Black Easter (15 page)

‘You’re not making very much sense,’ Baines said. He was still also trying to listen to the radio.

‘I didn’t expect you to think so. but it happens. It happens about every thousand years. People start out happy with their gods, even though they’re frightened of them. Then, increasingly, the world becomes secularized, and the gods seem less and less relevant. The temples are deserted. People feel guilty about that, but not much. Then, suddenly, they’ve had all the secularization they can take, they throw their wooden shoes into the machines, they take to worshipping Satan or the Great Mother, they go into a Hellenistic period or take up Christianity, in
hoc signo winces –
I’ve got those all out of order but it happens, Baines, it happens like clockwork, every thousand years, The last time was the chiliastic panics just before the year
A.D
. 1000, when everyone expected the Second Coming of Christ and realized that they didn’t dare face up to Him.
That
was the heart, the centre, the whole reason of the Dark Ages. Well, we’ve got another millennium coming to a close now, and people are terrified of
our
secularization, our nuclear and biological weapons, our computers, our overprotective medicine, everything, and they’re turning back to the worship of unreason. Just as you’ve done – and I’ve helped you. Some people
these
days worship flying saucers because they don’t dare face up to Christ. You’ve turned to black magic. Where’s the difference?’

‘I’ll tell you where,’ Baines said. ‘Nobody in the whole of time has ever seen a saucer, and the reasons for believing that anybody has are utterly pitiable. Probably they can be explained just as you’ve explained them, and never mind about Jung and his thump-headed crowd. But, Adolph, you and I
have
seen a demon.’

‘Do you think so? I don’t deny it. I think it very possible. But Baines, are you sure? How do you
know
what you think you know? We’re on the eve of World War Three, which we engineered. Couldn’t all this be a hallucination we conjured up to remove some of our guilt? Or is it possible that it isn’t happening at all, and that we’re as much victims of a chiliastic panic as more formally religious people are? That makes more sense to me than all this medieval mumbo-jumbo about demons. I don’t mean to deny the evidence of my senses, Baines. I only mean to ask you, what is it worth?’

‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ Baines said equably, ‘though I can’t tell you how I know it and I won’t bother to try. First, something is happening, and that something is real. Second, you and I and Ware and everyone else who wanted, to make it happen, therefore
did
make it happen. Third, we’re turning out to be wrong about the outcome – but no matter what it is, it’s
our
outcome. We contracted for it. Demons, saucers, fallout – what’s the difference? Those are just signs in the equation, parameters we can fill any way that makes the most intermediate sense to us. Are you happier with electrons than with demons? Okay, good for you. But what I like, Adolph, what
I
like is the result. I don’t give a damn about the means. I invented it, I called it into being, I’m paying for it – and no matter how else you describe it,
I made it, and it’s mine
. Is that clear?
It’s mine
. Every other possible fact about it, no matter what that fact might turn out to be, is a stupid footling technicality that I hire people like you and Ware not to bother me with.’

‘It seems to me,’ Hess said in a leaden monotone, ‘that we are all insane.’

At that same moment, the small window burst into an intense white glare, turning Father Domenico into the most intense of inky silhouettes.

‘You may be right,’ Baines said. There goes Rome.’

Father Domenico, his eyes streaming, turned away from the dimming frame and picked his way slowly to the altar. After a long moment of distaste, he took Theron Ware by the shoulder and shook him. The cat hissed and jumped sidewise.

‘Wake up, Theron Ware,’ Father Domenico said formally. ‘I
charge you, awake. Your experiment may now wholly and contractually be said to have gone astray, and the Covenant therefore satisfied. Ware! Ware! Wake up, damn you.’

Baines looked at his watch. It was 3:00 a.m.

Ware awoke instantly, swung to his feet with a spring and without a word started for the window. At the same instant, the agony that had been Rome swept over the building. The shock wave had been attenuated by distance and the jolt was not heavy, but the window Father Domenico had uncurtained sprang inward in a spray of flying glass needles. More glass fell out from behind the drapes which hung below the ceiling, like an orchestra of celestas.

As far as Baines could see, nobody was more than slightly cut. Not that a serious wound could have made any difference now, with the Last Death already riding on the winds.

Ware was not visibly shaken. He simply nodded once and wheeled towards the Grand Circle, stooping to pick up his dented paper hat. No, he was moved – his lips were pinched white. He beckoned to them all.

Baines took a step towards Jack Ginsberg, to kick him awake if necessary. But the special executive assistant was already on his feet, trembling and wild-eyed. He seemed, however, totally unaware of where he was: Baines had to push him bodily into his minor circle.

‘And stay there,’ Baines added, in a voice that should have been able to scar diamonds. But Jack gave no sign of having heard it.

Baines went hastily to his Tanist’s place, checking for the bottle of brandy. Everyone else was already in position, even the cat, which in fact had vaulted to its post promptly upon having been dumped off Ware’s rear.

The sorcerer lit the brazier, and began to address the dead air. He was hardly more than a sentence into this invocation before Baines realized for the first time, in his freezing heart,
that this was indeed the last effort – and that indeed they might all still be saved.

Ware was making his renunciation, in his own black and twisted way – the only way his fatally proud soul could ever be brought to make it. He said:

‘I invoke and conjure thee, L
UCIFUGE
R
OFOCALE
, and fortified with the Power and the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by B
ARALEMENSIS
, B
ALDACHIENSIS
, P
AUMACHIE
, A
POLORESEDES
and the most potent princes G
ENIO
, L
IACHIDE
, ministers of the Tartarean seat, chief princes of the seat of A
POLOGIA
in the ninth region, I exorcise and command thee, L
UCIFUGE
R
OFOCALE
, by him Who spake and it was done, by the Most Holy and glorious Names A
DONAI
, E
L
, E
LOHIM
, E
LOHE
, Z
EBAOTH
, E
LION
, E
SCHERCE
, J
AH
, T
ETRAGRAMMATON
, S
ADIE
do thou and thine forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, regardless of how thou art previously charged, from whatever part of the world, without tarrying!

‘I conjure thee by Him to Whom all creatures are obedient, by this ineffable Name, T
ETRAGRAMMATON
J
EHOVAH
, by which the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea turns back, the fire is generated, the earth moves and all the hosts of things celestial, of things terrestrial, of things infernal, do tremble and are confounded together, come. A
DONAI
, King of kings, commands thee!’

There was no answer, except an interior grumble of thunder.

‘Now I invoke, conjure and command thee, L
UCIFUGE
R
OFOCALE
. to appear and show thyself before this circle, by the Name of ON … by the Name Y and V, which Adam heard and spake … by the name of J
OTH
, which Jacob learned from the angel on the night of his wrestling and was delivered from the hands of his brother… by the Name of A
GLA
, which Lot heard and was saved with his family … by the Name A
NEHEXETON
, which Aaron spake and was made wise … by the name S
CHEMES
A
MATHIA
, which Joshua invoked and the Sun stayed upon his course … by the Name E
MMANUEL
, by which the three children were delivered from the fiery furnace … by the Name A
LPHA
-O
MEGA
, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the dragon … by the Name Z
EBAOTH
, which Moses named, and all the rivers and the waters in the land of Egypt were
turned into blood … by the Name H
AGIOS
, by the Seal of A
DONAI
, by those others, which are J
ETROS
, A
THENOROS
, P
ARACLETUS
… by the dreadful Day of Judgement … by the changing sea of glass which is before the face of the Divine Majesty … by the four beasts before the Throne … by all these Holy and most potent words, come thou, and come thou quickly. Come, come! A
DONAI
, King of kings, commands thee!’

Now, at last, there was a sound: a sound of laughter. It was the laughter of Something incapable of joy, laughing only because It was compelled by Its nature to terrify. As the laughter grew, that Something formed.

It was not standing in the Lesser Circle or appearing from the Gateway, but instead was sitting on the altar, swinging Its cloven feet negligently. It had a goat’s head, with immense horns, a crown that flamed like a torch, level human eyes, and a Star of David on Its forehead. Its haunches, too, were caprine. Between, the body was human, though hairy and with dragging black pinions like a crow’s growing from Its shoulder blades. It had women’s breasts and an enormous erection, which it nursed alternately with hands folded into the gesture of benediction. On one shaggy forearm was tattooed
Solve;
on the other,
Coagula
.

Ware fell slowly to one knee.

‘Adoramus te
, P
UT
S
ATANACHIA
,’ he said laying his wand on the ground before him. ‘And again …
awe
, ave.’

A
VE
,
BUT WHY DO YOU HAIL ME
? the monster said in a petulant bass voice, at once deep and mannered, like a homosexual actor’s I
T
W
AS
N
OT
I Y
OU
C
ALLED
.

‘No, Baphomet, master and guest. Never for an instant. It is everywhere said that you can never be called, and would never appear.’

Y
OU CALLED ON THE
G
OD
, W
HO DOTH NOT
A
PPEAR
. I
AM NOT MOCKED
.

Ware bowed his head lower. ‘I was wrong.’

A
H! BUT THERE IS A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
. Y
OU MIGHT HAVE SEEN THE
G
OD AFTER ALL
. B
UT NOW INSTEAD YOU HAVE SEEN ME
. A
ND THERE IS ALSO A LAST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
. I
OWE YOU A MOMENT OF THANKS
. W
ORM THOUGH YOU ARE, YOU ARE THE AGENT OF
A
RMAGEDDON
. L
ET THAT BE WRITTEN, BEFORE ALL
WRITINGS, LIKE ALL ELSE, GO INTO THE EVERLASTING FIRE
.

‘No!’ Ware cried out. ‘Oh living God, no! This cannot be the Time! You break the Law! Where is the Antichrist –’

W
E WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST
. H
E WAS NEVER NECESSARY
. M
EN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME
.

‘But – master and guest – the Law –’

W
E SHALL ALSO DO WITHOUT THE LAW
. H
AVE YOU NOT HEARD
? T
HOSE TABLETS HAVE BEEN BROKEN
.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath from both Ware and Father Domenico; but if Ware had intended some further argument, he was forestalled. To Baines’s right, Dr Hess said in a voice of high ultraviolet hysteria:

‘I don’t see you, Goat,’

‘Shut up!’ Ware shouted, almost turning away from the vision.

‘I don’t see you,’ Hess said doggedly. ‘You’re nothing but a silly zoological mixture. A mushroom dream. You’re not real, Goat. Go away. Poof!’

Ware turned in his Karcist’s circle and lifted his magician’s sword against Hess in both hands; but, at the last minute, he seemed to be afraid to step out against the wobbling figure of the scientist.

H
OW GRACIOUS OF YOU TO SPEAK TO ME, AGAINST THE RULES
. W
E UNDERSTAND, YOU AND
I,
THAT RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN
. B
UT YOUR FORM OF ADDRESS DOES NOT QUITE PLEASE ME
. L
ET US PROLONG THE CONVERSATION, AND
I
WILL EDUCATE YOU
. E
TERNALLY, FOR A BEGINNING
.

Hess did not answer. Instead, he howled like a wolf and charged blindly out of the Grand Circle, his head down, towards the altar. The Sabbath Goat opened Its great mouth and gulped him down like a fly.

T
HANK YOU FOR THE SACRIFICE
, It said thickly. A
NYONE ELSE
? T
HEN IT IS TIME
I
LEFT
.

‘Stand to, stupid and disobedient!’ Father Domenico’s voice rang out from Baines’s right side. A cloth fluttered out of the monk’s circle on to the floor. ‘Behold thy confusion, if thou be disobedient! Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brought into thy presence!’

F
UNNY LITTLE MONK
, I
WAS NEVER IN THAT BOTTLE
!

‘Hush and be still, fallen star. Behold in me the person of the Exorcist, who is called O
CTINIMOES
, in the midst of delusion armed by the Lord God and fearless. I am thy master, in the name of the Lord B
ATHAL
, rushing upon A
BRAC
, A
BEOR
, coming upon B
EROR
!’

The Sabbath Goat looked down upon Father Domenico almost kindly. His face red, Father Domenico reached into his robes and brought out a crucifix, which he thrust towards the altar like a sword.