The Last Judgement

by The Last Judgement (retail) (epub)

The last admission had Wilcox smiling proudly at his men’s ingenuity, but he now gestured for silence. ‘Either way, after the debacle of Macuira National Park, we appeared finished, with barely the manpower or resources to chase any real ambition. And I myself was trapped in this ragged and useless body you see before you.’ His hands began to clench with anger, but then they relaxed and he placed them on his lap and gently stroked the tartan blanket laid across his lap. ‘But I was alive still and not without purpose, because you see, Alex, there was one thing you never did understand and neither did the Templars, and it is that we never put all our eggs in one basket. We had one final card to play, one more trick up our sleeve, and it has proven in such a short time to be the most potent of all… Belief.’

  Harker was now frowning because, as he had discovered time and time again, getting a straight answer out of Wilcox was near impossible. The man was like some medieval storyteller who went from village to village, spinning a tale and drawing it out in the hope of getting a meal in payment. A raconteur of the very worst kind…an annoying one.

  ‘Belief has the power to make men do things they never would have dreamt of, good and bad alike, but the most useful part is that it can be manipulated and moulded to another’s will.’

  He raised his hand and limply pointed it in the direction of the line of fallen bodies lying collapsed on top of one another. ‘Hundreds of years ago when science was still in its infancy and the world still offered the lure of exploration and fresh knowledge, these families were brought together by a single common purpose… Money. They bestowed upon themselves the name of the enlightened ones, bloody corny, if you ask me, but then power and money weren’t and never will be a substitute for taste. Many in this “club” were born from such groups as freemasons, merchants and bankers, all of them bonded together by wealth. The archaic practices of paganism and the dark arts were still seen by them as valid tools in a world that, although modernizing rapidly, still held many unknowns. In their minds the concept of Shangri-La and the fountain of youth were very real possibilities and, over time, this combined with a shunning of the usual dogmatic catholic practices of the time and instead veered towards the darker side of human nature. Elements of Satanism and witchcraft became incorporated and, over the generations, intertwined with their beliefs so that they considered themselves special above all others. They embraced many ideas that were deemed an offense to practices of the norm, and in doing so they came to believe that they truly were in name and by nature the enlightened ones. They were the holders of truth while everyone else was plain wrong. They were special. Was it simply human vanity or just their increasing wealth that reinforced this belief that they were all-knowing, and above everyone else? It is debatable, indeed, but in truth it was mixture of the two. It is curious yet understandable that people who are born into wealth and positions of power sometimes believe that their very existence is somehow a divine right, theirs a destiny that mere mortals can never hope to attain.’

  Winters sucked up a pool of saliva from inside his mouth and spat it in the direction of the bodies. ‘Idiots, the lot of them, but useful nonetheless. The Magi crossed paths with this enlightened group many times over the centuries, and friendships were forged, trust gained, because people of such huge financial resources should never be overlooked, and you never know what the future will bring. To be fair, they never held any real interest for the Magi…that is until six months ago, when our own family was brought to ruin.’

  Wilcox shot Harker a dirty look and then, with his hands clasped, he began to smile. ‘I became extremely interested in them after that. You see, the enlightened ones’ original mandate to discover a cure for death was over the years added to by successive generations. Its original members had pooled their resources and scoured the world for anything that might aid them in this endeavour. There are tales of the expeditions they financed to search for the fountain of youth amongst other quests, interesting stories of exploration and courage, but ultimately proving useless. That is until they heard of the Codex Gigas and the mystery pertaining to the missing pages – pages that many believed were written by the Devil himself, and contained knowledge of how to achieve everlasting life. And so the obsession began. Funded by the group, paid agents tracked and searched for any information as to the pages’ scattered locations. And, as generations passed and another piece of the jigsaw was found, it was delegated to the next generation to continue the search. I like to think of it as a sort of Chinese whispers that, although beginning with a rational idea, then becomes distorted over time and culminates in something far different from what was originally articulated. It’s a shame really, because I doubt that their forefathers’ – Wilcox motioned towards the robed corpses – ‘would even have recognized the pathetic bunch of sycophantic Satan-lovers their great-grandchildren had become. Rich heirs and heiresses saddled and indoctrinated with a belief that the Dark Lord would rise up again and make them immortal, simply because they or their bloodlines were special above all others. They were easily manipulated, though, and that’s what I liked about them.’

  The laborious history lesson that Wilcox was delivering, although a fascinating insight into how dogma could corrupt over time, was beginning to prove frustrating to Harker and he let out an agitated sigh. ‘John, with respect, what has this got to do with any of the supernatural tragedies I’ve witnessed?’

  ‘Shut up and show some respect, Alex,’ Wilcox scowled, ‘and you can call me Jacob or Mr Winters from now on. John Wilcox is no more, and only I remain.’

  ‘John, Jacob…Barry! Whatever. What the hell has this got to do with me and my friends?’

  Without direction from Wilcox, Vlad stepped over and landed a solid punch to Harker’s ribs. ‘Listen and learn, you idiot. Don’t make me cut you.’

  Harker’s pained groan had Wilcox smiling and, without any further berating, and clearly satisfied the blow had done its job, he continued with his account. ‘When I told you back at Macuira National Park that I was happy to live out my life underground so as to ensure my children saw the new world we had created, you didn’t really believe me, did you? Do you honestly think we would go to all the trouble, time and effort of creating and perfecting HAARP, a weather machine with the ability to reshape the world, with me at its head, without my being able to experience and enjoy it for myself?’

  Wilcox began to laugh but he soon succumbed to a bout of coughing, and as the old man struggled to gain control of his lungs, Harker looked on in fascination. Fascination not because it completely made sense that Wilcox was so self-serving, but rather that Harker had never questioned it in the first place. John Wilcox was a narcissistic psychopath with zero empathy, and the idea of him giving his life for a greater cause just didn’t make sense. It was bloody obvious.

  ‘You idiot,’ Wilcox rasped as he regained his composure. ‘The whole point was so I could be there, so that I would be the one to harness the shackles of what was left of humanity and guide it towards the world it should now become… My world.’

  Vlad suddenly began to look irritated but, on seeing Harker notice his change of expression, the man quickly returned to his previous impassive look as Wilcox explained further.

  ‘You actually believed that it was our ability to clone Christ which motivated us to set into motion our plan, didn’t you? Would it surprise you to learn that procedure was one of the first things we perfected, followed by the technology of HAARP? For we would not have even contemplated beginning on such a path without first developing the most important cog of all.’

  Wilcox waved a hand and Vlad reached into his pocket and produced a thin tube containing a milky-looking substance, which he proudly held up before Harker.

  ‘Life,’ Winters declared pompously as Vlad placed the vial into his waiting hands. ‘Regeneration, to be more accurate. A biological substance that not only repairs but regenerates the tissues, the organs at the cellular level.’

  Harker stood dumbfounded and just stared at the white liq
uid as Wilcox shook it in delight.

  ‘I once told you, Alex, how we spent tens of billions on cloning development, but only a fraction of it went to that particular project. The vast bulk of it went to this.’

  ‘How…? I mean the reality of such a thing must be decades away, if not longer,’ Harker uttered in disbelief, now entertaining the idea that this was yet another smoke-and-mirrors trick that the Magi so loved to pull.

  ‘Ahead of its time, yes, but impossible, no. Don’t misunderstand me, for the technology and research that went into this was triple, even quadruple, the annual GDP of some countries, but I can assure you it is as genuine a compound as anything you or I are made up of.’

  Wilcox passed the small vial back to Vlad and then, by his own effort, wheeled himself closer to Harker. ‘I am and always have been a believer in the impossible being made possible and, although I freely admit the research and development behind this stuff is staggering, it must be placed in context. Decades ago, the Magi formed a plan to infiltrate as many pharmaceutical and medical research and development institutions as possible. All over the world we targeted companies with an interest in the biological nature of things, and we have since financed and used our resources to overcome any political and judicial issues along the way, but we never sought to control them. As shareholders we have made huge profits from these ventures, but the political branch of the Magi has been extremely successful in getting our own men onto the boards of these companies. Once this was achieved, we set up our own research and development company…off the books of course, and based in countries with little or no interest in anything else but cash. And then we siphoned off whatever data we needed. We had the time, the research data, the professionals and a lot of money all focused towards a single goal – the one you see in that vial. We also had something that put us decades and decades beyond any other legitimate company or pharmaceutical institution on the planet. Namely a resource without which we could never have managed such a feat.’

  Harker groaned because he knew where this was leading even as Wilcox explained further. ‘Do you know how the Nazis were able to make such gigantic leaps forward in medicines, drugs and anything else they cared to research? Human testing. They had at their disposal thousands of people – millions had they wanted them – on whom to test anything they wished. There were no test trials undertaken on lower-form animals, or moral standards committees to tell them what they could and could not do. No, they just did it, and whether it took a hundred patients or a thousand, it didn’t matter. They could do whatever it took to achieve their scientific goals and they did so. It’s one of the reasons their work was so sought after by the Allies at the end of World War II. Their advances were literally decades ahead.’

  Wilcox wore a grizzled look of severity as he nodded his head slowly. ‘We aimed towards one single goal without any of the constraints the outside world would normally impose on such a scientific venture, and because of that we succeeded in achieving the impossible.’

  Harker was still marvelling over the possibilities of this designed compound– as well as sickened at the methods of attaining it – because what the Magi had created was nothing short of a miracle…the miracle. In all of human history there has been a single dream that has been pursued, wished and prayed for at one time or another by every soul to ever grace the planet’s surface – the one of everlasting life – and now this little vial held the hopes and dreams of billions. And it was in the hands of a total psychopath with empathy for just one person and one person only… Himself.

  ‘Do you know the motto of the SAS, Alex?’ Wilcox continued.

  Harker was transfixed by the small vial still being held in Vlad’s hand but he managed a nod. ‘Who dares, wins.’

  ‘Exactly, he who dares, wins. And the Magi dared and the Magi won, but unfortunately the research in its current form only allows for a certain amount of regeneration. Take that compound within twenty-four hours and there is a good chance the body will heal perfectly, but when you allow for decomposition, then the results are…well, mixed. I myself did not receive the treatment for over thirty-six hours and as you can see its effects were…limited.’

  Harker’s nerves were tingling as he began to understand, in part, all the things he had witnessed over the past few days. ‘So the priests back at the cemetery were too far gone to make a full recovery, then?’

  ‘Not at all. Their appearance was just as we intended.’

  ‘And the cardinal locked in the basement of the Vatican?’

  ‘Ah, now that was more of an atonement. It had no other purpose really.’

  ‘Atonement,’ Harker gasped, still confused.

  ‘That man almost cost me the papacy back when I was seeking to be elected as pontiff. Jumped-up little shit never trusted me, and therefore tried everything he could to stop me. It only seemed fitting that he was changed into the very thing that must have horrified him to the core: a demon, a servant of the Devil. And with a tinkering of our compound, it worked extremely well. I only wish he could have known it was me who arranged it, but we cannot have it all, can we?’

  Everything Harker was hearing made little or no sense as yet apart from that crazy plan for revenge, which was classic Wilcox, but why would anyone spend billions of dollars and precious remaining resources on a simple revenge scheme? ‘So you’re saying that all this time and effort was just a way of getting back at somebody? Christ, Wilcox, why not just have the man killed? And the others…? And why even bother dragging me into all this?’

  Harker’s questions elicited an annoyed grunt from Vlad, who was now staring angrily at Wilcox.

  ‘God, Alex, you sound just like Vlad here. Why cause complications? Why take the chance?’ Wilcox snarled and once more turned his attention to the bloodied corpses. ‘They were but a means to an end. You and those pious Templar idiots brought the Magi to its knees. It pains me to say that but it is true. When I reawoke in this husk of a body, we as an organization had nothing. The money was confiscated, and with it our power, influence and any chance that we would survive. Can you imagine the Magi going from strength to strength for over two thousand years only to be obliterated in little more than the blink of an eye? Preposterous. I could never let that happen, so what was there to do? Well, you work with what you have and, aside from this island as the Magi’s final place of refuge, a smattering of connections and Vlad’s band of assassins, which have proved crucial by the way, we only had this – our regeneration treatment. But how to use it?’

  Wilcox raised his eyebrows and another devious smile crept across his face as he motioned to the dead bodies one final time. ‘That is where they came in, a chance to prey upon their idiotic notions of Satanic worship and the Devil’s dark gift of everlasting life. I knew of their obsession with the lost Codex pages, and their group had even managed to obtain one of them – which, I might add, was neither useful nor written by the Devil. Isn’t that so, Vlad?’

  ‘It was useless and written by the same piddling Benedictine monk who wrote the damn thing in the first place,’ Vlad explained with a sarcastic snort. ‘Something about the inner workings of their monastery, but the group believed it contained some hidden message, which of course it didn’t.’

  ‘You had some fun acquiring that one, didn’t you?’ Wilcox said enthusiastically as Vlad gave a smirk. ‘You managed to convince him to burn out his eyes with a hot poker, and all in the name of Satan and the need for a show of faith. Brilliant. He’s a very persuasive soul when he wants to be. The other pages, we forged. That text you heard Vlad reading was made up.’ He again glanced over at Vlad. ‘He can barely speak English, let alone the words from some ancient undecipherable text. But they believed it, and so all we had to do was convince them that their belief in the Codex, and everything that came with it, was genuine.’

  ‘The sacrifice at Spreepark,’ Harker spoke up, as the ritual he had witnessed at the abandoned amusement park now made sense.

  ‘Yes, although I will admit I
had not expected you to cause such trouble when I sent you there.’ Wilcox gave a solemn nod towards Vlad. ‘You were right about that one, for which I apologize. Still, we were able to snatch the resurrected man from outside the morgue, and those dead clods over there were in awe at his rebirth.’ He now gave a chuckle. ‘I even managed to spin them a line that you were after the pages because of your own desire to be immortal, which explanation they bought hook line and sinker. Now the priests in the cemetery involved nothing personal, but I needed our friends to believe that, although the Codex could bring them back from the dead, it would only bring back those deemed worthy, and so their bodies were left to decompose for a while before we administered the regenerative treatment. It needs some hours to take effect, which was more than enough time to get them buried before the show began. When you turned up, it only cemented the group’s concern that others were after the gift that they considered was by destiny rightfully theirs. It’s always the same when making a pitch – sell the sizzle and not the sausage. When a buyer sees others are interested, it only serves to encourage them further, and your antics made them even more determined than before.’

  Harker rubbed at his temples, feeling sickened by the heartless way Wilcox treated everyone else as a mere resource, and was completely uncaring about the degradation and pain he caused. ‘OK, John, I get it. This has been one long con job, but why?’

  ‘Because, my slow-witted friend, something of the magnitude of what we were offering would be a valuable thing to some. Some might even give everything they owned to gain such a prize…the prize of fulfilling the hopes and dreams of their ancestors. And those dead idiots there signed away half of their net worth earlier today in exchange for what they most seek…everlasting life.’

  ‘They don’t look very alive to me,’ Harker remarked.

  ‘Don’t knock it, Alex. They went to their deaths believing they would wake up to a new world and serving the master they all loved so much. That’s not a bad way to go, really.’