is a Yule tree,” the devil said. “It does not belong in this house. Why do you, a man of the cloth, feel it is acceptable to make a mockery of Yule? To trample upon the beliefs of others?”
The reverend hesitated. A Yule tree? What’s he talking about? Be careful, he cautioned himself, trickery is his language. He’s trying to throw you off balance, that’s all. And he heard his own words come to him: One mustn’t allow the devil to get the upper hand. “You dare challenge the Lord’s authority in His very house? God will not stand for such. In the name of the Lord Almighty I cast ye out! Now be gone, Satan! Be gone!”
“Satan? I am not Satan!” the beast growled. “I am Krampus, the Lord of Yule. Now if you do not get out of my way I will tear out your heart and eat it!”
The reverend held up the disco ball, meaning to throw it at the unholy beast before him if need be. “Back, devil! Return thee to Hell!”
The beast rolled its eyes. “I am not a devil, fool. Do you ever wonder why you seek the Devil with such vigor? I shall tell you. Because you cannot face your own wickedness. The truth is there is no Devil making you torture, rape, murder, and sodomize one another, or making you destroy the very land that feeds you. There is only you. So look at yourself, for you are the only devil in this room.”
“You trick no one with your flimflam,” the reverend shot back. “I see you, for Jesus lends me His eyes. The Good Lord sees you and will smite you with His sword of righteousness. He will cast thee back into the eternal flame to burn and burn!”
“Burn? Smite? Punish? Why is your god so intolerant? So jealous? Why must there be only one god? Why is there not room for many?”
“What?”
“One god, why can you honor only one god?”
“Why . . . every child in Bible school knows the answer to that. It is the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ ”
“You have not answered my question. Wherein lies the harm? Since earliest time men have sought the shelter of many gods, harmony with all the wild spirits. It would seem the more gods one had standing watch over one’s self the better. Would it not?”
“I will not denounce the Lord if that’s what you’re asking. Jesus is my Savior and I shall not stray from His flock.”
The devil’s shoulders sagged a bit at that and Reverend Owen knew he was winning, that the Holy Spirit was wearing Satan down.
“Silly man, no one is asking you to denounce anyone. Only to open your heart. To invite them all into your house.”
“I believe only in Jesus and the Good Lord above.”
The devil perked up at that. “And Santa Claus? Do you believe in Santa Claus?”
Santa Claus? What did Santa Claus have to do with anything? “Of course not. Santa Claus is a fantasy.”
The devil grinned, let out a small laugh. “There. That, at least, is something we can agree on.” He patted Reverend Owen lightly on top of the head, then shoved him aside, continuing up the aisle toward the tree.
The reverend stood there for another minute, unsure of what had just transpired. He certainly didn’t feel as though he’d passed any great test of his faith, that he’d put Satan rightly in his place. As a matter of fact, the only way he really felt at the moment was highly annoyed, and now the gangly beast was shaking his Christmas tree, shaking it so hard that the ornaments were flying off in all directions, smashing and crashing into the walls and floors. What is it with that tree? “Hey!” the reverend cried out. “Stop that! I’m telling you to stop that!”
The devil ignored him, giving the tree a tremendous shove and toppling it over onto the pulpit, ornaments bouncing and shattering all over the place.
“NO! NO! NO!” Reverend Owen screamed and threw the disco ball. The mirrored globe hit the creature on the back of the head, shattering upon its horns. The devil stumbled forward, but didn’t fall. It shook its head, shaking the bits of broken glass from its mane, turned, locked its eyes on the reverend, eyes that had become two burning slits of venom. A low, dangerous growl escaped its throat. It snarled, showed them its sharp teeth. The reverend saw no reasoning being here, no soul to banter and debate. He saw a primal beast, something wild, something bloodthirsty and savage. The reverend fell back a step, another, turned to flee, and collided with the ladder, knocking the top rung off its perch against the chapel’s ceiling. The tall ladder teetered a moment, then started downward, gaining momentum, crashing through all the streamers—the very ones he’d spent the last two hours putting up—and smashing down atop the pews.