Resurrection, Inc.

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Satanism…” Nathans pursed his lips, considering. “But placed in a modern context, a new Satanism. Neo-Satanism! I like the sound of that.”

  Stromgaard looked as if he had been left out of the decision entirely, and was about to speak up when Vincent’s enthusiasm stopped him. “Let’s do it!”

  18

  Later. Much later.

  As if from a great distance, Vincent looked down at the victim on the altar. The young woman—formerly a student, then turned activist, and then, for some unknown reason, suddenly a fanatic neo-Satanist—lay back in anticipation, naked except for the flimsy white robe, most assuredly not a virgin. She thrust her small, not quite rounded breasts up toward him as he stood in his black High Priest robes.

  They hadn’t needed any drugs with her, no tranquilizing or disorienting substances to keep her quiet through the ceremony. She lay back, grinning a self-satisfied smile, without the slightest doubt on her face, absolutely confident in her beliefs.

  Vincent could hardly keep the scorn from his face. Nathans was right—how could these people be so gullible?

  The candles flickered; the incense made the underground room seem too stuffy, too perfumed. Sounds echoed in the large vault, making it seem like a vast, unpleasant womb. Not quite familiar with the High Sabbat ritual, some of the white-robed Acolytes continued the meaningless chant, following along in their printed program leaflets. Vincent ignored them.

  Behind the altar, the “sacred relics” of neo-Satanism sat on display in separate transparent showcases. A black (plastic) claw torn from Satan’s finger when He turned his back on Heaven in disgust, deciding instead to come and look after mortals. Another relic: a blackened hoofprint burned into the linoleum when Satan had appeared in Wittenburg to make his famous bargain with Dr. Faustus in the sixteenth century (it didn’t seem to bother any of the converts that linoleum hadn’t been created until more than three centuries later). And a small vial of semen from when Satan had impregnated a twentieth-century woman named Rosemary.

  Vincent dragged his gaze over the chanting crowd and prepared to strike. He raised the blade of the arthame over the naked woman’s chest. She cocked her head back, anticipating, distantly awed by what she expected to see.

  “If you believe all that,” he couldn’t resist mumbling under his breath, not sure if she could hear him or if she was even listening, “then you’re brain dead already.”

  He brought the blade down. It was always the same, and by now he had lost his revulsion, his guilt, and felt no sympathy at all for the victims, for people who would allow themselves to be so easily manipulated.

  Vincent had considered it an elaborate joke at first, a game, a trick to play on the masses—but they were supposed to catch on, and everyone would laugh sheepishly and admit they’d been fooled. Yet to his horror, the people turned the tables on him—they had embraced neo-Satanism with all the fervor that The Net had predicted. It amazed him at first, and then appalled him.

  Back at the beginning. Nathans tilted the chair, locking his fingers together behind his neck. He smiled to himself, and spoke aloud to Vincent, who was busily concocting “holy writings,” scribbling complex and nonsensical poetry on some artificially aged parchment.

  “‘Man is insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a bacterium, and creates gods by the dozen.’ The French philosopher Montaigne wrote that.”

  Vincent looked up from his writing. “You sure read a lot, Mr. Nathans.”

  “No. I just memorize a good many quotes. That way it seems like I read a lot, when I don’t really have the time.”

  Vincent rolled up the parchment, careful not to smear the ink. They planned on claiming that this particular scripture came from ancient Arabia, and he wondered how anyone would explain the existence of felt-tip pens in that far-flung land. Sadly, he doubted anyone would question it at all.

  “I’ve been using The Net to do a lot of my researching for me,” Vincent said distractedly. “It’s funny some of the things that turned up. Did you know that Satan means ‘adversary’ in Hebrew? Yet Lucifer means ‘light bearer.’ That’s an odd contradiction, don’t you think?”

  “Fit those details in. The more mysterious names and ancient-sounding words, the better.”

  “I’ve even come up with a rationale for worshiping Satan,” he offered. “For instance, why waste your time worshiping a good god? If he’s truly good, then he’ll never do anything bad to you. You’re better off trying to keep the evil one happy, appease him with a few rituals and sacrifices, so he won’t harm you. You’re covered on both bases.”

  “No, no, no!” Nathans stood up and went over to close the French windows against the gray fog outside. On his way back to the chair, he switched on the fireplace. “You don’t argue using concepts. You have to claim dogma and leave no room for rational thought. If someone challenges you with irrefutable logical arguments, you need only say ‘the Lord works in mysterious ways,’ or ‘all things are clear to those who have Faith.’”

  They heard Stromgaard moving down the hall, going up the stairs, and then returning again to exit the front door without speaking to them. The elder Van Ryman had kept himself busy with the business details of forming the new religion, and left the philosophical discussions to Vincent and Nathans, who enjoyed them more.

  Earlier, as they had all sat in front of the mirrored hearth, Nathans stressed the importance of ritual, how the proper gestures and repetitions were pivotal to a successful religion. The ritual had to be simple enough to be remembered easily, yet complex enough that one had to learn it, rather than mindlessly follow along. And it also had to have an air of mystique, a dark power behind it to lure the converts.

  The elder Van Ryman had been in charge of contacting a professional choreographer, who helped them to design the elaborate rituals. The choreographer, a bitter woman who could no longer dance because a nerve disease had taken from her the precise use of her arms and legs, immediately took up the challenge and derived remarkable rituals based on, but not obviously evolved from, common religious ceremonies. The Black Mass, or the Sabbat, became a parody, an inverse of the Catholic Mass, with the worshipers reverently making the sign of the broken cross.

  Although Nathans had specifically intended neo-Satanism to be Stromgaard’s bailiwick, the elder Van Ryman again proved his inadequacy. Vincent and Nathans had forged far ahead philosophically, but kept Stromgaard busy and distracted with a great deal of the nuts-and-bolts work. Confidentially Nathans had told Vincent how he hoped they could occupy Stromgaard long enough to get the religion formulated. After the major groundwork was properly completed, neo-Satanism could function by itself, even with someone like Stromgaard at the helm.

  One thing Stromgaard had indeed helped them with was designing a hierarchical structure in the new priesthood. Stromgaard had devised the management levels of Acolytes, Acolyte Supervisors, and Coven Managers, with the various numerical ranks in between. A hierarchy kept the converts feeling like they had their own place, he said, giving them something to work toward, some ladder to climb up.

  “I think we should also engage a professional graphic designer to come up with a logo for neo-Satanism,” Vincent suggested.

  Nathans’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Symbols—we’re going to need plenty of those. Crosses, stars, rosaries, mandalas, communion wafers—it’s all just to keep you thinking about the abstractions and not the contradictions.”

  Vincent brought out a stack of printouts, handing them to Nathans and then offhandedly spreading the sheets so Stromgaard could look on as well.

  “I’ve come up with a list of special demons according to mythology.” He pointed to the list. “Abaddon. Asmodeus. Eurynome, the eater of carrion, Satan’s own prince of death. Oh, and I also found that in order to summon a demon, your circle is supposed to be drawn exactly nine feet in diameter—that’s a little over 2.7 meters.”

  He pointed to the second sheet of hardcopy. “I’ve also found several people to put in our Hall of Fa
me, if you want to call it that. Theophilus, a sixth-century cleric who sold his soul to the devil in order to obtain Church office.” He scratched his head. “There’s something inherently paradoxical about that. Anyway, Roger Bacon is another. And Sjømunder the Wise of Iceland, who was without a shadow because Satan had extracted it as payment for services rendered. Friar Bungay, who was slain along with the sorcerer Vandermast when they dueled each other, using demons as their weapons. And of course Dr. Faustus of Wittenburg. Charles Dexter Ward. The Arab, Abdul Alhazred. I’m open to suggestions for any others.

  “And finally,” he said, gathering up the papers and looking smug, “a nice finishing touch would be for us to come up with a few holy relics of our own, some tangible objects, solid things to point to as proof in case any of our new converts are a little bit skeptical.”

  “Proof?” Nathans cocked an eyebrow. “We can just say the angel Moroni popped down and conveniently did away with all the evidence. It’s been done before.”

  Vincent frowned, but then decided that the other man’s sarcasm had not been directed at him. Nathans waved for him to continue. “I was thinking that we might want to try and find an untranslated original copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, the ‘Hammer of Witches.’ It was a book actually used to justify the burning of witches in the Middle Ages. It’s sort of exactly the opposite of what we’re looking for, but the name sounds so sinister, no one would doubt its authenticity.”

  Nathans looked at Vincent, then shifted his gaze to the elder Van Ryman. “Good idea. Stromgaard, you could probably track down that book better than either of us, am I right?”

  Then came the advertising blitz, subtly secretive, but staged by some of the best publicists Stromgaard could hire. Through it all, Vincent remained isolated in the mansion, looking at the neo-Satanist scheme from a detached and amused stance. But he felt a growing amazement as the inverted star-in-pentagram logo began to appear in prominent places, placed there by zealous new converts. One evening he saw a dancer on a Net entertainment channel wearing a pentagram pendant in her ear.

  To keep up the charade, the appearance of the Van Ryman mansion changed, undergoing a metamorphosis to make it look more like the abode of a High Priest. What had once been a white-painted, black-roofed facsimile of an old Midwestern farmhouse changed into a dark and sinister-looking haunted house. Vincent watched from behind his upstairs window as a crane uprooted the picket fence surrounding the house to replace it with a barricade of black iron spikes. The rooster weathervane on the rooftop became a cavorting demon pointing in random directions. Pipes connected dry-ice pumps to the sprinkler network under the lawn, releasing eerie mist each dusk. Under the eaves of the roof and around the gables now stood a line of hideous gargoyles, one to represent each of the special demons in the neo-Satanist writings.

  And Nathans had been right. With remarkably little effort the religion of neo-Satanism was becoming a business success rapidly approaching the success of Resurrection, Inc.

  “Vincent, there’s something you have to help me with,” Stromgaard said. His voice was dull and somber. Nathans sat unobtrusively at the far end of the long dining-room table, watching but saying nothing.

  Vincent had seen his father rarely during the past few weeks. Now, though, Vincent noted that Stromgaard had grown precariously thin, haggard and gaunt. His eyes were stained with bloodshot lines, and the shadowed hollows around them looked dark enough to be makeup.

  Stromgaard removed a packet and spread the contents on the wood surface of the long table, moving the decanter of Glenlivet and setting it distractedly on the floor. Vincent bent forward to see various NMR images and two x-ray plates showing the intimate inner detail of some human being—he presumed it to be his father. Trails of dark smudges showed up in an alarming number of places where they shouldn’t have been.

  “It’s all over inside of me. My entire lymph system. There’s no place it hasn’t touched,” he said slowly, as if each word were a stone he choked out of his throat. “Right now I can feel it, like a parasite, hiding inside me and trying to peek out.” Stromgaard started to tremble and then, very uncharacteristically, he put his face in his hands. Vincent stood frozen, not knowing what to do. His father had never asked for any kind of comfort before.

  For the past year and a half, neo-Satanism had been running smoothly, with Stromgaard Van Ryman as its High Priest. Vincent assisted in the ceremonies, as did a few highly placed converts, but the others were fanatics who actually believed in the religion. Nathans helped neo-Satanism as well, but for the most part remained invisible in the background—he had once compared himself to the Wizard of Oz, running the show from behind his curtain. Stromgaard was the figurehead, the visible power, the focal point in the public eye.

  Nathans stood up and patted Stromgaard on the shoulder, then he turned to Vincent. “He’s probably got a month left, maybe two.”

  Vincent stared in silence, absorbing the information. He waited, and finally Nathans spoke again. “He needs you to take his place as the High Priest of the neo-Satanists. You’re the heir apparent.”

  The younger Van Ryman snapped out of his trance and looked at Nathans. “Me? Isn’t it enough now? Haven’t we brainwashed enough people?”

  “No,” Nathans answered firmly. “These are people who have to find themselves a religion—it’s like theological masturbation. If they don’t join neo-Satanism, then they’ll become Fundamentalist Christians, or Scientologists, or something else. At least we’re honest with ourselves about our motivations.”

  “And I’m supposed to take his place, carry on those sacrifices, attend the rituals, and pretend I believe in all that stuff?”

  “It’s for a good cause.” Nathans shrugged. “The betterment of humanity—we’re keeping the marching morons occupied while the rest of us continue what mankind was destined to do.”

  “You sound very high and mighty, Mr. Nathans,” Vincent responded.

  “I have every right to. Nobody else is thinking about our future.” He rubbed his hands together, as if dismissing the subject.

  “Now then, we have to discuss the transition. I’m afraid poor Stromgaard is not going to be able to perform his duties much longer. Already he is keeping himself pumped up on enough drugs that he’s not always as clearheaded as he used to be. We want the transition from father to son to be spectacular and dramatic, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like it much, Vincent. But it has to be done.”

  Stromgaard Van Ryman lay on the altar, still garbed in his red-trimmed High Priest’s robe, while Vincent stood beside him, wearing his own black-and-red robe. Vincent shifted the razor-sharp arthame from hand to hand, fidgeting.

  The ceremony progressed as it always had, and Vincent found himself mechanically offering the expected gestures. But his mind was elsewhere.

  “I won’t feel a thing, Vincent. I will be drugged and floating high in the sky long before you even begin the Sabbat,” Stromgaard had said. “The pain is already so bad I can hardly stand it. It’s eating me away and I can feel every bite it takes.” He clutched Vincent with a desperate clawlike hand.

  “Don’t force me to shrivel away until there’s nothing left,” he pleaded, “It’ll only get worse. Much worse.

  “I’ll keep myself drugged to euphoria until you finish the High Sabbat. Give me at least that much dignity. Let my own choice enter into it. Besides, it’s the best thing for neo-Satanism.” Stromgaard said the last comment as if he meant it fervently.

  The younger Van Ryman looked down between the folds of the old High Priest robe and saw the gaunt, skeletal remains of his father. The ribs protruded; the skin had a grayish cast. And Vincent even noticed a wide birthmark on the right side of Stromgaard’s chest that he had never seen before.

  Stromgaard Van Ryman’s eyes were strange and glassy, unfocused and staring deep into infinity. His chin was covered with stubble, and the knuckles on his hands stood out like knobs on an old tree.

  I won’t feel a thing. This is wh
at I want.

  The crescendo of the ritual rose, then fell, then rose again to an even higher peak before it stopped abruptly. Vincent turned to look at the faces of the gathered neo-Satanists, searching. They stared back at him, some curious, some expectant, some wearing no expression at all, just a blank, confident acceptance.

  He turned back to his father and shifted the arthame to his left hand so that he could deliver a hard and swift final blow.

  “Ashes to ashes, blood to blood; fly to Hell for all our good!” he intoned, and then, mostly to himself, “Goodbye, Father.”

  19

  Deep in the lower managerial levels of Resurrection, Inc., Francois Nathans stared at the bloody corpse of the man who looked exactly like him. The dead man lay face down on the carpet, still dressed in the white symbol-embroidered neo-Satanist robe. Nathans knelt and rolled the man over, looking down into his face.

  Though he had anticipated Danal’s reaction, and planed for it, the sight of his murdered lookalike still gave him an eerie sensation, as if he were looking at a snapshot of his own death. Nathans had watched the whole thing from a hidden monitor, astonished by Danal’s explosive speed and violence, but he didn’t feel a great deal of pity for the dead duplicate—the other man had been fully aware of the risks, and he’d agreed to accept them.

  “A man has amnesia. We’re trying to awaken his memories, trigger them to return,” Nathans had explained it to the volunteer. “We don’t know how he’ll react, and there could be some risk. There’ll probably be some risk. The man is a Servant.”

  After seeing the large sum waiting to be transferred into his Net account, the volunteer had motioned for them to begin the surface-cloning that would give him the face of Francois Nathans.

  Now Nathans looked down at the murdered man again, saw the line of faint red pinpricks where the clone-infection had spread, and saw where Danal’s blinding speed had neatly split the double’s throat like a spoiled fruit.