The Demanian Way. Meyer relished the sound of it. The promise of protection against diseases for some, but, just as important, the prospect of eternal life through his church had been heavily promoted around the world. There were so many converts that it had been difficult for the church to manage its growing rolls. It required massive new and expensive data centers and DNA storage facilities, which the church rushed to establish on every continent. The faith’s coffers could afford them. The church’s funds now totaled more than two hundred billion dollars, and if its finance department’s projections held true, the Demanian faith would sit atop one trillion dollars in assets before the decade was through. Such massive amounts of money would be necessary to build the kind and number of facilities needed to accommodate the influx of worshippers. And the funds would also be necessary to lobby governments worldwide, buying off officials where necessary, in favor of the practice the church desperately needed to legalize in order to ensure its future existence: human cloning.
But of all the accomplishments Meyer had counted since he was blessed with the gift of Hans Jr. eight years before, it was the slow but sure strangulation of competing faiths in which he took the greatest pleasure. There would be one, and only one, worldwide faith of any consequence when he was done, and it would be Demanian. Given Meyer’s predilection, driven by the death of his mother at the hands of a faith as a child, Hans Jr. had taken a particularly strong interest in converting those of one religion in particular. He insisted that Meyer focus the church’s efforts on conversion in those areas of the world with the greatest concentrations of Christians, in particular Catholics. As the father and son had agreed, it was critical to eliminate organized religious opposition to Demanian plans while simultaneously disassembling Christianity at every possible turn.
One pious voice in particular stood publicly against Demanianism and resurrection cloning, the church’s most basic precept. Pope Augustine had steadfastly labeled the Demanians’ quest for human cloning “an affront to human dignity.” By inference, then, there could be no pope. No pope, no Catholic Church.
Meyer wondered whether it was this last pronouncement, one he had openly discussed in recent press interviews, that had finally gotten the Vatican’s attention and sent De Santis his way. As Meyer waited for Galerkin to bring De Santis to the sky suite from which he overlooked the healing ceremony under way on the convention center floor below, he stared out across the large table before him. Spread over its length was a set of blueprints the Demanian Church’s Capital Projects and Construction Committee had prepared for his review. The drawings revealed a massive complex—indeed, a church stadium—that would accommodate worshippers more than one hundred thousand strong. The coliseum was planned for construction in Mexico City, but four identical structures would soon rise on the outskirts of Boston, Brasilia, Manila, and Rome, the present capitals of Catholicism in the modern world. Each was designed to conduct Demanian Church services for the huge and growing number of faithful as well as to efficiently process masses of converts through conversion and other rituals Meyer had in mind. A massive, shallow pond the size of four Olympic swimming pools sat at the center of each stadium to accommodate thousands undergoing baptism at once.
Meyer glanced up from the blueprints and watched Galerkin escort a priest into the suite by the arm. The man didn’t look well. His skin, a pale yellow, hung from a frame that looked emaciated and frail.
“If you’re here with a communiqué from your pope that involves anything but unconditional surrender, I won’t accept it,” Meyer said. It was the first and only time he had come within inches of a priest who had the pontiff’s ear. He leaned uncomfortably close to De Santis as he spoke and stood nose to nose with him to be sure he was understood.
De Santis looked Meyer directly in the eyes. “I’m not here on behalf of Pope Augustine,” he said. “I want to be clear about that. I’ve come of my own accord.” His voice was hoarse.
“Then I have no use for you. This bastard’s busy,” Meyer said. He turned from De Santis and looked down on the drawings of his future church stadium. He smiled broadly, knowing he had begun to open Demanian churches faster than the Vatican could shutter its own.
“I’m dying, and I want to live,” De Santis said.
Meyer glanced at him but immediately went back to the blueprints as if to pay De Santis no mind. “Is that so?” Meyer said, disinterested. “You look fine to me.”
“I’m not well,” De Santis whispered. “I have pancreatic cancer, stage four.”
Meyer looked over as the priest stared down at his shoes, unable to look up, as if in shame.
“Is contagious?” Galerkin asked.
“Of course not,” De Santis said.
“You want him back in the line?” Galerkin looked toward Meyer for a signal. He reached for De Santis’s arm, ready to yank him away.
“Not yet,” Meyer said. “Is that all you’ve brought me? A simple illness?”
Suddenly, De Santis dropped to his knees at Meyer’s feet, in tears. Meyer, surprised, took a step back. He could see the broken priest had lost whatever courage he’d brought with him.
“I have six months, maybe less,” De Santis said as he crept forward and bowed his head low. He was within an inch of Meyer’s feet.
“I thought you might bear a message from your convalescent master in Rome. But given that’s not the case, why should I take an interest in saving the life of a sworn enemy, a common priest?” Meyer asked.
“Perhaps I can give something in trade,” De Santis said. His voice had become a whimper.
Meyer watched as the priest began to tremble terribly before him. “And what is that?” He placed his hand on the priest’s shoulder as though he were dealing with an errant child. If the priest had valuable information, he wanted to hear it.
“I can lead you to Bondurant, the Jozef girl, and the child as well,” De Santis said. “I have no doubt that’s who you’re after.”
Galerkin shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
“Is that right?” Meyer asked.
“It is,” De Santis said in a whisper.
“Any idiot can find me Bondurant and the girl,” Meyer said. He looked at Galerkin as if to burn a hole straight through him with his eyes. “Tell me about this child.”
“It is the other child of the Shroud,” De Santis said.
“The what?” Meyer asked. He thought he’d misheard the priest.
“The other child of the Shroud. Surely you must know this,” De Santis said.
Meyer instantly felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck him. He hadn’t a clue what the priest was talking about, but he also had no interest in letting him know that. In an instant, his world had changed. If there was another child born of the Shroud, one who possessed powers anywhere near those of Hans Jr., it was a problem. His biggest problem.
“Of course I do,” Meyer said.
He wondered what to believe. Another child cloned from the Shroud? He clenched his teeth. Extinguishing Bondurant and Jozef had been relegated to a nicety, something Meyer personally desired. But if what De Santis had claimed was indeed true, the mere sparing of the cowardly priest who knelt before him was scant pocket change for the fee.
Meyer looked through the suite’s giant glass panels at Hans Jr., who sat on a massive thronelike chair in the center of the auditorium floor below. A line of people, many confined to wheelchairs or strapped to gurneys, snaked from the throne all the way out the exit door a hundred meters away. Each person in line anxiously awaited the child’s gentle touch to be cured.
“You want to live?” Meyer asked as he looked down on the priest.
“I want to live.”
“Then I want them dead,” Meyer said as he pulled the priest up by the collar. “All three. Can you do that for me?”
De Santis only nodded.
Meyer snapped his fingers, and with the wave of his hand sent Galerkin away. He’d learned his lesson. It was no longer a job he could leave to the on
ce-trusted assassin. He placed his arm around De Santis’s shoulders, then led him to a corner of the room where they could talk quietly alone. After nearly ten minutes, Meyer signaled for Galerkin to come over once more.
“Place our newfound friend at the head of the line,” Meyer said as he looked once more toward the auditorium floor.
De Santis, whose face had begun to glow, was led by the arm out of the suite toward the healing ceremony below. After a minute, he and Galerkin emerged onto the auditorium floor. Meyer looked down. When they reached the front of the serpentine line, Galerkin grabbed the priest by his shoulders, lifted him several inches off the ground, and set him down before the child.
Meyer looked on as the boy reared back on his red velvet throne, surprised that he suddenly faced a priest. It was obvious Hans Jr. was reluctant to touch De Santis in any way. Somewhat stunned, the child quickly glanced up at Meyer in the sky suite and looked for a sign. Meyer slowly nodded. Hans Jr. paused. Then he tapped the priest on the shoulder as he had done to so many others who’d been healed by his touch. In an unusual gesture, he held out his hand as though to proffer a deal. De Santis extended his own hand in return.
“This is my beloved son,” Meyer whispered to himself as he watched the pair clasp their hands together as one, “with whom I am well pleased.”
Chapter 41
The Vatican
Pope Augustine stood with his arms outstretched in the center of the sacristy that adjoined St. Peter’s Basilica. He shrugged his shoulders. The weight of the papal regalia with which the half dozen priests and attendants had adorned him felt like an unusually heavy burden.
It was a clear and bright Easter Sunday morning at the Vatican. The famous basilica was framed by a welcome cloudless azure sky. The pontiff was about to commence the most celebrated annual Mass in all of Christendom. A standing-room-only crowd of fifteen thousand worshippers packed the basilica. Nearly two hundred thousand more faithful crammed into St. Peter’s Square outside in anticipation of Mass and the pope’s traditional apostolic blessing. Incense that burned from a half dozen giant thuribles filled the solemn air around him, some escaping from the ancient sacristy windows above and wafting toward the massive crowd gathered outdoors.
The pontiff motioned toward one end of the ornate marbled room and signaled for Father De Santis to approach him. Before De Santis could reach the pope, two attendants, identical in height and ceremonial dress, delicately tilted Augustine’s head forward to slip the pallium over his chasuble. Worn only by the pope, the sovereign of Vatican City, it was a two-inch-wide strip of cloth that displayed six red crosses along its length. The red crosses symbolized the blood of Christ, and the three golden pins that affixed the pallium to the pope’s vestments represented the nails with which Christ was crucified. Another attendant stood several feet away and minded the papal cross in preparation for its procession. When the pope’s official regalia was in place, he would be handed a staff topped by a golden crucifix, the same one carried into such solemn services since the thirteenth century.
“God bless you, Giancarlo,” the pontiff whispered once De Santis reached his side. The attendants retreated several steps away. “You look magnificent. Is it true? I’m told the sudden cure for your cancer is nothing short of a miracle.”
Augustine had kept tabs on De Santis’s sad and slowly declining health, and he had never seen him look so good. The pope’s own physician had examined De Santis recently and assured the pontiff that he had never witnessed such an amazing recovery, a retreat from the brink of certain death. De Santis’s pancreas was not only intact but had been restored to perfect health, cancer-free. The pope reasoned he might know why.
“A miracle, Holy Father. A miracle indeed,” De Santis replied as his face broke into a broad grin.
“Now, tell me,” the pope said. “We have just a few minutes. Tell me this means you have somehow located the child of the Shroud. Tell me this is the source of your extraordinary recovery.”
A surprised look spread across De Santis’s face. “Holy Father, I—I—”
“The child, Giancarlo. The child! This child of the Shroud with our Domenika. Tell me you’ve finally located him. Tell me he’s the source of your cure. There is no other way!”
Augustine had hoped against hope that De Santis would find the child and confirm the impossible. He had prayed that he might learn one day that the same child who had stemmed the tide of the horrid plague had other gifts to offer that might be the salvation of the Church in its time of dire need.
“Oh, yes, yes, Holy Father. I now understand what you’re asking,” De Santis said. “At long last, I have been in contact with this child of the Shroud, and I have no doubt benefited from his healing powers. They are indeed miraculous!”
To the pope, it was news befitting such a glorious Easter Sunday morning. The Church’s authority and the size of its flock had been in steep decline for years, but its recent slide into near despair alongside the amazing emergence of the Demanian Church had made life almost unbearable for the pontiff. He never imagined that he or any other pope might preside over the dissolution of the Catholic faith. At the center of the Demanian ascendancy was the famed child, Hans Jr., reported worldwide to offer healing and salvation akin to the biblical miracles of Jesus Christ.
Christians worldwide had converted to the Demanian Church in growing numbers, and the Vatican could do little to prevent their migration other than offer the centuries-old tenets of its tired faith. The pope, weak from the struggle between the two near-warring religions as well as the scandals that had rocked his Church, had actually considered resignation from the papacy. It would be an act not unprecedented in modern times but still extremely rare.
Of particular concern to the pontiff was the degree to which those who’d converted to the Demanian faith refused to see the deception all around them. The pope felt that forgiveness might be forthcoming to the sick and dying, those who had converted with the assurance of healing by the Demanian Church’s Watcher child. After all, the promise of rescue from terrible afflictions and certain death, akin to a serpent’s temptation fit for Adam and Eve, was understandable for the desperate. Their rapture over cheating death was consistent with mankind’s very nature. But acceptance of the idea that salvation could be had for the price of tithing or that eternal life could be purchased with scientific cloning was beyond the pale. Mass conversions to the Demanian Church, which had acquired untold riches, had brought with them mass hysteria and a desertion of God that only an agent of the devil could sow. Of this the pope was unalterably convinced.
Augustine watched as the two attendants who carried the triregnum began their journey across the sacristy toward him. The traditional triple tiara headdress worn by popes for centuries on such occasions had been readied. It would be the last adornment placed on the pope before he entered the basilica to celebrate Mass. It was the signal that the Mass was about to begin.
“Giancarlo, we have but another moment,” the pontiff said. “Come close.”
De Santis leaned in. “Yes, Holy Father?”
“We are at war with the devil, to be sure,” the pope said. “You know this.”
De Santis merely nodded.
“You have heard recently that this man Meyer, the puppet master of the Watcher child, has called me out, as it were?”
“I have, Your Holiness,” De Santis said.
“The ‘impostor of Christ’ is what he’s called me,” the pope whispered. “It’s in the newspapers. I have seen it on TV.”
“Simple name-calling,” De Santis said. “I would pay it no mind.”
“He says that he acts as the ward of the true Christ. Have you heard this?”
“I have, Holy Father. But—”
“Giancarlo, the devil is throwing down the gauntlet. Turning the faithful against the Church in an effort to destroy us. Extracting promises of payment for eternal life instead of the Lord’s ways.”
“I’ve heard these statements, Holy Fathe
r,” De Santis said. He stared at the marble floor as he spoke.
“Giancarlo, you are well now,” the pope said. “I have for you the most important assignment of your life. The Church is in your hands.”
“What is it, Holy Father?”
“We must have that child, the child of the Shroud. I’m afraid this is a struggle in which we must fight evil with eternal good.”
“But, Your Holiness—”
Augustine leaned over toward De Santis as close as he could and kissed him on the cheek. “A swift success and a special seat await you, Giancarlo,” he said. “A bishop’s seat at the Vatican, no less.”
De Santis’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“But we must have that child,” the pontiff said. “The one who has saved you. He can save us. He is our hope. Dr. Bondurant is a lost cause. But you can bring me Domenika. Bring her to me. We must reason with her to give us the child.”
The two attendants who carried the triregnum stepped in unison onto the small platform behind the pope and slowly placed the bejeweled silver tiara topped with a golden cross on his head. De Santis looked anxious to slip from the pontiff’s side to let him proceed.
The pope pulled him in close by the sleeve. “This crown—it is worn only by the Vicar of Christ. You know this, don’t you?” he said.
“I do, Your Holiness,” De Santis said, still unable to look the pontiff in the eyes.
“It represents the triumphant Church.”
“It does, Your Holiness.”
The Second Coming Page 23