preacher gave the order to call a halt a mile past the town in a small forest of dead maples. Stoneworthy had approached him with obvious reluctance in his thin-legged stride, and asked why they wouldn’t stop in the town. It had started raining, and many buildings there were sound enough to provide protection from the elements.
“My friend,” Updike had said. “Did you see the arena as we passed? It is a structure of steel and aluminum. The type of building designed by the soulless architects at the end of the Millennium before the Change.”
“Yes,” Stoneworthy had said. “Between that, and others I saw, we could easily take shelter as we rest. There are the living troops to think about, and some of our people need to apply oils and treatments to their bodies.”
“I know,” Updike had sighed. “But there is a greater erosion that I fear those buildings will bring, far worse than any rain. It is an erosion that our cause cannot afford.
“Passing through the town was bad enough. Just passing through I’m sure has taken a toll. I would have avoided it all together, except that the farmland around it has turned to swamp in the decades of rain. What do you think we will find if we make our camp in the arena, or in the city hall?” Stoneworthy had shrugged, his face a mask of perplexity. “We will find remains. Not of the town’s inhabitants, not bodies no. Those would have risen and walked away or been dragged off by animals. No. We would have found the remains of a world that is gone.
“Imagine the foyer of the arena. Would there not be pictures of hockey players and of figure skaters? And would they not be the fresh sweet faces of children? There would be trophies, and plaques and awards-with names engraved, names of teams and of children, and long ago dates: Fastest Sprinter, 1988.” Updike watched Stoneworthy’s face smooth over with understanding. “I would not wish this army to see that. I would not want their purpose darkened with loss or revenge. We must have an army of righteousness to serve our God-to serve His Apocalypse. We cannot have an army of despair.”
The jeep took a sudden lunge and jerk to the left, jarring Updike out of his reverie by banging his head against the roll bar. Pain lit fire in his mind, but the painkillers must have been working for it quickly dulled. He hoped he had been entirely truthful with the minister. Updike had given him the logical, tactical argument, but he wondered if he truly doubted the faith of his troops so much. These people had handled more than that. They had died and returned to an existence of numbness. And still they had faith.
The gray noon sky lit up on the southern horizon like a sunrise.
“Jumping Jesus!” Bolton shrieked, moving stiffly forward in his seat. “Driver, get Lorenzo on the radio. Try to raise Carstairs.” General Lorenzo was leading the southernmost contingent of the army of dead. Carstairs led the southwestern arm. The driver fumbled with the jeep’s handset. He shouted a few things into it, turned the knobs- twisted dials-static and electric noise.
“Sorry, General! Interference.”
Updike knew that things had just taken a drastic turn but the pain in his head kept him from realizing its full impact. He retreated from the ache by thinking back to the town they had passed. He remembered seeing something in the coarse tangle of grasses by the faded remnants of a picket fence. Lying on its back-bleached corpse white by eternal rain and time, a chubby little arm and shoulder, beside it the round and pitted head of a plastic doll.
57 – New Deal
The Prime was a creature in the grips of dynamic opposition. The forces that worked upon him tugged at his mind, threatening to tear it apart. One moment, he was ecstatic. When the mood took him he moved his bulky body along the hall to his office as though he were about to take flight. Triumph! Triumph! Fucking Triumph! The tactical nuclear strike had reduced some eighty thousand corpses to burning dust-those farther from ground zero caught fire and spread the flames through the ranks-turned it into a holocaust.
During the moment of ecstasy the Prime allowed himself to imagine the hobbled army of renegades, tramping north through the wilderness, holing up in abandoned towns, doing whatever it was dead people did, and the next minute, a rocket whistling toward them, then a bright light turns them to vapor.
The Prime giggled. He nickered like a newborn mare. It was just a pity that the process was so quick! Drop and roll. Drop and roll. He would have enjoyed drawing out their molecular unbinding. Nonetheless, the Prime was caught up in the desire to do it again immediately. And thus the oscillation began.
The moment he thought of doing it again, he was gripped with killing anger. When that mood took him his movements condensed to the weight of a black hole, and his features darkened, as though the concentrated hatred that boiled in his veins would cause him to implode and drag the rest of the Tower to Limbo with him. That bastard Updike had forced him to show his hand. He was willing to use nuclear weapons.
It was a good and bad thing.
In the grips of a mood swing to dark, he stormed past his secretary’s pleading look without so much as a snarl. The Prime crashed through the door to his office. He plowed across the room, rage making clubs of his hands, and spun his large chair to sit in it.
A man sat there.
The Prime leapt away. “What the…”
The intruder stood. Smiled. The Prime was astounded by the man’s height. He was almost seven feet tall.
“Forgive my unannounced arrival,” he said, the Prime now noticed the lack of pigment in his skin. This gave his black eyes the appearance of holes. He was dressed in white cotton; he wore a wide-brimmed Panama hat. “But I couldn’t risk the regular channels.”
“Get the FUCK out of my office!” The Prime was already moving away. All of his weapons were in the desk. The leader of Westprime was dumbfounded. How the Hell?
“Before you consider calling your security, I wish to inform you that the people I work for have full knowledge of the Union.” Long yellow teeth leaned out of a smile.
The Union? The Prime’s mind raced with the idea of being burned at the stake while an ignorant mob howled like apes. No one knew about the Union.
“Who are you?” Knowledge of the Union could undo all of his work. Then he realized using of the nuke was already flushing competitors out of the woodwork. Fucking Updike!
“I am Passport, assistant to the Demon.” The white man bent at the waste like a wet bread stick.
“Demon?” The Prime’s thoughts raced. His Ally had never mentioned having servants?
“Oh, I see where your thoughts are running,” Passport said matter-of-factly. “The Demon for whom I work is invested with a magnitude of Powers far above that of your Ally’s.”
More powerful than my Ally? The Prime knew that there were other Demons. He suspected there’d be a confrontation like this one day. But he wasn’t ready-or was he?
“And, who is this Demon?” The Prime needed information. He took a step toward his desk.
“I work for Baron Balg. He resides in the Sunken City.” Passport moved his hands on many jointed arms. They bent every which way. “He offers you something.”
“Offer?” The Prime’s insulted ego growled, “I’m the leader of Westprime. I don’t need gifts.”
Mischief played at Passport’s strange, thin lips. “Of course, Prime. You have no need of gifts. Neither do you need suggestions. This is simply an offering.” He smiled. “You’re acquainted with offerings?”
“Offerings?” The Prime glared into the interloper’s eyes. As he remembered the Sending Room: the pentangle of blood, the weeping sacrifice. Dark father hear me!
“Great leaders achieve their prowess with two things chiefly: wisdom and strength. Your strength, like my master’s, is great. And yet, it may now be time to apply wisdom to its use.” Passport pursed his lips. He moved across the room toward the window. The sunlight burned on his white skin.
“What are you talking about?” The Prime had moved closer to the desk and the guns in its drawers.
Passport turned to him. “I am speaking of those who will lead.” He took a couple of steps. “ You are the leader of the New Age.”
The Prime was ready for that. He had even fantasized about such an offer. His Ally had informed him of a vast hierarchy in the Pit that consisted of thousands of Dukes, and Barons and Princes. In reality, the Prime had always expected a visit from Lucifer himself.
