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Brad’s face instantly shifted to scorn. “This is such bullshit. You’re just afraid of what you don’t understand. Lucifer Lost would never murder anyone.”
Given his odd reaction, Jo made a split-second decision that agreeing with him would be the best way to get him talking. “We believe someone is either trying to shift responsibility onto your organization or a disturbed individual adjusted your beliefs to their own warped goals.”
Brad was thrown by her capitulation, but after a confused moment decided to run with it. “See, people are so jacked up. Anything different—people crap all over it. That’s why Lucifer Lost is so important. We’re about freethinking, allowing people to do and say and be what they want, as long as they don’t hurt anybody else. Nothing to do with Satan.”
Arnett gestured to Pratt’s shirt. “So why the Satanic symbols and pentacles and animal skulls in the middle of the woods?”
Brad raised and waved his hands as though erasing an invisible whiteboard. “Unlearn what you think you know. Like, there were no animal skulls. If the report said that, some cop added it in. And you said pentacle, but you mean pentagram.”
“Sure.” Arnett was terse.
Brad hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, warming to the topic. “Pentagrams have been around for thousands of years. There areChristianchurches that have pentagrams on them, even supposedly evil upside-down ones, like Amiens Cathedral. They symbolize life and the earth.”
“Is that why you meet out in the woods, at night?” Arnett asked.
Brad smirked. “Many religions have rituals that are performed at night. Druids, Wiccans, Christian candlelight vigils. Shabbat starts at sundown. Ramadan has evening services. Unless you’re sayingthey’reall evil?”
Jo hurried to head off the debate, one Brad was clearly enjoying. “We don’t want to make assumptions. Can you explain what the rituals were about? We need to know if we’re looking at a copycat situation.”
“What happened?” Brad asked.
“We can’t release details. But if you give us a general sense of what you do, we can ask about any relevant specifics,” Jo answered.
His eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke, most likely weighing whether she was setting a trap. “We gather, read our tenets aloud, go over any outstanding business, and reaffirm our commitment to our beliefs.”
“And that involves building a fire and drawing pentacles on other people’s property?” Arnett asked.
“Nature is everybody’s property. And, yes, we incorporate all four elements into our rituals, since they’re the basis of all things.” He gestured down. “Earth, also symbolized by the pentagram. Water, sprinkled around us if we can’t find a natural source. Campfires or candles for fire, and we burn sage to invoke the air we breathe.”
Jo pulled up the Lucifer’s Sigil included in Lacey Bernard’s article. “What does this mean?”
“It refers to Lucifer. We use it as our group identifier, for obvious reasons.” The color drained from Brad’s face. “The killer usedthissymbol? How?”
“We can only say we found it at the scene,” Jo said. “Can you tell us why that might be?”
His posture stiffened. “It has layers of meaning, and to us symbolizes nature’s duality. If someone used that symbol, they chose it specifically to throw suspicion on us.”
Jo allowed her brows to raise. “What makes you so sure of that?”
“Pentagrams, people know. Goat horns, people know. People don’t know the Sigil of Lucifer.”
Arnett mimicked his earlier shrug. “Anybody who read the article would have seen it.”
“Precisely my point,” Brad snapped.
“Could it be an off-shoot of your group?” Jo asked. “Or somebody who left on bad terms?”
“There are other chapters, but all of our original members are still in ours.”
“We’ll need a list of their names,” Jo said.
“I can’t give them to you.”
“Why would your members need to hide?” Arnett asked.
Brad’s previous insouciance returned, now with an angry edge. “Look at the tone of your question and your initial assumption our group practices Satanic worship. Is it unreasonable that our members might not want an ignorant public to draw dangerous conclusions about them?”
Jo pulled his attention back. “Many religions throughout time have incorporated animal sacrifice or human blood into their rituals. Is that an aspect of Lucifer Lost’s practices?”
