The Remnant (16 page)

"And the groom?" he inquired.

Jeffords nodded into the corner where several
more men stood chattering and sipping water dipped from a golden
punch bowl. Not one of them was under fifty. The groom had little
hair on top of his knobby head but eyebrows as grizzly as cactus
thorns. But like the rest his eyes shone with the light of the
Lord, and when he glanced at Rendt, Rendt smiled and nodded
back.

"
He
looks ready," he said.

Jeffords laughed. "Elias has enunciated his
love for fair Brenda since she was ten. How could I continue to
deny him?"

"You couldn’t of course."

A younger man wearing a matching black suit
hurried up to Jeffords and whispered in his ear. Jeffords frowned,
sipping his water thoughtfully, still studying the groom.

"Well?" said Rendt at last.

Jeffords sighed. "It seems Brenda was not
completely convinced of the correctness of this marriage."

"She’s still refusing?"

The Prophet nibbled his lip thoughtfully.
"The women with her allowed her to use the bathroom alone. She is
no longer with us."

Rendt blinked. There was no mistaking the
Prophet’s message. Brenda had not escaped. The lower floor
bathrooms had no windows.

"In my house?" he whispered. "She did this in
my house?"

Jeffords nodded. "Evidently she had secreted
a razor on her person. I must inform the groom."

Rendt was livid. If the women guarding the
bride had been his own wives he would have been hard pressed not to
kill them. As it was, if his rage did not cool by the time he met
with any of them he might still do them irreparable damage. He
willed himself not to allow that to happen, not that he cared a
whit for their pain, but rage was a weapon he could use to better
effect elsewhere. Still embarrassment colored his face and
tightened his throat. His teeth ground like millstones, and his
lips whitened, but he forced himself to follow the Prophet over to
Brother Elias to offer his sympathy. The old man was crushed.

"How could this happen?" he moaned, deepening
Rendt’s discomfort. "She was so sweet, so young, so ripe."

The Prophet nodded understanding, resting a
hand upon the old man’s forehead and blessing him.

"I will bring you another," promised Rendt.
"Within the week."

Elias’ eyes searched Rendt’s. "A week?"

"I swear it."

Elias sighed, straightening himself. "All
right, then. I suppose no harm is done."

Rendt breathed a silent sigh of relief, and a
little of the sanguinity left his cheeks. He might salvage his
reputation after all.

"But who?" asked Elias. "All the eligible
young girls are promised at the moment."

Jeffords looked to Rendt.

"I know of one," said Rendt.

"Not here," argued Elias.

"No," said Rendt. "She is far away, but I
will bring her to you. She is only fourteen. Dark hair with
brilliant blue eyes."

Leaving the old man with a smile on his face
Jeffords led Rendt away into a corner as the guests milled and
began to filter out.

"Why did you promise him that?" asked the
Prophet.

"Because his loss occurred in my house, and
because I can deliver."

"You’re thinking of the Veras girl," said
Jeffords, frowning. "I wish to speak to you about that."

Rendt nodded. "Leave it to me."

But he could see that the Prophet was not
convinced, and the man’s uncertainty shook Rendt. Always he had
been the Prophet’s right hand. Was he losing the man’s trust?

When all the shaken wedding guests had
finally left Rendt hurried down a long corridor, lined with more
dark paneling and floored with Italian tile, to his study where he
slipped through the secret entrance to the Temple. Regardless of
what might occur in the world of men above ground there was a world
of God that took precedence below. It would not be polite nor
respectful to keep the new recruits waiting for their endowment
ceremony any longer.

Frederick’s father had constructed the giant
house almost as an afterthought above the temple he designed for
the basement. Inside that inner sanctum were diverse rooms, all
extravagantly furnished with different marbles on the floor and
ceramic mosaics and frescoes on the walls. Each room served a
specific purpose, and the ceremonies required numerous previously
endowed Mormons because-unlike the LDS-the NLDS had never presented
movies
as part of the ritual
.
The fact that the
Mormons
of Salt Lake did so today was just one more tidbit
of evidence that there was rot within the original church that
could never be weeded out.

In the locker room he nodded at several other
officiators-
all male, of course-and then passed into his own
private space. He hung his clothes in the closet and removed his
garment. Then he quickly climbed into a sack-like, white cotton
robe called a
shield
. Being nude made him feel unclean, as
though the world itself were exhaling verminous breath against his
purified skin. Even the shield did not grant him the feeling of
protection he received from his sacred garment, but it was required
for the anointing that he wear the robe and nothing more. He
carried a new under garment with him back into the outer locker
room where he found five other men all similarly dressed and
accoutered.

This was a very special day. Never in one
ceremony had eleven Angels been endowed before, but the world was
changing as the End Times neared. And Rendt meant to see that in
the future his Angels gained status within the NLDS and California
City that Angels had either been denied or had eschewed in the
past. Having such an army served two purposes. It assured the
protection of the Prophet and of the faith, and-since Angels were
sworn to celibacy until Rendt or the Prophet granted them passage
to the next level-it took a large portion of the burden off the
local breeding stock. Every Angel had Rendt’s personal promise that
in the future
they
would be on the receiving end of the
youngest and most nubile brides, but not until such time as they
had earned their passage. They were the foundation of what
Frederick visualized as the new NLDS.

Four of the officiators took up stations in
small booths cut into the granite of the outer wall of the
foundation where they stood like living icons, awaiting their
patrons.
Each of the alcoves could be hidden from view by a
heavy muslin drape. Within a few minutes a robed young man was led
to every booth by one remaining officiator. There the drape was
closed, and the patron stood in front of another officiator who lay
his hand upon the patron and pronounced that in the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, this man gave his soul to
God. The officiator then took a wet towel and raising the patron’s
shield
,
ritually washed and blessed the patron’s head, eyes,
nose, neck, shoulders, arms, loins, legs, and feet. Then the same
ritual was repeated as each area was anointed with consecrated
olive oil.

Finally each of the officiators took the
sacred garment that the patron carried on their arm and helped them
into it, instructing them that these symbolized the
coat of
skins
that God had given to Adam and to Eve to cover their
nakedness, and that they were garments of the holy priesthood and
would be a shield and a protection against the power of the
destroyer until they had finished their work here on earth. They
also pointed out the emblems sewn over the right knee, the navel,
and over each nipple. The right breast emblem looked like a
carpenter’s square and represented ‘exactness and honor’. Over the
left breast was a compass for an ‘undeviating course leading to
eternal life’. The mark at the navel represented ‘the need of
constant nourishment to body and spirit’, and the one at the knee
suggested ‘that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess
that Jesus is the Christ’.

At this point each of the patrons was given a
new name, a password into the later ceremony. Frederick leaned
close to the ear of the rather chubby young man in front of him,
and whispered
Isaiah
.

"Do not forget," he said, grasping the man’s
shoulders. "You will need this name to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven."

The man nodded, the light of holy passion
blazing in his beady brown eyes.

Each of the patrons was then led away to be
dressed in simple white suits, this time wearing their sacred
garments beneath. They would all meet again in the auditorium for
the continuation of their transformation from good Mormons into
Angels.

Snakes of reflected candlelight slithered
across the mosaics, as albinic, bent-shouldered beasts trudged
along to some unheard call; the initiates and officiators-now clad
in white suits-plodding silently through Rendt’s troglodytic realm.
Clutching small hats that resembled white chefs’ caps, they
gathered in the small auditorium the size of a large study. The
initiates also carried green aprons embroidered with a leaf motif,
and another
robe,
this time a long, pleated, toga-like cloth
to be draped over one shoulder and cinched with a white sash that
was tied at the side.

Frederick Rendt stood at the front of the
group explaining that the Endowment was a dramatization of
everything from Creation to the Fall of Adam, the expulsion from
the Garden, and God's sending to humanity the message of salvation
by means of the messengers Peter, James, and John. The initiates
were to don different pieces of the articles of clothing at each
station where the particular accouterment was applicable.
Immediately after the Fall they would put on the green apron. The
other items symbolized God’s gift of the priesthood to man. Each of
the men accepting the Endowment had been through a similar ceremony
and understood its significance just as did all endowed Mormons.
But the explanation was as much a part of the ceremony as any of
the rituals, and a new endowment was called for at the initiation
of any Angel.

Rendt-rather than taking part in the
dramatizations-mingled, following different initiates as they
passed through each of the specific rooms, stopping to admire the
candle-gilded murals on the walls of each, although he had seen
them countless times. The creation was presented in the Creation
Room, the Adam and Eve story in the Garden Room, man's condition
after the fall and his temptations by false doctrine in the Lone
and Dreary World Room, and, after mankind receives the True Gospel,
in the Telestial Room, from which passage through the Veil of the
temple lead to the Celestial Room where Heaven was revealed in all
its glory, rising above a sunset resplendent with a king’s ransom
of rubies inset into the base of the wall itself.

Rendt reveled in the fullness, quite certain
that there was no other temple like his anywhere in the world.
Every time he passed through the incense scented rooms he was
gladdened that his father had removed himself from that iniquitous
cult in Salt Lake and followed the real Prophet of God and the New
Latter Day Saints.

He listened as the last of the rites were
performed, the initiates and their officiators shuffling past him
back to the auditorium. He climbed to the podium again, bowed his
head and offered a heartfelt thanks for the gift of these righteous
men’s souls in the battle against Satan.

Then he raised one hand and made a slashing
motion across his throat. All eleven initiates did the same.

"May I rot in the fires of Hell if I ever
divulge what was said or done here today," said Rendt, smiling as
the initiates echoed the final words of the Endowment that the
apostate LDS no longer followed. Then he added, "I devote my life
and my eternal soul to the NLDS Church, and to the Avenging Angels
who are the sword of that church. So help me God."

And with that he raised both hands in a
benediction, and the initiates and officiators filed away without
another word. He stood there in the room alone, breathing in the
epic sense of it. He had created eleven Angels in one rite.
Although they still required much in the way of training, these
were men who would lay down their life for him or for the church at
a motion of his hand. He stepped down from the podium realizing
just how exhausted he was. The trip, the girl’s suicide, and then
the long ceremony, the excitement, had totally drained him, but it
was in balance a good feeling.

The shadowy figure of the Prophet stepped
through the doorway, and Rendt faced the man.

"How long have you been here?" he asked,
conversationally.

"The end of the ceremony, then your
blessing."

Rendt nodded, smiling. "Eleven. Can you
believe it?"

Jeffords shook his head. "What do you intend
to do with them?"

"What they have always done. They are the
sword of the faith. The weapon of righteousness. They are your
warriors."

"I don’t think the church needs warriors any
more."

Rendt frowned. "It has always needed
warriors."

"This... thing with the Brethren, Frederick,
it’s grown wearisome."

"There was work for us before them. There
will be more work after them. Sinners multiply like lice."

Jeffords sighed loudly. "Frederick, times
change."

"Did you come here to tell me that?"

"I came here to tell you that I have prayed
upon the matter, and I have had a revelation. The church wants
nothing to do with any more killings. I wish you to retire the
Angels."

"Retire them? How can you possibly say that
to me?"

"I remind you that I am your Prophet."

"The Brethren are apostates. They would
bedevil us, drive us underground. The worst of them are thieves.
They stole-"

"They stole something that we ourselves
stole. That your father’s Angels stole. It is worthless to them now
as it is to us. Our
need
for it is the only thing that
grants it worth."