The Rising: Antichrist is Born / Before They Were Left Behind

by Tim LaHaye

  “We need to get her into delivery now anyway,” he said.

  Marilena was in the midst of painful contracting and pushing and wished Viv would settle in and hold her hand, coach her, help her breathe. But the woman was flitting here and there, incongruously perching the mouse cage atop a stainless-steel table, then drawing a circle on the floor around the bed, extending it to include two nurses and the doctor.

  “What the devil are you doing?” the doctor said, and Marilena nearly burst out laughing.

  “Don’t mind me,” Viv said. “It’s just part of our religion.”

  “What are you drawing?” one of the nurses said.

  “Mind your business,” Viv said, “not mine.”

  “That’s a pentagram, isn’t it? A Pythagorean pentagram. But what’s that round one?”

  “The circle,” Viv said. “From the Grimorium Verum.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The True Grimoire from the 1500s.”

  “What’s a grimoire?”

  “A manual for invoking—”

  “Honestly, Viv!” Marilena shouted. “You’re going to miss the baby!”

  “Not on your life,” Viv said, finally settling near the mouse.

  At nearly half past three in the morning, Marilena knew the time had come. Just when she thought she had no more strength left to push, a last effort made the doctor say, “There’s the head.”

  From the corner of her eye, Marilena saw Viv reach into the cage and struggle to corral the mouse. The woman chanted some incantation. Marilena was in no mind to concentrate, but she heard words or names like Chameron, Danochar, Peatham, and Lucifer. Finally, an Amém.

  “One more push,” the doctor said.

  Marilena cried out, feeling the child coming. She thrashed, jerking her head side to side, each swing bringing the swooning Viv Ivins into view. The woman held the squirming mouse firmly in one hand, and between her moans and shrieks Marilena heard the tiny squeaks of the panicked animal.

  In Viv’s other hand was a small, gleaming knife. As the baby slid from Marilena’s body into the doctor’s hands, Viv lifted the mouse over her head and deftly cut its throat.

  Marilena was sickened by the sound of its blood splashing to the floor, but that was quickly drowned out by the squalling of the baby.

  “His lungs are certainly fine!” the doctor hollered. “And I’ll be hanged if he’s not moving normally, all four limbs.”

  Viv grabbed the paper with which she had lined the cage, wrapped the limp animal, and shoved it back inside. As if she owned the place, she slipped out with it, and Marilena saw her through the window washing up at the doctor’s sink. When Viv returned, the cage was gone.

  “What are we naming this screamer?” a nurse said with a smile as the other nurse cleaned him.

  “Nicolae Carpathia,” Marilena said, panting, spelling it for her.

  “And a middle name?”

  “We had a list,” Marilena said. “What did we decide on, Viv? Sorin?”

  “I never liked that idea. And you resisted anything spiritual. Either of Reiche Planchette’s names would work. Imagine.”

  “No,” Marilena said. “I don’t even like him, let alone trust him.”

  “You have him wrong, but this is certainly not the time to get into that.”

  “How about ‘Night,’ as he was born at night?”

  “Or ‘Morning,’ ” Viv said. “Technically, it’s morning.”

  “The darkest morning I’ve ever seen.”

  “Jet-black.”

  “Jet means ‘black,’ Viv,” Marilena said.

  “Then how would you describe the night?”

  “Jetty.”

  “I like it,” Viv said.

  “So do I. Nicolae Jetty Carpathia. Nicolae J. Carpathia.”

  “It’s certainly unique.”

  “I’ve never heard it as a name before,” the doctor said, placing the baby on Marilena’s chest. “It’s interesting. Dramatic.”

  But Marilena had quit listening, quit worrying what Viv was up to. The child had turned himself red from all the wailing. She held him close, rocked him, cooed to him, but he only grew all the louder.

  “He has a temper,” the doctor said. “I’m just relieved—astounded, really—to see that he’s perfectly normal.”

  “Not normal,” Viv said. “But certainly perfect.”

  Nicky Carpathia was physically healthy in all respects and grew fast. By the time he took his first toddling steps at a year old, he had a vocabulary of a few words, including Mama, Aunt Viv, and book. Three months later he was a typical toddler, curious and into everything. Viviana Ivinisova—now going exclusively by Viv Ivins—told Marilena she had never seen a more inquisitive child. And he clearly loved to be read and sung to.

  Marilena, of course, had nothing to compare Nicky to. All she knew was that she found him endlessly fascinating and felt as if her life had begun when his had.

  Two things impressed Marilena above all. Besides the fact that she seemed to take to mothering as if it had been her destiny, she found herself intrigued by Nicky’s analytical nature and the contrast between his seemingly quiet personality and his occasional outbursts.

  Nicky’s inquisitiveness manifested itself in how he played. She and Viv showered him with toys, but his attention span was short. He quickly tired of things he had played with the day before and would set about exploring. Pots and pans and spoons held his interest, and Marilena couldn’t count the number of times she found him lying on his back, holding some object up to his eyes, studying it as he gently turned it over and over. It never seemed to bore him. It was as if he was recording sizes and shapes and textures, feeding into his little brain all sorts of calculations. She could sit and watch this for long stretches.

  Marilena had not thought much of his screaming at birth. She had read and been told that this was precisely what you wanted with a newborn. Okay, it surprised her when he had turned himself red from the effort, and the nurse had referred to him as a screamer. The doctor had said something about his lungs and his temper.

  Marilena expected this to pass, but it had not. Nicky was a relatively docile child as long as everything was going his way. But a wet or dirty diaper or hunger or fatigue brought out the worst in him. His was not the pitiful whining of a typical child. As soon as he grew frustrated about anything, the screeching began. There was no buildup, no warning. If something—anything—was wrong, Nicky closed his eyes, opened his mouth, drew in a huge breath, and screamed at the top of his voice. He thrashed and swung his fists until whatever had been wrong was fixed. And then he became a sweet, peaceful child again.

  Maybe it was only her imagination, but Marilena was convinced that Nicky had wisdom far beyond his years. While he was average in his progress in speech and vocabulary, as he was with learning to walk, at times she and Viv believed he was following their conversation.

  He followed whoever was speaking, which she supposed was normal. But those eyes. Their blue deepness contrasted with his olive skin and yellowish hair, and in them Marilena detected a sadness, a world weariness that made her think twice about her lifelong prejudice against reincarnation. Had this little one endured a previous life of deep turmoil? Sometimes he simply gazed at her for long periods, as if trying to determine what she was thinking. And in those moments, when she tried to tickle him or play with him, he would pull away and eye her from a distance, as if he knew something she didn’t.

  Viv spent a lot of time with the baby, and while she did seem a bit one-dimensional, Marilena was relieved that she was so easy to get along with. The women emphasized time for themselves, not requiring constant face time with each other.

  Yes, Marilena wished Viv would use that facile, if not brilliant, mind of hers for something other than her obsession with the spirit world. But that, after all, had been how they met. And Viv had recently met with Reiche Planchette and begun to advertise and teach classes in the Cluj area. She was in her element introducing new peo
ple—skeptics naturally, as Marilena had been—to the wonders of the realm beyond.

  Marilena had settled into a routine of taking care of Nicky every morning through the lunch hour. Then Viv took over for the next three hours as Marilena did her reading and research, supplying information to sundry professors. While this paid nowhere near what she had made as a full professor, it proved more than enough because she paid no rent.

  In the evenings, when Viv was out teaching or engaging in her own contacts with the spiritual world, Nicky was Marilena’s responsibility again. When Viv returned and Nicky was asleep, the women talked. Marilena found Viv a curious sort but generally pleasant and agreeable. While Viv seemed to care about everyone she met, she was not above talking about them behind their backs. It was nice to know she wasn’t perfect, but Marilena had to wonder what Viv said about her when she was not present.

  ELEVEN

  AS RAY STEELE neared his twelfth birthday, things began happening to his mind and body. As he became more muscular and body hair appeared, his face lost its soft smoothness and he suffered from acne, first mildly, then full force. While he remained a great athlete, a top student, and even popular, he sensed people looked at him differently.

  He grew even taller, found himself clumsy—not on the field or the court, just standing or walking around. His mother’s purchases couldn’t keep up with his growth and often his pants left too much sock showing. Ray was suddenly self-conscious, awkward, shy. He began to avoid situations he used to revel in. He isolated himself in a small group of guys, enabling him to avoid girls. And yet it seemed all he and his friends talked about was girls, and in ways he had never dreamed he would talk.

  People used to like him, to admire him. Now he was just a pimply-faced bumbler whose gangliness made him appear more clumsy than athletic. He didn’t like himself and wasn’t sure he liked anyone else either.

  __

  Ray had no idea what went on at Steele Tool and Die in Belvidere, Illinois, before he began working there.

  Even when he started, sweeping the floors and taking out the trash twenty-four hours after his thirteenth birthday, the only machine he recognized in the shop was a drill press like the one he had seen in industrial arts class. He was fascinated with the safety precautions built into it. The operator could manually center the piece of steel beneath the huge, ugly cutter, but he could not engage the drill unless each hand was on a separate button, far from the action.

  Ray pledged to attack his job the way he approached his studies and his sports—with everything that was in him. He wanted to work hard so he could keep his job, make his money, make his dad proud, and—mostly—so he could afford flying lessons when he was fourteen. If in the process he learned the machines and the business and how to interact with working people, so much the better.

  The workers—four men and two women—took to him immediately. They seemed old and mature enough not to care about his out-of-control acne and his fast-growing gangliness. Two seemed to view him with quiet suspicion at first, their expressions making clear they wouldn’t kowtow to him just because of who he was. Another seemed overly friendly, as if perhaps he would kiss up to the boy. But eventually, Ray believed he had won them all over with his deference and hard work. He believed they genuinely liked him for himself, and they were generous with their teaching and advice.

  His dad had a zero-tolerance policy. “No breaks for the boss’s kid. I got to answer to six full-time employees who are gonna be watching you—and me—every day, looking for favoritism.” It helped that his father clarified that, while they were to teach Ray the machines, their jobs were not in jeopardy. “Anyway, legally he’s too young to operate these alone. And by the time he’s old enough, he plans to be on to other things.”

  Ray didn’t know if his dad had really resigned himself to that, but it was nice to hear him acknowledge it.

  Nicky Carpathia would be required to start school when he turned six, and while that was a year away, his mother couldn’t wait. Despite her prodigious academic history and doctorate, Marilena felt inadequate to keep up with a child she resisted calling precoce, but precocious he was. As soon as he learned to walk and talk, Nicky had soared to heights she couldn’t imagine. Even with Viv and Marilena trying to keep him engaged, no amount of teaching and reading and studying proved enough to satisfy him.

  After being read to every night since he was old enough to understand, by age four Nicky had insisted on trying to read by himself. He would stop Marilena and point at words, sounding them out. It seemed in no time he was reading. Marilena and Viv took to speaking in Russian or English when they wanted to discuss something in front of him. But he soon caught on to that too. Marilena experimented by buying children’s books in various languages, including Chinese. Before she knew it, he understood and could speak—at least rudimentarily—nearly every language she and Viv knew.

  Now, at age five, Nicky was deeply into nature. He would dig on the property, bringing roots and bugs and other creatures into the cottage, demanding to know what they were. Marilena bought a set of encyclopedias and also showed Nicky how to look things up on the Internet. Within six months he was as proficient as she on the computer.

  Nicky was generally even-tempered but distant. At times he scared Marilena, seeming so old for his age. She never spanked or disciplined him, though she often wanted to. When he resisted going to bed, she insisted and tucked him in, turning off his light and shutting the door. She would check on him later and frequently find him standing on his bed, and when she turned on the light she could see his fierce look, arms folded, eyes smoldering.

  He was already telling Marilena and Viv when he wanted to eat, what he wanted to eat, and refusing anything else. His schedule was his schedule, and nothing they did could dissuade him. It wasn’t long before Marilena realized he was running the show. She had wholly lost control, but fortunately, when left alone, he was satisfied to stay out of trouble. He read, he logged time on the computer, he explored outside.

  Then came the day he read a book of short stories about a girl who had her own horse. He badgered and badgered until Marilena and Viv agreed to buy him a pony and a saddle and a bridle. Marilena told him he would have to wait until an expert could come teach him to ride, but Nicky would have none of it. She watched in horror as he entered the makeshift corral and the animal stiffened and backed away.

  Nicky stood in front of the pony and spoke to it. “Your name is Star Diamond, and I am going to ride you.” Somehow he managed to get the saddle on and the bridle and reins in place, and within minutes he was walking the horse in circles. A week later Nicky was riding it about the property.

  He read everything he could find about horsemanship and began to look as if he had been born in the saddle, holding the reins between his fingers just so. Still average in size for his age, he controlled Star Diamond, fully in charge of a beast eight times his weight.

  Marilena had read that teenagers could be difficult, finding their parents and authority figures wrong on every issue, countering their every suggestion. It seemed Nicky was a five-year-old teenager. He argued and debated and crossed her. He refused to do anything he didn’t want to, and he spoke disrespectfully to both her and Aunt Viv.

  His only interaction with other children came when Viv’s spiritualist classes brought their families together for outings, sometimes at the cottage. To Marilena’s amazement, Nicky somehow got along with other kids. She didn’t understand it. He was so much brighter than even those older than he. And he was an only child used to getting his own way and not having to share toys or attention. But he showed qualities of a diplomat: flattering, complimenting, feigning interest, and manipulating others for his benefit. Marilena had been certain some parent would complain about her impossible child, but the opposite happened. She was bombarded with invitations for him to visit other kids in their homes.

  He steadfastly refused to go. “They can come here,” he said. And they did. Marilena wasn’t aware of everything
he did or said, but the kids were either intimidated or impressed, because they seemed to enjoy Nicky and were content to do what he wanted.

  When he discovered soccer on television, Marilena could barely pull him away. He begged for a soccer ball and taught himself to dribble it with his feet and boot it around the property. He set up a goal and looked amazingly fast to Marilena. But he was wearing her out. When flat-out honest with herself, she admitted that he scared her. What had she gotten herself into? She looked forward to letting someone else be responsible for him for the better part of each day once he started school.

  Nicky’s energy was exhausting. Marilena and Viv took him to the mountains for hiking and climbing. The first time he saw ski slopes he demanded to be taught to ski. In the summer they drove to the Black Sea coast, where she and Viv sunbathed and read and he swam all day.

  One day, when Marilena simply needed a break, Viv agreed to watch Nicky while Marilena drove to some country art fairs. But when Nicky caught wind of where she was going, he begged until she felt obligated to take him, so all three went. The boy amazed adults with his questions and studying of their homemade crafts. He wanted to know everything that went into making blankets and carvings and knickknacks, and soon he was asking Marilena for the tools and resources to start fashioning his own pieces.

  Marilena feared the start of school in the fall. “Oh, I don’t know, Viv. He’s so young.”

  “His soul is as old as the universe, Marilena. Surely you can see that.”

  “All I know is that he scares the life out of me.”

  “That’s where we differ,” Viv said. “I’m already in awe of him. He thrills me to death. Reiche is eager to see him start his training.”

  “Well, he’s not Mr. Planchette’s child.”

  “Careful, Marilena. In a sense, he is.”