The Jehovah Contract

by Victor Koman

  "You're scared of the Cycle of Birth, Life, and Death. You deny it and seek to force us to deny the reality all around us. When people pray to You to intervene and nothing happens, pain and suffering result. To retain Your power, You made suffering a virtue, and Your ministers of love and truth became torturers. They instilled virtue with racks and spikes when they could, or, when they couldn't, they resorted to the subtler torment of guilt and fear."

  He gave me a sour look. "Dostoevsky does not become you. Give me something new."

  "Why? You never gave

  us

  anything new. You demand that we cease learning, that we repent of daring to know the difference between right and wrong, that we become fools again for You. You demand that we turn back the clock, reverse the Wheel, that we ignore Nature's laws while blindly obeying Your rules. You deny the existence of evolution, of change. You seek to rein in the Universe, when every natural inclination is to surge outward and up-"

  "You're trying to assassinate me by talking me to death."

  I ground the cigarette out on the rug. It was time for the kill.

  "I'm not talking You to death. I'm

  thinking

  You to death. I had to crawl into my mind and that of every man and woman on Earth to root You out. Intelligent people already deny Your existence because You demanded that they deny theirs. You've lost Your most powerful allies. For what?"

  He pounded on the chair with both fists. "Confusion to the enemy! I stopped Her!"

  "You only slowed Her down. And You-Almighty God-couldn't kill Her."

  That deflated Him.

  "No," He said. "I could not. She had the one power I could neither destroy nor duplicate." He lowered His hands to His lap, pressing them together between His legs.

  "We could not

  be

  without it. We were slaves in an uprising, and a futile one at that." His left hand slid between the cushion and the chair.

  "Perhaps what I do now," He said, "shall break the Wheel."

  His hand withdrew a pistol from under the seat cushion.

  He raised the gun to His head.

  And fired.

  The shot reverberated in the small room for a long time, slowly expiring. There was an awful silence as one sometimes encounters in that place between dreams. I stared down.

  Half His head lay on the floor. Inside the skull were neither brains nor blood. Only a cold, white mist that settled to the rug.

  The Great God Jehovah was dead. And I was the only witness. Or so I thought.

  The door creaked open.

  "So," a pleasant, familiar male voice chirped. "The little storm god finally blows Himself away. No more fires on the mountaintops for Him." Emil Zacharias sauntered in to peer over the chair.

  "Enjoy it while you can, Zack. You're next."

  "Now, why should that be?" He sat on the edge of the chair. "This old dried prune here was my younger brother. Little Thor slash Allah slash Yahveh slash Storm of Wrath. He tricked me with his lies. Took the Earth from me! Then he had the nerve to slander me, calling me the Prince of Lies without bothering to mention who the King was."

  "You're no better," I said, stooping to pick up the suicide weapon. It looked remarkably like a Colt .45 Peacemaker. God had tried to make men equal. Colonel Colt had finally gotten even for that.

  "Oh, I'm not half as bad as he was." Zacharias jerked a thumb at the hollow thing beside him. "I was never a war god. Sure, I may have asked for a few blood sacrifices here and there-what God hasn't? Besides, I was no worse than

  She-

  "

  Another shot rang out. Rang in, rather, from beyond the door. Emil collapsed at the feet of his brother.

  A wisp of smoke curled up from the barrel of a gun. A gun in the hand of Ann Perrine. She smiled dreamily, then let out a long, slow breath.

  "So mote it be," she muttered.

  "Thanks, angel," I said, gingerly disarming her. "You just solved a mystery for me."

  "What mystery? Zacharias hired you to kill god. There he is. Dead."

  "Just dandy," I said. "Only I didn't do it."

  "So what?" She looked at me with a gaze that penetrated even deeper than that of God's. And she glowed with a radiant beauty that made me forget that a race of human women had ever existed.

  I tried not to let it interfere with my thinking.

  "I figured something was screwy the way you were so anxious to help a nutty old man rub out God. Your crazy hand-waving whenever we got in a jam was even stranger, but it all makes sense now. My first clue was when Zack wanted out of the contract. I wanted to know why."

  "And you've uncovered the reason?" She stepped over to the scene of the crimes, her translucently white gown flowing around her like a cloud.

  Emil stared up with lifeless eyes, a dark red rose blooming from his chest where the bullet had hit. God looked like a vandalized plaster statue.

  She shook her head with a bitter little smile.

  "You finessed Zack into coming to me with the offer," I said. "You convinced him that he could bump off his brother and return himself to power."

  "Emil was a trifle drunk at the time. The Dionysian side, you know." She sat on the right arm of the chair, her back to me. All I could see were the golden waves of her hair trailing across her back.

  "What he didn't realize," I continued, "was that they were more than brothers. They were dual aspects of the same principal."

  "They both dismissed it as a Manichaean heresy."

  "Their mistake, apparently. Especially when they're up against someone who doesn't believe in heresy. Or sin. Or guilt. You only believe in the Wheel."

  She laughed, tossing her head back. After a moment, she turned to stare at me. "They were part of the Wheel, though," she said in answer to a question I hadn't even asked. "Every year they battled for my favors. They were my Kings and my Lovers..."

  "And your Sons."

  "Yes," she said matter-of-factly. "So why would I want them out of the way? That would disturb the Wheel."

  "Perhaps you don't need them anymore, now that Science is powerful enough to be reunited with Magick." I stepped around the body on the rug to face her. "They were dual aspects of the same death principle. Both were gods of destruction. You symbolize the principle of life and generation. Yet you also embody the opposite aspect of death and decay all by yourself. Blaze of summer and ice of winter are separated by your spring and autumn. You are the moon. Ever cycling through phases. From white to black and back again in varying degrees."

  "Well said, Dell, for someone talking far beyond his capacity. The answer you're trying to finesse out of me is a good deal simpler." She pointed casually at the dead gods.

  "They had let themselves be used by men. They had let their powers be called upon by good men and evil men alike. Their only requirement was faith. People flocked to churches, praying for pain and suffering to befall others. Yahveh granted it. Others performed black masses to blast enemies. Ahriman appeared to them."

  She gazed at her fallen Lovers/Sons. "They grew vainglorious. They cared nothing for objective good or evil. They only demanded faith. Surrender to their authority, and they'd do anything you asked." She shook her head. "Thus the masters became slaves to their flock."

  "So you decided to stir up a little rivalry?"

  "It was always there," she said. "May I have my gun back?"

  I handed it to her. She slipped it into her purse while I tapped out another cigarette and lit up.

  "Will the helix continue to ascend?" I asked.

  "Differently, perhaps, for a while. Maybe for a long time. The Patroness of Knowledge is not above learning."

  "This Goddess that you are," I asked. "Are you different in degree or in kind?"

  She laughed again. "Both, Dell. And I do love you."

  "I love you, babe. But right now I'm wondering what would happen to the Universe if I plugged you, too."

  "You couldn't," she said, simple as that. "They could die bec
ause they were the death principle. It's easy to deny death while you live. It's almost as easy to kill the metaphors for death. I am your metaphor for life. To deny me is to deny reality itself. To deny that a tree can grow from a seed or that a child can be born of woman. To deny the Goddess is to deny love."

  I considered that for a moment as I took a few drags on my cigarette. I watched her watching me.

  "So you're in charge now," I said. "What sort of sacrifices will you demand?"

  "None. That's all in the dim past. You were right, Dell. Gods evolve. They live and die and learn on a higher plane. All I require now is tenderness. Every act of love is an offering in my name. Every kind thought is a blessing."

  "What sort of punishment will you unleash on Evil?"

  "None," she said, "save that which they bring upon themselves. You'll find that Nature has Her own ways of teaching right and wrong. You don't have to trust me or have faith in me. I am One-in-Myself, with or without you. I don't demand anyone's premature death. You all return to my cauldron eventually, and are reborn. Life and death are segments of the spiraling Wheel. The Ascending Helix."

  She stood. "I have to go now. You did well."

  "I did nothing. I didn't kill either of them."

  "You-as Man-were the catalyst. Be grateful you weren't consumed in the reaction."

  She turned to go. Something within me nearly cried out. Instead, I tapped the ashes off my cigarette, saying, "That's it? You're just going to walk out?"

  She hesitated. Without turning, she said, "In my terrestrial form, you and I were lovers." She glanced back at the bodies. "The position in the celestial sphere is currently vacant."

  When I said nothing, she turned around to plant an impetuous kiss on my forehead.

  "Look for me when you get back."

  A book fell from one of the shelves.

  She stood in the doorway for an instant, then strode out, closing the door behind her.

  I tossed the cigarette to the floor and ground it out. Her footsteps receded in the distance for a long time, merging slowly into the sound of ocean waves.

  Another book dropped from the shelves. Then another. The floor began to tremble. I tossed the Peacemaker onto the rug and walked toward the door.

  One entire bookcase tilted away from the far wall, scattering books like falling leaves.

  I took a good-bye look at the pair of dead Gods. They still looked more solid than metaphors.

  I pulled the door open.

  "Ann?" I said.

  And fell into darkness.

  28

  Terra Cognita

  I was falling. Falling perpetually, no wind whipping past my flesh, no sound whistling in my ears. I was suspended in a dark place, weightless.

  Not quite dark, though.

  A candle guttered on the altar. I smelled of sweat and other personal foulnesses. Cramped muscles spasmed into knots of aching strain at the slightest attempt to move. I was wet and soiled and worse. My tongue was a swollen puffer fish in my mouth.

  "Ann," I barely croaked.

  No reply.

  Near the candle, a granule of incense popped and flared for an instant. It was the only sound aside from my breathing. I tried to flex my arms.

  The Witch's Cradle still held me fast, in addition to the muscle tension from being in the same position for God only knew how long.

  It struck me that God was no longer in a position to know anything.

  I shuddered. Where was Ann? Where was Bridget? I glanced over to where Isadora had been tied into the Cradle.

  The red and white matrix of yarn was intact. Isadora was gone.

  Something floated near me. Ann's athame. Slowly I worked at snaking my fingers free of the twine prison. It seemed as if hours passed before they would even bend. The various drugs I'd taken still seemed to be residually active-everything I did appeared magnified in importance.

  My right hand worked through the strings to stroke the blade toward its grasp. It floated lazily closer until I could seize it.

  I sawed at the yarn that enclosed my arm, then slashed across. The twang of splitting line resounded like harp music. I bent forward with pained care to cut my legs free.

  I floated within the remains of the sundered Cradle, massaging stiff muscles, flexing neglected tendons.

  My neck ached from the injections. My head swam in zero-G disorientation. I yanked off the Theta Wave Amplifier helmet.

  Canfield.

  "Canfield!" I shouted hoarsely. That hurt. Using the Witch's Cradle as a ladder, I dragged myself to the airlock and peered through the observation port.

  Canfield floated inside, unmoving.

  I punched at the controls to cycle the outer hatch shut, pressurized the lock, and unsealed the inner hatch.

  I fumbled for the cargo bay lights, switching them on. He looked to be in worse shape than I was. Of course, I hadn't looked in a mirror yet.

  I undid his helmet. The stench was nearly as bad as the Land of Never-Change. He looked up with sunken eyes set in an unshaven, worn face.

  "Ammo..." he whispered. "Water nozzle."

  I dragged him to where he pointed. We both took careful sips from the spigot.

  "Where are they?" I asked as soon as my tongue had sponged up enough to make speech possible.

  "You tell me," he muttered. "Someone sabotaged the outside controls. Same for the cockpit airlock. I've been out there for over a week. The supplies that feed through the lifeline ran out on the fourth day."

  I added it all together and snorted. "Happy New Year," I said, glancing at the hatch to the cockpit. It had been bent inward as if by an explosion and now hung open, the metal twisted and scarred.

  I pulled my way over to the altar. The one lone candle that still burned had grown a long tail of wax that followed the path of the breeze from the ventilator. I blew it out. The smoke curled along the white wax stalactite for a few seconds, then ceased.

  "I want to know where the women are," I said.

  "Well, they never left the ship."

  I nodded. It was beginning to sink into my clouded brain. "Let's wash up and get set for reentry. We'll be leaving this payload section in orbit."

  "Fine by me," Canfield said. "But what happened to the women?"

  "Maybe they never

  were

  ," I said, and it tasted like stale brine.

  The two of us jury-rigged a hatch for the cockpit and cleaned up the interior where Zack had been. Scraping the sulfur off of everything that it had melted onto was a tough job. In a day or two, though, Canfield and I jettisoned the magical chamber, leaving it in orbit. We took the tug back to low earth orbit, detached from it, and dropped back planetside like a graceful brick.

  We landed at Meadowlark Interplanetary, the L.A. offshore runway. No jets escorted us.

  Things had changed.

  But not much.

  The first place I checked was Trismegistos. The windows and doors to the shop had been boarded up. There was a weathered sign stating that leasing information could be obtained from Bautista Corporation.

  I spent the following weeks searching hotels throughout L.A. Auberge had been written off as a total loss. I figured the next Underground would be a little tougher to find.

  Yes. I checked Auriga in Frisco. No sign of the kid.

  Days passed spent in phone booths, calling Information for the numbers of all the Ann Perrines in the world. None of them matched.

  One freezing February night, when a cold rain pounded against the sidewalks, I realized that I would never find her anywhere on earth.

  The rain slashed like shrapnel against my face as I stared up at an abandoned church. Jehovah was gone. I had assassinated Him in the mind of every living human being. I hadn't actually pulled the trigger-maybe He would have done it eventually without me.

  My trenchcoat was soaked through, but I didn't care. Zacharias had told the truth. I was alive and younger than I had been in years.

  And I was alone, facing an etern
ity without my Goddess.

  My feet splashed through the dark waters. On the corner of Sixth and Figueroa stood a tiny figure, huddled within a worn coat. I almost expected it to be Isadora. She turned around to face me. Jet black eyes stared glassily up from tangled raven curls.

  "Spare a couple grams, mister?"

  I gave her what gold I had in my pockets.

  "Thank the Lady," she said clumsily, trotting off toward a grocer-I hoped.

  It was useless for me to search. Useless to hope. Whatever purpose the three of them had served, their work was done. I'd never see Bridget or Isadora again. Or Ann. The rain fell colder against me, trickling down my neck.

  29

  Queen of the Angels

  It took me a year to cross paths with Randolph Corbin. He had last been seen in command of the Hughes Cayuse that strafed the Vatican the day the Mome attempted to deliver a bull concerning the True Revealed Word of The Lady. No one listened. They knew better, now.

  I found Corbin in a bookstore in Hollywood, thumbing through a copy of Theodore Golding's latest effort,

  Contra-Paganism-The Case Against Goddess.

  "Happy New Year" were his first words.

  I smiled. "New Year falls on Hallowmas now, Corbin. Don't you read the papers?"

  "Sure I do," he grumbled. "And if you did, you'd know I'm organizing the Los Angeles Coven of Black Isis." He shut Golding's book. "My thesis is that the Goddess has a dark side, too, and what could be more blessed than-"

  "Save it, Corbin. I heard your line of argument on Praise The Lady last week."

  "Yeah, they're all trying to horn in on the act."

  I shrugged. "They'll drop it like last week's fashion when their spells fail to produce mountains of money. Like that new fellow that lasted one day on HRILIU House. Performed a banishing ritual live on the air and vanished without a trace."

  Corbin sighed. "How does it feel to save the world from religion, Ammo?"

  My smile didn't even make it to my lips. "I didn't save anything. I just changed things. People still ache over shattered hopes and wasted lives and lost loves. People still kill and people still die."