EHYEH-ASHER-EHYEH (I AM THAT I AM): An Elena Duran/Corazon Negro
Vi Moreau (vmoreau@directvinternet.com)
Sun, 22 Sep 2002 01:01:15 -0400
Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (I am that I am) 15/34
Julio Cesar divad72@prodigy.net.mx
Vi Moreau vmoreau@directvinternet.com
New York
March 29, 2013
Vlad Tepes, the mythical eternal dragon, Capo de Capo of the Russian Mafia,
read his e-mail a second time, then laughed. A deep, booming laugh that
filled the Headless Children headquarters in New York.
"A funny message, Voivode?" asked Rasputin, who was just receiving his own
transmission on his wrist computer. "You seem happy."
"Very happy," Vlad answered, grinning. "It is good news from Livia.
Excellent news from across the ocean. You will be surprised and pleased."
Rasputin's eyes narrowed in thought. An opportunist, he believed in taking
advantage of every chance to make himself popular within the Headless
Children security brigade. "I suspect that tonight we will meet our just
reward. Let me read this."
The monk studied his e-mail. It was written in the complex code used by the
Headless Children's spies to report important information to the
organizational headquarters in the island of Nod. Knowing that untapped
phone lines were impossible, the Hunter's cryptographers working for Lilitu
had devised a nearly unbreakable code based on a randomly generated number
sequence derived daily from the temperatures of twenty-seven cities
throughout the world. As members of the inner circle of the Headless
Children, Vlad and Rasputin could decode the message mentally. Scanning his
little digital screen, the monk nodded in satisfaction. The information was
straightforward and to the point. The news could not be much better.
"Everything is in order. The leaders are gathering at the United Nations
just as Mother predicted. Our time is now," Vlad said smiling.
"The mortals will have extreme security systems around the area. We are few
and work mostly in secret. Any ideas?" Rasputin asked.
"Wise words," answered Vlad, still smiling. "However, they are just a bunch
of talking monkeys. We, on the other hand, will be widely feared, and widely
respected. We shall exploit that difference in perception to our advantage."
The Voivode's eyes narrowed, as if receiving an inner thought. "Besides,
Mother gave me exactly what we need for this war."
The monk's dark eyes were burning. "What do you mean?" Rasputin inquired,
uncomfortable at being surprised.
Vlad's muscles tightened. The Voivode had a habit of saving his best news
for the last possible instant. "You'll see. Follow me."
Rasputin followed Vlad toward another room. "Enter," the Voivode gestured
absently toward the cleared patch of floor at the room's center and turned
away. Until very recently, this space had been as heaped with arcane
paraphernalia as the rest of the cramped sanctum. To all appearances, the
room's new arrangement was the result of a fastidious application of
blasting powder.
He is insane, Rasputin thought. Dangerously insane. Cautiously, he gathered
his strength. For hours, the monk had endured the smug glances, the knowing
chuckles, and the too-familiar touches of his comrade-in-arms. Each of the
hundred tiny gestures had been calculated to convey the same unsettling
message-I'm in charge here.
Rasputin cursed himself for a fool. It had happened that night of the first
meeting of the Headless Children. The entire congregation had gathered to
worship Lilitu. At its center, every one of them plunged into the very heart
of the nightmare to come, New York's destruction-Lilitu's graveyard. They
had followed. He could still recall the vivid towers of pitted steel and
sizzling neon rising above him on all sides from hours ago. He could feel
the teasing hint of the familiar behind the rambling processions of bus
stops, tenements and yellow police tape. The city he knew was soon to be
wasted.
But something fundamental had been changed. That was why Lilitu had brought
them there-so that they could see with their own eyes the changes that soon
would be. Ripples from a single stone would drop upwards into the river of
Mother's eternal night, into oblivion.
At first, the alterations would be subtle but sweeping. Lilitu was patiently
reshaping the city in her own image. Rasputin had thought that the anomalous
element to be introduced into the city should be they, the Headless
Children. The very words seemed to whisper of blasphemous secrets and unholy
predations. It was a breath straight from the eternal grave. It was words of
power, a name to conjure with. The mere mention of the cult of enemies of
humankind conjured images of moonless nights centuries distant, nights when
Rasputin' forbearers had hunted-and been hunted in turn-among the blasted
crags of infinity. And the Headless Children had gone to great lengths to
distance themselves from such recollections.
Rasputin could remember the first caress of Lilitu's dark sorcery upon him.
He remembered Mother going down under the enemy assault. He remembered the
sick feeling in his stomach as he found himself involuntarily rushing to her
aid-as if just reaching her would be the culmination of all his centuries of
eternal life, of all his strivings, all his sacrifices. Damn her.
Then he was at her side. She touched him. She knew him. She smiled.
Damn it, he hated that smile. It was a smile she reserved for meetings upon
thresholds. She would take your hand and smile in that certain way and you
knew with unshakable certainty that she had contrived this entire improbable
gathering just to steal this one sympathetic moment with you. To squeeze a
hand, to exchange an exaggerated sigh, and then to be torn away again,
becoming everyone's once more.
Rasputin was not quite sure how she had pulled them all out, gotten them to
fight again. That was the reality, of course, not the damned smile. She
didn't need them half as much they needed her. They all knew it. Even if it
were nice to pretend otherwise, if only for a short while.
But upon her homecoming nights ago, she was furious. It was something
between Lilitu and the Ancient Gathering, Rasputin was never exactly sure of
what. Mother was hot, raging on about invaders, earthquakes, and traitors.
It was at precisely that instant that Vlad had caught the mad monk's eye.
Vlad saw, damn him. Rasputin didn't know how he saw, but in that instant the
Voivode knew everything. Over the last days, Vlad had gone to great pains to
let Rasputin know that he knew. These warnings-the elemental regalia that
Livia and the others had supported the monk's aid in this war
personally-were only the latest in a long string of insinuations. The monk
had followed his master's instructions to the letter. He'd thought that
would be the end of it. He would present his hard-won treasures before
Lilitu. He would be humiliated. He would be exposed. He would perhaps even
be blackmailed.
But this? Surely Vlad wasn't going through with this. From his place near
the doorway, Rasputin looked at the Voivode. But Vlad was lost in his
preparations.
Rasputin stared at Vlad for a long moment, his thoughts racing through the
possible scenarios-intrigues, threats, blackmail, confession, violence,
submission, bribery, and reconciliation. He picked up and examined each in
turn like a rare jewel. Just as carefully, he set each aside again,
dismissing it. Gradually, something crystallized within him. His features
became hard, angular, and sharp.
It was the cold, crystal-clear realization that Lilitu would never share her
power with any of them. She would use their power, and then discard them.
They were her pawns, her sacrificial lambs. They were all doomed.
Resignedly, Rasputin had made his own preparations. He had placed his
unorthodox ward over the eye of the storm, the diagram's easternmost point.
It was a plank made from gallows, long, thin, straight as a stave. The wood
had the added virtue of never having touched the earth. He was now
committed. From this point, there was no turning back from this mad course.
Forcing down any further uncertainties, Rasputin had paced off the precise
distance to the southernmost point, the hall of fire. Here he'd drawn forth
from his bundle a rusted dagger. The classical lines of the Russian design
were unmistakable, even under the years of wear and corrosion. Rasputin had
placed the knife carefully, its blade pointing treacherously inward, toward
the center of the room where Vlad must stand to invoke the darkness.
Another exact turning had brought Rasputin to the furthest west, the waters
of oblivion. Without ceremony, he'd deposited the cup of hemlock. He had not
paused to glance into the dark waters at the bottom of the chalice. They
would only remind him of those other dark waters and the faces of the
Headless Children, round and bright as moons. He'd hurriedly turned and
moved to the northern corner of the room.
Pausing to judge his mark, Rasputin had cast his final treasure to the
ground. It struck, the rotting purse spilling thirteen of its thirty coins.
A very inauspicious throw. The monk had let it die.
Standing now with Vlad, Rasputin turned to him. Surely, the game was up now.
The Voivode was going to expose him. Vlad would turn on him, mock him, and
scorn him. He would bellow something dramatic like: now take your proper
place at the center of these treacheries that you have brought into the
Headless Children. But as he thought further about it, Rasputin saw that
Vlad was composed, hauntingly still. Rasputin recognized that stillness. It
was the lull, the pregnant pause into which the blood spills.
No, this was foolishness. It had to be stopped. Vlad would ruin everything.
What possible use could these assembled barbs and insinuations serve in an
actual ritual? An invocation of the darkness was a thing of delicacy and
great danger. What kind of madman would knowingly ward himself in these
petty treacheries?
Vlad's voice was calm. "Rasputin, are you ready?"
Rasputin swallowed thickly, his voice almost breaking in a sudden attack of
terror. "Voivode, we can't..." he began, but fell silent when he saw the
darkness-the twisting strands of dimness stretching toward the floor from
Vlad's dangling fingertips.
It had already begun.
Vlad reached out one trembling hand toward the mad monk. As his hand turned
upward, Rasputin could see the vicious parallel slashes running down the
Voivode's forearm. There was a hole gouged in the center of the upturned
palm. A single black and red stone was pressed deeply into the center of the
wound. In Rasputin's excitable state, the whole resembled nothing more than
a single unblinking eye. Lilitu's eye.
"She has shown me all, our dear Mother. I have peered into her eye, seen
into its very depths! And she promised to let me use her darks powers in
order to destroy the Ancient Gathering!" Vlad exclaimed.
Rasputin could only look on in growing dismay as Vlad staggered forward.
"But it is not any of these things that accomplishes her Endgame," the
Voivode laughed. He coughed, releasing a fine spray of darkness. Fingertips
groped for Rasputin's face. The monk braced himself and stood unflinchingly
before the ravages of the evil he felt around him, reaching for him.
Then, as if struck by an entirely different thought, Vlad let his hand drop
absently to his side. He mumbled something and, turning away, began
smoothing the wrinkles from his ceremonial robe.
Vlad looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Like a
magpie, he turned from one curiosity to another. At times he stumbled. At
times, he dashed things from their cubbyholes. "Lilitu's black power is ours
now," the Voivode announced. "We must hurry... We must attack now... Nothing
can stop us... We are invincible... The mortals will be nothing in the face
of our power."
Bowing, Rasputin slipped from the room without a backward glance and hurried
down toward their troops waiting to attack.
========
Island of Nod
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean
March 29, 2013
Lilitu's laughter shook the stonewalls of the cave, so that in her delight
she caused mild tremors on the lighted surface of the world. It was no
matter. No one suspected she was there. In fact, no one had reason to
believe she existed at all.
But now she was whole. She was the beginning and the end, the bringer of
death.
What pleasure it would give her to play childish games again with the fate
of humankind.
========
New York
March 29, 2013
Zarach stood staring outside the jet's window, gazing into infinity. His
mind was plotting, trying to find the answer to the riddle.
In the halls of power, creatures existed to whom years were playthings and
the real world was a distant, unreal thing. Yet the real world had a way, on
occasion, of making its presence known, of asserting itself. Change, so long
held at bay, had come crashing down upon Immortals, an avalanche sweeping
all before it. The Endgame was at hand. The events in these modern days were
moving at an alarming pace. The mortal world could not be kept at bay. Not
forever.
Sitting besides Zarach, Heru-sa-aset asked, "Do you feel this move is wise?"
Continuing to look outside, Zarach scratched the stubble on his chin as he
answered. "The shorter the lines we have to watch, the stronger our defenses
can be. If we spread ourselves too thin, Lilitu will slip through. If we
pull tight, nothing gets through."
"But if the Headless Children do get through," Heru-sa-aset said, "they will
be in the city's center. We must press our lines forward, not withdraw them
so the enemy can strike swiftly at out heart." Zarach stood, shaking his
head patiently but firmly. "We are going to match them for manpower. We've
going to concentrate our special abilities."
"But surely we must have contingencies, the airport-"
"Keep a screen around the La Guardia airport, Prince. Keep it protected at
all costs. When the big push comes, we must take your fancy war jet at once
in order to reach Lilitu quickly and kill her." Zarach shrugged. "This has
got to be it. We'll never get this many Immortals together and organized. We
make our stand here, in New York." Zarach finished, sitting again.
Heru-sa-aset nodded, looking at his hands.
Beside the Egyptian, Myrddin turned his laptop so the others could see its
screen. "Look," the Druid said. The monitor showed a very detailed image of
the New York City area, focusing on the United Nations headquarters.
Zarach noted dots of different colors. Myrddin nodded at him, then pointed
at one of the dots. "Red shows New York cop foot patrols. Blue shows the
current location of Secret Service, FBI and other security teams."
Zarach nodded. The map was very sophisticated. Clearly it was being fed by a
direct link to a satellite. Myrddin never spared any expense for his toys.
Heru-sa-aset studied the map with intense care. Finally, without looking up
he said, "All right, we can go in here, then toward here. We come around
this place," the Egyptian went on, giving commentary that followed the map.
"And we could enter in here."
The map showed the point where they would hit the Headless Children.
Zarach sat quietly, his hands and interlocked fingers resting on his lap.
"If the United Nations falls, with all the leaders dead, there is little
chance of getting the world back."
Heru-sa-aset leaned back against his seat. "I agree. We can hold on here. We
have to. We shorten the lines; make sure we're not broken. I suspect the
Headless Children high command in New York will be antsy. We can figure time
is on our side. We hold out long enough, those bastards will start slitting
each other's necks and forget all about Lilitu."
Zarach pondered that, nodded thoughtfully. "The Headless Children are not
known for their solidarity," he agreed.
At that moment, the fasten seat belt signed and the pilot said. "Two
minutes."
"I know," Heru-sa-aset responded. "Prepare yourselves."
========