The cave roof was low, and at certain points I had to bend a bit to avoid hitting my head. Light spilled in from outside, though without the candles lit it was still a bit murky. It was cooler in the cave, but a severe stench of body odor countered any sense of relief. Numerous flies and other winged insects buzzed about, probably drawn by the rotting head on the spike just outside.
Martin was sitting at the desk, his back to me as he stared at the pile of books and clippings before him. When he spoke he did so without looking at me. “According to the Bible, when the war in Heaven took place and Lucifer attempted his coup d’état, one third of all the angels fell.” He sounded tired, his voice drawn. “One third. Little more than three in ten. What does that tell you?”
I gave no answer.
“What does it tell you about the nature of evil?” He pushed some of the books and things aside, clearing off a small patch of desk. “And what do you think became of these creatures? Where do you suppose they fell to?”
I moved closer. He wouldn’t turn around but I wanted to see his face.
“Even God’s greatest warrior angels—Michael or Gabriel for example—are as loyal and violent as any of Lucifer’s minions. Gabriel was charged with appearing before Mary to tell her what destiny had in store for her and her yet unborn child. But he was also given the task of destroying cities and murdering thousands. It is Gabriel’s horn that blows at the time of the second-coming. His wings are as bloody as any, so why then is he a hero while others are called evil? It’s always been about a consolidation of power. Why should God be any different? Like the rest of us, He wants what’s His, and He’ll do whatever is necessary to keep it. We are so truly made in His image, are we not? So He sends His angels, those beneath him, to do His dirty work, to fight his wars. Sound familiar? That thing we killed so many years ago, it was sent for us. It was no mistake, no coincidence we encountered him in the rain that night. It was written. He wasn’t the victim, we were. He was sent to stop us. God sent one of His angels to kill us, to murder children. It was written in the scarred man’s book, what he was doing there, who had sent him, who we were, what we’d become and why we had to die. Once I learned how to decipher the book, it was all there in its so-called glory. If we hadn’t killed it, we’d have died that night. He’d have taken that sword and carved us to pieces. For God, the one who allegedly loves us.” Martin poured water from the pitcher to the cup but didn’t drink it, preferring instead to stare down into it as if for inspiration. “Like you, and like Jamie, I spent years trying to forgive myself for what we’d done, begging God to help me. And then I began to travel, to see the world. I wanted so badly to find Him out there, some proof that He hadn’t forsaken us. I wanted to believe in Man, I wanted to believe in this world and our place in it. I wanted to believe in a God that loves us and watches over us and protects us. I searched nearly every corner of the globe for it, Phil, but it was nowhere to be found. There was good in the world, of course—sometimes amazing levels of it—but it wasn’t the norm, and it wasn’t the most powerful force on the planet. In fact, it wasn’t even a close second. This is a place of unimaginable evil. Every continent, every race, color, creed, from the beginning of time until this very moment, no one escapes it. It’s the nature of things here. It’s our nature, human nature. Since our dawn, how much time has there been when we’ve been free of war? Days? Hours? Minutes? The atrocities across the world are endless. Children as young as toddlers sold as sex slaves, genocide, murder, rape, mutilation, torture, it goes on and on. We possess all the fury and violence and capacity for anger and wrath that all gods do, but without the divinity, without the purpose. And so we rot here, nasty, apathetic and selfish little children quarreling with one another and trying to find new and better ways to slaughter each other and consolidate power, forgotten meanwhile, by a disinterested God, a deity grown bored and tired of His greatest creations. The more I traveled and saw and learned, the more I found a world abandoned and left to its own devices. If we were truly good, if we were truly just, we would’ve survived without Him in peace. We would’ve prospered. But we don’t. We spiral down into a void so deep and black that all of humanity will eventually be swallowed by it. Those who seek peace and love are ridiculed by the masses, made fun of and considered weak and naïve. They’re neither. They’re simply outnumbered. Why? Because most people prefer power, dominance and comfort, and if burning other human beings alive or maiming them or ignoring their plight gets the job done then so be it. Have you ever really stopped and thought about what kind of creatures we are? Like the angels, we’re quite a frightening breed once you’ve taken a closer look. Some say God is dead, but it’s not true. He’s alive and well. We’re the ones dying. We’ve always been the ones dying.”
“I have no interest in your sacrilege, Martin, save it for the fools outside.”
“I admit truth is a difficult proposition these days. There’s no profit in it.”
“This isn’t truth. It’s blasphemy.”
“The whole goddamn world is blasphemy.”
“I’m not here for lectures.”
“No,” he said softly, “you’re not.”
“How can you sit there and have the gall to talk about atrocities? There are human beings crucified and dismembered out there, there’s a man’s head on a fucking spike not twenty feet from here. You had the man I came here with skinned—probably alive—you murder people who believe in you, trust you, and tonight you plan to lead the rest of them off a cliff like a bunch of lemmings. You’re insane. You’re a mindless butcher.”
“I am a butcher, that’s true.” Martin finally sipped his water. “But I’m not insane. You misunderstand. I don’t condemn the world for its evil. I accept it for what it is and embrace its truth. Denied that proof, we deal in wishes and faith, hope and belief, pipedreams where we tell ourselves again and again how good we truly are. Like so many children in the dark pretending we’re not afraid. But we are afraid, Phil, and we should be. That’s what I learned. That’s what I learned when I read the book, deciphered its lessons and traveled the world. I saw the carnage and cruelty, hopelessness and despair. I saw power. Not in good or the disinterested God who peddles it, but in the evil that rules this world and those in it. And the deeper I delved into the book, who the Traveler was and why he was here, the more I learned our roles in all this, the more I came to understand that this was all meant to be. The sword and the book were mine. They were sent here with God’s emissary to destroy me, and now I controlled them. I had to be stopped. We all had to be stopped. Because I’m the one, Phil, I’m the one. Even this church, out in the middle of the desert and built more than one hundred years ago was part of the plan. A band of Jesuits claimed an angel came to them and told them to build it. And the Corridor, why is there a road way out here, a road to nowhere? For this moment. They exist to fulfill what was meant to be. Can’t you see how perfect it all is, how it all fits together so flawlessly? People wait for devil children or signs or marks of the beast, silly movie nonsense. But it’s all so much simpler than that, purer than that. I was a young boy who, just like Christ, had no idea what he was or was meant to be, and even when I did find out I didn’t want any part of it. But in time, like Jesus, I came to understand that this was my destiny. I had no choice but to accept it. It is written. The book warned of my rising, my death, and my return, through incest reborn.” He smiled. This pleased him. “It told the scarred man where to find all three of us, and he did. But he failed in his mission, so God let destiny take its natural course. We all played important roles. Jamie would be the denier. And you, you’d be my Judas and Pilate all rolled into one.” Martin put the cup aside and studied the contours of the cave walls as if he’d never seen them before. “Do you understand why you’ve come here?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be upset,” he said in a loud whisper. “It’s all right. Your role is a vital one. Without you there can be no me. Like Judas, poor, misunderstood and misrepresented Judas.
Without his betrayal, Jesus isn’t arrested. If Jesus isn’t arrested he isn’t eventually sentenced to crucifixion by Pilate. If he isn’t eventually crucified he cannot be resurrected. And if he cannot be resurrected, then he cannot be the Christ. Judas was simply fulfilling the role God gave him, the destiny he was chained to. He should be revered as the one who sacrificed himself so the rest could be set in motion. And yet they vilify him. You fill the same role now. It’s why you’re still alive, why the faithful out there haven’t torn you to pieces. They’d like to, but they understand—because I have taught them—that you must do what you’ve come for in order for any of this to have meaning. I cannot be reborn and fulfill my true destiny without it. And they’ll all be by my side. For all eternity, they will walk with me, fight alongside me, and take back what is rightfully theirs from God, who has no business sitting in judgment of anyone. Can you even imagine a world free of judgment and restraint? Can you imagine how beautiful that will be? Imagine what we’ll do when we’re free. I won’t return to destroy the world, I’ll return to rescue it.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“I understand it makes it easier for you to believe that.” He sighed, collecting the silence awhile. “Who could’ve imagined this all those years ago?”
For just a moment, we were back there. Young, carefree, friends.
“Once I knew,” he said, “and allowed myself to be what I am, they came to me so easily, like pulling weeds from a garden. The lost, lonely, misguided and the broken, the ignored and the forgotten, the angry, the hopeless and the weak, an endless supply of abandoned puppies just waiting for a home. They followed me because they saw in me the god they’d never found anywhere else. I don’t play His silly elusive games. I’m right in front of them, and instead of lies they found truth. Instead of weakness, strength. It’s almost over now. All the pieces are nearly in place.”
The already sparse light in the cave grew weaker. I glanced behind me. Darkness was rolling in across the desert, slowly devouring the compound.
“It knows you’re here,” Martin said.
“Whatever the scarred man was,” I said, “he’s dead. I saw him die.”
“We only killed its disguise, its manifestation as a human being, not its literal form. Its true nature, its spirit, lives on. Not here, but stranded between worlds.” Martin ran his hand through his beard thoughtfully, his hand dirty, the nails long and filthy. “Several years ago, during my travels through Egypt, I came across a rare text in a dusty old shop that dealt in antiquities and curiosities. From that text, which referenced the book’s long-dead language along with several others, ancient forms of Arabic mostly, I learned to translate its passages. The book showed me how to summon the martyr angel, and then how to bind him. I used his own magic against him, the same spells he would’ve used to bind me.”
“The things that attacked us on the road, the thing in the basement of the church…”
“Keeping the dead animated for a short while is actually quite simple once you know the trick. It’s just so many tricks, all of it. The old prophets and power mongers weren’t divine, they were magicians and witches, casting spells and using deception to frighten, amaze and control, and how better to keep it from the masses than to define it as evil and off-limits to everyone else? Only the privileged few held the secrets. Is it really so different now? Do you honestly think the people in power and with the greatest resources on Earth at their fingertips live the same as those beneath them? As with all things, it’s not about power or even the weapons, but those who wield them. Well now I wield them, and that emissary of death, that scarred freak is mine.”
“The scarred man’s dead.”
“Fascinating creatures, angels.” He motioned to the passageway leading deeper into the cave. “The things they can do.”
“So you use its powers and pass them off as your own?”
“They are my own. It belongs to me.”
“That book was never meant for mortal men.”
Finally, his eyes found mine. I was surprised to see them so full of sorrow.
“I’m not mortal.”
Before I could say anything more he picked up the photograph of his mother from the desk and looked at it awhile. “Keep this for me,” he said, holding it out for me. “Return it to her with my love.”
I wanted to refuse but couldn’t. I was watching a man on his deathbed trying in his own demented way to put things in order, to make sense of the things he’d done and those things that had been done to him. Somewhere deep inside were the remains of the boy I’d known, my friend. I didn’t know what was real and what were figments of his, or maybe both of our diseased minds, and I probably never would, but death was real, love was real. And even the madman Martin had become still possessed the capacity for both. I took the photograph. “If I make it back, I’ll be sure she gets it.”
Beyond the cave, an eerie chanting began.
“Children,” he said dreamily, “calling their Papá.”
“Martin—”
“When the time comes,” he said, rising to his feet, “remember.”
Grinning, he opened his hand. A large black ant crept across the center of his palm, the destroyed remains of a smaller red ant clutched in its grasp.
TWENTY-TWO
Night had fallen, the ceremony had begun, and for the first time I felt like I could’ve simply walked away and no one would’ve noticed or tried to stop me.
Earlier, I’d wandered beyond the gates to the base of the ridge, and for a brief moment considered running for it. If Party Boy was still alive, and the Land Rover was still there, I could make it. But there was no leaving this behind, it had already gone too far. They knew it as well as I did. That’s why they’d made no moves to stop me. I wasn’t going anywhere. Like Martin, I was biding my time.
Sitting off by myself near the base of the hill, I scanned the ridgeline for some sign of Party Boy. If he was out there he was well hidden and making no attempts to signal me. It would’ve been the perfect time, with the entire congregation distracted and engrossed in their version of the Last Supper, but all I saw out there was darkness and a swath of moonlight splitting the ridge in two.
At the table alongside the church, a select few sat with Martin, who was front and center and preaching to his disciples throughout the meal, stopping only occasionally for a bite of chicken and rice or a sip of wine. The remaining followers, per usual, all sat about the ground around the table, mesmerized and hanging on every word, while Holly Quinn flitted about like a moth to lamplight, enthusiastically filming it all with a camcorder that no longer worked.
The fires burned bright across camp, casting everything in shadow and an unsettling orange hue. One of the followers, a woman who had been sitting on the ground, suddenly stood up, began to dance and shake an old tambourine. The others seemed pleased.
I felt sick. I needed a drink. Bad. Real bad. I didn’t know how long this ceremony would go on or how much more I had left in me, but I forced myself to my feet and started for the church, taking the long way around so as not to be seen. Slinking through the darkness like the assassin I was, I made my way to the rear entrance of the church and slipped inside.
The church was empty, and but for a single black candle burning on the altar, shrouded in darkness. The sword and book were still there. I’d seen them in my nightmares for years, and for the first time, felt the weight of each in my hands. The moment my flesh came in contact with them I felt dwarfed in their presence, a little boy playing with nuclear weapons. These ancient relics weren’t designed to be held by human hands, and I was not only desecrating them, I was sure they were somehow attempting to repel me. Still, I had no choice.
I tucked the book under one arm, feeling its power pressed against me, and held the sword up with the other, turning it slowly so the sparse candlelight caught the blade. How many had Martin slaughtered with this?
Maybe it had been preordained, I thought. Had our origins in New Bet
hany really been a coincidence? Was there even such a thing?
Outside, there was laughter and a rumble of voices. It was an unhealthy laughter that went right through me and snapped me back to the present.
As I made my way toward the exit, I stopped at the head of the stairs leading to the basement. Lying on the landing was the thing I’d encountered earlier. It was dead. Again.
I stepped back into night and hurried along the far side of the church.
The supper apparently over, the followers had removed their clothes and begun dancing and chanting, spinning around in the dark like tops while Martin sat in a chair near one of the fire pits. I didn’t know if there had been something in the food or drink and they were stoned out of their minds, or if they’d simply become consumed with religious fervor. Either way, the followers were running around like escapees from a mental institution, dancing and screaming with what I could only assume was joy. As a small group of followers took turns washing Martin’s feet in a small basin, he touched the heads of each in turn, as if anointing them. Two others began cutting his hair and beard, and a third man stood waiting, a straight razor in hand that would shave Martin bald as the rest.
Once he was shaved like the others, he stood up, raised his arms then slowly lowered them until his disciples went still and quiet.
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