“You see? Your mind, as well as your body, belong to me. They are my playthings, to do with as I will. Only your soul, for what that is worth, is yours, for it can be surrendered only voluntarily. So, relax. Don’t fight it because you can not. I have no cause to harm that which I own. Now, down on your knees before me on the floor. There! See?”
Her terror was now absolute, but she couldn’t even faint. She couldn’t do a thing he didn’t tell her to do.
“Now, I wish to know the consignor of the briefase. I wish to know the true employer of Mr. MacDonald.”
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, for she could answer no other way to him now. “I know only that it is a pretty big crowd, at least from money and power. Timmons Courier is mostly owned by them, I think. It’s a front for their use. You don’t ask questions and you get big bucks.”
“It is partly owned by Magellan,” the Dark Man told her, “but not entirely, nor is it controlled by Magellan. I wish to know of your past in this company. I want to know where, and to whom, you have delivered things since you joined it two years ago.”
She rattled off what names she remembered, and dates, and places, and people. A lot of embassies, a few government agencies in both the U.S., Britain, and western.Europe, and several small companies, none apparently connected. The government names were interesting, particularly those of minor nations, but the companies were more intriguing to him, for the majority of them had no connection with Magellan at all and were based in small countries who chartered them for profit with no questions asked.
There could be no question in the mind of anyone listening that the primary purpose of the service was to bypass traditional computer and telecommunications channels, no matter how good today’s scramblers were. And there was also no question that all formed some sort of intelligence network outside of normal channels.
“What are you thinking now?” he asked her. “Speak freely.”
“I’m thinking you have to do somthing. I’ll be missed. You got to kill me, I guess.”
The Dark Man sighed. “My dear, you have been thrown deliberately to the wolves, an expendable lamb brought in because you knew the least. Tomorrow that helicopter will return, but it will not make it. It will crash into the sea and be lost from sight. There will be no survivors, and no recovery of your body, although sufficient effects will wash up to make your death credible.” He got up from the chair and towered over her. “Now—rise. Rise and come to me.”
She stood up, and found herself walking right into him. She did not meet a human form or any resistance, but seemed suddenly cold and surrounded by darkness, with no form, no solidity. And then, quite suddenly, she was again on solid ground, but outdoors, atop a weird looking rock in the middle of a pretty, moonlit meadow. She was still naked, and walked to the other end, the low end, of the rock and turned to face the Dark Man, who stood on the rounded high point.
They were not alone. She had some limited freedom, and looked around to find that there were figures around the rock. They were all women, ranging in age from the teen to perhaps the thirties or forties. All were naked, and all had a wild, savage look on their faces and in their eyes, and all were looking at her.
“You have a free choice to make,” said the Dark Man calmly. “One choice and one only. You are of no use to me unless you are joined with us, freely and of your own will.”
The women took up a chant, and the Dark Man made a pass with his hand. Lines of light seemed to run fluidly across the grass of the meadow, forming an intricate pattern that surrounded the stone. There was the sudden crackle of electricity in the air in the area between the Dark Man and the terrified woman, and the onlookers, the worshippers, fell down and continued to chant some more.
The shape in the center took form, a strange and wondrous form, of a creature that was humanoid but not human. It was an angelic form, with great wings mounted at the shoulders and down the back emerging from flowing robes, and a face that was at once beautiful and wondrous and beyond any description.
“Behold Belial, once an angel and now a prince of Hell,” the Dark Man said. “Fall down and worship him, and give yourself to him and to his Lord and sovereign. We offer you pleasure. We offer to sponge away all guilt, all worry, all fear, and exchange it for that which is wondrous. We offer life, and beauty, and truth, in exchange for your acceptance of and worship of those who would rule a proper universe against a God gone insane. Few are offered this clear choice with such clear evidence.”
The creature in the center was so wonderful, so beautiful, that it almost commanded worship, as it had an ancient days, for the angels were created second only to God, and the rulers of Hell were angels always.
“Now consider a God who would not only permit but encourage war and plague and massive suffering and misery. Consider a God who would not only allow, but command the Lord Satan to do his worst to humanity. Fall down and worship now, and give your soul freely to the ones who will end this madness! You know the words, for they have been provided you! Do it now, or die in horrible torment here, piece by piece and bit by bit, so at last in your death your soul will go to your God who will not help you now. He’s here! Now! All around you! He sees and hears and knows this, and could stop it in an instant, yet he allows it, as he allowed Hitler and Stalin and Mao, as he ignored the anguished screams of the Holocaust and a thousand other Holocausts over the ages. Fall down now, and give yourself to sanity!”
Her terror had not diminished, but the sight of the great creature and the words of the Dark Man penetrated a level of consciousness beyond the terror. She hadn’t been to church since she was fourteen, and she hadn’t given anything religious much thought, but now it faced her, and the clock was running out on a decision.
“Do you think a God who would allow His own son to be agonizingly crucified will intervene to save you? Pray now, for now you begin to die. Now you must decide—to join freely with us, or to go to your God!”
The angelic creature changed suddenly, in a moment, into one of terror, a monstrous, misshapen thing that roared and drooled and slobbered and shook its bat wings, and gestured to her with a taloned finger from which came a living stream of electrical fire. It struck her and she was instantly in horrible agony, the most terrible pain she could remember or imagine. She cried out, “No! I will do anything! No!”
The agony stopped, but she could feel its aftermath and smelled in her own nostrils the smell of her own charred flesh. Again the figure was angelic, and it waited.
Her mind cracked, and she fell upon the stone, and the words came as she asked them to. “I worship thee, oh mighty Prince of Hell,” she gasped, “and give my immortal soul now and forever to thee and thy Lord Satan, now and forever more to the end of time!” The words had been placed there by others, but at that moment she meant every word of it.
The creature looked down at her and gave a wondrous smile, and reached out and touched her head, and instantly her wounds were healed, her body made not only whole but better than it was, powerful and beautiful and totally free of blemish. She surrendered utterly and felt tremendous peace and joy, and she would do willingly whatever was commanded of her.
She got up, and faced the creature, and it took her wrist and made a single sharp cut across a vein, but it didn’t hurt a bit. She turned and got down from the rock, and saw the other women gather around, and they, too, had identical cuts. And she took each in turn and drank a little of their blood, and they a little of hers, and it burned like fiery liquor in their mouths.
And the creature turned and gave its blessing to them all, and the cuts faded, healed as if they had never been, and then it faded out, like a will o’ the wisp in the night, and then the glowing liquid forms of energy on the meadow faded as well, and they were at peace and filled with joy.