Commitment - Predatory Ethics: Book II (8 page)

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 earth.

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 1
^st
, 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.

In their fertile lands the Parfaits, Catharae priests, lived to help the Catharae faithful, their Credentes. They roamed the Languedoc and Albigenese without trouble and were welcomed. The Catholic priests were treated with suspicion and pushed people away with hypocritical dogmas, preferring to demand obedience at the threat of damnation. Many Credentes were disgusted with the debauchery and impiety of some Catholic clergy and sought the solace that the Gnostic Catharae urged.

Both Catharae and Catholics believed in Jesus; both were Christian. Yet the Roman Catholics tolerated nobody else. Wandering among his memories, Simon passed a few of the actual articles Jesus had held. One of His robes was beside the whip the Romans had used on Him. He passed some of the palms he kept when they got to Jerusalem. He still chuckled sometimes knowing this was commemorated by faithful each year. What passed for spectacle still amused him even after all these years. They were displayed beside the rock He prayed at the Gardens of Gethsemane. The hammer that drove the nails at His crucifixion was also there. He had not kept all these things over the millennia but found each individually over his long life. He could feel the Teacher’s presence on them because he had known this uniquely extraordinary man.

The Mishpat’s teachings did not die with Him but were carried on to many lands and passed into the rest of the Roman world. The twelve apostles carried His words to others and inspired many more, among them Saul, a Diaspora Jew and Roman citizen who became enthralled. He saw Jesus as a sacrificed dying god like Dionysus and Mithra. He came to Jerusalem and within five years, Jerusalem was laid to waste and nearly all its inhabitants put to the sword. Almost two million people were killed in the systematic Roman retribution of the Jewish uprising. This near complete annihilation was repeated many times by the Roman Legions and their successors, the Roman Catholic Church.

Simon was witness to it all and had long ago achieved calm in the face of Catholic intolerance. They always used their interpretation of Jesus as law and cited it to justify their enforcement with brutal and bloody consistency. As such, they had amassed many enemies who had also survived the centuries not least of which were the Dark Nobility.

They were present as far back as Simon remembered and even incorporated some of the Merovingian line, descended from Mary and Ruth Magdalene. The Nobility were themselves descendants of Jesus’ followers. Their families carrying on their secrets and concocting the Crusades in order to retrieve treasure their ancestors buried beneath the ruins of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem.

These Rex Deus, the Holy Kings, had grown opposite the Catholics and kept pace with them, thwarting much of the complete world domination the Vatican and their Dominican, Jesuit and Templar bullies sought to enforce.

If Simon had not distanced himself from all the centuries of brutality, he would not have survived. He wanted to continue because of the last connection he shared with his old friend. Ursus had told him that life was too important to be taken seriously. This still resonated with Simon more than seven centuries later.

Until then Simon had believed in the Gnosis of God. Each person had their own path to follow and religion should show the way not lead it. He taught this in the churches of his ministry and later to those that made it Catharism. He taught to search for your separated self: God. You: Nous, searched for Ennoia. It was the reason love was such a powerful emotion. You find your Ennoia in others in various degrees. Most find it in their parents or in their children or friends. The degree Ennoia resides in each relationship shows the love you have for one another.

In his long life Simon had only seen it in its complete form once. It was why Ursus and his Ennoia Natalie had been so precious to him. They proved his Gnosis. Simon saw it utterly confirmed by their love. He had seen clues to its veracity well before and since but never that complete.

All the years Simon lived he had done so in secrecy and hidden from even those that held deception in the highest regard. He was tied into the various families of the Dark Nobility and was one of the few who knew all the Rex Deus. He moved about them with an ease nobody questioned. In organizations, societies, councils, and brotherhoods that operated on secrets and more secrets, mystery was only regarded with reverence. Most who encountered Simon thought him a high-ranking Nobleman maybe even a Great White Magician. He laughed when someone called him that because he had always been known as Simon Magus. How ironic to come full circle.

He never took part in any of the ceremonies to their Nephilim or infernal masters, yet he consumed some of their worst. His appetite had matured to the point he only needed to feast with each season so he never attracted the attention he had millennia before. Simon preferred to drink only evil men and his association to the Dark Nobility gave him plenty of choices. The predators sometimes found out that something hunted them.

He spent days and nights putting together the more memorable items from his Catharae days. He finally stopped and sat in a tasteful yet plush round sofa where he contemplated the things he arranged in preparation of meeting his old friend. Ursus and Natalie had been reborn into a young man in the farthest South America.

Simon had followed his life closely. He watched with keen interest when the Dark Nobility, Nephilim, and their Luciferians were run ragged trying to find their Redeemer. Simon had not worried for Adam was Ursus and Natalie united, who achieved the hoped for peace Ursus told him about in the dungeon at Montfort.

He had been looking forward to seeing Adam but decided not to. He was distracted by chronicles detailing a Nephilim plot to destroy the Catharae. They detailed Ursus joining the Catharae to ensure the Catholic regicide.

If they were right, then Ursus killed a part of his soul when Natalie was taken from them all. He murdered the reality of Nous-Ennoia. Simon had been completely convinced that his long believed faith had been fulfilled in the love Ursus had for Natalie. Those chronicles said he betrayed Natalie, the Catharae, and Simon Magus, naming him personally. It went on to praise the betrayal and sacrifice the Beast made of himself for the Great Plan. Simon was crushed and could not believe it.

Time: March 23
^rd
, 1974, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Today was always special in the Hess family. All the transplanted Reichians celebrated it in the same way because it commemorated the Ermachtigungsgesetz of 1933 when the Reichstag gave power to the National Socialists in Deutschland. They passed the Enabling Act, which went on to dissolve the Reichstag and start the Third Reich. Everyone wore their best uniforms accessorized with family heirlooms worn in the Fuhrer’s ranks.

Rolf Hess arched his heavy brows down and felt a surge of pride looking through the ordered ranks of the faithful. Tight, square phalanxes of four men deep, four across stood at attention. The damp cavern that they gathered in was illuminated by many a bare bulb reflecting off of their polished jack boots.

They stood before a massive portrait of Adolph Hitler who looked on in what Rolf swore was profound approval. On either side of the portrait and before a massive podium were long banners of a field of red and white stripes with an updated swastika. The hall grew silent save for Rolf’s boots going closer to the podium at the center of the raised dais. He was so like his father that most gasped when they met him thinking the former Reichsfuhrer was come again. He had the thinning hair and heavy brows that met over startling blue eyes when he was confused or angry. The long aquiline nose seemed harsh, for his lips were thin and near slit of a mouth.

Everyone in the hall, including Rolf was dressed in updated SS black. He was a man of rippled proportions whose lean, muscled form was rigid in rider’s pants with a thin blood stripe down both sides. He was clean-shaven, his dirty blonde, crew cut hair in stark contrast to the high collar of his immaculately tailored jacket. Blood piping trimmed its edges and four pockets. Cold blue eyes scanned the crowd and clasping his hands behind his back he launched into his sermon.

“Fellow Reichians. We commemorate the hour of our deliverance with the Ermachtigungsgesetz of 1933 but we also commemorate the acquisition of the holy relics of 1956. The Fuhrer’s remains were in the hands of the Bolsheviks and jealously guarded. With His guidance, His old Reichsfuhrer, my father, Rudolf Hess entered the KGB Headquarters and liberated them for their return to us, their rightful keepers.” This was an update of the usual rehashing of the events of 1933 when the Nazi party had taken over the German Parliament and ended the Weimar Republic. Many in the audience became excited at the new stories their esteemed leader was sharing with them.

“My father did not stay in Spandau Prison as the world long believed. He was not without his own allies and within a decade of his imprisonment he came to our holdings here in Argentina.” He looked on through the crowd and saw nothing but attentive faces. “He was then responsible for the continuation of our movement and from the ashes of the Third Reich came our present, Final Reich. We have an exalted name to carry and we will not be found lacking. The First Reich lasted for a thousand years under the Teutonic Order and their Holy Roman Empire. The Second Reich burned brightly yet only for a short time with the Prussian Empire. The Third burned the brightest and would’ve eclipsed them had it succeeded.” At every mention of their near success Rolf fought back tears of frustration. They had been so close.

“We honor their achievements every time we congregate with more than one of our number or when we show pride in our race and heritage. The world does not share our beliefs. In the Americas, the United Kingdoms, and even in our Deutschland wherever our kind come together we are persecuted like schvartze or juden.” Coiled rage shook Rolf’s face as he continued. “Yet we still come together. We cannot be stopped. Even The Lords of Hell admired our resolve to go on in the face of this overwhelming opposition.”

Many in the audience turned to one another in confused discomfort but were quieted by steely stares that did not tolerate weakness. They didn’t understand this infernal reference. Rolf was familiar with this intolerance of weakness, and it had made him the man he was today. “These Lords of Hell, Nephilim, came to my father when I was but four and bade him sacrifice to them. They were Dark Nobility and wanted to recruit Third Reich survivors to their ranks. He refused to bow down before anyone but the Fuhrer. This adamant faith in the face of doom beyond mortal death gave them pause.” Those uncomfortable had mostly settled into their seats and began to be swayed by his sermon. “At their indecision Rudolf Hess, our Prophet, offered up this consideration to them. If they wanted to capture the hearts of evil men in the modern age, they should give them a newer evil.”

Rolf looked about the crowd and saw a few had gotten up and were heading to the doors; he nodded to a few hidden brown-shirt security men and went on. “As they had not taken his soul my father continued to entrée them. Who else in recent history had even approached the brilliant evil of Adolph Hitler?” Some in the hall were insulted at the idea of their Fuhrer being evil. Whatever he’d done had been to sub-humans, hardly more than the animals they ate.

“Do you know what they answered? Joseph Stalin.” A shockwave went through the assembled: the Bolshevik, communist brute. What an insult.

Still others stood, not liking this turn of their little social club. Getting together and beating a few natives, juden, or schwartzs was a communal bonding experience; this talk of evil was very discomforting, very gauche.

“They were answered by a cry straight out of Hell’s black ninth ring.”

“Stalin!?!”

“Stalin’s not good enough to throw pebbles at my shit! He killed out of greed and lust for power. His successes were nothing more than an over-achieving mobster. Mine were out of pure hate! I couldn’t abide living with those filthy vermin. If the Third Reich had gone for a thousand years, I could have rid this world of every sub-human.” More brown-shirts had come to the exits blocking them. Those that tried to leave were protesting their detainment and were met with fascist argument of fist or cudgel across the face and head. Protest soon stopped.

“What audacity, who else could have struck out from Hell’s own heart like that? My father dropped to his knees in dread worship of his Fuhrer’s voice. He remembered its shrill command and was overjoyed to hear it once more.” He motioned for more brown-shirts to come through the ranks and take over vacated seats. “The Dark Nobility were justly impressed and summoned him forth like we will today.”

There was further shock going through the crowd, but none got up to leave. They were all captivated by the sermon and only reacted to its excitement. Those who did were removed by the brown-shirts who then closed ranks by filling the vacated seats.