by Athanasios
The shape was a behemoth, its sloping shoulders blocking out the candlelight in the room. Tufts of hair spiked out from shoulders, as wide as the athlete, who had earlier faced Balzeer, was tall. The expected horns grew out and up from just above glowing, red eyes. The eyes shone as though they had already materialized, waiting for the rest of the body to catch up.
Tree trunk arms held up an overwhelmingly large upper body, which bulged and writhed with shackled power. More tufts of hair covered the hands, from the knuckles of the fingers, traveling up the forearms, all along the shoulders, and disappearing behind the head. Slobber shone in the candlelight, dripping off frog jowls that hung forward over serrated teeth. The mouth was ajar and spanned the entire width of the head, disappearing well behind the ears. The creature’s legs were bowed, supporting the massive upper weight. It appeared as though they did not quite belong, an after-thought to the rest of the hulking shape.
“You are the Keeper of Shrouds? You’re barely an infant. Look at you. You’re not even mature enough to form a suitably impressive form,” Balzeer spit out in contempt. “Do you know to whose summons you were sent? I hold the six marks on my body. You can feel them as I speak to you.”
The glowing eyes dimmed as they darted to six points on Balzeer’s body. For milliseconds, they rested on his shoulders, his hips, his groin and the middle of his chest.
“You are as you say. What do you command of me?” The demon’s voice rumbled like thunder, and some of the glass in the room vibrated, producing peels of sharp noise.
“Begin by stopping with the parlor tricks. If they were done with enough skill, I would let you continue, but I tire of your half-assed job. So, show your true self and speak with your true voice. This, I command.”
A grimace crossed the demon’s face. It drew back from its accuser and winced, as if struck. It bowed its head in obedience and set its jaw in a further grimace, a pout deep enough to reach the bull neck it had chosen.
From the tip of the horns, eight feet high, a contraction began. Rippling covered every extremity moving inwards and downwards. The frog face, stooped shoulders, tufted arms, hands and bowed legs all agitated in the air, until a standing three-month-old baby replaced them. It was bald, like its interrogator, but maintained the same pout, as that of its earlier manifestation. However, the black eyes were not the same, and concealed a watchful zeal for revenge which had not been present in the red coals of the invented demon.
“As you commanded.” The voice was also that of a child, but sounded obscene. Vocal chords, lips, tongue and gums, which should not have been able to pronounce anything other than cries and gurgles, now spoke. “What is it you seek?”
“The signs for the one we all await have stopped and I want to know why. I want to know everything.” Balzeer’s earlier contempt had faded and was replaced by a wary respect. Only the most volatile of demons were given forms of innocence. Their forms were an insult from their masters, in order to keep them at the height of irritation and subservient.
“It is not known. We are also very dismayed at this alteration of prophecy. Even our own divinations reveal nothing of his whereabouts.”
“That is not acceptable!!” Despite his earlier wariness, Balzeer’s slippery control of his temper disappeared. “I am charged with bringing this world to a point where His only son can come and prepare it for His kingdom, and I hear this?!!” His voice began to break as it reached a higher register. “A mere Shroud Keeper is withholding divinations from me?!!! Be gone!!! Go back to your pit and send me your manager, you filthy little speck!!”
At his utterance, the demon was replaced by a thin man with cloven feet. He shifted from foot to foot with agitated restraint.
“What is your displeasure, Supreme Tribunal?” Like any competent manager, the satyr set Balzeer at ease with his manner and words.
“Your Shroud Keeper is not giving me what I require to complete my task.” The answer was clipped.
“We shall give you all that we have to give, temporal lord. Do you require another Shroud Keeper?” He offered everything, held nothing back.
“No, the change would take too long.” Balzeer’s responses were still terse.
“What is your will for this displeasure?”
“I’ll leave it up to you.” The words were an afterthought.
The baby demon returned, but now shorter, lacking any lower limbs. He could not stand, yet he did not bleed from the stubs, which looked like a pair of sliced hams.
“Now, you insolent speck, what do the divinations you’ve mentioned reveal?” Balzeer’s instincts told him that there was something there, but that he would have to pick it out.
“Of late, there have been complete gaps around the Redeemer.”
“You are still holding back, Keeper, and you still have two limbs.” He needed to coax out the information.
“His birth is unique, an event that could not be hidden from our eyes, anywhere in the world. We will find him.”
“It’s like he’s being hidden, despite our best efforts,” Balzeer muttered under his breath as he paced before the segmented baby.
“And have any of the Seekers caught any sign?” Balzeer stopped; a few short seconds passed and he slowly turned to press his question.
“There have been Seekers, but there is more to the emptiness of our divinations. Since he is invisible outside the use of Seekers, we have concluded that He is outside of reality.”
“How is that possible?” This was what Balzeer wanted — insight, which no one on earth could’ve given.
“You have often bent reality to your whims, lord. It is possible, but as you know, quite difficult. The Seekers, who were dispatched, are searching for anything that can be physically seen, but has no psychic register, no actual earthly aura.” Balzeer had only heard of this being done by the most gifted of his masters — the men and women, from the thirteen families, who used reality and fashioned history.
“Does such a thing exist on earth? I have read and heard about it, but have never actually seen it.” He would have to primarily rely on the use of Seekers. Increasingly, what Balzeer believed was for the best interest of the Luciferians, conflicted with the orders he received from the Great Families.
“Use whatever means, any and all at your disposal. Use any thought of mortals, drifting to sin. The Redeemer should be seen through anything. He cannot be invisible. He should be a mountain among valleys.” Using his links in hell would be paramount in this case. The netherworld paralleled our own, and for every man, woman or child on earth, there was an equal darkness.
“Mortals’ sinful thoughts. What do you mean? How do we use them?”
“For every mortal on earth, there is a darkness in hell, which makes the sin appear easy, inducing the person to commit the sin.” Everyone has their own darkness waiting for them and cajoling, manipulating and inching their earthly selves closer to a desired union. “In order to do this, we must monitor their thoughts. If they see any sign of our Redeemer, then it will register, maybe not with them, but surely with us. To you, especially.”
“Yes, we shall do this, lord.”
“Rather, you do this. I want this information accessible only to me. I want to see any and all mention of our Sire.” In the Redeemer’s case, hell would come to him; he was, quite literally, Hell on Earth.
- Zealots -
TIME: AUGUST 15TH, 1961. ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
Kosta sat at a kafenion table in the heart of the ancient Soma district. For centuries, it was believed that it housed a vast complex of buildings, surrounding the tomb of the city’s founder, Alexander the Great. Now, it used the name and fame of the renowned conqueror as barter for tourists and currency. Kosta loved its open swagger and bold ambition to take as much money as possible from the visitors that sought enlightenment from its ancient ruins. It was a contrast from Kostadinoupoli, because it held no longed-for history. Nobody Kosta even knew, or read about, wished for the times of Alexander, mostly because nobody remember
ed them. There was no monaxia for Alexandria. It wasn’t even in Europe.
In the noonday sun he sat in the shade of a Cinzano umbrella and read a codex, wrapped up in the newspaper of the day. If someone watched him closely, it would’ve been obvious he wasn’t reading the paper. Nobody cared or took any notice. He was part of the furniture: a middle-aged, Mediterranean man who wiled away his days at an outdoor tavern, kafenion. He was only one of thousands, but the only one who read the Idammah-Gan Codex.
He read it there, because it was the only safe place to do so. It had to be by the light of the sun, in daylight. No candle, electric or fire light could keep the shadows inherent within the stygian ink of the book, sentenced there. In the day, the black things that made the letters and words were contained and seen, understood, without observation bringing them to life. Out of the sun’s light they could take hold of imagination and not let go until it turned to madness.
Kosta knew the dangers but didn’t know that any reading modified the final incarnation of the main character. His observation in the light of day had brought it out of the darkness in which it had been intended to grow.
TIME: AUGUST 15th, 1961. SECRET ARCHIVES, VAULT 27, SUB-BASEMENT 6, VATICAN
Despite rubber soles the young man wore, his polished shoes still snapped sharply on the metal stairs. He also wore the simple black robe of a parish priest, to be comfortable working with the heavy old volumes he lay down in front of his master’s mounting material. A scribbled note, held at the end of a heavily knuckled hand, reached above the rising mound of old texts and shook. No word was uttered as it continued to quiver, until removed and taken back to rows of yet untouched books. The snap of shoes grew fainter and more distant from the straining, weighed-down table.
Tino Quentin sat very straight in his chair. He glanced through pages, which would have been the envy of any museum. Each volume he picked up, and then deposited, he treated with respect, but not reverence. He was a practical man who would not mistreat his tools, but would not think more of them than he would a serviceable hammer. Their worldly value was secondary to their contents.
At present, he searched through a ninth-century text, which was one of the first codices written by an Irish monk named Thomas. It held no title, just the volume number, six. Much of the information, for which Seneschal Quentin searched, was in such unnamed texts. By themselves, the passages he periodically copied meant nothing. Collectively, they spoke of prophecies that would frighten most adults. Some might even hazard a nervous snicker, but one look at his austere face would stop any intended ridicule.
Tino Quentin did not joke. He did not even have pastimes. If he was not actively completing his duties, he took care of bodily needs — sleeping, eating and eventual evacuation. There was no room for entertainment in Quentin’s life. He was humorless, direct and precise.
As a child, he had briefly thought of becoming a police officer or a judge, but thought the occupations limiting. He had also considered the military, but knew that would limit his dedication to doing the right thing. The priesthood seemed the correct choice. Yet one day, just before he took final vows, he was given the choice to serve Jesus by saving souls, or by saving the world. On the eve of induction into the Dominican Order, this choice was presented by a severe, wiry priest named Jonathan Harker.
Father Harker also inducted some of his classmates, but chose to fully explain himself to Tino. The order to which the mysterious father belonged took the task of safeguarding the world very seriously. They combed through the church’s records and interpreted information they then acted upon, without hesitation. In their service, Tino would bring God’s just wrath to his most ancient of foes. Tino accepted this without question. He never doubted the temporal presence of evil and wanted to fight it. The task perfectly suited his nature.
In addition to his further, deeper instruction in the unknown mysteries of the Catholic Church, he was trained in, what could only be described as, covert operations. He learned to use most mundane objects as weapons and dispose of anyone he deemed worth such attention. Some intelligence services had the license to kill and the Templars had carte blanche.
Nobody they eliminated was ever missed — at least publicly. If they were, those whom objected too loudly were also eliminated. They just disappeared. The ten years he spent learning his sacred calling went by without notice and he found himself a full member of the Brothers of the Temple. He rapidly rose in the ranks of the Brotherhood. In the order, he encountered none of the joviality he had despised in his life before the Templars. Everyone took their responsibilities seriously. However, there was a time when this dedication went too far.
Almost thirty years before, the order had splintered into their present form, obliterating the Teutonic Order. The Teutons followed the then-rising wave of fascism. In Italy, the Vatican watched as the country was taken over by fascism. The Templars used violence, but only in the service of scripture. Both the fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany used force for temporal gain. The Teutons were more loyal to their country than they were to their church. The schism was small, hardly worth noting, but was dealt with harshly.
Tino Quentin was the brother given the task of smoothing out the knick in God’s armor. He gathered a select team of devout militants and removed every one of the five hundred and twelve Teutonic members. None of them felt anything beyond a sense of satisfaction. They had successfully put their house in order. None of them sought reward, pride or recognition and none was given.
He laid down the volume he was studying and scanned his notes. He looked for a mention of the damned child — a baby boy, born to rule the earth for Evil. References were present in a number of scribbled passages that he had carefully copied into the black notepad he always carried.
He closed the pad and placed it on the table in front of him. Then he removed his glasses, folded them and carefully centered them directly in front of the pad. Folding his hands, he placed them on the book and straightened in his chair, looking forward.
He sat this way for some time, waiting. The initiate who had retrieved brother Tino’s requested volumes stopped abruptly in mid-stride when he saw his Seneschal so still. He continued forward at a brisk pace and placed the books he carried beside the earlier pile.
Quentin turned and regarded him. He did not refer to the initiate by name. Until he became a full brother, he had no name, merely a function. He had been with Quentin for the past five years and had done a competent job.
“Little brother, what is it that we are doing here?”
The initiate stared back at him. “We do God’s work.”
“The work of Satan is also done here.”
“I don’t understand, sir. How do we aid Satan with what we do?”
“We do not aid, per se. We are playing our part in the drama that is unfolding.” Quentin motioned for the initiate to sit in front of him. “The codices, the volumes you just set before me, Idammah-Gan Codex, Le Menace D’Ours D’Enfer, the Sangrael Gospel, and the Tome De Les Parfaits, all speak of the son of Satan, the opposite of our own Christ. If we do not fulfill our function, his plans cannot proceed. It is our participation that justifies the passages I transcribe from these books before me.” Quentin saw that the initiate did not understand his cryptic explanation.
“You live in important times, young man. Important, indeed.” He picked up his black notepad and used it to gesture emphatically. “You do believe in the reality of evil, don’t you?”
“In the physical reality. Yes, I do.”
“The actuality of it, however, is quite different from the physical to which you refer.” He proceeded carefully as he continued. “Evil has no comparison in our lives. It does not fit anything with which we’re familiar. It will not resemble a hierarchy in any sense of which we are aware. It isn’t like the opposite of our church.”
“I don’t quite follow sir.”
“Satanists, Luciferians chose whatever name they’re using at the moment. They base much
of their order, symbols, and hierarchy on the inversions even perversions of our own order, symbols, and hierarchy. The most obvious examples are the inverted cross and Antichrist for our Christ.”
“And how does that pertain to evil being unlike any of that. Satanists are evil versions of the Catholicism. Isn’t that what you just said?”
“No I said that true evil does not follow the obvious. It is not so easily seen as the blatant parlor tricks and bold impudence of LaVey’s pranksters.”
“Are you telling me that evil is invisible? That we cannot be aware of it?” The nameless initiate was still perplexed.
“No, I’m saying that evil does not fit into our — or anyone’s — perception. It is not the two-dimensional entity, or force, about which we read in all these volumes. The writings here, through which we go, are merely important clues. Much as a psychiatrist asks a disturbed patient about his childhood, so we look to evil’s past to help us understand it.”
“Why do you say ‘might,’ master? Will we not see evil’s intentions in the scriptures? In the holy volumes we have here?” The question came out as uncertain and cautious as the lips that delivered it.
“We may not. All we may find here is insight into direction. These texts were written by flawed, imperfect men, such as us, they but give us possibilities of action.” Quentin paused.
“Whose?” The initiate was trying hard to follow what the respected Seneschal was attempting to explain.
“Evil doesn’t have a single mind.” He continued, “In fact, I don’t think that Satan is plotting in hell. He’s reacting to what is happening on earth. He follows plans that were set in motion by another, or others — just as God, through the Church, is helping us do His work on earth.”
