“I am the King of Plagues!” He yelled it. Fierce and wild, full of pride and hubris and hatred.
Eris smiled. “The world belongs to me and I sanctify and bless you, my seven glorious Kings. Let those who oppose our will perish in torment. This I say before you all!”
“The Goddess!” they all screamed.
Then the Kings drank, and the Consciences drank with them. Even Toys, against his own will, fumbled for his wineglass and sloshed some bloodred wine into his mouth, though it burned like acid in his throat.
Chapter Thirty-nine
In Flight
December 18, 6:35 P.M. EST
Circe told me about the Goddess and the hate crimes inspired by her online postings.
“Okay,” I said, “that lines up with what we’ve gotten from Plympton’s note, Dr. Grey, and that fruitcake Nicodemus. You’re the expert on symbolism and we’re ass deep in it—so what the hell are we looking at? And, just a heads-up, if you say that you don’t know I’m pretty much going to throw myself out of the plane.”
“Don’t kill yourself just yet. Between what you have and what I have, we may actually have something here.”
“But—? You say that, but you have ‘but’ written all over your face … and, yes, I am fully aware of how that sounds, so please pretend I didn’t say it.”
Circe smiled. She had a good smile and so far I hadn’t seen very many of them. “‘But,’” she said, leaning on it intentionally, “the scope of it is so … big.”
“Mr. Church said something today. He told me that sometimes a war is so big and yet so subtle that all you can hope to do is catch glimpses of it as it moves through your life. I don’t like to accept that, but I’m beginning to think he’s right.”
She nodded. “That’s the nature of a terrorist organization. They’re more like an online virtual community. They don’t physically exist in any one place. There are some here, some there, … and most of them don’t even know each other. Not on a real level.” She chewed her lip and considered. “Let’s look at this one piece at a time.”
“Hit me,” I said.
“The Hospital fire. After looking through all of the employee lists, all of the programs and services, the research highlights, et cetera … , there are two things that stand out. The first is the scope. It’s big. So big you could call it ‘epic.’ No one will be unaware of it, and that kind of scope adds weight and authority to any subsequent message by the perpetrators.”
“Right. A terrorist who blows up a hot-dog cart isn’t taken as seriously as one who knocks down the Twin Towers.”
“Exactly. Second point is that we are finding out information about the Kings. I would like to think that our side is simply so smart that we’ve been able to compile information very quickly, but—”
“But,” I cut in, “information is being handed to us. Deep Throat, Nicodemus, the confessions of Plympton, Scofield, and Grey …”
She nodded. “And the Goddess posts.”
“So, we’re being fed this stuff? Why?”
“It speaks to the interpretation of the events. It shows us, the good guys, the size and scope of our enemy’s plan. Another way to interpret an ‘epic’ scale is ‘biblical.’”
“They want us to see this as something off-the-scale?”
“Sure. It reinforces their mystique.”
“How does that help them?”
“If they are not tied to a specific religion like Islam or Christianity, or a political ideology like democracy or communism, then their message won’t carry the same weight.”
“I get it,” I said. “By building the mystique of a secret society acting out the orders of a goddess but by using elements of existing religions, they make us see them as ancient, powerful, and mysterious.”
“It’s window dressing,” she conceded, “but it works.”
I nodded. It really was working.
“Moreover,” Circe continued, “they are also raising the bar. 9/11 gouged a scar into everyone’s psyche. The only way to one-up that was to go bigger. Blowing up Windsor Castle or Parliament would have been big, but a hospital has more emotional punch. It sends a very clear message: There is no one safe from the Seven Kings. No religion, no race or national background, no age, no gender. The Kings are willing to kill babies and old people. They are saying that they are not afraid of anything. They are saying: ‘We are above you and your laws. We are, in fact, your Kings.’ The presence of a goddess suggests that the action of the Kings is mandated by a higher power. Based on what Nicodemus said, the Goddess transcended the older ‘version’ of God by embracing more aspects and combing them to become who she now is. ‘Become’ is the key word. We see that a lot in cases of transformative megalomania and sociopathy. A person ‘becomes’ something higher through ritual acts that include sacrifice.”
“Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon,” I said. “Serial killers do that.”
“Killing is proof of dominance over ordinary life as well as the pathway to ascendency.”
“Nice. What about the black smoke?”
“Yes. That makes no sense except as a symbol. I saw it from my hotel room. It was extremely thick, and the TV reporters kept saying that it looked like night over the Hospital. If we didn’t have Nicodemus’s comments to go on, then we might have been fumbling around with metaphors. He mentioned the Ten Plagues of Egypt. He fed us the connection.”
“Look, I mostly ducked out of Sunday school to play baseball, so can you give me the Cliffs Notes version of the whole Ten Plagues thing?”
She smiled. “Moses and his brother, Aaron, confronted Pharaoh to ask that the Israelites be allowed to leave Egypt. He refused, so Moses appealed to God, Who in turn taught Moses some magic. Stuff like transforming his staff into a serpent and causing or curing leprosy. Unfortunately, the Egyptian court magicians were able to duplicate most of the same tricks.”
“So the Ten Plagues was a pissing contest?”
“I’m not sure biblical scholars would agree with that interpretation. It was supposed to prove the power of the One God over the many gods of Egypt.”
“Politics,” I said, and she nodded. “So, Plague of Darkness. What’s the skinny?”
Circe tilted her head back for a moment, accessing memories, then recited: “That’s Exodus, chapter ten, verses twenty-one and twenty-two: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.’”
“The black smoke from the burning tires didn’t cover the whole land and it didn’t last for three days.”
“Right, but keep an open mind. Most scholars believe that much of the Bible is metaphor.”
“Okay. And you said something about the Nile turning to blood.”
“‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.’ Exodus, chapter seven, verse twelve.”
“That talks about the water itself turning to blood.”
“Metaphor,” she said, holding up a scholarly finger. “Metaphor. If an airborne strain of Ebola escaped and reached mainland England, people would start bleeding out by the tens of thousands. Blood would flow like a river, or as close as you would want to get.”