Commitment - Predatory Ethics: Book II

by Athanasios

  He was surprised at how quickly He had lost His temper and His legendary patience. The long history of the Nephilim and was built on glacial and geologic patience. He proved time and again to be more patient than the continents, but it shattered whenever He dealt with humanity directly. He was too emotional with all His children but more so with His blood relative.

  Bernhardt listened as He told him of the outrageous insult of exorcism by His own son. Bernhardt could not imagine such betrayal, easily forgetting his own inverted one. He asked quickly how he could have performed the Roman ritual himself without the proper training.

  Lucifer stopped, was silent a few long seconds, and when He spoke again His voice quivered with rage and resentment. “He has turned on Me completely. Utterly. I don’t know how this happened, but the boy is both AntiXos and Xos/Christ.”

  Laughter punctuated the Devil’s pain. It peeled out from beneath low groans of pain and rudely interrupted their conversation. Kostadino added his own voice to Lucifer’s pained admission. “He’s his own man, daddy. You’ll not sway him with threats and weak arguments to do as he’s told.”

  “What did you do to him?” Lucifer stretched out his wings and flew to face Kostadino. The wondrous jet-black wings lazily opened and closed keeping Him afloat and staring at His son’s abductor. “You turned him away from those who love him, and now he’s left alone in the world.”

  “I only gave him the luxury of choice,” Kostadino answered. “He will do with his life what he wishes.”

  “How did you make him both Xos and AntiXos?” Bernhardt had joined the discussion but from some twenty feet below. He shouted somewhat but nobody minded the volume.

  “I didn’t. It was his refusal that did that. Now it will be more difficult to live an ordinary life,” Kostadino said with regret. “Now he’s taken in all the written and prophesied destinies.”

  “Yes, it will,” Lucifer, said grimly.

  “Everyone will want him as their Messiah. He’s become the world’s savior. Everybody will both love and hate him because he is all things to everybody.” Kostadino smiled and Lucifer struck him with his perfect right fist.

  “You’ll forever pay for this insolence, this treachery.”

  “I knew there wasn’t a hope in Hell I wouldn’t,” Kostadino answered ignoring the cold, hard fury that was changing the shinning being before him into some Halloween cliché. His wings grew harder and leathery, His hair turned to fire, not red but actual flames licking about His head. The changing eyes that drifted into every color now burned coal red and His skin became hard and no breath raised or lowered His chest.

  “I knew what the punishment might be and despite all that, it was worth it.” He didn’t falter as the personification of evil came closer and began his own personal torture. “You’ll see it too.” His last words were labored and heard amidst long, agonized screams.

  Bernhardt was no stranger to torture. He committed some of it. As a predator, he could go beyond what the cows endure to watch; yet he still had to look away.

  Time: February 14th, 1974, Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

  It was the first night I slept in weeks. Broken Adam had been avoiding sleep because I used the subconscious to plead my case about Kostadino’s damnation. Tonight I faced me again and seemed a lot more receptive to what I had to say.

  My Shard self was humming Jim Croce’s Time in A Bottle and I joined in. “If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that have never come true.” I stopped and looked at him and hoped he saw the bottomless regret I did feel for putting my/our father at the mercy of the Devil. I tell him I blamed myself, and he quickly retorted then nothing’s changed because he blamed us too.

  “I’m trying not to be completely unreasoning with this, but it’s very hard.” His face showed the determination I always saw in mine when I refused to be swayed and to make up my own mind. We could see all that was happening was being engineered by our true father to manipulate us. Neither of us wanted that.

  We continued forward, looked at my face, and smirked at literally confronting one’s self this way. We both looked at Adam one regretful, the other angry and bitter and the Broken Adam softened. He finally knew what I had been trying to tell us all along. We would never knowingly do what I did if he had the choice. Grief kept him from accepting our motives never changed. We were still the same stubborn fool Kostadino raised. In the middle of our near armistice the world around us changed.

  Before we had been talking in my old apartment on Fulton Street in Montreal. It was replaced by a grand and gilded hall with the overly decorated tastes of chandeliers, wall sconces, and marbled floors. Louis the XIV chairs, divans, and couches were strewn all over the elaborate floors, and at the end of the expanse was a winged man, a dark angel, who smiled and beckoned us closer.

  We looked at each other and agreed to go where we were bidden. Once there He unfurled His black wings and landed between us. He looked at us first the Broken Adam and then me and was honestly confused.

  “Two of you? This is impossible. What is going on?” he said and backed uncertainly away from both of us.

  “Quite the quandary there, Father.” I recognize the stunning archangel who thought He could surprise us by his sudden appearance. Instead, He was backing away from something that should not be. We skewed rules of space and time and toyed with paradoxes, yet there we were, two sharing the same soul in one body. Go figure.

  “Could you please put something on, a towel or something? Jesus, Dad, nobody wants to see that. Show a little modesty would you?” I looked away from Him in His altogether and Broken Adam laughed out loud and smirked at Lucifer’s reddening face.

  He quickly recovered I’ll give Him that and with a bitter curl of his flawless lip He swept His right arm and revealed our true father suspended in midair. “I wanted to share this with you. To show you that this miscreant you called father is no longer a concern. I wanted to give you another chance to change your mind. Failing that, it would at least toughen you up. You’re going to need it.” Brilliant features hardened and turned dark. His hair blazed into flame, and Lucifer’s powerful, feathered wings molded into leather, webbed fingers. No breath moved under His chest, and it made me think of my own Darkness and how it transformed me whenever I gave it control.

  Kostadino began to scream and welts arched over his body. I didn’t see what produced the marks fully, only shadowy figures that grinned at both Adams. We each rushed where Kostadino was, but Lucifer only raised him just out of reach all the while laughing in a singsong peal. Our frustration was rising to rage, and we want to release our Darkness and see who’ll come out on top this time, father or sons, but we somehow didn’t. I was prepared to throw all of it to the winds just to wipe that all too perfect smile and all too faultless everything off of that arrogant son of a bitch! I was raging and this time my broken half, the Shard got a-hold of us and calmed me down enough to look around and see we weren’t in the grand fop hall anymore. Kostadino’s torture was terrible to witness, yet it ended soon after it started.

  If it was Lucifer’s intent to demoralize us with it why did he stop so quickly? We weren’t even given a chance to change our minds, one second I was going to jump to Kostadino’s defense or die trying the next we’re standing before the statue of Jesus, a-top a hill in Rio de Janeiro. In the shadow of Jesus’s outstretched stone arms, Shard and I are shaking from rage and slowly regaining our composure. I look up at the Catholic Savior’s face and try to find expression in the unmoving face. After several minutes of nothing, we turn to leave wondering what the point of being here was, even in a dream.

  Broken Adam yelled in surprise at the light touch on his shoulder. I also turn to see a slight, robed and bearded man staring at us. The giant Christ on the hill was gone and replaced with this smaller one whose touch galvanized our attention. His eyes held all the sorrow, love, and acceptance in the world and His touch takes all care away. Broken Adam rushed into his arms and cried like a
child should. It is good to see me give into those emotions. I had become too hard.

  It was difficult to watch Kostadino in such pain and not do anything about it. All my life he was always the rock I stood on, could always count on, and Satan made him scream and helpless as a child. Nothing had ever driven such pain from my father. Kostadino was not unschooled in the ways of pain and had never shown any when I was with him. It left both Adams shaken and terrified. I thought Kostadino incapable of losing himself like that. Satan was not the one who sent us away. He would’ve been happy to make us watch and turn us to his desires. The question was still in our mind. Who brought us out and let Broken Adam finally grieve?

  Time: Hell.

  Kostadino Paleologos had stopped screaming hours before. The flames that changed Lucifer’s face and hair were gone back to the lustrous auburn, and the red coals of His eyes were now faded to stunning sapphire, emerald, topaz and amethyst. His wings were also the lustrous jet-black again and His muscled chest rose and fell with breath. His Darkness in anger transformed him from the shining cherubim who had fallen from heaven to the monstrous thing Xianity dictated He was to be.

  He smiled easily and tried to be cordial to His guest. He knew the cost to come to Hell and further knew what Bernhardt did to attain both Grand Master and Supreme Tribunal. He was pained that those who served Him had to do such awful things to prove their worth. A worthiness His son had as birthright yet rejected. He did not feel for His son or the usurping Greek behind Him.

  He visited the boy to show the extent of His power, give him a chance to reconsider. He was the AntiXos, and there was nothing in Heaven or Hell that would change that. The unbending will Lucifer showed with His son was tempered when He dealt with servants, like Bernhardt, who showed true dedication. He knew the cost He required. The reasons were many, but to Him there were really only two.

  The first was that anyone who knowingly and readily did evil could not be trusted. Who would trust those that broke most of the rules of decency and good? The other was Lucifer had gone through much worse for them. He was cast out of perfection. There was no other way to describe Heaven. Nobody wanted anything, and there was no emotion.

  Long before time had begun Lucifer looked down at the world of man and felt an emotion: pity. Those poor struggling beasts, the poor cows. They sent their prayers up to Heaven and God took them all, as was His right. Lucifer asked Him if the suffering that the cows went through mattered to Him, and He told Him they did it to themselves. He could not take sides in any conflict no matter how large or small.

  This birthed another emotion in the first of angels: outrage. Outrage at God’s indifference. He felt those two emotions and shocked God. Lucifer looked upon the cows and how they suffered and made each other miserable but could do nothing. It was not His lot. Not His duty. He would not judge anybody.

  Yet he couldn’t stop thinking, how could God stand by and do nothing about sin and wrong done in the world? The sinners deserved punishment. They needed to be judged and punished or rewarded. This angered God because He would not be judged or questioned. He was God.

  He told Lucifer to take His Nephilim and watch the cows. He sent them among the humans, to live with them and judge the guilty and the just.

  All who heard the exchange were shocked by God’s decision. Lucifer and the Nephilim cast themselves out when they felt emotion. Perfection is the absence of desire: the absence of everything. These angels would no longer know the perfection of Heaven. They showed desire for justice and shattered Heaven by this single emotion.

  Heaven and perfection were very simple. Neither ever changed. Nobody ate, drank, or wanted anything. They didn’t desire anything not because desires were satisfied but because they didn’t exist. They walked around or stood, or sat, or lay, or flew by themselves or with others and were perfect. Not happy, just calm. There was no distinction between genius, average, or imbecile. They were all perfect. Woe onto Cherubim Lucifer Morningstar and His unfortunate Nephilim who showed some spark of desire—an interest in something. They were expelled to remove that spark before it ignited Heaven.

  In the world of man they saw comely women and nobody can resist an angel. They lay with them and generations later their families, their descendants, ruled the Earth. They were the Dark Nobility and their legion of servants. They followed predatory ethics and preyed on the weak because they could. They let their desires rule them and denied themselves nothing.

  Lucifer looked at Bernhardt and knew what the Grand Master gave up and went through to be there. Lucifer had gone through more. He no longer pitied the cows. He was sad they didn’t learn to be good and not be punished but didn’t pity them. He ceased being judge of good and evil long ago. Now He was judge of evil and didn’t have to deal with the good. He only concerned Himself with evil and it corrupted Him completely.

  “My son is lost to us, Bernhardt. He will not be swayed,” he said with His voice quivering and His sculpted chin dimpled, His petal lips quivered. “We must go on without him.”

  “What do we do with him then?” Bernhardt felt uncomfortable with Satan’s blubbering. “We cannot leave him to be a distraction to anybody and everybody on earth. He will probably sway some of our own people.”

  “He doesn’t care about any of that. Those that will follow him will only be praying at an indifferent idol. He doesn’t care.” Satan did not blubber easily. He also did not let Himself be closed off to His emotions. He needed those emotions to not become like the God who cast Him out. The God who was indifferent to pleading, cries, and prayers.

  “Let him be. He’ll come around. He’ll listen. I don’t want to do to him what was done to the Nazarene. I’ll let him come to me.” Bernhardt was shocked at the orders he heard from his Prince when He had just entered the boy’s dreams to show him the torture He inflicted on his adopted father.

  “You’ll allow your son to openly rebel against you, Lord?” His shock was unmistakable. “What kind of message are you sending? Turning the other cheek is the Weakling’s way. What are you telling your enemies? This will only end in disaster. Please reconsider, my Lord. Do not let this go unpunished. If only for what others will think of your inaction. It will be viewed as weakness, and I can’t say they would be wrong.”

  Bernhardt had relived his most painful moments to be here. He had given the most precious pain and personal agony to be before his God, and he wasn’t going home with a mere conversation. Lucifer held His tongue until Bernhardt finished and showed no more anger than his beautiful eyes turning flame red.

  “You’re entirely right, Supreme Tribunal, and I am punishing those responsible.” He indicated the still unconscious Kostadino behind them. “Anybody who will come against me now will be dealt with. That is true also. Those who wish to will only show themselves and their strengths in their effort. They will commit to irrevocable action. I will know who my true allies are. Every few centuries or millennia it’s good to see who your friends are.”

  Bernhardt could not be sure if the Lord of Lies wasn’t referring to the Templar’s planned refusal of handing over the world when the time of the Prince would come. He wasn’t sure why he argued against inaction. The status quo should’ve been fine with him.

  There was something about Lucifer’s choice of not punishing the Redeemer that just didn’t sit right with him. He simply did not believe Him. Adam humiliated and turned against his own father. He would not believe Satan would let the boy be. Bernhardt didn’t say anything. He showed his disagreement in his gaze but let it go no further.

  Lucifer saw it and didn’t care. They did not say anything. They spoke with expression; squared off for milliseconds and each lied in their own way. Bernhardt hid the contempt for Satan’s weakness. Further, he hid his weakened loyalty. There was a time when Bernhardt’s fealty was beyond question, but the seat of the Supreme Tribunal corrupted him against his Prince. Just as his Prince degenerated from punisher of sin to God’s bitter rival, so had His most trusted of servants on ear
th.

  Lucifer lied also. His were too deep to read, but He saw much in Bernhardt’s eyes. His lies were subtle, intricate, and worthy of Father of Lies. He let Bernhardt think and believe his obvious lie. Let him think he and the Templars would keep their earthly domains. He had His own plan. He would let the degenerate Hapsburg return to his seat of worldly power. He had new plans for him now. They involved an old Templar betrayal and a newer darkness He would let loose on the world to continue the havoc it began a quarter century before.

  Newer Darkness

  Time: March 1st, 1974, Alexandria, Egypt.

  Simon felt old. He wandered the corridors of his lair aimlessly looking at objects he accumulated in his life. He was the only one seeing them, but he displayed them with flair and showmanship. Growing up as the only son of wealthy Anthony and Rachel, his theatrics and most everything else he wanted was happily obliged. He indulged himself now wandering among memories while his thoughts gave him trouble.

  He lost track of many things over the centuries. Friends, enemies, and sometimes keepsakes were lost or deliberately left behind. A fondly remembered friend he never expected to see again reappeared as by magic. Then his fondness was tarnished by a different version of the past. Now he just wasn’t sure if what he remembered, and his feelings, were truth or faulty memory.

  Years turned into decades, and those into centuries, but it did not feel so long ago that he watched Ursus surrender to the fire. He lost most of his dearest friends to the Catholic flames during the Catharae Crusade. The hardest to lose had been Ursus, but Simon consoled himself in knowing that Ursus chose his own end.