Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘Anything I can do to help.’ Lourds looked at the men round him, wondering why they didn’t react to what Webster was saying.

‘They don’t hear exactly what I’m saying to you,’ Webster said. ‘That’s just one of my abilities. When I speak, I can make the listener hear whatever I want them to.’

‘Must have been a great trick back in junior high school.’

‘You have no idea. Truly.’ Webster held a hand out and gazed at it. ‘When I first decided on this route for my return to this world, the idea gave me pause. The idea of allowing myself to be born into a mortal body, to deal with the frailties and hardships of the flesh – not all of them, mind you – was an anathema to me. But now I’m quite used to it. The serpent’s body was more elegant, more sure, but the pleasures are enhanced dramatically in this form.’

Lourds remained on his knees. He gazed around the room and spotted a woman and three men. One of them sat at a laptop and occasionally hit the keyboard.

‘My brains trust,’ Webster said. ‘Without their networks and resources, I couldn’t have come this far.’

‘It’s good to have friends,’ Lourds said. ‘Especially when you’re planning on taking over the world.’

‘It’s a big job.’

‘One supposes.’

‘Indeed. You wouldn’t have got this far without your friends. Then again, the Joy Scroll might have been left lingering out there as well. So we both succeeded in our pursuits.’

‘Too bad they weren’t mutually exclusive and mutually beneficial.’

‘You’ll have to take that up with God,’ Webster said. ‘I’m not the one who plays by the rules. If it were me, I wouldn’t have created a weapon that my enemy could have used against me.’

‘And maybe he was a little too understanding when it came to letting his greatest enemy live.’

Webster grinned. ‘Oh, he didn’t have a choice about that after he’d created the light and the dark. You simply can’t have one without the other. And he did try to keep you humans from knowing such things as good and evil existed.’

Lourds’ stomach turned and threatened to empty. Even though he knew who he was talking to, part of him wanted to deny that was what was really going on.

‘Exactly.’ Webster walked over to Lourds and invaded his personal space. ‘You can see me, hear me, know who I am, and your first impulse is to deny my identity. You people grasp at a God you can’t touch and struggle to believe in, but you deny me.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, that doesn’t stop you from blaming me and my influence for everything that goes wrong in your lives.’

‘I think most people blame God for that.’

Webster backhanded Lourds without warning, so fast that Lourds didn’t register the blow until his head had popped back and pain filled his right cheek and temple. He worked his jaw, not certain at first if it hadn’t been broken.

None of the people in the room reacted to the blow.

‘Your insolence won’t be tolerated,’ Webster stated in a low, dangerous voice. ‘Neither will your continued existence if you insist on being unpleasant.’

Lourds hoped that Cleena and Joachim had found an entrance to the building. Their plan had been desperate, but there’d been no other way that allowed Lourds to get close to Webster. Things would have been better if he’d already had the scroll translated. Stubbornly, though, the manuscript’s secrets continued to elude him. But he felt certain it was right there. Symbols swam through his head. All he needed was the key to how they fitted together.

‘You people need me,’ Webster said. ‘The God you revere has left a void in your lives. He doesn’t touch you every day. I will.’

‘Control, you mean?’

‘Guide.’

‘Slavery by another name.’

Webster exhaled. ‘Do you know how many people are lost out there? How many that are uncertain how they’re supposed to proceed in their daily lives?’

Lourds didn’t reply.

‘All of them,’ Webster said. He closed a fist in front of Lourds’ face. ‘They want a god that will be in their daily lives. One that will provide meaning and establish goals. One that will validate them in immediate response. That’s why people will turn to me.’

‘I’m not turning to you.’ The words were out of Lourds’ mouth before he realized it. ‘Not all of them will.’

‘Then the ones who don’t will die. I will crush them and leave their rotting corpses in the street.’

‘You may be gifted, but that doesn’t mean everyone will follow you. There are others who know you for who you truly are.’

Webster shook his head. ‘They are the walking dead. They’ve already ceased living and don’t know it yet.’

‘That’s the whole problem of free will,’ Lourds said softly. ‘Such a small, seemingly insignificant thing. Yet so powerful.’

‘A fascinating thing. Mankind’s greatest freedom and its greatest servitude all rolled up into one package. If you ask me, I’m offering a much better deal.’

‘Doesn’t matter. In the end, you’re going to be defeated.’

‘Bah. Only if you believe the rhetoric.’

‘John of Patmos didn’t see it as rhetoric.’

‘John of Patmos was a senile old man. Even the Roman Catholic Church agrees with me there.’

‘He foretold your coming.’

‘Of course he did. I’ve only been here since what? The beginning of the human race?’

‘And you haven’t managed to take over the human race yet.’ Lourds shook his head. ‘That must be very frustrating.’

‘Subjugate. Destroy.’ Webster shrugged. ‘It’s all the same to me. I’ve already made a lasting mark in this world. People have talked about me, feared me, since time began.’ He smiled. ‘I can live with that.’

Lourds felt the increased chill from the evil that clung to the man. It was like nothing Lourds had ever experienced before. It left him terrified and shaking.

Webster checked his watch. ‘I don’t have a lot of time left.’ He waved at the room next door. ‘I’ve got a television crew waiting to hear my impassioned plea for help from the president. I promise, it’s going to be a barnburner. Then, of course, there’s going to be the whole “escape from Saudi Arabia and the evil Prince Khalid” thing I’ve got planned.’

‘A barnburner? I knew there’d be fire involved.’

Webster chuckled. ‘It would be amusing to keep you around, Professor Lourds. But you’re much too dangerous to me. After the Brotherhood of the Scroll didn’t use John of Patmos’s final document, especially after it was broken apart and hidden away-’

‘You knew about that?’

‘Of course I did. Who do you think engineered the whole affair?’

Lourds thought about that and couldn’t believe it. But yet, it made sense.

‘I persecuted those people,’ Webster bragged. ‘And, occasionally, I found a weak one and exploited him. Over the years, fewer and fewer of them knew what the scroll was or how to read it.’ He paused. ‘I thought it had actually been lost for ever during the Fourth Crusade when I managed to split the Church.’

‘You did that?’

Webster performed a small bow. ‘Of course. Playing to my strengths. Put any two people together, anywhere in the world, and I’ll be there. I am the paranoia that chases after free will. I am the lingering doubt and malice over betrayal.’ He paused. ‘Now let’s see the scroll.’

Eckart stepped forward and handed Webster the wooden cylinder. The vice-president uncapped it and gently prised out the contents into his waiting hand. The scroll inside slid free and he caught it deftly. For just a moment, he held it, then he cast it aside with an obscenity and stared at Lourds.

‘I did warn you about playing games. Where is the Joy Scroll, Professor Lourds?’