Mad Gods - Predatory Ethics: Book I (8 page)

The pain, inflicted by the munching little land fish,
was only part of the fuel being used to usher in the shape, whose outline was
beginning to form in the center of the pentagram. The true nourishment that the
brute needed was the fear, pain and torment that the rest of the captive
assembly released. They were reminded that this agony would continue for the
rest of their lives and, if Balzeer so desired, eternity.

The shape was a behemoth, its sloping shoulders
blocking out the candlelight in the room. Tufts of hair spiked out from
shoulders, as wide as the athlete, who had earlier faced Balzeer, was tall. The
expected horns grew out and up from just above glowing, red eyes. The eyes
shone as though they had already materialized, waiting for the rest of the body
to catch up.

Tree trunk arms held up an overwhelmingly large upper
body, which bulged and writhed with shackled power. More tufts of hair covered
the hands, from the knuckles of the fingers, traveling up the forearms, all
along the shoulders, and disappearing behind the head. Slobber shone in the
candlelight, dripping off frog jowls that hung forward over serrated teeth. The
mouth was ajar and spanned the entire width of the head, disappearing well
behind the ears. The creature’s legs were bowed, supporting the massive upper
weight. It appeared as though they did not quite belong, an after-thought to
the rest of the hulking shape.

“You are the Keeper of Shrouds? You’re barely an
infant. Look at you. You’re not even mature enough to form a suitably
impressive form,” Balzeer spit out in contempt. “Do you know to whose summons
you were sent? I hold the six marks on my body. You can feel them as I speak to
you.”

The glowing eyes dimmed as they darted to six points
on Balzeer’s body. For milliseconds, they rested on his shoulders, his hips,
his groin and the middle of his chest.

“You are as you say. What do you command of me?” The
demon’s voice rumbled like thunder, and some of the glass in the room vibrated,
producing peels of sharp noise.

“Begin by stopping with the parlor tricks. If they
were done with enough skill, I would let you continue, but I tire of your
half-assed job. So, show your true self and speak with your true voice. This, I
command.”

A grimace crossed the demon’s face. It drew back from
its accuser and winced, as if struck. It bowed its head in obedience and set
its jaw in a further grimace, a pout deep enough to reach the bull neck it had
chosen.

From the tip of the horns, eight feet high, a
contraction began. Rippling covered every extremity moving inwards and
downwards. The frog face, stooped shoulders, tufted arms, hands and bowed legs
all agitated in the air, until a standing three-month-old baby replaced them.
It was bald, like its interrogator, but maintained the same pout, as that of
its earlier manifestation. However, the black eyes were not the same, and
concealed a watchful zeal for revenge which had not been present in the red
coals of the invented demon.

“As you commanded.” The voice was also that of a
child, but sounded obscene. Vocal chords, lips, tongue and gums, which should
not have been able to pronounce anything other than cries and gurgles, now
spoke. “What is it you seek?”

“The signs for the one we all await have stopped and
I want to know why. I want to know everything.” Balzeer’s earlier contempt had
faded and was replaced by a wary respect. Only the most volatile of demons were
given forms of innocence. Their forms were an insult from their masters, in
order to keep them at the height of irritation and subservient.

“It is not known. We are also very dismayed at this
alteration of prophecy. Even our own divinations reveal nothing of his
whereabouts.”

“That is not acceptable!!” Despite his earlier
wariness, Balzeer’s slippery control of his temper disappeared. “I am charged
with bringing this world to a point where His only son can come and prepare it
for His kingdom, and I hear this?!!” His voice began to break as it reached a
higher register. “A mere Shroud Keeper is withholding divinations from me?!!!
Be gone!!! Go back to your pit and send me your manager, you filthy little
speck!!”

At his utterance, the demon was replaced by a thin
man with cloven feet. He shifted from foot to foot with agitated restraint.

“What is your displeasure, Supreme Tribunal?” Like
any competent manager, the satyr set Balzeer at ease with his manner and words.

“Your Shroud Keeper is not giving me what I require
to complete my task.” The answer was clipped.

“We shall give you all that we have to give, temporal
lord. Do you require another Shroud Keeper?” He offered everything, held
nothing back.

“No, the change would take too long.” Balzeer’s
responses were still terse.

“What is your will for this displeasure?”

“I’ll leave it up to you.” The words were an afterthought.

The baby demon returned, but now shorter, lacking any
lower limbs. He could not stand, yet he did not bleed from the stubs, which
looked like a pair of sliced hams.

“Now, you insolent speck, what do the divinations
you’ve mentioned reveal?” Balzeer’s instincts told him that there was something
there, but that he would have to pick it out.

“Of late, there have been complete gaps around the
Redeemer.”

“You are still holding back, Keeper, and you still
have two limbs.” He needed to coax out the information.

“His birth is unique, an event that could not be
hidden from our eyes, anywhere in the world. We will find him.”

“It’s like he’s being hidden, despite our best
efforts,” Balzeer muttered under his breath as he paced before the segmented
baby.

“And have any of the Seekers caught any sign?”
Balzeer stopped; a few short seconds passed and he slowly turned to press his
question.

“There have been Seekers, but there is more to the
emptiness of our divinations. Since he is invisible outside the use of Seekers,
we have concluded that He is outside of reality.”

“How is that possible?” This was what Balzeer wanted
— insight, which no one on earth could’ve given.

“You have often bent reality to your whims, lord. It
is possible, but as you know, quite difficult. The Seekers, who were
dispatched, are searching for anything that can be physically seen, but has no
psychic register, no actual earthly aura.” Balzeer had only heard of this being
done by the most gifted of his masters — the men and women, from the
thirteen families, who used reality and fashioned history.

“Does such a thing exist on earth? I have read and
heard about it, but have never actually seen it.” He would have to primarily
rely on the use of Seekers. Increasingly, what Balzeer believed was for the
best interest of the Luciferians, conflicted with the orders he received from
the Great Families.

“Use whatever means, any and all at your disposal.
Use any thought of mortals, drifting to sin. The Redeemer should be seen
through anything. He cannot be invisible. He should be a mountain among
valleys.” Using his links in hell would be paramount in this case. The
netherworld paralleled our own, and for every man, woman or child on earth,
there was an equal darkness.

“Mortals’ sinful thoughts. What do you mean? How do
we use them?”

“For every mortal on earth, there is a darkness in
hell, which makes the sin appear easy, inducing the person to commit the sin.”
Everyone has their own darkness waiting for them and cajoling, manipulating and
inching their earthly selves closer to a desired union. “In order to do this,
we must monitor their thoughts. If they see any sign of our Redeemer, then it
will register, maybe not with them, but surely with us. To you, especially.”
 

“Yes, we shall do this, lord.”

“Rather, you do this. I want this information
accessible only to me. I want to see any and all mention of our Sire.” In the
Redeemer’s case, hell would come to him; he was, quite literally, Hell on
Earth.

- Zealots -

TIME: AUGUST 15TH, 1961. ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

Kosta sat at a
kafenion
table in the heart of the ancient Soma
district. For centuries, it was believed that it housed a vast complex of
buildings, surrounding the tomb of the city’s founder, Alexander the Great.
Now, it used the name and fame of the renowned conqueror as barter for tourists
and currency. Kosta loved its open swagger and bold ambition to take as much
money as possible from the visitors that sought enlightenment from its ancient
ruins. It was a contrast from
Kostadinoupoli
,
because it held no longed-for history. Nobody Kosta even knew, or read about,
wished for the times of Alexander, mostly because nobody remembered them. There
was no
monaxia
for Alexandria. It wasn’t even in Europe.

In the noonday sun he sat in the shade of a Cinzano umbrella
and read a codex, wrapped up in the newspaper of the day. If someone watched
him closely, it would’ve been obvious he wasn’t reading the paper.
 
Nobody cared or took any notice. He was
part of the furniture: a middle-aged, Mediterranean man who wiled away his days
at an outdoor tavern,
kafenion
.
 
He was only one of thousands, but the
only one who read the
Idammah-Gan
Codex
.

He read it there, because it was the only safe place
to do so. It had to be by the light of the sun, in daylight. No candle, electric
or fire light could keep the shadows inherent within the stygian ink of the
book, sentenced there. In the day, the black things that made the letters and
words were contained and seen, understood, without observation bringing them to
life. Out of the sun’s light they could take hold of imagination and not let go
until it turned to madness.

Kosta knew the dangers but didn’t know that any
reading modified the final incarnation of the main character. His observation
in the light of day had brought it out of the darkness in which it had been
intended to grow.

TIME: AUGUST 15th, 1961. SECRET ARCHIVES, VAULT 27,
SUB-BASEMENT 6, VATICAN

Despite rubber soles the young man wore, his polished
shoes still snapped sharply on the metal stairs. He also wore the simple black
robe of a parish priest, to be comfortable working with the heavy old volumes
he lay down in front of his master’s mounting material. A scribbled note, held
at the end of a heavily knuckled hand, reached above the rising mound of old
texts and shook. No word was uttered as it continued to quiver, until removed
and taken back to rows of yet untouched books. The snap of shoes grew fainter
and more distant from the straining, weighed-down table.

Tino Quentin sat very straight in his chair. He glanced
through pages, which would have been the envy of any museum. Each volume he
picked up, and then deposited, he treated with respect, but not reverence. He
was a practical man who would not mistreat his tools, but would not think more
of them than he would a serviceable hammer. Their worldly value was secondary
to their contents.

At present, he searched through a ninth-century text,
which was one of the first codices written by an Irish monk named Thomas. It
held no title, just the volume number, six. Much of the information, for which
Seneschal Quentin searched, was in such unnamed texts. By themselves, the
passages he periodically copied meant nothing. Collectively, they spoke of
prophecies that would frighten most adults. Some might even hazard a nervous
snicker, but one look at his austere face would stop any intended ridicule.

Tino Quentin did not joke. He did not even have
pastimes. If he was not actively completing his duties, he took care of bodily
needs — sleeping, eating and eventual evacuation. There was no room for
entertainment in Quentin’s life. He was humorless, direct and precise.

As a child, he had briefly thought of becoming a
police officer or a judge, but thought the occupations limiting. He had also
considered the military, but knew that would limit his dedication to doing the
right thing. The priesthood seemed the correct choice.
 
Yet one day, just before he took final
vows, he was given the choice to serve Jesus by saving souls, or by saving the
world. On the eve of induction into the Dominican Order, this choice was
presented by a severe, wiry priest named Jonathan Harker.

Father Harker also inducted some of his classmates,
but chose to fully explain himself to Tino. The order to which the mysterious
father belonged took the task of safeguarding the world very seriously. They
combed through the church’s records and interpreted information they then acted
upon, without hesitation. In their service, Tino would bring God’s just wrath
to his most ancient of foes. Tino accepted this without question. He never
doubted the temporal presence of evil and wanted to fight it. The task
perfectly suited his nature.

In addition to his further, deeper instruction in the
unknown mysteries of the Catholic Church, he was trained in, what could only be
described as, covert operations. He learned to use most mundane objects as
weapons and dispose of anyone he deemed worth such attention. Some intelligence
services had the license to kill and the Templars had carte blanche.