The Messiah Choice (1985) (32 page)

And Angelique, ignorant of all this, was on the crowded streets of San Francisco, frightened and alone.

It had been easy, up to now, to kid herself into thinking that perhaps her situation wasn't all that bad, that she could find and perhaps cope with a life for herself. Now, surrounded by flashing signs she couldn't read, people who totally ignored her and with whom she could not converse even to get simple directions, enclosed by a strange and spiritless shell of concrete and steel, she understood just how terrible her curse really was.

Everyone seemed her enemy, although she was indeed not only ignored but, after dark, wasn't even particularly odd looking or behaving by her own and others' standards. The sight of so many men being so openly affectionate with other men, and women with other women, shocked her.

She had been in a big city downtown only twice, and both times it had been Montreal, which at the time she had felt was bizarre and strange. Now here were men and women dressed in everything from faded jeans to flowing robes, some with shaved heads or bizarre haircuts, mixing in with, and being ignored by, the ordinary-looking folk of middle America.

She climbed to the top of one hill, hoping to spot the harbor, but the fog, while light, was definitely in and illuminated only up to the next hill. She stood there, feeling wet and chilled, and tried to decide what to do. Behind her she could hear a great many sirens and, looking back, saw police cars and ambulances heading to where she'd just come from.

In their eyes, she was now a murderess, and she knew it. She couldn't tell her side of the story, no matter whether it would make any difference. The four had not merely been dealt with, they had been butchered like steers in a slaughterhouse, and she knew that, given the same situation, she'd do it again without thinking.

She was perhaps a third the civilized human being she had been raised to be and two-thirds stone-age survivor. Worse, she knew that after the paralysis, the helplessness, the power-lessness of all those years, she enjoyed power and control— and the power and control that she had came from her Hapharsi self, a part that grew every time it was let out.

In the wheelchair, paralyzed and dependent, she had never really hated anyone, nor had she really blamed anyone. Now, however, looking at these apparently carefree people going about their lives, preoccupied with petty day-to-day problems or in search of a little pleasure as a release from that day to day existence, her envy knew no bounds. She hated them, hated them all.

She had never had a chance at what they took for granted, and even now, among them, she could not join in, could not participate.

She idly remembered that the horseless cars that went up and down hills went to the place where she wished to go. True, she didn't know if they all did, or whether
this
line did, but she followed the tracks anyway, down one hill and up the next. It was growing incredibly cool very rapidly, and she was unprepared for it. Still, atop the next hill she could smell the sea and feel the spirits of water and wind, and she knew that she was headed right.

A drunken man lurched out of a doorway and said something to her, coming very close and reaching out. She didn't know what he said or wanted, but she repressed a defensive instinct and merely traced a little sign with one finger. The drunk suddenly lost interest in her and just stood there looking confused, as if he couldn't remember what the hell he was doing there.

Her power and her defensive skills were the only armor she had to defend herself against the forces of civilization and she knew it. They were more than Maria had, it was true, but Maria now could step into the light, could make a phone call, take a cable car to the meeting place. To a large extent this was her element, and freed of the immediate threat she could do quite well on her own here.

The cable car tracks ended at a turntable in the middle of a hotel and light industrial area, not at the harbor, but that didn't bother her. She knew that the harbor could be only a few blocks further on in the same direction. She could hear, feel,
smell
it, now.

Thanks to a light drizzle and a moderate chilly wind off the water, Fisherman's Wharf wasn't as crowded with tourists and locals as it usually was, and the sidewalks and cobblestone areas were slippery, particularly to her bare, chilled feet. She spotted the spot by the sailing ship, but took a position across the street in the shelter of an archway leading back to a hotel and small arcade. It offered some slight relief from the wind and rain. She knew it might be a long wait, and she drew herself up as best she could and tried to think warm thoughts, although this would be balmy for this time of year in Quebec.

It was the waiting that really got to her, because it meant she could only brood about things. It wasn't really the people that she hated, it was herself, this existence, she knew. She wanted out.

She wanted it ended. She would even take the paralysis and the chair again, she thought darkly.

At least then her body couldn't feel the cold, the discomfort, nor ache for love and closeness.

When paralysed, at least she could
communicate,
and in that way she could participate to an extent in this mainstream of human affairs.

She had been wrong. It had not been a fair trade to her advantage. The Dark Man was indeed having a good laugh at this.

She couldn't even have let them kill her, and remove her from all this, for suicide was as repugnant to the Hapharsi as it was to she who had a Catholic upbringing, and she had been obligated in any event to protect Maria.

She waited only about an hour, but it seemed a lifetime, before a familiar car pulled into the pay lot at the Wharf and Greg MacDonald, wearing a raincoat, got out, paid the man, and walked over to the area by the old ship. She spotted him and ran to him, almost slipping once or twice, and when she reached him she flung her arms around him, and he looked down at her in sadness and hugged her back. It felt warm, and good. He led her back to the car and she got in, and found Maria sitting there in the back seat, looking nervous and ashamed.

Maria's emotions and thoughts were a confused unhappy mess. She had felt tremendous guilt when she panicked, and even more when she couldn't locate Angelique at all, but some of her fear inside was directed towards Angelique as well. She had seen her friend's butchery, and seen, far worse, the absolute glee with which her companion had done it, and at that moment she'd had a hard time distinguishing between Angelique and the Dark Man at the altar stone.

They rode back in a tense silence that could be cut with a knife, and Greg wasn't about to get himself involved. He'd heard Maria's account, of course, and blamed himself to a degree for leaving them too independent, but the damage was done now.

The house was ablaze with lights when they pulled up, and several cars and small vans were there, with the staff hurrying back and forth loading things into them.

"We're pulling out?" Maria asked him. "I mean—I thought the car wasn't traceable."

"It's not. Counterfeit plates that match a real registration in New York, car stolen off a used car lot in Dayton and repainted. It's the prints, Maria. Fingerprints in the car, maybe on the keys, you name it. Yours and Angelique's. They'll put it on the wire to Washington and it'll go via satellite.

SAINT will intercept the transmission, flag it, and know immediately where we are give or take fifty or a hundred miles. Local, state, federal, and company cops will be swarming over the whole region any time now."

"So where are we going this time?"

"We change cars here. That mini-van over there will have to do. Rook and Bishop are coming with us, so it'll be cozy. The weather's really bad all through the Sierras, so we'll have to move overland at least as far as Carson City. There's a private airstrip just east of there where we can get a small plane to fly us to the boondocks. You both get in over there. Your things, as much as we could manage, are already packed and in the van. Both of you go over and get in. We've got to move pretty quickly before they get bright and beat their roadblocks."

Maria turned to Angelique.
"We must leave this place. Tonight's deeds will draw the Dark Man
to us. We are to use that one over there. The two elders will accompany us. Come."

Angelique complied, feeling even worse about it all.

They sat in silence in the van for several minutes as bedlam continued all around them. Finally Angelique said. "
I
am sorry, daughter, that I shocked and offended you. There is a part of me that
I did not wish or desire that sometimes takes control."

Maria sighed, feeling even worse. The more she thought about it, the lousier and more confused she felt. What could she say? Damn you for keeping me from being gang raped and murdered?

What could she say, or do, or feel, when both love and hate were paired so directly in her and centered on a single individual?

The two elderly British lords were spry old cusses, walking and acting younger than many of the young people on the staff. Bishop Whitely now wore a black suit with reversed clerical collar and a black porkpie hat and looked for all the world less a retired bishop than an old Catholic parish priest in fine shape. Lord Frawley, on the other hand, now wore a tweed business suit and tie and wore a mackintosh over it as partial protection against the rain. He had an unlit curved pipe clenched between his teeth.

They got in, smiled, and took their own seats. Greg was last, bringing with him a long oblong wooden case. He put it on the front passenger's seat, which was vacant, and opened it, then took out what was inside. It was a gleaming weapon, a cross between a rifle and a machine gun, and he loaded a long clip underneath and then put it on the floor within easy reach, closed his door, started up the van, and backed out of the driveway.

"Oh, dear," Frawley remarked on seeing the weapon. "Do you really think you're going to need that?"

"The name's Bond," MacDonald cracked back. "James Bond. No, sir, I hope I don't have to use it on anyone, and particularly not on some dumb lawmen just doing their jobs and following orders, but I have to be willing to do it."

The van had Utah plates, and he'd picked up a license and registration for it noting the same state as residence. Forgeries, of course, but not phonies, which today's highway patrol could pick up through their computer network. There really was a van of this license and description registered to a real James V. Higgenthorpe of Salt Lake City, Utah. The computers would verify this and would not question such a registration. The computers would not, of course, check and discover that said van was parked in James V. Higgenthorpe's back yard at the time and that he was in fact at home.

MacDonald drove over to U.S. 101, then down to San Rafael and across the bridge to connect with Interstate 80 East. He kept a citizen's band radio on, but very low. It was crowded with jerks and lonesome truckers, but it would tell him if there was a backup or roadblock going up ahead.

"I had an attack of nerves driving past San Quentin Penitentiary back there," he told them, "but I feel a little better now."

"Indeed so," Lord Frawley responded. "This is going to be a close one. Poor things. Don't you ladies blame yourselves for this. Something was bound to crack sooner or later.''

Maria translated and Angelique gave a wan smile. It didn't really help to be absolved in a case like this.

Still, the further they got from San Francisco and the closer to Sacramento, the more they relaxed.

"I say, old boy, I think I've worked out the rest of their nasty little plot," said the Bishop almost casually.

"Huh? I'm all ears," MacDonald responded.

"It helped to get into their head, and also to get information on the type of cult Sir Reginald's brother had been involved in back home. What sort of beliefs and practices they had and so on.

Pretty unimaginative stuff, it turns out, centering on your basic Black Mass. Still, that was a key.

You know, of course, that the Black Mass is a regular mass turned inside out and upside down?

Even the cross is there, only inverted, and, of course, they pray to Satan. Cults like that tend to follow the game of opposites to extremes, and that gave me the link.''

"Yes, yes, go on," Frawley urged. "Do we always have to get a lesson in superstitious nonsense before you get to the point?"

"Yes, you do," replied the Bishop coolly. "Besides, what else have you got to do? At any rate, the Bible's none too specific on the nature of the Antichrist, which allows both sides a lot of latitude. The initial beast, Satan incarnate, is a water elemental—that is, it rises out of the water.

Nice touch for a computer atop a tiny island, eh? The second beast, though, our Antichrist, is an earth elemental, and that means human, since humans were made from the dust of the Earth. It supposedly has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. Since the lamb is a recognized symbol of Christ, it stands to reason that this person will be a sort of Christ-like figure, at least to the masses. Pure and without blemish and probably claiming to speak in God's name. The dragon, of course, is Satan, so we're really seeing someone who seems to be divine but is actually the commander of evil. Eventually, says their dogma, everyone will worship the beast under a brutal and absolute totalitarian dictatorship with the Antichrist as its leader, able to perform miracles to get the power and the following. The end result might be a lot of ravings or code to ancient churches as you will, but could also be taken as foretelling an atomic holocaust—and its terrible aftermath."

"So how does all this tie in with all of us?" Greg wanted to know.

"Well, think on it. They need someone who will serve and be obedient to the beast, yet be a human symbol to the world. This takes a great deal of power. This human must already occupy a place so exalted and be so well recognized that the face and identity will be known to all and they can get all the media coverage they want, and audiences with world leaders. Now, think again of the Black Mass, the opposites, and the requirement to already be in the center of worldwide wealth and power and you will see where they're going."