Steve Alten - The Mayan Resurrection

Maneuvering around these pitiful beings, she makes her way to the front of the rank, the sounds of the gong growing louder.

The avenue opens to a congested gathering place along the lake’s shoreline. Thousands of taller, more gangly bipeds push forward to join the mob. They are dressed in heavy soot-covered robes, their elongated skulls tucked inside hoods. Exposed flesh has long disappeared beneath adhering layers of mouse gray silicon, giving their faces a heavily pruned appearance. Neanderthal-like brows protect dark, deeply set eyes. Noses and surrounding cartilage are missing, leaving behind only open nasal passages. Lipless mouths remain slack-jawed, exposing teeth caked with atmospheric dust and film.

Like cattle, the Nephilim push and prod each other, inching their way closer to the lake, following its shoreline to some unknown destination.

Avoiding the throng, Dominique hides behind the collapsed remains of a rectangular dwelling. She looks around nervously, taking in her surroundings, while the baritone gong continues to toll its bone-throbbing call.

The lake’s silvery surface sparkles crimson, reflecting the emberlike ceiling overhead. But it is the towering object situated across the lake that now occupies Dominique’s attention.

It is a statue… a statue of a monstrous humanoid. The face is demonic and frightening, highlighted by a wide, fanged mouth and aquiline nose. Huge goat horns, polished and ebony, are perched atop the being’s elongated, pointed skull. Batlike wings, enormous and clawed at the tips, fold in behind the naked upper torso like a shawl. The icon’s lower body is shaped like a goat’s hindquarters, the long tail ending in a spike.

Dominique stares at the statue, transfixed. It’s Lucifer. They’re worshiping the Devil.

The statue casts an ominous shadow across the lake, its satanic gaze reflecting scarlet flames from the Underworld ceiling, the glowing embers twisting the mouth into an evil grin.

The bells stop tolling.

Dominique hurries to another dwelling, seeking a better view.

And now she sees where the Nephilim procession has assembled.

Along the far shoreline is an immense calabash tree, as old as time, as large as an African baobab. Its knotted, twisted trunk and bare branches are alabaster white, its spongy bark secretes a saplike ivory mucus.

At the base of the redwood-sized trunk stands a figure.

Lilith.

The Hunahpu queen is wearing a vermilion monk’s robe, her hairless elongated skull and its bizarre jaguar tattoo concealed beneath the heavy hood.

As she speaks, her voice is amplified by the lake’s natural acoustics.

‘And it came to pass that our tyrant God, Yahweh, became so fearful and jealous of His own creations that He cast His most beautiful son, the archangel, Lucifer, into the depths of Hell. So selfish was our Creator that He banned His greatest creation, man, from the Garden of Eden. So egotistical was our Vengeful One that He sanctioned blood sacrifices among His most loyal followers. So unforgiving was He that He unleashed a great deluge and drowned His populace. So terrified of man’s intelligence was our paranoid deity that He destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered the survivors to the four winds, forcing them to speak in different tongues to stifle our ascension as a species, assuring our eventual self-destruction.

‘“Thou Shall Not Kill,” commanded the Great Hypocrite, as He smote us like fish in a barrel and taught us to hate.

‘But even the Great Hypocrite Himself could not stifle the love from our real father, our beautiful Morning Star, who reached out from Hell to instruct us. It is Lucifer who taught us how to taste the fruit of the vine. It is he who replaced abstinence with indulgence, ignorance with curiosity. It was Lucifer who liberated our spirits, encouraging our biological, spiritual, and intellectual ascent, and directed us toward the hidden forces of nature. He is our salvation, and we are his, for the time has come to undo the wrongs of the past and release our father from his unholy bonds.’

The crowd stomps and grunts, their rants causing the porous soil to flood. Across the street, the four owls continue staring, gasping great wheezes of breath.

Dominique fingers the sword, her arms trembling.

Lilith waits until her legion quiets. ‘And now, Yahweh has sent another messenger of pain. But fear not, for the arrival of this Hunahpu shall not cause you more despair. Devlin, your true savior, shall use the Hunahpu’s powers to unseal the Gates of Hell, releasing our father, the archangel, Lucifer!’

Wild stomping and grunts, the crowd trampling one another as it tries to move closer.

Lilith motions for silence. ‘Patience. The blessed resurrection shall be upon you soon enough. Until then, you may take one revolution around Lucifer’s light before returning to your dwellings.’

Dominique watches, dumbfounded, as the procession of the tortured circle slowly around the glowing alabaster tree, their colorful orbs absorbing its energy, glowing brighter as if sucking in its warmth, feeding off the tree’s light.

And then the beings depart, grunting and shoving one another, the bipeds jostling the slower amputees as they return to the village.

Remaining hidden, Dominique uses the smart-binoculars to zoom in upon another object, this one anchored in close proximity to one of the tree’s dangling lower limbs.

It is a wooden cross, supporting a crucified figure.

The head is obscured in a crown of thorns, the blood bleeding blue.

Jacob…

Dominique waits until the streets are deserted, then waits ten minutes more.

Moving out from hiding, she hurries down the avenue to the lake, slipping and sliding in the gray mire.

She steals a quick glance to her left. The smooth, quicksilver surface of the lake sparkles crimson, reflecting the ceiling embers high overhead.

Must hurry… before the demon sentry in Jacob’s holographic program appears.

She jogs faster, adrenaline and fear distracting her brain from the physical pain, the double-edged sword gripped firmly in both hands.

Twenty years of existence, twenty years of nightmares. For six years she has watched her son prepare for war within this same hellish environment. But this is no holographic program, and she is not Jacob.

God, please let him still be alive.

She races past the alabaster tree, hurrying to the cross and its unconscious crucified victim.

‘Jake? Jacob, honey, it’s me!’ She reaches the wooden cross’s base, gazing up at its crucified figure – who slowly opens his iridescent eyes, a smile appearing on his angelic face.

Dominique’s jaw drops. ‘Devlin…’

The Seraph spreads its wings, then leaps off the cross, his feet pouncing on Dominique’s chest, his talonlike toenails puncturing her environmental suit.

And then his wings stop flapping, and he leans in closer, staring at her, his dark expression quizzical. ‘You’re not Immanuel?’ He straddles her chest and sniffs her neck, his nostrils inhaling her scent. ‘First-Mother! Where is your other son? Tell me now, or I’ll kill Jacob.’

‘I’ll tell you… but first… I want to see him!’

Devlin’s wings beat the air, lifting him off Dominique’s chest. Regaining his feet, he pulls her up by the hair, then drags her toward the calabash tree.

Jacob is on his back, his throat and limbs pinned beneath the tree’s thickly knotted alabaster roots.

‘Speak now, or he dies.’

‘Manny never made the voyage. I took his place.’

Devlin’s eyes blaze violet. ‘Impossible.’

‘It… it’s true.’

‘ Arrgggghh!’ Devlin clubs her in the back of the head, sending her crumpling to the oily ground-unconscious.