The Messiah Choice

12. AND ALONG CAME THE SPIDER …

The headline in the paper read, “FOUR THOUSAND DEAD IN MIDEAST SUICIDE ATTACK.” The sub-head was “Gunman kills 40 in Chicago Mall.” The madman who hacked and slashed nine people to death in Philadelphia, including five children, did not even make the national news.

Three bloody revolutions erupted simultaneously in Africa. No one from outside could get in or out, so it would be some time until the death toll was known, which was still the headline. Nobody much cared which side won.

There were forty-two revolutionary groups in various stages of fighting throughout Latin America, while in Sinkiang, China, a general at the Lop Nor nuclear facility went mad and was stopped just short of launching four atomic missiles into the heart of the Soviet Union. Nor were the Soviets immune, although little of that news leaked outside. In Leningrad, however, police were still baffled by the Canal Slasher, who mutilated and tortured at will despite the best efforts of the police and KGB. It was rumored that he was himself either a top KGB man or perhaps a top party official.

The Secretary of the Air Force was attempting to keep quiet, while demanding to know the cause, why no fewer than twenty two-man nuclear missile launch teams had had at least one officer go mad during quiet times, so much so that he either shot or had to be shot by the other.

There were two assassinations and five attempted assassinations of world leaders during a forty-eight hour period. No motive or connecting thread could be found. Thirty-seven nations now boasted that they had atomic bombs and delivery systems for them. The others who had them weren’t telling.

And Angelique, ignorant of all this, was on the crowded streets of San Francisco, frightened and alone.

It had been easy, up to now, to kid herself into thinking that perhaps her situation wasn’t all that bad, that she could find and perhaps cope with a life for herself. Now, surrounded by flashing signs she couldn’t read, people who totally ignored her and with whom she could not converse even to get simple directions, enclosed by a strange and spiritless shell of concrete and steel, she understood just how terrible her curse really was.

Everyone seemed her enemy, although she was indeed not only ignored but, after dark, wasn’t even particularly odd looking or behaving by her own and others’ standards. The sight of so many men being so openly affectionate with other men, and women with other women, shocked her. She had been in a big city downtown only twice, and both times it had been Montreal, which at the time she had felt was bizarre and strange. Now here were men and women dressed in everything from faded jeans to flowing robes, some with shaved heads or bizarre haircuts, mixing in with, and being ignored by, the ordinary-looking folk of middle America.

She climbed to the top of one hill, hoping to spot the harbor, but the fog, while light, was definitely in and illuminated only up to the next hill. She stood there, feeling wet and chilled, and tried to decide what to do. Behind her she could hear a great many sirens and, looking back, saw police cars and ambulances heading to where she’d just come from.

In their eyes, she was now a murderess, and she knew it. She couldn’t tell her side of the story, no matter whether it would make any difference. The four had not merely been dealt with, they had been butchered like steers in a slaughterhouse, and she knew that, given the same situation, she’d do it again without thinking.

She was perhaps a third the civilized human being she had been raised to be and two-thirds stone-age survivor. Worse, she knew that after the paralysis, the helplessness, the power-lessness of all those years, she enjoyed power and control— and the power and control that she had came from her Hapharsi self, a part that grew every time it was let out.

In the wheelchair, paralyzed and dependent, she had never really hated anyone, nor had she really blamed anyone. Now, however, looking at these apparently carefree people going about their lives, preoccupied with petty day-to-day problems or in search of a little pleasure as a release from that day to day existence, her envy knew no bounds. She hated them, hated them all. She had never had a chance at what they took for granted, and even now, among them, she could not join in, could not participate.

She idly remembered that the horseless cars that went up and down hills went to the place where she wished to go. True, she didn’t know if they all did, or whether this line did, but she followed the tracks anyway, down one hill and up the next. It was growing incredibly cool very rapidly, and she was unprepared for it. Still, atop the next hill she could smell the sea and feel the spirits of water and wind, and she knew that she was headed right.

A drunken man lurched out of a doorway and said something to her, coming very close and reaching out. She didn’t know what he said or wanted, but she repressed a defensive instinct and merely traced a little sign with one finger. The drunk suddenly lost interest in her and just stood there looking confused, as if he couldn’t remember what the hell he was doing there.

Her power and her defensive skills were the only armor she had to defend herself against the forces of civilization and she knew it. They were more than Maria had, it was true, but Maria now could step into the light, could make a phone call, take a cable car to the meeting place. To a large extent this was her element, and freed of the immediate threat she could do quite well on her own here.

The cable car tracks ended at a turntable in the middle of a hotel and light industrial area, not at the harbor, but that didn’t bother her. She knew that the harbor could be only a few blocks further on in the same direction. She could hear, feel, smell it, now.

Thanks to a light drizzle and a moderate chilly wind off the water, Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t as crowded with tourists and locals as it usually was, and the sidewalks and cobblestone areas were slippery, particularly to her bare, chilled feet. She spotted the spot by the sailing ship, but took a position across the street in the shelter of an archway leading back to a hotel and small arcade. It offered some slight relief from the wind and rain. She knew it might be a long wait, and she drew herself up as best she could and tried to think warm thoughts, although this would be balmy for this time of year in Quebec.

It was the waiting that really got to her, because it meant she could only brood about things. It wasn’t really the people that she hated, it was herself, this existence, she knew. She wanted out. She wanted it ended. She would even take the paralysis and the chair again, she thought darkly. At least then her body couldn’t feel the cold, the discomfort, nor ache for love and closeness. When paralysed, at least she could communicate, and in that way she could participate to an extent in this mainstream of human affairs.

She had been wrong. It had not been a fair trade to her advantage. The Dark Man was indeed having a good laugh at this.

She couldn’t even have let them kill her, and remove her from all this, for suicide was as repugnant to the Hapharsi as it was to she who had a Catholic upbringing, and she had been obligated in any event to protect Maria.

She waited only about an hour, but it seemed a lifetime, before a familiar car pulled into the pay lot at the Wharf and Greg MacDonald, wearing a raincoat, got out, paid the man, and walked over to the area by the old ship. She spotted him and ran to him, almost slipping once or twice, and when she reached him she flung her arms around him, and he looked down at her in sadness and hugged her back. It felt warm, and good. He led her back to the car and she got in, and found Maria sitting there in the back seat, looking nervous and ashamed.

Maria’s emotions and thoughts were a confused unhappy mess. She had felt tremendous guilt when she panicked, and even more when she couldn’t locate Angelique at all, but some of her fear inside was directed towards Angelique as well. She had seen her friend’s butchery, and seen, far worse, the absolute glee with which her companion had done it, and at that moment she’d had a hard time distinguishing between Angelique and the Dark Man at the altar stone.

They rode back in a tense silence that could be cut with a knife, and Greg wasn’t about to get himself involved. He’d heard Maria’s account, of course, and blamed himself to a degree for leaving them too independent, but the damage was done now.

The house was ablaze with lights when they pulled up, and several cars and small vans were there, with the staff hurrying back and forth loading things into them.

“We’re pulling out?” Maria asked him. “I mean—I thought the car wasn’t traceable.”

“It’s not. Counterfeit plates that match a real registration in New York, car stolen off a used car lot in Dayton and repainted. It’s the prints, Maria. Fingerprints in the car, maybe on the keys, you name it. Yours and Angelique’s. They’ll put it on the wire to Washington and it’ll go via satellite. SAINT will intercept the transmission, flag it, and know immediately where we are give or take fifty or a hundred miles. Local, state, federal, and company cops will be swarming over the whole region any time now.”

“So where are we going this time?”

“We change cars here. That mini-van over there will have to do. Rook and Bishop are coming with us, so it’ll be cozy. The weather’s really bad all through the Sierras, so we’ll have to move overland at least as far as Carson City. There’s a private airstrip just east of there where we can get a small plane to fly us to the boondocks. You both get in over there. Your things, as much as we could manage, are already packed and in the van. Both of you go over and get in. We’ve got to move pretty quickly before they get bright and beat their roadblocks.”

Maria turned to Angelique. “We must leave this place. Tonight’s deeds will draw the Dark Man to us. We are to use that one over there. The two elders will accompany us. Come.”

Angelique complied, feeling even worse about it all.

They sat in silence in the van for several minutes as bedlam continued all around them. Finally Angelique said. “I am sorry, daughter, that I shocked and offended you. There is a part of me that I did not wish or desire that sometimes takes control.”

Maria sighed, feeling even worse. The more she thought about it, the lousier and more confused she felt. What could she say? Damn you for keeping me from being gang raped and murdered? What could she say, or do, or feel, when both love and hate were paired so directly in her and centered on a single individual?

The two elderly British lords were spry old cusses, walking and acting younger than many of the young people on the staff. Bishop Whitely now wore a black suit with reversed clerical collar and a black porkpie hat and looked for all the world less a retired bishop than an old Catholic parish priest in fine shape. Lord Frawley, on the other hand, now wore a tweed business suit and tie and wore a mackintosh over it as partial protection against the rain. He had an unlit curved pipe clenched between his teeth.

They got in, smiled, and took their own seats. Greg was last, bringing with him a long oblong wooden case. He put it on the front passenger’s seat, which was vacant, and opened it, then took out what was inside. It was a gleaming weapon, a cross between a rifle and a machine gun, and he loaded a long clip underneath and then put it on the floor within easy reach, closed his door, started up the van, and backed out of the driveway.

“Oh, dear,” Frawley remarked on seeing the weapon. “Do you really think you’re going to need that?”

“The name’s Bond,” MacDonald cracked back. “James Bond. No, sir, I hope I don’t have to use it on anyone, and particularly not on some dumb lawmen just doing their jobs and following orders, but I have to be willing to do it.”

The van had Utah plates, and he’d picked up a license and registration for it noting the same state as residence. Forgeries, of course, but not phonies, which today’s highway patrol could pick up through their computer network. There really was a van of this license and description registered to a real James V. Higgenthorpe of Salt Lake City, Utah. The computers would verify this and would not question such a registration. The computers would not, of course, check and discover that said van was parked in James V. Higgenthorpe’s back yard at the time and that he was in fact at home.

MacDonald drove over to U.S. 101, then down to San Rafael and across the bridge to connect with Interstate 80 East. He kept a citizen’s band radio on, but very low. It was crowded with jerks and lonesome truckers, but it would tell him if there was a backup or roadblock going up ahead.

“I had an attack of nerves driving past San Quentin Penitentiary back there,” he told them, “but I feel a little better now.”

“Indeed so,” Lord Frawley responded. “This is going to be a close one. Poor things. Don’t you ladies blame yourselves for this. Something was bound to crack sooner or later.’’

Maria translated and Angelique gave a wan smile. It didn’t really help to be absolved in a case like this.

Still, the further they got from San Francisco and the closer to Sacramento, the more they relaxed.

“I say, old boy, I think I’ve worked out the rest of their nasty little plot,” said the Bishop almost casually.

“Huh? I’m all ears,” MacDonald responded.

“It helped to get into their head, and also to get information on the type of cult Sir Reginald’s brother had been involved in back home. What sort of beliefs and practices they had and so on. Pretty unimaginative stuff, it turns out, centering on your basic Black Mass. Still, that was a key. You know, of course, that the Black Mass is a regular mass turned inside out and upside down? Even the cross is there, only inverted, and, of course, they pray to Satan. Cults like that tend to follow the game of opposites to extremes, and that gave me the link.’’

“Yes, yes, go on,” Frawley urged. “Do we always have to get a lesson in superstitious nonsense before you get to the point?”

“Yes, you do,” replied the Bishop coolly. “Besides, what else have you got to do? At any rate, the Bible’s none too specific on the nature of the Antichrist, which allows both sides a lot of latitude. The initial beast, Satan incarnate, is a water elemental—that is, it rises out of the water. Nice touch for a computer atop a tiny island, eh? The second beast, though, our Antichrist, is an earth elemental, and that means human, since humans were made from the dust of the Earth. It supposedly has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. Since the lamb is a recognized symbol of Christ, it stands to reason that this person will be a sort of Christ-like figure, at least to the masses. Pure and without blemish and probably claiming to speak in God’s name. The dragon, of course, is Satan, so we’re really seeing someone who seems to be divine but is actually the commander of evil. Eventually, says their dogma, everyone will worship the beast under a brutal and absolute totalitarian dictatorship with the Antichrist as its leader, able to perform miracles to get the power and the following. The end result might be a lot of ravings or code to ancient churches as you will, but could also be taken as foretelling an atomic holocaust—and its terrible aftermath.”

“So how does all this tie in with all of us?” Greg wanted to know.

“Well, think on it. They need someone who will serve and be obedient to the beast, yet be a human symbol to the world. This takes a great deal of power. This human must already occupy a place so exalted and be so well recognized that the face and identity will be known to all and they can get all the media coverage they want, and audiences with world leaders. Now, think again of the Black Mass, the opposites, and the requirement to already be in the center of worldwide wealth and power and you will see where they’re going.”

And Greg MacDonald did see. “Angelique! If Christ was male, then the Antichirst will be female. The head of Magellan. A recognized face, but someone known to be a helpless cripple. She’s pure, still somewhat innocent in spite of what’s happened, and even still a virgin. Considering Magellan’s activities, she could get an invitation to the White House and the Kremlin.”

“Indeed,” interjected Lord Frawley. “Western intelligence has been trying to prove for years that several great advances in computer science and technology in the Soviet and Chinese blocs were the result of deliberate capitalist espionage. Magellan. They’ve already built or maintained master computers for defense and international finance in most of the western world, and what they maintain they can modify. Now, if they secretly sold the same sort of thing to the Soviets and the Chinese…”

“Exactly,” the Bishop agreed. “At the right moment, when Angelique assumes complete control, so, too, will the Beast be in control, not just of one computer but of almost all the vital ones. A tyranny by computer.”

“But both the Russian and American launch computers aren’t on any sort of network like that,” Frawley pointed out. “Without the codes, which are changed daily, what can they do to start Armageddon?”

“Even I can answer that,” Greg responded. “You don’t need the codes, if you can create a crisis so intense that you will cause one or the other side to push the button. Starvation, revolution, mutiny—it’s all one and the same. That dictatorship isn’t national, it’s multinational—Magellan. A multinational corporation of slaves. She’ll take it, build it, and mold it until it’s just right, and then it will cause conditions that will force one side or the other to World War III. Oh, my god!”

Whitely turned and looked at Maria. “Do you think you can get the gist of that through to Angelique, my dear? She should know, after all.”

“I—I’ll try. I’m not sure I understand it myself, but I’ll try.” And she did.

“They say that the Dark Man will make you the daughter of the Great Deceiver, the Father of Lies, as the one who died on the cross was the son of the Supreme God. You will assume the trade of your father and with it control the whole world. You will have miraculous power and people will worship you as a god yourself and do as you command, and you will command them in the future to wage a great, last war against themselves so that they may then wage war against Heaven. Do you understand what they say?”

That was the trouble, Angelique thought sadly. She did understand. They would corrupt her utterly and then control her, making her not only better than she was but almost Christ-like. The Antichrist! They want to make me the Antichrist! God protect and defend me!

They were through Sacramento now, and going up into the mountains. He had elected to go via the twisting, winding little road leading to the pass at Lake Tahoe, and from there over to Carson City. It wasn’t a well used route, particularly in the middle of the week and at this time of year, and it was the road on which they were least likely to encounter trouble.

“Well, she can’t be their jolly little Antichrist if we’ve got her,” Lord Frawley pointed out.

“Indeed. But for how long do we have her? A close shave tonight, old boy,” the Bishop retorted. “I’m certain that for symmetry’s sake they’d like to have it done on October thirty-first of this year, but so long as she is around it can be done almost any time. We can’t keep running forever, and their resources are enormous now and getting greater every day. We fed the problem into our little computer, with some help at Stanford, and we came up with some answers, although not cheering ones.”

“Yes? You mean short of doing her in outright?” Frawley asked, and heard Maria give a little shocked gasp.

“Oh, yes. Put it all together and it’s correct. They are quite fanatical in their own way. They require a sexually pure woman. That was the point of the quadriplegia. An impure Antichrist might fit in well with our notion of opposites, but they’re playing by their own rules.”

Lord Frawley was agog at the idea. He was having trouble rationalizing all this occultism with his nuts and bolts universe as it was, and he accepted it only in terms of the beliefs of madmen—a company in which he included Bishop Whitely. “You mean—all we have to do is get someone to knock her up?”

“Yes, but that’s not as easy as it sounds,” Whitely reminded him. “I mean, a few hours ago four big men had the motive and the method and the opportunity, and they’ll be buried in a couple of days. I suspect that even if you drugged her, there would be something, somewhere, planted as a booby trap to prevent it. They know the stakes as well as we do, and I’m certain they allowed for this eventuality. No, to do it she would have to do it freely, willingly, out of desire and out of love.”

Maria had sat in the back in silence, not translating any of this in spite of Angelique’s pokes in the side to do so. “She might do it,” she told the men. “She might do it for one person. She’s got a real, solid thing for you, Greg, and I mean it.”

Although, deep down, he knew it, he still was startled by all this and fought to reject it. “What—would it do to her?” he asked, not caring who answered.

Whitely, too, felt somewhat uncomfortable with this, but he saw it as the only expedient out of a dangerous situation. “Tell her about it, Maria,” he ordered sternly. “Ask her that question.”

And Maria did so, as best she could.

The very fact that the Dark Man planned to use her as the ultimate instrument of Satan’s final war had shaken her, and she’d remembered the Dark Man’s comment that the war between Heaven and Hell had yet to be fought. Now, here it was—a choice. A choice she did not wish to face.

“She wants to know if this would cause the ruination and fall of their ultimate plot,” Maria told them.

“No. I’m afraid not,” responded the Bishop. “It buys time, that’s all. Time for us while they frantically search to cover their losses and find another candidate. A few years, perhaps. Perhaps longer. They will create a puppet Angelique to take control and proceed as before, I suspect, but they will not be able to use her. They may have someone in the wings—they certainly seem to plan ahead—but I suspect that their Angelique will become pregnant and bear a daughter who will be a direct heir and will also be totally under their control from the beginning. It might buy us a generation.”

Maria told Angelique what Whitely had told her, and the strange young woman nodded sadly. “As I thought. Still, a generation is a long time, and the cup will be passed from my lips. Yet, for a Hapharsi Mother to surrender herself and her office, there is a high price to be paid both for me and for the other.”

“What—will happen to you?” Maria asked nervously.

“Me? I do not know what traps the Dark Man laid, if any, for they are beyond my detection. But it is certain that I will lose all my power and all my communion with nature. I will surrender my self and my will. Hapnarsi Mothers are supreme because they have all the great attributes of womanhood, yet call no man their master and thus are superior to men, having the highest attributes of both. This is not so of a Hapharsi wife. Wives surrender their own selves to their husbands. A Hapharsi wife is totally loving, and obedient to her husband’s will. She becomes an appendage of him. As he has arms and legs, and moves them as he wills, so is it with his wife. There is no choice, no other way. When his essence enters my body of my own free will, I become part of him always.”

Maria was appalled. “You talk like you’d be his slave!”

“In a sense, that is true, only it would be voluntary, willing, and forever. One is not a slave if the choice is a free one. Still, this much is clear. I will remain in this body, with these thoughts, with these limits, for the rest of my life, with no hope of ever being different and no way of even communicating save by sign with anyone else, for I will not have the power or authority to take on daughters such as you.”

Angelique dwelled on the implications as Maria gave what translation she could to the men. This way forever… No, not this way. Without power, she would be defenseless against anyone and anything. Her upper body strength would ebb. She would be weak, and ordinary, but she would remain looking like this, cut off, allergic or whatever it was, and out of place in the world no matter where she was. It was not a nice fate, and the only compensation would be that she would have Greg, although she would be in a way as dependent on him as she had been on Maria while in that wheelchair. Still, if the alternative was to become the Antichrist, her duty and sacrifice was clear. It wasn’t the hospital and the vegetative hell. She would do it—but she had to be honest with Greg about all the consequences.

Maria was startled by Angelique’s comment, but she relayed it. “Uh— Greg, she says that when her power leaves her it will exit through you, binding the two of you. As near as I can figure it out, if you make it with her you’ll never be able to make it with any woman but her again. You just won’t be able to get it up.”

“Enforced monogamy. Incredible,” breathed the Bishop.

“Unmitigated, superstitious bullshit,” muttered the Rook.

Greg, however, was not so sure. “Hey! Wait a minute! Doing it is one thing, but that kind of deal—I have to think about it!”

“You don’t mean you actually believe in that balderdash!” Frawley exclaimed angrily. “You remember our discussion of voodoo? It only works on you if you believe it. If you believe it, then it’s true. Get your brain back in the real world where it belongs, boy!”

“Leave him alone, Pip,” Whitely said seriously. “I’m sure at one time or another we all would love to live in that wonderfully ordered, totally predictable universe of yours. It must be so nice. Unfortunately, few of us do. I think the young fellow deserves a chance to think it over.”

“And the alternative if I don’t?” MacDonald asked them, hoping for some easier way out himself.

“I’m afraid, old boy, that there is only one alternative,” Lord Frawley responded. “We must stop somewhere in a civilized area, then take that fancy little weapon you have there and shoot her to death, after which we will mutilate her so badly that only fingerprints and dental information will be available. She actually retains a crown and two fillings from her old days. Then we call the police, they try and identify the body, the information goes through the telenet and is intercepted by SAINT, and this in turn triggers that nasty little wipe out monster lurking in its system, for while they can fool the world about Angelique, they can not fool themselves, which is all that’s really necessary we think. I’m well skilled in how to do it right and proper, if need be.”

“Jesus Christ!” said Gregory MacDonald.

Maria said nothing for a few moments, then said, “I thought it would come to this. You have no choice in the end but to kill her. I know people just like you. I knew them in New Orleans. Oh, you’ve got national security to rationalize your deed and they were in it for the money and power, but you’re really the same people.”

“Now, wait just a minute!” Greg almost shouted at them. “Nobody’s going to be blowing her away! I didn’t go through all this just to have that happen. If I did, it would have been easier and better to do it back there in the islands. And don’t you dare translate any of this for her or I’ll cheerfully kill you, Maria!”

“No,” Maria responded almost woodenly. “You couldn’t have done it back there. In your head, yes, but she wouldn’t have permitted it. Now—I’m not so sure she wouldn’t welcome it. At least, she wouldn’t stop you, Greg. You’ve pretty much ignored her, or treated her as some kind of strange creature, and it’s hurt her, but you’re the only thing she’s got.”

A heavy silence fell upon the van, which was all right with Gregory MacDonald. Up until now he’d enjoyed playing the secret agent, but the fact is that this was exactly what he’d been doing—playing. He wasn’t any James Bond; just an ex-homicide detective from British Columbia. Until now, he hadn’t even minded the danger, or the risk, and after he’d escaped from that creature on the island and then from the island itself, his self-confidence knew no bounds. Part of it was that he lived for the game; his work was his life and beyond that he was more or less an idle bum. He was a thrill seeker, a man who loved to play the dangerous game, and was willing to do so because he generally risked only himself.

Self-centered, egocentric, the Sun Cop—that’s what his ex had said when she’d walked out on him. People weren’t real to him, they were just props, actors there to support his starring roles. He had a false but convincing bedside manner, it was true—all part of the game—but the truth was that he was good at what he did precisely because he was never in the slightest emotionally involved with his cases. Still, before he’d only had to solve them, perhaps apprehend the criminals, sometimes leaving that to others. Until now, he’d always been a player, not a piece on the board of his own deadly chess games.

And like his father he’d always been a socialist and a realist; his church affiliation was nominal and really amounted to none at all. He’d always voted NDP and touted socialist realism. But he had never before been chased down a mountain by a monstrous thing he could not see, until its arm was forced to solidity when reaching in vain through a church window.

And Angelique. He had gotten emotionally involved with Angelique back on the island, no matter how much he’d tried to deny it to himself, but he now felt detached from her present incarnation. Was it because she was now black? He had to wonder, no matter how much the idea that such a kernel of racism could be inside him troubled him. Or because she’d been transformed, into a strange being with a painted face who could neither speak nor understand? He hated that idea almost as much.

For, inside that head, inhabiting that form, was still Angelique, the vulnerable girl he’d gotten to know on Allenby, an unwitting pawn in a very deadly game. And now, here it was—the cold logic of national interest on one side versus a permanent and bizarre involvement on his part. Homicide from the other side, or Angelique and him in a kind of permanent union—not the Angelique of the island, but this Angelique, looking as she did now, cut off from any real communication. Pip Frawley might be certain, as the Bishop had mocked, but Frawley hadn’t stood on the deck of a trawler and watched her call a storm to herself and manipulate the lightning as if it were sets of ropes and cables to bring down two helicopters. He did not doubt her power now, whether it was mystical or some kind of ESP or whatever, and he did not doubt she’d lose it the moment her cherry was broken if only because, as Frawley said, she believed she would lose it.

But she also believed that such an act would bind him, at least sexually, to her for a lifetime. As she had controlled Maria and as she had manipulated that storm, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she could do it to him in a last act of power.

Somehow he’d known it would come down to the idea of killing her. His own deductive mind always led to that conclusion, but he’d always rejected it or put it aside in his mind, confident that if no other way could be found, someone else would do the deed, and efficiently, out of sight and mind.

And now, here it was, with only the Bishop standing in the way of Frawley’s cold rationalism. Frawley’s way was the most efficient, of course, but it did leave several unknowns. Right now, they knew the names and location of the enemy. That enemy wouldn’t die just because the computer erased itself. All the data was backed up somewhere, in a thousand different places, and they had the talent and skills to put SAINT back together again by this point, surely, although it might take years. And if Angelique died with no heirs, Magellan might be shaky, but the projects would continue because so many nations and financial institutions depended on it.

The Dark Man might well be the key there, and his importance was doubtless the reason he kept his identity so secret. He would probably become, if need be, a major figure and take managerial control in the crisis. Who would know?

He could think of a half a dozen ways this nasty group could survive either alternative, and both Frawley and Whitely agreed on that themselves. There was, however, the mind set of the leaders on Allenby. He had relied on that for many of his actions, and now the Bishop was doing the same. They had planned for Angelique; they wanted Angelique, and had gone to some risk and great pains to prepare her. To remove her from the game would be as devastating to them as killing her. In fact, the two alternatives were clear. Both would set them back, both would buy a fair amount of time, neither would be fatal to them…

…but one would be fatal to Angelique.

They stopped for gas and some carry-out food in Lake Tahoe, and were able to find restrooms in the back of a carry out that allowed them all to use the facilities without being seen more than necessary. It was quite cold in late September at this elevation, and there were even some flakes of snow in the predawn air. They had driven long through stiff winds, rain, and fog and it was still no picnic where they were. MacDonald made a call from a pay phone, then came back to them.

“The house in California was raided shortly after we left,” he told them gravely. “They got a few of our people, although most of them and all the important stuff got away or was destroyed.”

“How could they have known that quickly?” Bishop Whitely asked. “You said the car couldn’t be traced.”

“Maybe it couldn’t. It makes no difference how they found it, the point is that they found it and they found it in time to get some of our people. The fact is, it wasn’t a raid by officials. It was clearly a private deal, and they were nasty and well armed and prepared. If our people were in the hands of the cops, they wouldn’t crack, but Magellan’s not bound by the rules of procedure and the rights of the accused. They may know we’re in a blue van, but they don’t have a real description or license number or anything like that, so I’m not too worried on that score. They’ll have good descriptions of us, though, so Carson City’s too hot now. Our people want us to lay low for a day or so until they can work something else out. That means we find a couple of motels, split up and stay in more than one so there’s no group portrait, and wait.”

“That sounds all right to me,” said the Bishop, yawning. “I feel as if I could sleep for a week.”

They selected two motor inns about a half a mile apart on the highway. One was rather posh and had a small casino attached. This would be for the Bishop and the Rook, who looked the part for such a place and could comfortably go about there. The other was a small motel with two blocks of outside-opening rooms and a small detached coffee shop. It was a budget motel catering to transients. Greg was taking no chances on this one, though; he would stay in the same room there with Angelique and Maria.

The floor was carpeted, but the staff had been on the ball and Angelique’s slippers were easily found to help with that. They had also packed two sets of silk bedding—one clean and one dirty—which meant that they could remake one of the twin beds for her.

Maria took a shower and changed clothes, and for the first time in these past busy weeks MacDonald noticed a real change in her. She had been well built but thin on the oil platform; now she was having a lot of trouble getting her jeans on. She had put on a considerable amount of weight in a very short time.

“I’m dead tired but I’m really starved,” she told them. “I’m going over to that little coffee shop. Can I bring you anything?” She asked the same of Angelique. Both indicated no, but Greg told her to go ahead, that they’d probably be asleep when she came back.

Maria left, and for the first time since this all began, Greg and Angelique were alone together.

She sat on the side of the bed, completely undressed, and watched him remove his own clothes. He just went down to his jockey shorts, but he felt her gaze and looked back at her. He stared into her big brown eyes and for the first time he saw beyond the shell, and sensed the woman within, the Angelique he’d first seen trapped in a motorized chair. She was a lonely, pleading, tragic figure, and he felt great pity for her and much ashamed of himself. She looked, even smelled so very different, yet her spirit, so lacking in the joys of life, still shined there. He thought of that time back on the beach at Allenby, where she’d reached out to him so desperately and asked for a kiss.

He sat down beside her, and put his arm around her and held her close to him. She shivered a bit and responded, then looked up at him. He looked into those big brown eyes and could see no one but Angelique there, and he kissed her, long and passionately.

Maria had told them that Angelique would demand a ceremony, a marriage ritual she respected and considered binding, before she would take the ultimate step, as it were. Since the Hapharsi ritual was out of the question, that meant Catholic, but no Catholic priest would perform this marriage without a lengthy period of time and all sorts of other formalities. Angelique, however, knew that Whitely was a priest, and he certainly looked to be the right kind and she had regarded him as such, using the term Father-Elder to Maria. Whitely could and would perform a simple ceremony, giving a religious if not a legal and civil marriage validity in her eyes. He’d do it to save her life.

But MacDonald had had no doubt, on talking to King’s base, that they had finally decided that the pressure was too great to take any more risks. They had Frawley to do the grisly work that had to be done to make her virtually unrecognizable, yet eminently identifiable to a pathologist. The fact that she didn’t know this made her sacrifice and her obvious affection for him all the more poignant.

She was a wild, intensely erotic lover, who seemed to know just what he wanted done and where and how to do it, although she could have had no experience whatsoever. She would not allow penetration of her own body, but she brought him pleasure so intense that when they were done he was thoroughly convinced of her true wishes.

There was no spell or supernatural magic—at least, he was pretty sure there wasn’t—but there were other ways of communicating than speech and writing. She wanted him to marry her or kill her, but in either way to release her from Hell’s bondage, and he had clearly given her his choice.

Maria seemed startled that he would actually marry Angelique, conditions or not, and it seemed as if she was fighting back a tinge of jealousy. She certainly didn’t have to tell Angelique of Greg’s decision, and she half suspected some sorcery was involved no matter what the protestations. When they’d awakened in mid-evening, they’d called the Bishop at the other motel and told him, and he had been absolutely delighted.

The remnant of the mountain storms had caught up with them as Maria went and picked up Whitely in the van and took him back to her motel. “Why so glum, my dear? It’s a happy solution and a happy occasion.”

“Yeah, well, what kind of marriage can it be? She keeps looking and being like that forever, with no kind of funny powers at all, and she becomes a thing—a sex slave, and he’ll need her ’cause he can’t do it with anybody else. They’ll have to always live in hiding in someplace like Africa or Brazil, afraid that every shadow will contain the Dark Man. Some kind of life.”

“I talked to him at length on the telephone. He doesn’t see her that way any more. He’s in love. He’s willing to pay the price.”

“Yeah, sure. She can make you do or feel or believe anything—for a while. But once it’s done those spells won’t work any more and he’ll be stuck and so will she.”

“You believe it’s magic, then? Perhaps it is, but perhaps it isn’t her kind of magic. Do you think she wants this, truly?”

“I don’t know. She wants him, that’s for sure, but she also wants Daddy. She never had one, but since she got paralyzed she’s always had somebody to push her around, feed her, change her, do all that for her. I think she’d do most anything to have him as her old self, whole and white, if you know what I mean, for she hates the way she is and she hates the idea of being that way for the rest of her life. The only thing that makes it O.K. for her is that she gets Daddy and someone to be wholly dependent on for the rest of her life. She’ll still need special care and he won’t be able to live without her, if you know what I mean. No, I’m not real happy.”

“You’d prefer her dead, then?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think it would be best for everybody. At least it would be only her and not two of them being screwed up. But, no, I really love her, Bishop. I don’t want her dead.”

It was not to be a fancy sort of ceremony, if only because no one had much in the way of fancy things to wear. Whitely used an abbreviated Catholic service, which was very close to the rite of his own church, with Maria doing the basic translation. As the ceremony progressed, the wind whipped up outside and they could hear lightning and thunder, unusual for this area at this time of the year.

The service seemed to please Angelique. The clergyman pronounced them husband and wife and blessed them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and it was over. Whitely seemed relaxed and pleased by it, but he was also ever mindful of the business at hand.

“I regret not having rings nor cake, but those can come later. I think now, though, we’d best end this tension. Bless you both. Maria—you may take me back to the motel now and I will see how much expense money Pip has lost in the casino.”

For Angelique, the moment was particularly emotional. When the priest had run through the ceremony, which she could follow by form though she couldn’t understand the specific words and phrases, she’d felt a sense of distance, of unreality, but when he’d pronounced them married and blessed them, she’d felt a sudden inward rush and a concentration of spiritual power from him to the two of them and she knew that this choice was right.

For MacDonald, the whole thing had been calming somehow, had given him an inner peace he’d never really known before. There was nothing spiritual about it to him, but for now he really wanted her and he did not wish to think about tomorrow.

For a while they just stood there, then turned and hugged and kissed, and ran their hands soothingly over each other’s bodies. Words were unnecessary. She had a tense excitement tingd with real fear inside her, and she wanted to prolong this moment.

As the storm raged on, the lights flickered several times, then went out entirely. They hardly noticed, as they began to undress each other. The room was in near darkness in spite of the early evening hour thanks to the blackout.

“Quite a touching performance,” said the Dark Man.

They both jumped, and as they did the lights flickered again and came on, and for the first time Greg MacDonald was face to face with the Dark Man. That is, if face to face was the term for it, since the looming shape near the door was more the animated negative of a man without any features. It was eerie, like a cinematic special effect, but he cast a nebulous shadow on the wall and in his hand he held something not at all blacked out.

“This is a Hallenger S-27 automatic pistol,” the Dark Man pointed out. “It carries a twenty shot capacity in two parallel magazines and, while not well balanced, can spray all twenty throughout this room in less than one second. I can also fire one individually, Mr. MacDonald. It may not kill you, but if it doesn’t the spin on it will keep you hospitalized for months.”

Damn! MacDonald swore to himself, everything except the specter in front of him fading from his mind. Finally I’m face to face with the bastard and I don’t even have my pants on!

Angelique just stared at him in horror, her joy and commitment crumbling within her.

“How did you find us?” MacDonald asked the strange enemy. He was trying to place the voice, but, while it might be electronically altered, it really didn’t sound like anyone he’d ever met or known.

“It was extremely difficult, I admit,” the dark one replied. “Frankly, we felt we had blown it. Your organization is far more efficient than we had dreamed or planned on, Mr. MacDonald. Of course, there were twin objects to the exercise. One was allowing Angelique to both sink into savagery and see what it was like to exist like that in the modem world. To dismantle the last of her civilized ego, as it were, showing the futility of flight and leading to this moment, where we demonstrate the futility of true escape. The second was the hope that she would lead us to parts of your organization, which we’d been otherwise unable to find or penetrate. Still, you led us a merry chase. When that seaplane vanished into thin air after leaving Ensenada air space, we were thrown into a panic. The odds were good after time passed that even if we found you, it would be too late for our ends. I’m very happy to see that it is not so. We would not have been so hesitant to act.’’

“I’ll bet. And yet you did track us down, even to this place.”

“Believe me, we did not and could not. When we missed you at the house and discovered no one left knew where you were going or even what direction, it was almost as bad. We had to sit, and wait, and keep the pressure on, and, sure enough, it broke. Oh, don’t worry about our little Angelique here being kept in the dark, as it were. She understands what I say as well as you—although not what you say, sadly.”

There was a sharp double knock on the motel room door that startled them but didn’t faze the Dark Man. He reached over and turned the knob on the door, but MacDonald already had figured out who was there before Maria walked back in, looking quite wet and not at all happy about it. For Angelique, though, it was a crushing blow, worse in a way than the appearance of the Dark Man.

She closed the door behind her and stood there next to the Dark Man, looking at the pair on the bed with a grim expression.

“Miss Iscariot, I believe,” MacDonald said with a sneer. “If you were his all along, why wait until the last moment? Just rubbing it in?”

“I wasn’t—his,” she replied, sounding nervous and miserable. “I just—figured it all out—that’s all. After I saw— her—in that parking lot, I realized just what she had become and what I had become. There’s an eight hundred number you can call that will route your call to the Institute. You know that. After I called you, I thought and thought, and then I called it.”

“Pretty lousy response time for you, Blob Boy, isn’t it? It took you almost three hours to hit the house.”

“A message routing problem of sorts. It took a while to get the information to the right people, round them up, and get them in the right place to act without official interference. Still, you acted with even more efficiency than we did. That cost us. Then we had to wait. Wait until our little Maria decided to call again—either the number or the house. She finally called the house this morning from here. After that, it was mostly a matter of timing.”

Angelique stared at Maria, appalled. “Why, my daughter? Why? After so much and after all we have been through…”

Maria answered slowly in English, but it was clear that Angelique could hear and understand whoever and whatever the Dark Man chose.

“Because I knew. They were either gonna kill you or lock you in like that forever, and I never figured on Greg actually going through with it. Even when he did, I thought about it. Like that, forever, always on the run, never being human—it was horrible, and you were dragging him down with you. I couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t let those cold blooded leeches blow you away, either. And for what? They said it’d only slow ’em down a little, not stop ’em. It was for nothing! So I called ’em. We made a deal, that’s all, and you won’t be stuck and neither will he and nobody will die.”

Angelique felt tears coming to her eyes. “More will die because of what you did. To save one, or two, you may massacre millions!’’

“Yeah, well, I don’t know those millions and they never did anything for me that didn’t benefit them more. I know me, and I know you two.”

“And do you think he’ll keep that deal now?” MacDonald asked her. “Why should he?”

“A proper point, and at this late stage rather beside the point,” the Dark Man noted casually. “However, we keep our bargains when we can. I must say it’s rather nice to finally see you in the flesh, Mr. MacDonald. I must confess I’m rather glad you escaped our rambling and crude friend, which I wouldn’t have sent in the first place, and I was quite impressed that you managed an effective escape from the island. You are a courageous, resourceful, and most dangerous man, MacDonald.”

“I appreciate the flattery, but it seems that fighting gallantly isn’t enough to win the war. I’d rather be less impressive, get some breaks, and win.”

“Breaks. Fate. Such silly words to avoid any act of faith, any compromise with materialistic principles. Scientists ignore what they can not explain away, or create new theories to explain away problems that are more difficult to believe than the supernatural. One theory now says that the universe was created spontaneously out of nothing, with no cause. Don’t you find that a violation of rational science in the name of science? Don’t you find that concept even more absurd to the rational mind than the idea of a creator’s will? George Orwell once saw a ghost and described it in great detail, yet he dismissed it in the end as some sort of hallucination because, in spite of the scientific evidence of his own eyes and experience, it violated his world view. He could not accept it. Neither, really, can Maria, here—or you.”

“Spare me the lectures, eh?” MacDonald snapped. “What comes next?”

“Next? The most vital part comes next, and it is up to Angelique. She must return to us, willingly, with a vow to submit to her destiny.”

“I will never do that!”

“Oh, really? Now, consider your position, my dear. You are coming, willingly or not. You know that. But if you come willingly, and submit to us, I will not use this exquisite piece of precision weaponry on Mr. MacDonald.” The Dark Man moved closer to them, so close that MacDonald would be within reach of that pistol with one quick move. He didn’t think—he just acted, and nothing happened. He was stuck to the bed, his muscles simply not obedient to his commands no matter how hard he tried. After a moment, he gave up, resigned to it.

“Go ahead and kill me,” he invited the Dark Man. “I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect, but it sure won’t get you what you want out of her.”

“No!” Maria almost screamed. “He’s mine! You promised me!”

“Shut up, Maria. I said we delivered when we could. Do not make me angry. You have seen what I can do if I am angry.”

Maria calmed down, but continued to stare menacingly at the Dark Man.

“Now, then,” the mysterious one continued, “what makes you think I would ever kill you? These tiny little cartridges pack a mean wallop. If I fire one exactly so, into a particular area at the base of your spine, you will be permanently and totally paralyzed below the waist.”

Angelique stiffened as if shot. “No! You can’t!”

“That will be where the first shot goes, but it will not, I assure you, be fatal. We will see to that. Then we will ask Angelique again, and if she still refuses, the second shot will be here, in a particular area of the upper spinal column. Then you will be as Angelique was, with no hope of ever regaining any movement or even feeling.”

Angelique was sobbing now. “No, no, no!”

“You can’t do that! You promised me!” Maria screamed at him.

The Dark Man turned and made a gesture in Maria’s direction, and she was rudely slammed up against the wall by some invisible force and held there. “I promised nothing of the sort,” he told her. “I promised that you could have him after we were finished our business with Angelique. I said nothing about what condition he would be in. You’re used to handling such cases. You’d have him all to yourself and he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. I also promised I wouldn’t kill him, and I won’t. But, after the second shot, I will ask again. If the answer is still no, then there will be a third and final shot here, at an exact angle into the brain. He will be alive, and conscious, and all of his autonomic functions will remain, but he will be unable, ever, to move or take any other voluntary action. Ever. You know what that means for him, don’t you, Angelique?”

“You monster!” she screamed at him, and struggled to move against him, but, like MacDonald, she found that she could not. The fury and hatred building up in her was enormous.

“Then, of course, we will go, and achieve our goals by other, longer, and more difficult means,” the Dark Man concluded. “You must believe that I will do what I have said I will do, Angelique.”

“You bastard!” Maria screamed at him, struggling to free herself. “May you rot in Hell forever!”

“Why, this is Hell,” responded the Dark Man calmly, “nor am I out of it. I weary of you. I was willing to give you what we could, but I think now that you will always have unreasonable demands. I promised you your youth until you die, and I will not take the craven out and kill you now to keep that vow the easy way. The rewards can be great if you understand your place, but if you do not then Satan will look to the fine print. In your ego you thought that he would fall into your arms if she were removed. You may have your crack at him, should he be worth having when we finish this business, but we can not trust you and have no more need of you. We leave you here—eternally young!”

Maria suddenly cried out, and changed before their eyes. The Dark Man had kept the letter his word, but only exactly. Maria now shrank and shimmered, and when it was done she was the cutest pre-pubescent ten or eleven year old girl anyone had ever seen.

“Now remain that way until death,” the Dark Man said coldly. “Sleep now—I am finished with you forever until your soul comes to me.”

She sank to the floor, out cold.

The demonstration of sheer offhanded power both impressed and scared Mac Donald, who was frightened enough already.

The Dark Man checked his pistol, then went and stood in back of the helpless Greg. “Now, Angelique, the first stage. I ask you if you will come with me voluntarily, with your vow that you will not resist the future. Leave attempts to stop us to others. They are impressively organized. They might yet pull it off. Tell me now, or I fire the first shot. After that, it is irrevocable to that point. You know you’re going back anyway. What’s the point?”

Angelique felt shocked, confused, and upset. The Dark Man knew her own weak spots better than she. At this moment, she might even take that terrible fate, lying unmoving in that horrible hospital, but it was not she who was faced with this. Not she, but Greg.

She had just accused Maria of condemning millions for the sake of two or three, and she’d meant it, but this was not the same. Maria had betrayed them, when they had beaten even the Dark Man and were free and clear and about to foul up his terrible plans for good. She had elected to bring the Dark Man here. But now he was here, and what he said was true. She was going back, whether she wished or not, and she knew that one way or another he could break her. He already had, to an extent.

“What will you do to him if I go now?” she asked, unaware that she was once again speaking nothing but a French-accented English.

MacDonald was startled, but found that he couldn’t say a word. He had to be perfectly honest with himself. He still loved her, and he still hated the Dark Man and everything he stood for, but right now he voted for her to accept the offer. The Dark Man, however, didn’t know that and wasn’t taking any chances on him being noble to the end.

“If you go now, following all that I say, nothing. He will live, and I will place no curse upon him. I will leave him here, for us to perhaps meet, and contest, another day. He, too, is no longer relevant to us. He is relevant only to you.”

“You won’t kill him, then? Or do what you say anyway?”

“I will not. You have my word on that, and the devil is a gentleman in such bargains. He will remain, frozen, on this bed until we exit. Then he will be restored, free, with no restraints and no compulsions. I swear it. Only if he comes after me again will all bets be off. The next time, it will be on his head, not yours or mine.”

“How do I know this is true? After what I have seen you do, how can I believe you on anything.”

Believe him, believe him! MacDonald thought, growing more and more nervous. He could feel the cold barrel of the pistol in his back occasionally as the Dark Man made his points. Take the deal, Angelique. I’ll try and rescue you later!

“A fair question,” the Dark Man admitted. “There is no real way to prove it. You can call on your spirits, but they won’t come now. You can call on God and the angels, but they won’t come, either. I can’t really help you decide, but I can’t think of a good clinching argument, either. You will have to make up your own mind, but I grow increasingly impatient. I believe that in one minute I will demonstrate my power.’’

“No! Wait!” She needed time to think, and she wasn’t being given any. This was all happening too quickly, too horribly. And then, all at once, she remembered the great, ancient angel who had communed with her. You will be forced to make many choices, it had said, but the outcome, the final choice, is not in your hands but in another’s. Might that other be Greg? She wondered about it. If the final choice, if whether or not they succeeded or failed, was out of her hands and in the hands of others, then she had no right to cripple him just to prove a point.

“Time is up. Choose,” said the Dark Man.

“I—I will go with you, you monster of evil,” she told him. “I will play your games and, as you say, leave the fight now to others. I give up. I have no right to cost him his life or limb for my pride.”

Greg MacDonald almost passed out with relief. I owe you one, honey, he thought, still worried and fearful but feeling a little better. More than one. And I’ll repay it.

“A good decision. And I will in fact keep my part of the bargain. Now, rise and come with me, Angelique.”

She did so, and together they walked to the door, then stopped.

“Turn and face me, Angelique,” he ordered, and she did so.

“By the oaths and spirits which bind all and rule all, do you agree to come with me, without protest, without resistance? We do not ask that you convert, only that you no longer fight. Do you swear?”

She hesitated a moment and swallowed hard. “Yes. I swear.”

There was a sudden roaring of the wind outside as if the storm had returned, and it seemed to Mac Donald that it penetrated the room and made it chilly. It was gone in a second, and the Dark Man reached over, opened the door, then turned back to the man on the bed.

“Our one compromise is this, Mr. MacDonald,” the Dark Man warned. “You do not really figure prominently in our plans from this point. If you come again, there will be no one to save you.” And, with that, both he and Angelique stepped over the body of Maria, snoring on the floor, went out, and closed the door behind them.

He could feel the presence leave, feel will and strength coming back into his body. Suddenly he leaped up, ran to the closet and pulled out his rifle, then ran to the door and outside, almost tripping over Maria.

He shouldered his weapon and looked around, ready to kill even Angelique to save her from this fate, but there were no cars visible except the van and two others parked in front of rooms down the block.

There was a sudden, great flapping noise, as if some impossibly gigantic bird had launched itself into the air above him. He turned and looked up, and for a moment saw a shape there, a huge, dark, terrible shape of a creature that was more monstrous than he could ever imagine, rising with incredible speed into the night sky. Before he could react, it was gone in the clouds.

He lowered the rifle, cursed, and spat. He needed Bishop and Rook. He needed a drink. No, he needed a distillery. He suddenly was aware of the cold and chill and looked down. Before any of that, he realized, he needed some pants—if he hadn’t inadvertently locked the damned door behind him.

Poor Angelique! he thought sorrowfully. What will they do to you now?