an ARMAGEDDONQUEST story
3 A N G E L S O F T H E A N T I C H R I S T
FETCHED
JYTTE: |
|
Hi, Myangela. This is not easy for me to say: I must avoid you, and most important, must stop loving you.
Because of my Demon, of course. As you know, I am now obligated to cooperate with it much more than ever before. In the villa I had been controlling it with spells cast by My Angel Ulfæon, but they are invalid since the cataclysm. Now I am required to help my demonic self get what it wants, and if I love you, then it wants you. You would not survive the evil love of My Demon, it would be all-consuming. Literally. It will be Full Moon in a week, so I'm in mid-phase right now, between my wisest and most brutal selves. If I'd waited until tomorrow I might write a different letter; begging you to meet me, saying I was yearning to make love with you, promising anything to get you to come to me. So I had to put myself far away from you. You and I cannot meet again until I have finally defeated my Demon. Until then you can't trust me, nor can I trust myself. The same goes for Jytte. I have a thing for her, therefore so does My Demon. Both of you stay away from me. Better to stay close to other angels on Full Moon nights, just in case. So I'm sorry, but goodbye. Ulfo |
Everyone had read the mail so there was no personal secret for me to keep. At least no one made a fuss about how I needed to talk about it, until I mentioned it myself. Which I did not.
Although before we went to bed that night Jytte took me in an sympathetic embrace and said, "I'm sad too, I had a thing for Ulfo myself." And that was that.
Another e-mail from Ulfo showed up on the school's computer a few days later, attached to a copy of the previous message from Ulfo and addressed to "Mangela"
| Hey baby, it#s me yore loverman and im so horny for you and none of therse bitches here will fuk me so i need youu to fuk. i can%t get these guys to tell me where you are so i can come to you but i remmberd how to send a eeemail enuff to tell youu to come to me, could you be here in 2 days % & ? that wood be purfekt!!! i think these guys are getting scxared iof me and and waant to lock me in a room so mayby i should leaf, but i#ll wait for yyou anywey. yore horny stud Ulfo |
This time I did talk about it: "I think we had best be alert this Full Moon. He may be a long way from here, but we never have known just how far Ulfo's Demon can cast his spells."
But Evangeleva said, "There's no danger this time: my son and Michael are keeping Ulfo's Demon contained, I don't believe it has enough evil magic to get past Christ and the Archangel. But next month may be another story."
28 days and 1st full moon after the cataclysm
Tazio had left Rome with Anton, sailing on his yacht. It had been a trap, which had backfired on Anton, although resulting in a rather extreme change for Tazio: Negasex. He had been so plagued by The Lust that he had transformed himself into a sexual neuter to escape it. That had solved The Lust problem, but it also nullified all of his emotions and interests; all his passion to invent, to create, to save the world had dwindled away to nothing. He was now a hermit living in the Sahara Desert in total isolation.
A few days later it was reported that Ulfa had left the house in Mill Valley-- she had not been their prisoner --and one day was simply gone. No one knew where she was going, except that she had spoken of "East".
42 days and 2nd new moon after the cataclysm
There was another brief astral contact with Ulfa going into her most angelic phase, but she was in no condition to impart actual information, such as where she was or where Ulfo would be going next. Such concerns were hardly on her mind as she transformed into light to be One With The AAMM.
After two months of working and studying together our coven was often effecting trances that put us into a group-spirit presence with the universal consciousness of the AAMM. This was rather like Ulfa did every month, although she'd always been alone and restricted by the phases of the moon. In these episodes our coven was given information and instructions by what seemed to be another--much bigger and more cosmic--group-spirit. Not quite the universal AAMM, but getting closer.
During one of these sessions it was learned that Anton and the Dark Templars were instigating a catastrophically evil project: a jihad for all Muslims to wage holy war against everyone else everywhere on the planet. Adam's number one man, Achmet Khaddam, was being marketed as the up-and-coming Mahdi, to be worshipped by all Arabs and rule over the world's largest army of fanatics.
It was decided that Tazio should get involved, and assumed that even though he had nullified his emotional and sensual interests in worldly things, he would still feel something for me, if no one else. So I was assigned to send Tazio a message.
I was instructed to return to the ruins of the villa and find an English geologist named Peter who would be investigating the mysterious volcano Tazio had created that fateful night two months before. I would transmit a psychic message to Tazio via Peter, who would apparently be studying other mysterious volcanic activity in the Sahara Desert a few months later.
It was not a message I wished to deliver to Tazio: basically suggesting that he must learn to KILL if he was going to be an effective Antichrist. But it was uploaded into my aura as a psychic charge that would transfer to the geologist upon shaking hands, and eventually to Tazio when they met. Tazio would see and hear me. I hoped to let him know I was alive.
RUINS
60 days after the cataclysm
Being from high-tech Denmark, I'd always assumed that a Solar Finger was a machine of some kind--as most UFO reports suggested: flying saucer, alien spaceship--but learned that it was instead a plasmic spirit-life-form, more like a cosmic horse rather than an artificial vehicle. It reacted to commands but also had an innate intelligence of its own: a Solar Finger was a steed.
Mariangela, Shirley, Mischa and I travelled together. A Solar Finger picked us up and we were in Italy moments later, discretely dropped off to one side of what had once been the villa della Strega but was now a slag-heap with an absurdly steep and tall volcanic cone grown out of it.
Everything was burned and black, walls and towers tumbled, 12-thousand year-old stonework scattered. For Mariangela and myself it was a heartbreaking sight, and even for the other two girls it was impressive and sobering to see the destructive power that the potential Antichrist had at his beck and call.
"And all this was just by accident, you tell us?" Mischa pondered.
"As we understand it," I said, "Ulfo's Demon had actually killed Tazio. The volcanic activity was a result of the planet Earth responding to save him. By the time Tazio was resurrected and stopped the eruption the damage was already done."
We could see a couple of Land Rovers and equipment trailers parked as close to the ruins as possible due to all the rubble, and a group of men over on the other side of the volcanic cone. I went over alone to find a certain man.
I came up behind a young geologist who was bent over chipping a sample of lava free and instinctively sensed that he was the one I was looking for. "Pardon me, aren't you Peter?"
He was engrossed in his work and responded gruffly, "Who wants to..." then turned his head to see who had spoken with a woman's voice, "...blimey!" He sprang to his feet, facing me, obviously stunned by what he saw. "Uh--yes, I am! And--uh--what is YOUR name?" His brash attitude had vanished but not his cockney accent.
I'd not been around any men for two months and had almost forgotten the effect I have on them, poor things, although Peter's reaction seemed even more intense than usual. I understood that my developing angelic powers had upgraded my sexual appeal to some higher level, as had living with Tazio for three years. My pregnancy was only two months along, so my belly was still flat and toned, my breasts...well, never mind, I was aware that I looked good. Considering that I had started out as a fairly pretty blond and blue-eyed Scandinavian girl, now angelically enhanced, no mortal man had any real defense against me anymore. Aware of that, I resolved to be fair.
"I'm Jytte, nice to meet you," offering my hand to make contact. "I would like to forward a message."
"Oh, to some lucky man?" Peter was blushing, but took my hand eagerly.
"No, to Tazio."
"Who--uh, isn't he that kid everyone talks about: God-on-foot, etc? I never met the bloke."
"I am told that you shall, probably near some unexplainable geological event. I'm instructed to speak through you." Still holding Peter's hand, the physical contact became psychic; he went into a trance, receiving the data he was to transmit to Tazio two months later.
"Tazio, we're all alive! I'm sorry we had to fool you, but I still may only say some things..." The point of the message was that Tazio must not turn his back on the world, he needed to pay attention to what was happening and take action. Eventually Christ and Antichrist must do battle on the field of Megiddo, and it was suggested that Tazio should dismiss his promise never to harm anyone--and learn to kill.
"Tazio, these are not MY wishes, only my instructions...I may not say from whom, nor where we are being...I am only allowed to say that I still love you, still believe that you will save the world. Oh, Tazio, oh please DO!"
With that I released Peter's hand and his trance ended. He looked around, blinking in confusion. "Wha' happen? Did I just have the best sex of my bloody life?"
We four girls went into La Destinazione together, having been offered a lift from the geologists, four horny men all very interested in these "unreasonably beautiful" women. We accepted the lift and a drink each on the Piazza Centrale--we had nothing against a rare moment of normal social interaction, our lives of celibacy and introspection at the school could be tedious. After all, none of us had ever sworn a vow of chastity except for Mariangela.
But after a drink Mariangela and I had other business in town, so we excused ourselves to the disappointment of the horny geologists.
I wanted to visit my old apartment, abandoned for the last two months. I was quite surprised to learn that it no longer existed: a large “stone” had come flying from the volcanic eruption that night and fallen through the roof, punching deep into the earth, destroying most of the building. It had since been torn down.
Having lived in town for 3 years, I met people on the street who knew me. Sindaco, the Mayor, had been one of Tazio's greatest admirers and closest friends. When he saw me he came running and gave me an enthusiastic hug, chattering, "Ciao, bella Jytte, come va?" And of course, asking where I'd been and what about Tazio.
Fortunately, Sindaco was a good enough friend that he understood Tazio had necessary secrets, so when I told him that I wasn't at liberty to say certain things, he understood that as well, but had to say: "Last I talked to Tazio on the phone he still thought you were dead."
"I--I just sent him a message," I said, feeling so sad and guilty, since it wasn't quite true yet. "But I haven't seen him since THAT night."
"Oh no-- you two were so perfect together, you haven't broken up, have you?" I had to laugh, so absurd the question had seemed, so pedestrian, like problems normal couples had.
"What? No, no-- it's only temporarily, we just had other things we had to do, different places we had to be, we still love..." And then I crumbled, found myself weeping uncontrollably for the first time since that night. Sindaco held me, comforted me, which was slightly awkward since I'm so much taller than him.
I allowed myself to cry for a minute, then reassumed my angelic self-control, gave the Mayor a squeeze and a smile, saying, "Whew, that's the first time I've been able to cry since that night. Guess I needed that. Thanks, Sindaco."
Jytte and I met back at the Piazza Centrale, where Shirley and Mischa were still having drinks with the four geologists. The girls were enjoying a little buzz but the men were all quite drunk. They had been plying the two beauties with alcohol, not realizing that angels had a much higher tolerance for just about anything.
Both Shirley and Mischa had been briefly interested in having a fun-flirt with some men, maybe even a nice little sexual encounter, but once those guys had all gotten drunk the girls lost interest. It wasn't really the men's fault, they simply had no defense against the attraction angelic women generate. Peter, Jytte's future messenger, was especially confounded by us: upon first meeting me he had definitely fallen in lust with my looks, but meeting these other three equally desirable angelic women had confused his aim; who to focus on, which one to pursue?
So we girls said farewell and walked out of town. Out on the lonely road to the ruined villa, where we were picked up by our Solar Finger. It was daylight, so there were probably not so many UFO reports this time.
MIDWIFERY
6 months after the cataclysm
But I certainly did have other concerns. Having never been pregnant before, I was just as insecure and anxious about my fetus as any mortal woman would be.
"By now shouldn't I be feeling the baby moving once in a while? But nothing's happening, is it all right?"
Of course, living among a coven of magical angel/witch avatars, I had the best prenatal care possible on Earthlevel. The coven had gathered several times to take magical readings of the fetus' well-being and general progress.
"This female fetus is obviously becoming a True Born Avatar: a perfect Vehicle of Earthlevel Incarnation for one of the higher dieties. Physically she has and will always have perfect health, a potential immortal. Her Spirit or Soul, however, is not yet in place. Which could mean that the incoming god/goddess is presently occupied on a higher level, perhaps arranging destinies until it is time to be born."
"Or," Irisia counseled, "it could be that it is not yet determined which god or goddess shall become manifest. They do like to Play The Game, you know."
I learned that my being mother to a True Born was quite an unusual event, since I was not True Born myself. I was a Proxy Avatar, that is I had been transformed by proximity with several True Borns: Tazio, Mariangela, the Ulfæ, Buffone and even Anton had each charged my mortal body with their Avatar energies. Most of my angelic companions were Proxies like me, only four out of the 13 angels in the coven were True Borns.
While Proxy angelic abilities are similar, including being able to recall past Earthlevel incarnations, the True Borns are virtually immortal-- unless killed by mega-violence --whereas a Proxy's powers would eventually dissipate and vanish, becoming mortal again, if not for constant proximity to a True Born. Another difference was that Proxies rarely had any recall of previous existences other than Earthlevel, such as Solar, Saturnian or Jupiterian, levels the uninitiated might mistake for "Heaven or Hell".
One thing the coven could not determine was the father of the child: Tazio, Ulfo, Anton? All True Born Avatar males, all genetically related. Counting back 26 weeks would make Tazio the father, but Ulfo had been there only 3 days before and Anton a few weeks before that, pinpointing the exact moment of conception was an inexact science even for angelic witches.
None of the girls would dream of accusing me of immoral behavior, they had each and all experienced how destiny worked: someone else was tinkering with your own plans. Nor did I feel an iota of guilt about my situation: I was ecstatically happy, it didn't matter who the father was. Although I really hoped it was Tazio.
REPORTS FROM AFAR
6 months after the cataclysm
The geologist Peter should have met with Tazio by then, the angels waited to see if he would react to Jytte's message and get off his ass. Which he did, reports came in of an androgen young super-person heading for Achmet in Mecca, performing miracles, releasing prisoners, foiling executions, defeating armies, nothing could stop him.
Meanwhile, over in the USA, there had been various news coverages of mysterious "werewolf" encounters in Arizona and New Mexico, people had been attacked, shots had been fired at it, although no fatalities had taken place as yet. These had occurred shortly before Full Moons so it was assumed to be Ulfo in dark phase.
We were relieved to hear that there had been no deaths, either of victims or Ulfo himself. We were more concerned about victims, since they knew that should Ulfo be killed he would always be resurrected as Ulfa just before the new moon. But his victims would not, and would engender a karma of guilt and shame that would be a moral burden for the enlightened Ulfo.
CINDY ARRIVES
8 months after the cataclysm
I feared the worst: "Oh no, it must be Tazio--something has triggered his spiritual awakening, and now he has become His True Satanic Self!" I had always feared that would happen.
"We don't know that, but we can find out," Irisia spoke with authority, "assemble the coven!"
The 13 women were scattered around the temple complex, they came running to take formation, each in their place of power. In a moment they were in a telepathic trance, collectively ascending to the astral plane, from where they could see the brightness of those two new entities.
The new Angel who had been the mortal woman Cindy Suthers looked back at them from Mecca, where she had just been resurrected from death as a Pure Soul, an angelic entity without the usual constraints of an Earthlevel Persona. She emanated raw power. Cindy sent the Angels a psychic nod: "I'll get back to you in a while girls, I'm rather busy here just now."
The other new Angel was an even bigger surprise: the soul of Achmet Khaddam, Anton's closest henchman and the leader of the Islamic Jihad, had been accessed by Cindy so that the second-most-evil agent of the Dark Templars had achieved Ultimate Enlightenment. He too sent the Angels a nod, aware of their presence on a far side of the planet, and he too was busy: stopping the Jihad and converting his army of fanatics into reasonable men working to achieve world peace instead of world war.
Over the next week we heard dramatic reports about minor but constant earthquakes rattling all Muslim lands, causing no physical damage but frightening everyone. Several days of those tremors resulted in Israel breaking off from the Arabic mainland and becoming an island.
Finally, as Achmet Khaddam publicly announced that he was now leading the Moslems on a quest for world peace--the earthquakes abruptly stopped. It seemed to qualify as a Sign From Allah. The impact of these incidents had a profound effect upon the 3 major religions in that area.
Besides the public media's news about these incidents, the Angelic Network provided us with secret reports from our own agents in the field. We were aware that Tazio had caused-- and stopped --those earthquakes while sitting in a week-long trance in the remains of a building that had been the Dark Templar' HQ in Mecca.
Further enquiry revealed that Anton and Achmet had kidnapped, tortured and killed Cindy Suthers simply because she had been one of the girls Tazio had cared most about while wallowing in the Lust in Rome. Their intention had been to lure Tazio into a trap.
Tazio had indeed gone to Mecca to rescue Cindy but had arrived too late, Anton had already burned Cindy's brains with a blowtorch so that not even Tazio could raise “her” from the dead. He did anyway, healing her body even though all her brain cells had been destroyed. But Cindy's immortal soul was intact and Tazio rewired her incarnation to act without the limitations of her human brain or personality. She became pure Angel, and took over the job of dealing with the Dark Templars while Tazio went into a trance to become one with the planet and start rattling continents.
The Templars didn't have a chance, they ran screaming. Achmet didn't make it, she overpowered and converted him into an angel as well, so that now the second-in-command of the evil Templars and leader of the Jihad was programmed for peace. Anton had not been present, so he got away.
Her work there done, Cindy utilized her new angelic abilities and authority to command a Solar Finger to come pick her up. She did not need a coven for that. Minutes later she descended into the courtyard of the Angelic School on the other side of the planet.
Cindy's Angel arrived at noon under a tropical sun, but suddenly the day became much brighter. The thirteen angels gathered in a circle around where Cindy landed. This was not planned, but we found ourselves instinctively stepping into place and allowing each our own inner angel to become manifest and our spirits mingle. The day grew brighter yet as we all began to glow.
"We greet you, Cindy, as our new sister," the coven chorused together.
"And this entity responds in kind with a greeting from the AAMM to all of you." She then proceeded to symbolically pull aside a cosmic veil imparting to the entire coven awareness of the AAMM's Intentions. Explanations were displayed, instructions transmitted. Then it was over and we were all more or less human again. Except for Cindy.
The coven had been expecting her arrival, but we were shocked by the intensity of spiritual power she emanated. A Purely Angelic Incarnation on Earthlevel is a rare condition, even among Angels. Most of us had never seen one before. Eyes shining too brightly to look at, light inside mouth, nostrils and ears, as if her body was full of sunlight.
Jytte and I had seen that phenomenon many times: every New Moon at the Villa della Strega. Even so, although this new angel seemed much like Ulfa in her ultimate angelic phases during the very apex of the new moon, Cindy's was not a passing moment, but constant. Human flesh can only tolerate that kind of power for a limited time and then is consumed.
"As you can see," Cindy addressed her situation, "an adjustment must be soon enacted if this incarnation is to continue existence upon Earthlevel."
"Can't you cool down to normal incarnation levels?"
"Yes, but only to never awaken again. Since the "Cindy" persona is gone, she has no memories or emotions and could only become a zombie."
"Oh no, that wouldn't be proper," Madeline frowned in her own upper-class way.
I noted, "Then it seems Tazio could not really save you after all."
"Not completely. But this entity has arranged for another to resurrect Cindy Suthers in her entirety: Christ Himself. Immanuel will arrive here soon."
"My son is coming here?" Evangeleva wondered, "No one tells me anything."
"He does not yet know it Himself, Holy Mother," Cindy informed her, "but he's almost here now...in a matter of seconds."
A solar finger whizzed into the sky above us, stopped and emitted a beam of light downward. A man came sliding down and landed gracefully. The Solar Finger flickered, but remained hovering in place.
The man was beautiful, divinely handsome, tall and athletic and in his mid-twenties, sporting long white hair and a golden tan, also casually dressed in white and gold. He looked capable and cool, but also somewhat surprised.
"Hey, this isn't Los Angeles!" Perhaps the surrounding jungle was a clue.
"Correct, you're with LAS Angeles, my son."
"Mother? Then this must be that School For Angels in Belize."
"Yes, Immanuel. Welcome."
Shirley just had to say, "See, I told you he was a hunk."
"Wow! Yeah, Christ is yummy!" Mischa agreed.
"But how did I end up here?" Immanuel had to ask, "I was on my way from Berlin to an anti-nuclear demonstration in LA."
Cindy's Angel stepped forward, "Apologies, Lord Immanuel, for detouring your Solar Finger, but a miracle by Christ is required."
"Well if you've got enough mojo to hijack Christ's Solar Finger, I'd guess you could perform just about any miracle yourself." He studied Cindy's sun-bright eyes for a moment, "You're Pure Angelic, right?"
"Indeed, but this particular miracle only you can perform," Cindy explained, "Anton Artemis has murdered Cindy Suthers and burned away her brain, she was resurrected by Tazio as this entity to defuse the jihad of Akhmet Khaddam..."
"Right, I heard about...Cindy Suthers? Holy shit, Cindy from Mill Valley High School, is that really YOU?" He looked genuinely stunned.
"It was, but her persona is gone. Nor can her flesh long endure this level of power, so this entity asks you to help her."
"Yes, of course! You were a beloved friend of mine, and I'll do whatever I can do to bring you back. Although I'm not sure how. I can restore the spark of life, sure, but to recreate all the lost synapses and procedures, memories and habits of a blank rebuilt human brain may be beyond even me."
"Indeed, Tazio could not do it, but you can. Not only because you are Christ, but because you once knew Cindy. She's in you."
"Well, yes, perhaps she is, everyone I've ever known is part of me..."
"This entity perceives instructions from The AAMM, it can be done. But there is not enough power here, we must go to the source. If Lord Immanuel is willing?" She looked up at the sky, where the Solar Finger and the sun seemed to be side by side.
"To the Sun? We can do that?" Immanuel asked, surprised.
"This entity has arranged it."
Immanuel was obviously impressed, then nodded and said with his handsome smile, "Okay, let's go!"
He and Cindy stood together under the sparkling swirling Solar Finger. A brush of light swept them up inside and the glaring Finger accelerated straight up to become lost in the greater glare of the sun.
But even so, the closer a soul approaches the Solar core, the intensity of storm and surge of ferocious energies increases until even souls can be overwhelmed. Just letting you know that it can be dangerous and dramatic even for gods and goddesses.
IMMANUEL AT THE MERCY OF THE ANGELS
8 months and 9 days after the cataclysm
She was crying hysterically, evidently traumatized by having her memories restored. Considering that those last memories were of Anton and Achmet torturing her to death, it was hardly any wonder that she wept.
"I think Cindy needs to lie down and sleep for a while," Immanuel said, "she's a mess just now."
"We've been preparing a room for her, but you came back so quickly."
"It was only quickly for you here on Earthlevel, we were in relative solar time sun for what seemed to be... well, much longer. It's impossible to measure time at all from inside a star."
The entire group of Angels went into the room they'd been preparing for Cindy, everyone got busy and in minutes a nice cozy bed was ready. Cindy was shaking and blubbering, but seemed to be aware of what was happening.
"Thank you, thank you all... but now I've got to sleep!" She flopped onto the bed and was instantly asleep. After some fussing she was neatly tucked in under a sheet and left in peace. Jytte offered to take the first shift watching over her, sitting in the chair by the desk that had been provided.
Outside the rest of the women gathered around Immanuel. Now that Cindy was taken care of, that handsome MAN became the rather focused target of their attention.
"So is Cindy...er...fixed?" Mischa asked him, "She seems to be a wreck."
"I did what I could," he said, "everything seemed to work out right. It was a lot like re-installing software on a wiped hard disc. But she's back to human-normal after having been an all-powerful cosmic entity, there's got to be a reaction."
"So all her angelic abilities are gone now?" Mischa asked.
“Not at all," Immanuel said, "she's become a proxy Avatar, her inner angel is merely dormant. With training she can manifest it again, just as most of you girls can."
"She has already imparted instructions to us about that," Evangeleva told her son, “before you got here.”
"So now, Lord Immanuel," Mischa asked, "what about you? Will you also stay with us for a while?"
“Well, I’ve got to…”
"Oh yes, Lord," Shirley added, "we too could use some fixing up."
A general giggle rippled through that flock of celibate-too-long Angels. It became obvious that the presence of a healthy young male Avatar had triggered some Lust.
"We love you, Lord Immanuel!" blurted several girls simultaneously.
He smiled handsomely, genuinely amused, hardly shy. "And each of you is beloved by me as well. Mother, sisters, potential lovers..."
"Ah, now we're getting there," Shirley insisted with a big grin, "I get first dibs!"
"Hey, you can't have dibs on Christ," Mischa complained, but also with her own grin.
"Okay, so we can share!" Laughter and agreement.
Shirley became more aggressive: "So how about it, Immanuel? A little cosmic sex between a dozen consenting Avatars could be fun, right about now."
"Oh, am I being gang-seduced?" Immanuel laughed and did a funny voice: "O I can't o I can't, I'm the holy 17th incarnation of Christ! I'm supposed to be Pure!"
Shirley laughed back at him, "Oh yeah, that's right, so are we. Damn, I keep forgetting!"
"Me too," Nadja agreed, "being Angelic and all. Although we ARE supposed to serve The Lord in all ways, cater to His Desires, Wants, Needs. Please Him, y'know." She batted her eyebrows.
Immanuel bowed gallantly and said, "Girls, having sex with each and all of you would certainly be a Holy Experience, but I'm still waiting for my Cosmic Mate, whoever She is.
"You don't know who Your Cosmic Mate is?"
"Not yet--she could even be one of you girls, for all I know. What I DO know is that she's coming my way even now. Had visions, seen signs. You know, mystical Christ-Stuff."
"So you're going to remain celibate because the Catholic Church assigned that to you centuries ago?" Leslie challenged him.
"Hey, I'm not deliberately being celibate," Immanuel argued, "merely exclusive. In fact, once I do feel desire for MY own woman, I assure you that I will respond to her."
"Ah, there's hope yet!"
"Sure, also for me. But I remember all those lives I've lived before, when I'd already repeated all the good and bad parts about sex ad infinitum, I know what NOT to do to people I love because I've seen it so many times."
"Yes, yes, we've all experienced re-incarnations," Madeline assured him, "but still, a damn good romp among enlightened partners can be invigorating."
“And don’t knock the FUN part!” Shirley insisted.
"Maybe so. But I choose to wait for the one special woman I love above all others--which is tricky when you love Everybody equally. But I do WANT to--DESIRE to--know her and let our flesh join in joy. Looking forward to it. Really." He smiled, all female hearts melted.
I was surprised, but nodded. "Sure... uh, let's go to my room."
"OOO LA LA!" rang in chorus from all the other girls, but it was all in fun. Probably.
My room was simple, there was only one chair, a desk and a narrow bed. I sat on the bed to offer Immanuel the chair, but he sat on the bed beside me, leaning against the end wall so that he could face me. His knee touched mine, it was slightly intimate, but mostly brother & sister-like.
"This is kind of weird: so you're really Jesus Christ?" That was always a good ice breaker.
"Well, I do have memories of once living that life. But now I'm Immanuel Godson, young American dude and top-ranking Avatar. Oh and you are Joan of Arc? Hey, that's kind of weird too."
"Yeah, no kidding-- but I'm not sure I BELIEVE in those memories, it could all be some form of schizophrenic delusion."
"Hey, you and me both," Immanuel admitted, "if it wasn't for all the documentable evidence that keeps happening to me I'd assume I was crazy." He laughed the nicest laugh.
I found myself wide open for anything with this beautiful young man, only 4 years younger than me in our present incarnations. Celibacy was definitely getting on my nerves. He could sense it too.
"Oh-oh, you're not out to seduce me too?" he said with good humor...or was he flirting?
"Hmm? Oh...you ARE very attractive, I suppose I'd have to say...maybe." This time we both laughed.
"Well anyway, Jytte, it's nice to be on the same wavelength. My knee is touching yours because I actually couldn't resist making some kind of physical contact with one of the most appealing girls I've ever met. I am only resisting further intimacy because I know that you are not mine. You've already found your cosmic mate. You're even pregnant by him." He touched my belly affectionately.
"If it IS Tazio's, nobody is quite sure."
"Oh, I'm sure. You conceived on the vernal equinox, Tazio's 12th birthday, and will give birth on the winter solstice, just as Theron was conceived on the summer solstice. All that symbolic numerology points to Tazio, not Ulfo nor Anton Artemis." He evidently knew a lot about my sex life-- which I could have resented but somehow only found his interest flattering.
"Right," I said, "if you believe in numerology. Which I don't. In fact, I've never been religious, so all of this seems very questionable to me. I mean, if I really did believe in CHRIST I'd probably be too humble and star-struck to even speak with you."
"And yet, now you are an angelic avatar bearing the child of the Antichrist. You're just as cosmic as I am."
"Oh, yeah, THAT," I said. And laughed again, messily, spraying just a little bit of spit onto Immanuel's noble face. That should have been horribly embarrassing, but he responded with a juicy raspberry, thumbs in his ears and fingers wiggling, so now we were even. When we finally finished giggling we discovered that we were holding hands.
I gave his a little squeeze and became serious again. "About this child: she has no soul yet. Do you know who she will be?"
"Let me see." He put his hand on my mound again, this time with the authority of a shaman. A tiny frown touched his brow for the first time. "No, I get nothing. It's a mystery and will remain so until she awakens."
"Another question: are you really Tazio's enemy?"
"Absolutely not. I am his Adversary, not his enemy. You must remember that the Apocalypse is part of a game that the gods are playing, Tazio and I are simply on different teams. From everything I have heard about him up to now he seems to be absolutely admirable: genius, healer, out to save the world; a classic good guy."
"Oh, he WAS, but now..."
"Yes, now he's changed. And we can't forget how young he is, not even a teen-ager yet. So he'll change more before the Apocalypse arrives, whether for good or evil remains to be seen."
"Oh, I hope..."
"Yes, do that. Hope for him. Be on his side; that is your part in this game. Truthfully, I hope for him too. He has the potential to be exactly what this world needs. I've seen his designs for ecological viability, his ozone solution, his AIDS antivirus, that high-output low-energy universal chip you've just sold to Sony. To be honest: he's already done more good for this world than I ever have."
We went back outside to where the other girls were waiting. There was a little more teasing about if it had been "good for us both?"
When it was time to move on Immanuel gave his mother a hug and a kiss. When he looked up a line had formed, 11 other girls waiting for their hugs and kisses. Of course, he complied; being Christ is a political job: gotta kiss babes.
It was obvious that he didn't mind a bit, since he liked us all anyway and several were also old friends. None of the girls were shy, they all pressed up against him eagerly and hugged their hearts out. Shirley and Mischa were the most overtly lascivious. He and I just shared a nod and a smile, having already had our moment of closeness.
But when lovely Chinese Yi Li had Immanuel in her embrace she got to offer one last challenge, "Okay, tell me: you don't actually believe that sex is a Sin, do you? You don't seem that uptight."
"Nope, I'm not."
"That's it? Nope? Inspired words of Christ?"
"Whaddya want, a Sermon on the Mount?"
"Yes, something like that, come on!"
"All right. Hear ye, hear ye: to mate is a natural drive and physical bliss is a noble prize. The Sin of Carnality is the evil people do to one another in the pursuit of it: greed, betrayal, violence. But the act of love itself may well be the purist physical pleasure available on Earthlevel."
"Along with drugs and rock & roll!" Shirley reminded them all.
"Which reminds me," Immanuel said, sticking his finger in the air to signal the Solar Finger spiraling and sparkling in the air above to shine down a transport-beam, "I really do need to get to that anti-nuclear demonstration in LA. Bye for now."
Within seconds the Solar Finger had whisked him up and was gone across the sky. Immanuel had made his escape in the nick of time.
THE NEW GIRL
8 months and 10 days after the cataclysm
"She's still out cold," I heard some woman (Evangeleva) report, "Oh, I hope she'll be all right, the poor dear." She was speaking English and her voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it, although I did wonder if I was in California.
"You knew her well?" another woman (Jytte) asked. A voice I shouldn't know, and yet did somehow.
"Not really. She was in High School with my son, but they weren't dating or anything. She was usually in a group whenever I saw her. Although we did talk a few times, she was very bright and quite sweet, I liked her. But then I like everyone."
"Just like your son... my goodness, Evangeleva, it must be overwhelming to be the Mother of CHRIST!"
"Well...yes, it is. But you get used to it anyway."
"I hope so," Jytte was referring to her own bulging belly, now eight months along, "I've got something overwhelming coming my way too."
Evangeleva left and Jytte sat in the chair beside my bed. After a few minutes I finally dared to ask, "Where am I?"
"Hello Cindy, I'm Jytte, you're with friends. We're in Belice. Can you remember coming here?"
"No, I don't..." I suddenly had to see my hands, opened my eyes and whisked the sheet off my legs to check for damage, and then was even more confused. "I'm...I'm all right? The last thing I remember... I think, was being burned... by Anton..."
"Tazio rescued you. Sort of. That was over a week ago, you came here as an Angel yesterday, can't you remember that?"
I finally looked at her. She was really a beautiful woman, golden, angelic. I felt a twinge of inexplicable jealousy, then click: I trusted her completely.
"TAZIO? I haven't seen him since Rome," I told her, "That was in April, what month is it now?"
"December."
"I think my last clear memory is of being kidnapped by Dark Templars... it was Thanksgiving Day, I was at my parent’s home in Mill Valley..."
"That's where you went to High School with Immanuel?"
"Yes...how do you know that? Hey, do you know Immanuel?"
"I met him first yesterday when he healed you."
I must have been looking at this strange beautiful woman with my mouth wide open, like a drooling idiot, until I realized something rather significant about her.
"I know YOU from somewhere. You look SO familiar...and you know about Tazio..." Then it hit me, "OH MY GOD!" Disbelief, more confusion, you name it. "It was YOU I saw in the mirror! You were Tazio's dead girl friend and when he fucked me..."
"Yes, I heard about that: when he tried to love you instead of just fucking, you became a copy of me."
"Yeah-- except for the eyes, I had eyes like Tazio's. It was weird: I could even speak Danish… gud, det kan jeg stadigvæk!” I was quite surprised to be doing so.
“Åbenbart,” Jytte responded, “og tu taler med en Københavnske accent, lige som mig! Det er ret fantastisk!” I understood her every word.
“But I was only you for a few minutes," I told her, "he changed me back right away. Then he made me leave him so that it wouldn't happen again." I felt my face crumble, "That was awful: I really REALLY loved him. I still do."
"Oh, you poor thing," Jytte said, taking me into a motherly embrace, "loving Tazio is not easy for anyone these days."
"You still love him too?"
"I loved the magical boy he was, now he's not even male. But I do hope to love him again, as a man next time, although you must remember that he is not even 13 years old yet. Anyway, you are welcome to love him too."
"You won't be jealous? I mean, he was REALLY a horny guy, one woman might not be enough."
Jytte laughed, then I did too, sniffling snot.
"My concept of a love life has changed since being trained among the Angels, yours will too. However, I assume that when Tazio becomes a man in his prime he may need many women— especially you and me --so we’d best not be jealous of each other. Or any others."
"Uhhh... you keep mentioning Angels?" I asked, and a few minutes later was among them. And totally surprised to find out that I was now one OF them.
The first order of business for me was to call my parents in California. "Shit!! By now they must think I'm dead or something."
"Actually, you were," Jytte reminded me, "but you'd probably best not tell them that."
A satellite-based Internet phone was set up for a call to California. I kept it short, since I had no idea what to tell Mom & Dad except that I was alive and healthy. They were happy enough to learn that, and since I really had no idea where I was or what was to happen next, just promised to call them back again soon and explain everything. "Only problem being," I admitted to myself after having hung up, "that there's no way I can explain ANY OF THIS to them!"
I got out of bed and pulled on one of the simple white dresses that had been stacked beside my bed. I felt very awake, no aches or pains. In fact, I was puzzled by how much better than normal I felt, considering that I'd had been in amazing shape ever since my encounter with Tazio eight months before. Now I was running on Avatar power and could feel the difference. In fact, I just HAD to run.
I was introduced to the other girls, had some angel-things explained to me, but I couldn't contain myself any more. Jytte was not about to go running with her swollen belly, but Shirley and Nyjanja ran every day and were willing to escort me to make certain I could find my way back. Avatars all, we ran faster than any mortal ever could and raced to see who was fastest, ten kilometers took a few minutes. When we got back we were all laughing and comfortable together.
"That was fun," I said, "I like it here. Too bad I've got to get back to California quick as I can."
"Actually, you'll be staying with us for awhile, Cindy, the AAMM has a duty for you." I soon learned that Irisia could be less than diplomatic sometimes.
"Uhh... who says?" I was ready to run again, having had enough of being kidnapped.
"YOU said-- as Your Angelic Self, that is. Don't you remember?"
"I don't remember volunteering for any kind of military service, as far as I know, I'm still a civilian."
Shirley laughed, "Hey baby, NONE of us have volunteered, we all got drafted by destiny, just like you."
I nodded an understanding of that, "It's just that I already have a...a duty. And I'm not ready to drop it just because someone says so."
"Ah, yes. You've been diligently spreading the AIDS Antivirus Tazio generated within you," Irisia noted.
"You know about that?" I asked. "Okay, then you also know I can't just be hanging out in some isolated retreat or honoring a vow of chastity."
"Yes, yes, your Angel informed us. These are not problems. Besides, this new duty is also for Tazio's sake."
"Oh," I was suddenly quite interested. "Well, that might be okay. What can I do for Tazio?"
"You and Mariangela and Jytte are to be the Angels of the Antichrist, those three among the Host of Christ who shall pray for Lord Tazio at the Apocalypse."
The three of us had a meeting. I learned that Jytte was pregnant with (probably?) Tazio's child and that Mariangela was Tazio's mother, but was confused as to the significance of my own relationship to them.
"Why me?" I had to ask, "I was just one of LOTS of girls he had sex with in Rome."
"Because you are his Creation," Jytte told me.
"But he also "created" Sophia, and fixed up some others. She was pretty super, why not her instead of me?"
"Sophia will be assigned the duty of being our Whore of Babylon," Mariangela explained, "when the time comes."
"Yeah, about time coming: you say the Apocalypse happens in 6 years? How do you know?"
"You told us."
"Oh yeah, right,” I mugged, “and around we go again. Man, wish I could remember some of that cosmic stuff I was supposed to know."
"We all forget the wisdoms we attain at angelic high-phase, that's a condition of life on Earthlevel," Mariangela reminded us. “I for example, cannot comprehend why I should be assigned as one of Tazio's Angels: I’ve hated him with insane passion; I’ve tried to murder him so many times; I’ve been his worst enemy. Now I'm supposed to be on his side?"
"Do you still hate him?" I asked Mariangela, cringing slightly from an unpleasant answer, because I really liked her.
"No, I don't think so. But I do still fear the Antichrist he could become, and having spawned him I feel a personal responsibility to save the world from him."
"While I believe Tazio will save the world himself," Jytte asserted.
Grateful for the backup, I nodded eagerly. "Yeah, me too."
The angels concentrated upon teaching me how to access and control my dormant angelic abilities. They assured me that I had been the most potent angel any of them had ever met, but I was now unable to work up a dim glow. My physical properties, like strength and speed and stamina were top, but my supposed psychic talents seemed to be lost in space somewhere. This was frustrating for me, but maybe even more so for those who were trying to teach me how to expand beyond my body.
There was gradual progress but it was slow, I would simply have to be patient and diligent enough to learn and earn my angelic powers.
THE HOLIDAY SEASON
8 months and 3 weeks after the cataclysm
"Then go, but don’t go alone. The Dark Templars are still out there and they'd love to kidnap you again."
"As I hear it they're all pretty scared of me after I turned Achmet into our choir boy."
"They're afraid of Your Angel--not you--and you don't seem to be able to manifest her yet."
"Okay, I'll take back-up. Who wants to go spend Christmas in California with me?"
Almost every girl chorused: "I do! Take me! Ooo, me, me! Let's ALL go!"
Except Jytte, who looked wistful. Cindy asked, "Jytte, don't you don't want to come too?"
Jytte patted her bulging belly. "I’d love to, although I should rather visit my own parents for Christmas-- but I'm probably going to be busy having a baby right about then."
As it worked out, Shirley accompanied Cindy to California a few days before Christmas. Shirley could easily pass for a young girl about Cindy's age, even though she’d been incarnate in that body for over 84 years. Cindy would bring Shirley along for the holiday, and introduce her as a college friend. That Shirley was black was an advantage since Cindy’s parents were old civil-rights activists.
To avoid awkward explanations, they arranged for a Solar Finger to take them along with Jytte's little Fiat, and drop them off next to Mount Tamaulipas, from where they could drive into Mill Valley as if they had come up from Southern California. Cindy wanted to avoid unexplainable details, although her father did wonder about the Italian license plates.
BIRTH
9 months and 1st winter solstice after the cataclysm
My joy of giving birth to a healthy baby turned to dismay as the days passed and the child remained dormant. I'd been brimming with so much motherly love for this beautiful baby, but all that began to feel misplaced, wasted on a tiny breathing corpse.
Finally I broke down and wept, sobbing, "There's just no one inside her!"
Mariangela was in the room. "Hey, don't despair yet," she said, "this is not that unusual with Trueborns. In fact, now that I think about it, I was like that myself: I can't remember it, but I've heard that I was a year old before I woke up."
"What? How?"
"I was born in Auschwitz. My mother Ashara was an avatar on a holy mission, already pregnant when she had allowed herself to be captured by the Nazis and be sent to that concentration camp. When I was born she hid me, nobody--neither German nor Jew--suspected that I was under her cot since I never moved or made a sound. A year later she masterminded an escape for a large group of prisoners, but was herself shot and killed. That's when I woke up.
"I didn't know it then--I didn't know anything, I was only a baby (except that I could understand German and Yiddish)--but I was the reincarnation of my own mother, Ashara. It was only much later, upon discovering my angelic self, that I could recall my previous life as Ashara, among other earthly incarnations."
"Oh come on, you're kidding me..."
Irisia came into the room, having overheard some of the conversation. "Actually," she contributed, "Ulfo and Anton have experienced similar rebirths. It happens all the time."
"So am I supposed to die and become this baby?" I asked, even more upset, "Then she'd have no mother!"
"No, no..." Mariangela tried to say.
"Well, it could happen," Irisia admitted, "but is not likely. It's always part of some intent--call it "plan"--of the AAMM..."
"...who works in mysterious ways," I supposed.
"Exactly," Irisia shrugged, satisfied.
"In fact," Mariangela proclaimed, "when Tazio grew from Theron's tail he slept for a year until...well until I stabbed him, then he woke up. But then he was more like a wild animal than a human child for another half a year."
"But this child is different," Irisia insisted, "Tazio's soul was still incarnate in the tail, but his newly-regrown brain had to re-ascend through the stages of consciousness: from earth to plant to animal, and eventually to human. This child has no soul at all, it has not yet arrived. But it shall, eventually."
"So please do not stab her, Mariangela dear," I asked, only half-kidding.
"She's safe as long as she doesn't try to kill us," Mariangela assured her, half-serious, "considering that we're not really sure of who or what she's going to be."
I had learned enough self-control to remain calm and not grieve about my defective child, although once in a while a hint of despair would touch me as I nursed, cleaned, or tended for that mindless little infant. The baby was so beautiful: golden of skin and hair, eyes of emerald green-- although the green could only be seen by prying open her always-closed eyelids with a gentle finger. I assumed that she would awaken some day, but could not help occasionally feeling impatient...or desperate.
Fortunately, all the other angels helped in taking care of the baby. Having no name yet (since no one knew who she would be) everyone called her "Our Child". So I could have some time to myself, or be sent upon an angelic mission every now and then. Among the tricks that angels and witches can do is causing milk to flow from their breasts whenever they need it, so any of them could suckle the child any time. And they all wished to do so just for the nostalgic pleasure of it.
Anniversary
1 year after the cataclysm
On the first anniversary of that catastrophic night when the villa was destroyed and Tazio's family was scattered to the wind, Jytte wrote a letter to Tazio. It was the Vernal Equinox and his 13th birthday. She confessed many things in it, such as being seduced by Anton, unburdened her heart, reaffirmed her love. But she never sent it.
How could she? Tazio was off adventuring, on the road, an androgen stranger passing through Lhasa, Timbuktu, Tashkent, Dresden, Moscow... Often not even the angelic agents knew where he was, off the map. He’d been eluding Dark Templars and anyone else too.
By then the School For Angels had finished the training and specific wiccan projects planned for the Mayan temple location, now it was time to relocate. There were other projects and techniques to learn, skills to hone, for which isolation and celibacy were not advantageous. Most of the girls were also eager to have a sex life again, especially Cindy.
THE HOUSE OF ANGELS
1½ years after the cataclysm
We were to learn angelic sexual techniques, for implementing the greatest power and influence women can have over men. Part of the teaching process was academic, but the rest was practical application working in the brothel, where they would practice learning to serve.
The House of Angels in Jerusalem has been standing just off Via Dolorosa for over 2000 years, unknown to mortals, famous to avatars. It was here that women of the Angelic Race had seduced millions of men and affected their destinies in various ways, politically and spiritually. For hundreds of generations the Angels had covertly gathered the semen of certain “customers” for their own secret genetic agendas, and even in modern times having individual sex with selected men was the easiest way to obtain their genetic strains without them being aware of it.
Their clientele was nothing but selected men, access to the House of Angels was only by invitation, mysteriously chosen by some function of the AAMM. Males of political or economic power, athletes or men with special talents, these were the few men allowed to sample the wonders of the most perfect women on the planet. But once and only once, steady customers were not permitted. Many of them wished to come back for more, but none of them could remember where the House was located nor what it looked like.
But they remembered the girls: goddesses of all races and sizes and shapes. Literally. Not only was it the ultimate erotic experience of their lives, they also came away changed men.
Four of the 12 girls stationed in the House were young True Born Avatars, some still in their very early teens. They had volunteered so that they could work out their afflictions of The Lust, which can be painfully difficult to suppress. Here they got to wallow in sex while performing angelic works. The eight other brothel girls were proxy avatars and only looked young.
It should be noted that avatars have few ethical qualms about sex, being aware that most societies based their sexual mores upon local superstitions and erroneous dogmas. Throughout history, politically religious men have written the rules for women to obey, propagating their own patriarchal agendas. But avatars remember other lifetimes, love lives good and bad, their innocence a thousand years gone. Oh, and the fact that these women are neither susceptible to venereal diseases nor pregnancy with mortals also accounts for their casual attitudes.
However, both Jytte and Mariangela were reluctant to offer their bodies to a parade of random men, although I was quite enthusiastic.
I’ve had to rethink my own morality, because Tazio had infected me with the HIV antivirus. As far as I knew, I was the only person in the world with a cure for AIDS, so I felt a duty to spread it as far as I could.
I’d been a virgin until Tazio, but suddenly there I was having sex with him 10-20 times a day. And, of course, I LIKED it. Then Anton shows up and winks at me— well, we all know what that does to a girl, so I’m servicing both of them. Along comes Sophia and gets into foursomes with us, you get the picture, bigger and better, more and more.
So when I was suddenly sent away and cut off from all that intense Avatar sex, I was hooked and needed to go on a fucking spree. Lucky for me it was so easy to seduce men, I was evidently pretty sexy after Tazio had tuned me up. But it just wasn’t in my nature to ruthlessly screw and dump guy after guy: I’d like them or they’d fall in love with me, there were emotional messes. But to be fair to myself, I still loved Tazio and none of those boys could win my heart completely.
So I found that the best way to do my anti-AIDS cure duty was by arranging gang bang events. I’d go to college campuses and announce that one girl would be performing sex with as many guys as could be gathered (sometimes 20, once 100). I’d pretend I was going for a Guinness record, whatever. That worked pretty well, I’d spread the AIDS cure to a whole crowd of men at once, I’d get to have a fairly intense sexual experience myself, and nobody would get their feelings hurt. And best of all, no guys would fall in love with me because I was such a slut, it was perfect.
"That's fine for you, dear," Mariangela said, "but we don't have that antivirus in us. And I once became a NUN because I considered The Lust an unacceptable indignity. I only learned to enjoy sex with Ulfæ because I loved him/her, but I feel unwilling to subject myself to sex without love."
"Me too," Jytte said, "especially since I still do love someone."
"I used to feel that way too," I admitted, "back when I was a virgin and uncool guys were trying to score me. They irritated me. Now I'm just as horny as any man ever was-- if not lots more --so I sympathize with them. Besides, they're all just so grateful for the experience I give them that it really touches me. I sometimes feel that I DO love them-- as a group."
"Maybe so," Jytte argued, "but if you don't feel that, then it's no fun at all."
Mariangela said, "Before I became a nun--and after-- my experiences with how men handle The Lust was quite negative. Of course, I was denying them what they desperately wanted, so it was automatically a conflict situation for them. Most men managed to behave themselves, but some became violently aggressive. You've never had a problem with that?"
"Oh, sure," I answered, "there are always a few assholes-- perverts & psychos --so it's a good thing that I'm physically so much stronger than them now. But I find that they become better people after I've given them the most therapeutic sex of their lives. They too become grateful and it humbles them, makes them more gentle and generous."
As it worked out, Mariangela and Jytte were busy enough arranging and assisting in my routine that they could easily avoid participating in "client" sex themselves. I was doing group sessions every other day, usually about 12 men at a time, and individual sessions on alternate days. This fit my own sexual needs and allowed me lots of free time for other interests, so I was happy.
Hundreds of especially selected and invited men swarmed to the House of Angels, some from quite far away. Some were politically important, others not, some rich, others poor, the criteria for selection seemed rather abstract and no one knew who was doing the choosing. Men with HIV, or any virus infections, were informed that they would be cured, transportation would be provided, but mostly none of them comprehended why they had been invited to a whorehouse in Jerusalem. Some had moral objections to overcome, but they all showed up eventually. There was no traffic in from the street, it was not that kind of brothel-- although it had once been hundreds of years before-- actually, it was impossible to find on the street, being magically unnoticeable.
The girls had been assigned to the House of Angels to learn how to use their own sexual powers as an element of magic, and there were obligatory courses in technique, but they were mostly theoretic, with an incredibly sexy avatar couple demonstrating. Shando and Jasmine had been lovers for over a century and they had specialized in pleasing each other and transmitting their feelings to anyone who watched. Their presentations were so erotic that all those observing them became aroused, and usually rushed off to practice on the brothel's clients. Mariangela and Jytte were also affected and aroused, but still determined not to indulge in indiscriminate sex with endless rows of strange men.
The three of us shared an apartment, in which the still-unnamed "Our Child" also slept-- and continued to sleep. She was growing normally and appeared to be unreasonably healthy for a child who never ever moved. She'd been nine months old when they'd arrived and we stayed there until she was 3 years old.
Being in the busy city of Jerusalem was an extreme change from the isolation of a jungle in Belize, welcome on one level, disturbing on another. It was a great social swirl, of course; the Angels had a lot of business going on in Israel, various gods incarnate were coming and going, there were always meetings and arrangements, even parties. There were also the more pedestrian entertainments of restaurants, cafés, movies and concerts, and the universal hobby of ladies everywhere, shopping.
We Three Angels For The Antichrist were introduced to a group of Cabbalists, a secret organization of mostly old Rabbis, led by Ahazverus, the infamous 2000-year old Wandering Jew Himself. Jytte and I, both relatively new to the world of avatars, were constantly being amazed by the historical entanglements we had become part of.
One of the old Cabbalists, Rabbi Amos, had been "damaged" by his encounter with Tazio the year before. That was because the Cabbalists had staged a psychic trap for Tazio, and Rabbi Amos had been the decoy. Their plan was to make Tazio feel indebted to them and demand that he make them young again. Tazio didn't fall for it and had travelled on, but Rabbi Amos' mind was still wiped away. The Cabbalists contacted the House of Angels and it was arranged for Immanuel to come and heal the old man, who was now his happily fatalistic old self again.
But Jerusalem was also a troubled city. Historically and presently, the conflict of Israel and Palestine was not to be ignored. Although everyday life usually found Jews and Arabs living together in familiar harmony, trouble was constantly being stirred up by small militant groups with their own agendas.
A major change had taken place when Israel had been broken off from the Arabic mainland only a year before: at that time there had been a universal belief that it had been a Sign From God; the malignant jihad of Achmet Khaddam (secretly the work of Anton and his Dark Templars) had become a peace movement (to Anton's dismay). The political arrogance of both Israelis and Arabs had mellowed out for a while, the militant madness had abated and peace treaties had been signed. But sinister forces (yes, those fucking Templars) were still operating to prime the Middle East for a coming Apocalypse, so there were still occasional suicide bombers and violent extremist demonstrations.
The three of us were mostly untouched by dramas going on in the "real world" around us, protected from harm by angelic enchantments and avatar powers, but sometimes we were confronted with the evil that men do to one another and used our enhanced strength and healing abilities to help wounded people or to physically control violent behavior. Couldn't help it.
A SAILOR IN PORT
2 years after the cataclysm
"Oh, that would be my previous incarnation," I confessed, "when I was my mother." I opened the mail on my own laptop-- after a life of ignoring technology I had finally become adept at modern telecommunications.
Ashara: My ship will be in port tomorrow, Haifa Harbor. Come meet me in the Beth Bar at 18:00, we can talk about old times, maybe have sex, who knows? Sinbad the Sailor
"Sinbad the Sailor?" Cindy had to ask, "Really?"
"Actually, yes, although he's had many other names and incarnations since and before then, now he just calls himself that as a joke. You'd best know him as Poseidon."
"Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea?" Jytte's turn to be amazed.
"Later called Neptune by the Romans?" Cindy had to clarify.
"That's him."
Both women simultaneously: "You have sex with HIM?"
"Well, no-- I've never even met him before. But my mother Ashara definitely had sex with him: he's my father."
"Oh my God," Cindy had to blurt an Americanism, "and YOU were Ashara in your previous incarnation!"
The Beth Bar in Haifa is a notorious avatar hangout, our heroines were informed by several of the other girls. Not that it was secret like the House of Angels, anyone could walk in off the street and drink with gods and goddesses (probably without knowing), but it was a seaport town taverna and some of the clientele could get rowdy.
That was the whole point of the place, a cozy: fun social establishment where worlds could mix. Evangeleva mentioned that it was Immanuel's favorite bar for mingling with sinners, mostly because there was served an exclusive nectar of the gods (literally) and it featured a stage with open mike, so the spontaneous music was often divine.
I decided to go meet my father, of course, and Jytte and Cindy insisted upon tagging along. We drove the 150 km to Haifa in Jytte's Fiat: wild girls on a road trip. Not that it took so long: once we got on the motorway Jytte demonstrated what Tazio's carburetion inventions and custom-tweaking had done for the engine, and took it up to 225 kph for a good long stretch. We were in Haifa by 16:00, two hours ahead of the meeting.
None of us had ever been to Haifa before, so we walked around town to see the sights; downtown, then up the hill to the Bahá'ì Gardens and World Center, just like real tourists, continuing down towards the harbor, past the interestingly asymmetric Government Tower and to the Beth Bar a few minutes before 18:00.
It was near the harbor in a seedy part of town, obviously a very old building, but freshly painted in cheery colors, American country & western music seeped out into the street, smiling people in groups and couples went in and out. It looked like a fun place. We went in.
Never mind false modesty, three angelically beautiful women wandering into a rowdy bar playing C&W music is asking for attention, and we got it. A catcall went up, toasts were made, flirting commenced. The bar was full of people, mostly men, but the general attitude was of friendly erotic playfulness rather than horny aggression.
I looked around to find "Sinbad", but any memory of what he had once looked like more than seventy years before was an incarnation away, and although I had re-explored those memories in an angelic trance the evening before, they had already faded.
However, an impossibly beautiful young man, big, muscular as a Greek God, stepped forward and asked, "Ashara?"
He was wearing clean blue jeans and a white t-shirt, looking very athletic and disturbingly sexy. We girls shared a "wow" moment, eyebrows all up.
I answered, "Ashara was my mother, I'm Mariangela now."
He looked slightly amused, "Ah. Does that make you one of my daughters?"
"You don't know about me?" I asked wonderingly.
"I lose track of them all, sorry. I don't pay much attention to what happens on land, the sea is where I live."
Cindy spoke up, "Hey, this daughter is the mother of Tazio, if that means anything to you."
He seemed to ponder that piece of information for a moment before it registered, "Tazio? That kid who's the incarnation of the Earth itself?" He focused on Mariangela again, "Oh, you're THAT Mariangela!"
"You know Tazio?" Jytte wanted to know.
"I sensed his presence in my sea once: when he escaped Anton Artemis' ship, The Charon. He sank all the way to the bottom, dying, then pulled up the Urr from the sea-bed and continued on his journey. I couldn't help but notice his power."
"And Jytte's the mother of HIS daughter," Cindy had to say.
"And you?" he asked Cindy, obviously enchanted over such a pretty girl.
Jytte spoke up first, "Cindy is Tazio's Angel, she stopped the jihad of Achmet Khaddam."
"You mean the jihad that Anton and his Templars had caused?" He smiled even more, "Well, any opponent of Anton's is a friend of mine!" Then laughed aloud. "It seems that we're all just one big happy family!" And he pulled us all into his muscular embrace.
To Cindy and Jytte he introduced himself as Sinbad, asking their names and kissing their hands, then steering us all to a table and offering the famous local Nectar of the Gods. Within moments we were talking and laughing with the man as if old friends. Or old lovers: he was an erotically endearing hyper-male. And the drinks were potent too.
"Gud, this Nectar is..." Jytte had no words, "...well, it's just plain skide godt! I've never tasted anything like it!" Then she giggled.
"We'd better watch out," Cindy kidded, "we could end up getting seduced." She giggled too. So did Sinbad, who was casually cuddling up with all three of us.
I may have been the only one retaining any sense of decorum, but I was still sipping the nectar.
The room around us was swirling with jolly people, most of them giggling as well, but many dancing to the three musicians on stage. C&W had been rotated to R&R and a good solid beat was shaking asses everywhere. Men were asking women to dance, soon Jytte and Cindy were snatched up and I could have a more private discussion with Sinbad.
"By the time I heard that you--as Ashara--were sent to Auschwitz by the Nazis you had already died. There was nothing I could do."
"Of course not, it was Ashara's plan that it be so-- I do remember that much."
"Do you remember me at all?" Sinbad asked, again looking amused.
"Not so much--sorry, as you say. What I remember clearest is Auschwitz: struggling against absolutely evil Dark Templars calling themselves Nazis, giving birth to a daughter under the most grueling conditions and having to hide her from everyone until I was killed. The dramatic stuff. Why, did we have a sweet little romance?"
"It was sweet enough: we made love several times every day for a month, and even enjoyed each other's company when we weren't screwing. We were at sea, you sailed with me from Vladivostok to Hamburg, where we'd be smuggling Jews out of Germany."
"That does sound romantic. Were we in love?" Mariangela asked.
"Our mating had been arranged: I was to make you with child, but I think I was in love before we were done."
"Hmm. Wish I could remember that instead of all those nasty old Nazis."
"Yes, so do I. And you could: why don't you just become Ashara for tonight?"
"And then I won't be your daughter, so we could make love?"
"Oh, we're going to make love anyway--daughter or not--aren't we?" He had a charming sure-of-himself smile, which reminded me of Anton Artemis, who could also be charming. The difference being that Sinbad was not evil, merely horny, and extremely likeable.
So I smiled back, "I suppose we might...sure, let's." Then I wondered, "Do I look like her?"
"Close enough. You're different, she was blonde, but you're just as beautiful a woman."
"All avatar women are physically beautiful," I reminded him.
"Yes--like your friends. Why don't we do a foursome?"
"I thought you loved only Ashara."
He laughed at that, totally unashamed. "Did I ever say ONLY?" Then got serious: "She was long ago. I need to be reminded."
I nodded, closed my eyes, went into an angelic trance. For a moment there seemed to be a flickering of light inside me, then I opened her eyes. They had changed color from green to blue, her face was different too: the lines around her mouth, the angle of her glance, her posture.
"Hello Poseidonus," she said in Greek, "it's good to see you again."
So everybody in the Beth Bar was talking, no one was shy, it was all so friendly. Cindy and I finally dropped into chairs so that we could take a break from dancing, expanding our auras to steer over affectionate men away from us for a while.
"Looks like our beloved Mariangela has gone missing with Sinbad the Sinning Sailor," I commented, "Hmmm, should we rescue her?"
"Hey, would you want to be rescued from that...Greek GOD?"
"Aha, you fell for him too."
"Yeah," Cindy comic-gritted her teeth, "The Lust is upon us! What will Mariangela say?"
"I think she's saying that The Lust can be a pretty good thing, right about now. Oh! --did you sense her?"
"Ooooo, you mean am I sensing this wave of orgasm? The intense kind?" Cindy shook her head, as if having been slightly overwhelmed, "Yeah, I picked up on that. In fact, it's so clear now that I think she's broadcasting for us."
"You're right. Seems we're being invited to join them."
"I suppose it would be rude of us not to accept the invitation?"
We all spent the next day with Sinbad, visiting his ship, listening to his stories, cooking a dinner together, and all the while making love with him again and again, one at a time or all three at once, it was great fun. The next morning he sailed away again, destination immaterial, he had to get back to His Sea.
The thing about gods incarnate, over the millennium they tend to have many offspring, so one cannot expect a standard human family relationship from them. Sinbad/Poseidonus had been interested in visiting his once-lover Ashara, no matter that he had sired the flesh she now wore and had no plans for sticking around to be a father figure. Typical of those old gods, he was much more interested in any comely daughter sexually than paternally, since gods never had scruples about a little incest now and then.
We tried to be interested in seeing more of the town Haifa, but it was all so mundane after that exciting night with Poseidonus, everything after was a let-down. So we decided to drive a little detour, take Highway 60 past the ruins of Tel Megiddo on the way back to Jerusalem. Road trip continued.
Megiddo is famous as the Biblical Har-Megiddon, translated as Armageddon. That was where Tazio's destiny should lead him, and none of us had ever been there, so we felt that we should check it out. There was also an angelic rumor that an Armageddon folk festival would be held there in a few years, so we wanted to see what kind of place this was.
Well, Tel Megiddo is a site of ancient ruins upon a hilltop, overlooking the Jezreel Valley. It may have once been the magnificent Temple of Solomon, but now it's just big piles of rock. Quite peaceful, quite quiet. We were silent too while wandering between the few stone walls still standing.
Off to the horizon we could see rain-clouds gathering and were unable to resist imagining the Biblical scene in the sky: violent storm, flashing lightning, an emerald throne surrounded by angels (the fantasy model with wings, not every day angels like ourselves). For a moment we were hypnotized by the imaginary vision we had just shared somehow.
"This would be a good place for that Armageddon Fair, if it ever happens," Mariangela judged.
"Yes, room for lots of tents, a stage could be put up over there. Wide screen over there," I pointed, "I can see it all."
"A Vision of the Future, hallelujah," Cindy cheered. "Can you see Tazio anywhere?"
"For that you need a vision of the past;" Mariangela announced, "Tazio was here about 2 years ago. He was scanning time to read the history of this place, and was attacked by the Stone Gargoyle, but escaped."
"That's right, Irisia told us." I reflected, "Pretty weird about the gargoyle."
"I wish we could scan HIM, see Tazio walking around. Hey, can't we angels do that?" Cindy asked.
"Tazio's time-scanning ability has to do with him being the incarnation of the planet, so he can tune into the earth's memories of wherever he is," I explained, "I don't think angels can do that."
"But hey, we're TAZIO's angels!" Cindy argued, just to be absurd.
On the long ride back to Jerusalem we finally discussed our night of shared intimacy.
Cindy was first to breach the subject, "You know, the three of us sinning bad with Sinbad together reminded me of being with Tazio and Anton and Sophia in Rome. At the time I couldn't help being carried away by the contagious lust of two horny avatars; I must have had a thousand major orgasms. But later on I really resented having to share Tazio. I mean, him I really loved, but I disliked Anton and was jealous of Sophia. So Mariangela, I...uh...hope we didn't spoil your reunion with Poseidonus."
Mariangela laughed. "How could you think that? No, I enjoyed having you two along for the ride, so to speak. Besides, Poseidonus was never actually my--or rather Ashara's--lover. Their mating was arranged by the AAMM, it was avatar business. They did have a pretty good time together while conceiving me, great sex, just like last night...but then, it always is with indefatigable avatars."
"God, yes," Cindy interjected, "I mean, I've only scored three so far."
"Three males," I corrected her, "plus a couple of female avatars last night."
"And I reiterate: God yes!"
"It's always intense," Mariangela admitted, "but not necessarily joyful."
"No, it's not," I had to admit, "I've been with Anton too--well, it seems he's had all three of us--and like Cindy, I wallowed in orgasms, but also resented that he was forcing me to be untrue to Tazio. But last night with you two--and oh yeah, that guy--was a lot of fun...and joyful."
"Yeah, for me too," Cindy agreed, then asked in mock dread, "So are we lesbians now?"
"I made love with the Ulfæ for years," Mariangela said, "whether he was man or she was woman didn't seem to make much difference."
"I guess we're definitely bi," I proclaimed, "unless you had no use for Sinbad the Sailor..."
"Are you kidding?" Cindy reacted, "He was absolutely wonder-fun, lustful Greek God in mega-rut, and all. And besides, I get to add him to my collection of famous avatars," she calculated, "along with the two of you, of course...just too bad you're not so famous."
"Maybe we will be," Mariangela prophesied.
"Hey, I was once Joan of Arc," I reminded them.
Between the erogenous teachings and our newly aroused appreciation of a good solid superhuman fucking, both Mariangela and Jytte found themselves in a constant state of sexual arousal and finally decided to surrender to their desires. They went for it, actively participating in the business of the brothel at last.
Of course, the mortal clients were not indefatigable Greek Gods nor superhuman avatars powered by The Lust, but almost any man could perform amazingly well when seduced by trained avatar witches versed in erotic magic. Those normal mortal men became like avatars, transported by the wildest desire of their lives, so much that angelic women could also enjoy the encounters. As Mariangela and Jytte came to.
Me, I just kept on trucking.
Of course, Jytte was still bound to the helpless child she had to care for, although there was no joy in it. Sometimes she was unhappy about it, but always tried to be philosophical and accept whatever fate she and this child would share. We did our best to support her.
We would sometimes get e-mails from Sinbad, who seemed to be missing his "three sand-witches", asking if we were interested in meeting him somewhere out at sea. But although we shared an affection for him, none of us were unwilling to sail away forever with him; we had another man to serve--eventually--as Angels of the Antichrist.
"You know, that night we spent with Poseidonus was definitely liberating," Jytte mulled, "but I wonder if it was so smart: a mortal can't get us pregnant, but an avatar can."
"Yes, but not unless we want to be," I informed her, "one of the advantages of being a female avatar. Didn't you know that?"
"Uh...obviously not," Jytte being in the process of breast-feeding her child, "who told you that?"
"Oh, I looked into it, since I'm having orgasmic sex with any male I can wrap my legs around, mortal or avatar."
"Does that mean I could have avoided..." she looked down at the comatose child's face, which had never once looked back up at her.
"No way, Jytte, because you DID want Tazio's baby. I would too." I went across the room to give her and Our Child a hug, "besides, someday she'll actually become someone and then it'll all have been worth it."
"Yes, I'll just have to go on believing that."
THE GUYS IN THE FIELD
3 years after the cataclysm
In the USA, Immanuel had his own problems, having been convicted of treason and subversive activities. He'd been arrested during an antinuclear demonstration, having protested about a dangerously malfunctioning nuclear power plant in Washington State. The charges were bogus but prosecutor and judge were both undercover agents of the Dark Templars and sentenced him to many years in prison.
Evangeleva decided it was time to move back to California so that she could be of use to her son, although she was not especially worried about him. "Immanuel can escape any time he wants, all he has to do is summon a Solar Finger. The actual problem is that he will have to go underground to avoid the authorities once he does so."
Elsewhere in the States, a small town in Mississippi, Ulfo had also been captured and incarcerated, stirring up a lot of publicity. The National Inquisitor (a popular American sensation-tabloid) printed bold headlines about a woman being raped by a "Bigfoot" or some kind of "Hairy Neanderthal Throwback", which had been captured and locked into the local jail. Scientists were going to study it the next day.
But that story was soon overshadowed by ghastly reports of an entire town being ripped asunder by unseen forces on the Night of the Full Moon. The rape victim survived, but many others did not. The destruction only went on for twenty minutes in the middle of the night, and then simply quit, but by then many houses were smashed and over a hundred people were dead.
The angels knew what had happened: Ulfo's Demon had let loose.
In the morning the National Guard moved into the town, not knowing what they would find. Eventually they looked in the jailhouse. They were informed about some "hairy Neanderthal Man" who had been locked into one of the cells, but found only a brutal-looking woman whom no one seemed to know anything about. Not even when or why she'd been locked in, since all jail personnel had died in the night and nothing had been written. They considered simply releasing her.
But the rape victim, a middle-aged librarian, came looking for her assailant and identified the brutal woman as the person who had raped her. Confusion ensued; Ulfa was halfway out the door before they decided to detain her. She tried to escape, fighting off ten men with overwhelming strength until they shot and wounded her. Calls were made, helicopters arrived, FBI, NSA, Department of Defense--the Military was interested. There was no more news after that, even the tabloids dropped the story; it all became Top Secret and Ulfa vanished.
THE HIMALAYA MISSION
3½ years after the cataclysm
Generally, Angels do not interfere with the moral or political conflicts of men on earth. We had conceivably enough power to dismantle the Mafia or chase the Chinese out of Tibet if we decided to, but that was not our decision to make, according to the AAMM. Gods were playing games on Earthlevel and they wanted crime and war--among other exciting and fun amusements--after all, that's what they incarnate themselves here for. But this was a Magical conflict between the Angelic and Satanic races, unobserved by the public eye, and that's what the coven had been preparing for.
Forty-four Krsna Priests comprised the last of their "sect", which had once been a major religion. These were not your modern Hare Krishna airport hippies, but the last remnants of a priesthood of True Krsna/Christs. That same Spirit who had once been Jesus, currently in his 16th incarnation as Immanuel, had also been Krishna in India 5000 years ago, long before Jesus, before Mesopotamia or Egypt became civilizations. Gimme that old-time religion.
Because the Apocalypse is coming up, the Dark Angels strive to eliminate any significant support for The Spirit of Christ. It's what they do. But the original Krsna religion was not quite like the modern concept of Christianity, praying (begging) for help: the priests are all adept wizards with magical abilities, each with skills godlike enough to get themselves whatever they demanded without begging-- not easy victims to destroy. But the Dark Templars had wizards of their own, and they attacked.
The battle was already taking place at a secret Krsna monastery hidden high in the Tibetan Himalayas, an ancient stone fortress clinging to the sheer cliff side of a mountain. It was an inhospitable place of storms, extreme cold and shrill winds, blinding darkness and blinding light. So far the Templars had not breached the walls of the Monastery, but the Krsna priests were trapped and would soon have no more food or supplies. Those 44 priests were already outnumbered by hundreds of Dark Templars and more were arriving every day.
I was not especially enthusiastic about all this. "Are we really going into a WAR? It sounds pretty dangerous--I mean, cold, cliff sides, and especially the part about interfering against the Templars. They tend to be mean…"
"Well, we ARE fearless Angels," Parthenia insisted. She was the Very Big Girl who claimed to have once been an Amazon. She liked war.
"Sure, but not stupid Angels," I insisted.
"No, nor can we take Our Child into that kind of danger," Jytte insisted.
Everyone agreed about that, but instructions from the AAMM indicated that Jytte's involvement was especially required, so it was arranged to leave our Comatose Kid at the House of Angels to be cared for while we were gone. Jytte felt guilty about that, but also relieved to come away from her thankless burden for a while.
Our original coven of thirteen assembled at the House of Angels in Jerusalem, all of whom had trained together at the Mayan temple. Shirley, Saori, Nadja, the old gang. Irisia was to be High Priestess and leader of the expedition, since Evangeleva was in California helping her son. Some of the girls had been away on other business or adventures, scattered around the world, but everyone showed up on time for the solar finger to transport us as a group to where we were needed.
The passage from Israel to deep within an officially unexplored area of the Himalayan Mountain Range took only seconds.
We were projected down from the sky, phasing through ceilings floors, until we drifted down to an easy landing in the central hall of the Krsna monastery. Suddenly we found ourselves among shaved monks in orange robes, their leader greeting them.
"Welcome Sisters, we are honored by your presence and grateful for your assistance in this ordeal, Krsna be with you."
He was an impressive man, Baba Shaka, big and beautiful. In fact, they all were; not the small Tibetan monks one usually finds in Tibet, nor were they Asians, but of the original Caucasian stock from prehistory, almost Avatars in their development.
"It was Krsna's own Current Incarnation, Immanuel the 16th, who sent us," Irisia responded, "and he sends his regards and regrets that he cannot come in person-- but you know the rules."
"Of course. Now, let us get to the task at hand, for you have arrived none too soon: the Satanists have penetrated the outer walls of our monastery and have us surrounded here in the inner sanctuaries. The final port is buckling even now."
We listened and could hear muffled cries of "Ave Satanas!" not too far away.
"How many strong are they?" Irisia asked, giving the signal for the 13 of us to fall into rank, forming two concentric circles.
"Six hundred and sixty six at present," Baba Shaka informed them, "but more are coming."
We all looked at each other in amazement-- and then we had to giggle. Irisia took it more seriously: "you're kidding, right?" But when Baba Shaka frowned and shook his head, she too had to laugh out loud. The monks looked confused.
"Then those Templars are just asking for it," she said, finger-signing a pentagram to the coven. We already knew the drill and now fell into a 5-pointed-star formation: two girls to each point, Mariangela, Jytte and I taking the outer three positions.
"Three of our adepts are the designated Angels For The Antichrist," Irisia explained to the monks, "we'll show you what they can do with the number 666!"
The Angels chanted, became luminous, levitated slightly--except for the 3 Angels For The Antichrist, and then a circular wave of red energy exploded outwards from us, and it was over.
"What was that?" the monks were asking, even more confused.
"Listen!" Irisia commanded, so they did.
Silence. The commotion from the other side of the port had ended. No more cries of "Ave Satanas," no more hammering and pounding.
A monk peeked through a peek-hole in the port. "They are gone! All of them! We are saved!"
"Have you killed them all?" Baba Shaka asked.
"No, we don't do that," Irisia told him, "we have merely frighten them away. They'll be back eventually, but we have some time to reinforce our defenses before the next attack."
"So it's not over?" I just had to ask, with a concerned little frown, I'm sure.
Baba Shaka looked serious, "Now it's you who are kidding: that magic was cheeky enough to invite the attentions of the current incarnation of Shiva Himself!"
"He's right you know," Irisia commented to her girls, then looked to Mariangela, "but you have some sway over him--can you handle him?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe."
"Incarnation of Shiva?" again I had to ask, "Just who are we talking about?" Afraid that I already knew.
"Anton Artemis, of course," Mariangela said.
"Oh shit," I said, now just plain afraid.
Those monks were obviously impressed by the magic they had seen us Angels perform, and grateful for having been rescued, although they were far from being helpless monks resolved to accept whatever evil a foe should attempt to inflict upon them. They each had so much personal power that their greatest discipline was to not misuse it, nor to become proud and arrogant of their superiority over common men.
It was also obvious that these men were not accustomed to women in their midst, even though vows of celibacy were not the fashion here. They were extremely horny guys, every one of them. And each angel was an extremely desirable woman-- who were also not in celibacy phase at this time and could be just as erotically inclined as any man. So you could say that we all had power over each other... but that it was improper to use it in any proud or arrogant way. Everybody was being as humble as they could be.
"You are agonizingly desirable, o Sister."
"As are you, o brother. I'd love to just fuck your brains out right now, if we had time."
"Indeed? Well, you certainly may, but I must inform you that my brother here feels the same about you, and I would never cheat him of his happiness."
"And I must say the same for my sisters here, their desire is so strong that I feel I should allow them to go first. But there is also that emergency we have to deal with."
"Oh yes, the attackers? Right, well, then... see you around, I hope."
"Right, me too. Later, maybe."
The port was reinforced, both with magical charms and physical chunks of wood and chains of steel, but the outer walls were breached in too many places by grenades and bazookas to present an impassible physical barrier any more. So the Krsna adepts concentrated on establishing a shield of psychic energy around the inner sanctum, supposedly generating an impenetrable bubble of collective will-power. It would require synchronized magical energy and deep concentration, so how long they could maintain such a force-field was yet to be seen.
That would be our only defense now, and the Krsna priests would be too busy with that to deal with anything else, so any sort of retaliatory offensive was up to our little coven of angelic witches.
"Are we really trained for this?" I had to ask, "I mean, we don't have any way of HURTING an enemy. Our magic is mostly just touchy-feely good vibes."
"Yeah," Mischa commented, "why are we in the middle of this? We're not soldiers."
"No, but we are the most powerful coven of witches since the Renaissance," Irisia reminded us, "this is why we have been collected and trained: to stand against the Satanic Race when they resort to forbidden magics. We have each some innate ability that when combined with our sisters makes us something greater than the whole. Have faith, this is all part of The Work."
"It would be bloody handy if Cindy could become her Pure Angelic Self once again, just for a while," Leslie from Australia mentioned.
"Yeah, no kidding, those Templars would run away instead of attacking," Nyjanja postulated.
I agreed with them, but could only shrug. "Yeah, but I can't, sorry. I try almost every day but nothing happens. I don't even remember what it was like having been her anymore."
There are many kinds of demons, but those actually corporeal as physical creatures on Earthlevel are quite rare. The three Hellmen, for example. Even Ulfo's Demon, one of the most powerful and malignant, existed only temporarily as a flame-like plasma during its Full Moon manifestations, even though the Ulfæ him/herself was actually a currently incarnate man/woman. However the Templars had somehow summoned up five Heavy-Demons out of Hell, genuine monsters, horned and scaled, weighted and strong and solid as the granite stone from which their bodies had been formed.
The physical port was shattered within seconds, the psychic spells of confusion and misdirection had little effect on such mindless beasts, the force field was stressed beyond the limit of such magic, and they broke through. Howling and horrific they charged into the inner sanctum. I admit it, we were frightened.
The thirteen of us formed into three concentric rings, facing our opponents. Irisia's hand was raised in a signal for us to wait as the demons came at us, then lowering it the briefest moment before contact was made. We Angels chanted a single note of the purest tone.
All five demons locked up and tumbled to a stop, their stone flesh converted back into inflexible rock. Some of them shattered and crumbled into dust or a spray of chips, others simply fell over, now inert statues instead of semi-living creatures. A very satisfying magic trick.
The demons were defeated, but they'd already done their job; the way was open for the Templar sorcerers, who were already casting spells and chanting curses. A wave of psychic poison washed over us, some of whom whimpered and shuddered, but we held ranks and threw up a wall of counter spells. But then the Dark Templars were physically among us.
These Templars were enhanced agents of Satan, stronger and faster than normal men, trained with deadly combat skills, but they knew better than to attack Angels in individual hand-to-hand combat: we may have resembled frail girls, but were actually superhuman goddesses incarnate. The attackers would have to rely on an overwhelming barrage af magic energies, since they outnumbered us.
Our coven stood ground, repelling the first waves of ferocious Templars with angelic counter spells, but we reeled at the second wave.
Luckily, the psychic barrier having fallen, the Krsna adepts were now free to apply their own significant talents against the Templars. Lightning and wind rocked the inner sanctum but the Templars locked grips with the Krsna devotees, who like themselves, were not quite Avatars. Swords came into play, much more direct than magic, and blood began to flow.
Irisia gave the signal we'd been waiting for--our best trick; the "this had better work" kind--and we generated a pulse of whitest light that flashed outwards in a circular wave.
Every man present--Templar and priest alike--fell to the floor, stunned and temporarily paralyzed.
"This will STOP!" Irisia commanded, glowing with angelic power, as were we all, thirteen women ablaze. There was no question as to who had the authority in that inner sanctum.
"And stop it shall indeed," spoke Anton Artemis, who stepped into the inner sanctum, the only man standing. As usual, he looked fantastic: elegantly dressed in black with red trim, casual and relaxed as he flashed his infamously evil smile.
"Hello, girls, it's nice to see such a flock of beauties. I've always been meaning to add some angels to my stables and am looking forward to profoundly fucking you one and all."
"Oh, Anton, you and your one-track mind," Irisia chided, "you may have noticed that we are in charge here and you are not."
"Yeah," Shirley called out, "maybe we should add YOU to OUR stable."
"Stay focused, girls," Irisia commanded them, "Anton is famous for..."
"For being tricky? Oh yes, that's right," Anton self-effacingly admitted, "but even so, what could I do against the thirteen of you? Together you babes are the acme of angelic power on Earthlevel, while I am only the Incarnation of Satan Himself, one lone fallen angel. Not even I have enough magic to go toe to toe against your perfectly tuned and balanced coven."
I knew Anton too well not to suspect what was going to happen, "Watch out," I warned them, "he's going to..."
"No really, here, I'll show you." Anton raised his hand, waving out an arcane pattern. A sudden zap of malignant energy slammed into the invisible wall surrounding our coven, shaking the entire temple, but we girls remained unharmed.
"See? Told you so," he said, shrugging.
The other Angels relaxed ever so slightly. Not me, but it was already too late.
Anton's shrug had disguised the motion of drawing a pistol-- a common non-magical .38 special--which he fired without seeming to aim at all, ever so casually.
Irisia shrieked once as the bullet hit her brain, there was a spray of blood and she collapsed backwards to the floor. The light emanating around our coven flickered and went out before any of us could react. The coven had lost its integrity, our formation was now incorrect, we would have to regroup immediately or...
As said, it was already too late, Anton was among us and HE had no trouble manhandling Avatar women, being an Avatar himself. He punched and hit, girls fell to the floor, although none of them cried out in pain. Parthenia, truly an Amazon, hit him back with enough force to stagger him, but by then a fresh swarm of Templars following Anton was on her back, frenziedly trying to drag her down. That gave Anton just enough time to deliver his best punch and she fell back too.
Anton moved on, much too fast to avoid, far too powerful to stop. He kicked Cindy in the belly and she fell, Jytte was stiff-armed in the face and went flying. I-- he hesitated, seeming unwilling to harm me --then punched me anyway. But I was ready and did not go down, at least not right away, and we exchanged rapid-fire blows that would have killed anyone but Avatars.
Meanwhile all the other angels were also in the fray, Templars trying to contain them and getting badly hurt in the process. Saori was a skilled ninja, although so were several Templars and she was outnumbered--but she was still an Avatar and simply overpowered them. Nadja could be rather brutal for an angel, Mischa quite pushy, the Templars were many but not enough. The truth is, we were winning.
Until Anton called out one of his really powerful Hellbook curses that stunned everyone but himself. It was a variation of the same trick we had pulled, but aimed at females instead of males, and down we all went, too stunned to stand.
Then he personally bound us and the Krsna priests with hi-tech hand-and-foot-cuffs, since none of his Templars were yet capable of standing up. And presto: he had won, every angel and priest his captive.
So by the time we recovered from the stunning, we were already lying strewn around the floor of the inner sanctum, hands and feet locked together behind our backs, unable to sit up or stand. It had happened so fast that there had been no time for anyone to escape.
The other girls were not so abject. Shirley screamed at Anton, "You killed Irisia! She was 1000 years old! You weren't supposed to DO that!"
"Oh you're so cute when you're angry," Anton informed Shirley with a smirk, "but Irisia was old enough for one incarnation, twice my age. She'll be back anyway, just needs a kickstart."
"You evil shit! You... you..."
"What-- Monster? Villain? Asshole? (chuckle) Music to my ears girls, one of the perks for being Number One Most Evil Guy in the Entire World." He was really pretty smug.
Our own stun-spell was wearing off, Templars were coming to their feet, ready to begin dealing with their prisoners. Meanwhile we were just discovering how truly helpless we were, bent backwards, shackled hand and foot.
"Okay girls, I'm going to fuck you all now," Anton announced, "it's a symbolic thing: possessing the women of the vanquished. But relax, I don't especially want to hurt you (unless you're a bad lay), I just want to have some fun. And, well yes of course, I've been long yearning to ravage an Angel or two anyway, but you ladies have been so notoriously difficult to find."
Anton tried to look stern, but gave up and smiled with unbearable self-satisfaction. "Well, happy day, now I get to fuck the whole flock of you! I only need decide WHO to do first."
He was just so fucking excited and jolly, posturing with hands behind back, inspecting the packaged prizes sprawled around the temple floor, pretending he had not already decided which woman he wanted most. We all knew about his history with Mariangela.
Anton turned to the Templar captain awaiting his commands. He indicated Mariangela, of course, and said, "Release her shackles and bring her to me. Then line up the priests for a ritual mass sacrifice to Satan."
"All forty-four of them at one time, Grand Master?"
"Sure, Satan will love it. But first I'm going to enjoy myself with these twelve lovely ladies for a while, then we can perform the sacrifice. Now, you take charge of operations, I'll be busy here."
"Ave, Grand Master!"
"Oh, don't be that way, Mariangela, my love," he said, manually forcing me to look at him, although gently. "I actually grieved when I thought you were dead, so it's good to see you alive. Also looking so beautiful and desirable."
"So that you can best enjoy raping me again?" I tried to stare him down, but that only amused him.
"No, not you. Besides, I don't think rape will be necessary, I can make you desire me."
"You wish. However, Ulfo made me a tattoo, which once caused you to love me. Do you still?
"Oh, indeed I do, but I don't think that as anything to do with a tattoo. I've always loved you-- okay, it was unlucky that I was required to impregnate you with the Antichrist in my capacity as Grand Master, but I think we can forgive and forget all that, n'est ce-pas?"
"Perhaps we could have, had you not just murdered my dear friend Irisia. Or was that just unlucky too?"
"We were at War, so it wasn't murder, Irisia knew the danger. Now enough about her, let's talk about us."
"Oh, US. Well, it seems that you are in love with me and I won't have you. So rape seems to be your only option."
"Very well," Anton said, as if with some regret, "then rape it is." He stepped in close and effortlessly tore my gown apart, then disrobed himself, leaving us both naked. His erection was prodigious. He got a working grip on my teats. "Better spread your legs a little."
I did not spread my legs, nor turn my eyes away from him again, simply looked at him with no emotion whatsoever. The other angels were also watching, but none of them said anything, knowing that words could not dissuade Anton Artemis from slaking his lust once aroused.
And yet he hesitated. Seemingly conflicted about violating the one woman he actually did love above all others. He even began trembling, poor baby..
"What's wrong, Anton? Remembering how little joy you had as Antonio raping your own sister Babylonia?"
"Babylonia? How could you know about her?"
"She was the mother of the Angelic Race. Everyone knows how your love becomes unlucky."
"No, I could love YOU," he said, obviously frustrated, "Please..."
I was getting the reaction I'd been working for. "The mighty Anton Artemis begging?" I giggled, deliberately. The other angels, although bound and helpless, also laughed.
Anton scowled and stepped back, shoving me away from him. His wicked grin had stiffened. "I'll deal with you later," he said, "when we're alone." He put the shackles on my hands and feet again and pushed me, so that I had to topple, then turned to the other angels to choose his next--or rather, first--victim. "Aha, you! Tazio's slut!"
"Sweet Jytte, together again at last. You've been difficult to find."
"Have you even tried?" I asked.
"Not personally, but I did have agents looking for you."
"Why? Do you feel we have some unfinished business, Anton?"
"Oh don't be so cold, min skat, we've had some nice times together, we could have some more."
"Psychic domination, coercing me to be untrue to Tazio then to forget it. Is that your version of Nice Times?"
"Was for me. Anyway, you enjoyed it too, don't deny that."
"Perhaps, but only because I was psychically brainwashed to have no choice. But now that I'm an Avatar of the Angelic Race, I do have a choice."
Anton had to laugh, "What, you think you have the power to resist me now? How amusing, considering that I'm ready to penetrate you right n...no, wait, just for fun let's make it anal!"
I spoke the magic word Ulfa had once taught me, "Arranthat." Anton stopped in mid-thrust, his erection gone completely limp.
"Satanas! That damned word again." Now he was frustrated and angry, thrusting me away from him, intending that I go sprawling face down on the floor. But I was ready and landed on all fours, up and turning to face him as he charged at me with fists clenched, obviously planning to beat me, perhaps to death. That was the problem with that magic word: it did make him temporarily impotent, but otherwise it only made him ferociously angry.
Good thing I had one more trick: reaching up and touching a spot on the back of my head, sliding fingers under my hair to where Ulfo had drawn a secret magical tattoo as a defense specifically against Anton Artemis. It was linked to the tattoo Ulfo had also drawn on Anton's infant face in the year 1792, generally unseen under his beard.
Anton winced, clasping his hands to his face, maintaining enough self-control not to scream out loud, but staggering at the impact of severe burning pain. I continued to rub that spot under my hair, ever harder, Anton shuddering and gasping.
But it was only pain, which he could endure and ignore; in a moment he regained control, ready to punish me for my effrontery. His arrogant grin was gone; a red-eyed grimace was the best he could muster. But that was replaced by confusion, I'm told. I didn't see it because I was gone.
Anton's Templars had tried to stop me from escaping, but I am an Avatar and they lay strewn in the path I had taken to and through the open portal. In seconds I was out in the snowstorm.
Anton was enraged now; nothing was going the way he'd planned. But at least the pain was subsiding as proximity to my tattoo diminished. "Go KILL her, you idiots!" he shouted at his agents, and they went running after me.
The snowstorm was wild and white, I was invisible to the Templars, but I could sense them and began to pile them up. It was cold out there, so I had to get them back into the temple before they froze to death. But I knew it wouldn't be long.
"Ah, miss Suthers, we meet again."
I wince, mutter an appropriate, "Oh shit!" I am clearly afraid of him.
This appeases Anton slightly: this was as it should be.
"Shit indeed," he approaches his helpless victim with his nastiest smile turned on again.
I try to wiggle away, but can barely move in my shackles. "You stay away from me, Anton Artemis, or I'll...I'll...turn you into an Angel, just like I did to Achmet!"
Anton tried to laugh, but it was a snarl. "You'll do nothing. You may have fooled my Templars into fearing that you can still become a Pure Angel, but I have it on good authority that you no longer have access to that level of power."
"What good authority?"
"Oh, I have my sources. Never mind that, Cindy my dear, the most important thing is that I owe you a severe punishment. You are going to have to atone for your sins now. Heh heh."
"MY sins? You owe me?" I got angry now, "Hey, it was you and Achmet who tortured and murdered me, then burned my brains away so that Tazio couldn't save me as a human. It was your own fault that he made me into a Pure Angel instead. Now you're saying that you need to be even more severe with me?"
"Oh, is mean old Anton treating you unfairly?" he taunted. He really is a bully.
"I´d have made an angel out of you too if you hadn't run away."
"Ah, well, even if you could have bought forth my spiritual self you might not have liked what would happen, since I am the Earthly Incarnation of Satan Himself. Would you really wish to unleash HIM upon the world? Heh heh!"
Anton is now upon me. He unshackles my feet but not my hands, shreds my clothes away and spreads me out on the floor and lays his naked body upon mine. His erection is back, and big, ready to ravage. I am squirming like the unwilling victim that I am, just a frightened little girl, crying "No no!" but there is no escape from this brutal raping.
At least, not for Anton.
His male lust drives him to plunge his mighty shaft deep into my tender femaleness. But before violently slamming it to me, he pauses to savor this moment of conquest over an unwilling woman. He WOULD do this to Mariangela as well, and all the others, that would teach them not to laugh at Anton Art...
My...Cindy's eyes light up like twin suns as she becomes Her Pure Angelic Self. Anton's penetration of her sex had plugged him right into the middle of her Angelic energy, and his most delicate flesh was magnetized into place as if he had stuck it into a 440-volt electric socket; he lost control of his body, limbs flailing, shuddering all over.
My Angel spoke to him: "You assumed that Cindy had lost her Pure Angel self, but as you now see, This Angel can manifest Herself whenever needed. You may allow your Templars to continue fearing her."
We were in fact, surrounded by those very same Dark Templars, soldiers and wizards, none of whom were willing to attack My Angel in defense of their Grand Master. My Angel turned her cosmic gaze upon them--and they fled. Out of the temple and into the freezing Himalayan Mountains, every last man.
"But you were correct," she went on telling Anton, "about it being unwise to call forth your Satanic soul. Better to simply debilitate the incarnation it inhabits."
"NO!" Anton cried, feebly attempting to pull free without ripping his penis off--it was still a solid erection--but absolutely trapped within My Angel's sex-grip. Meanwhile he was visibly becoming transformed: thinner, wrinkled, sallow, gradually withering away into an older man.
Altough he could barely speak, Anton did manage to pronounce and cast one last desperate curse --which ricocheted off My Angel's inviolate aura and slammed into his already stinging face, a blast of intolerable pain that knocked him senseless.
Then My Angel effortlessly cast off her cuffs with some telekinetic magic and stood up, allowing Anton to slip free from our erotic connection. She waved her hand and all the shackles fell away from the other captives simultaneously. Then looking down, she asked him, "Now, Anton Artemis, do you have any more threats to offer?"
"By Satanas, I'll..." he shouted in rage, attempting to rise... but was unable to. "What-- what have you done to me?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you recognize the feeling, it's been done to you before-- by Theron and Tazio."
He looked at his wrinkled hands and understood: "Oh, not made me old again, not again. Not again!"
"Poor Anton. Do not worry, you shall get over it. But not today."
The twin suns of her/my eyes faded away, I stepped back, now myself again, and not exactly sure of what had just occurred. But seeing Anton writhing weak and helpless at my feet gave me a clue.
Then the other angels were beside me, also looking down at the feeble shell of the Grand Master of the Dark Templars.
"I wish we could kill him," Nadja said, "that would probably solve some future problems."
"Yeah," Shirley agreed, "as he killed Irisia."
"But we can't," Mariangela reminded them, "He has to be there, at the Apocalypse."
"Shit," I commented, knowing I'd have to deal with him again. He still scared me.
"Yeah, shit," Leslie agreed.
"But Irisia should have been there too..." Shirley complained.
"No," Mariangela announced, "she once told me that her incarnation would end soon. She'd been ready to go for a long time-- she has a soul-mate and they planned to reincarnate together next time."
"Really? So now they can," Madeline realized.
"How romantic!" Parthenia decided.
"I suppose," Mariangela sad-smiled, "she also wanted a new body--maybe male, let her soul mate be the girl for a change."
The Krsna priests came forward, humble and grateful for having been rescued.
Baba Shaka went down on one knee before Cindy, "We have recognized you, Oh Lady Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu, love of Krsna, and are henceforth your servants."
I was kind of embarrassing, I still wasn't sure that My Angel was me. "Yeah, hey, it's cool."
Irisia's thousand year-old body was buried on a mountaintop with a nice view of Tibet and India and China whenever the clouds parted. We performed a simple ceremony. No one cried; they had gotten word from Immanuel that Irisia and her soul mate had already moved on to their next incarnations together, just as she had desired.
meanwhile
Buffone had left the Abbey, and still suffering from agonizing Lust, went to London where he got a job as a bouncer in a brothel. He settled in there for a while, his lust evidently being tended to by the brothel employees.
But there had been some gangster trouble in London, so after a year Buffone moved on to Berlin, where he earned his living as a street entertainer. He was living in a commune along with two girls he'd rescued from the brothel in London. Evidently The Lust was still a problem for him, but at least he had expert help. He seemed to be doing all right.
Back to Business
4 years after the cataclysm
It was no longer simply an Italian Società per Azione, so the "Spa" was dropped as it became "the dellaTerra Corporation", popularly known as dTCorp. It had become big business administering those hundreds of patents and inventions Tazio had generated as a 9-to-12 year-old genius, even though he had not contributed with any new input for over 5 years. The company was too much of a success to simply run itself any more, with offices in Copenhagen, Rome, Peking, Tokyo and Los Angeles, as well as New York.
The financial aspects of dTCorp were already enormous, and although I had no interest in amassing great personal wealth (I already have lots!), there were now thousands of employees and investors for whom the money meant a great deal, as well as many charity organizations that benifited from the company's donations.
But most important of all was the positive effect DellaTerra Spa's clean technical innovations were having on the world environment: the electric scooter, the modular car, each self-powered, requiring no fuel and reducing pollution; free energy for large or small scale projects; globally phasing fossil-fuel technology out and replacing it with benign magic. I am a passionate believer in Tazio's works.
A new Headquarters had been established in New York City, as well as factories for dTCorp product assembly all over the world, each with its own generous wage & benefit program which was re-socializing cities that were otherwise becoming slum ghettos. I felt it was my duty to relocate to Manhattan and become personally involved once again. Mariangela and Cindy accompanied me. And it was a good thing they did.
dTCorp had become a major economic generator, earning excellent profits despite unnecessary generosity to employees, so had also attracted a flock of ambitious and greedy speculators taking employment in the upper-echelons of the company. These were mostly men, who were interested in phasing out my "feminine" leadership and making way for some really profitable mergers and wage increases for those at the top (at the expense of the common workers and eventual customers of dTCorp products, of course).
In fact, we three arrived at the dTCorp Headquarters Building just as a hostile take-over was being implemented by a large group of high-end investors and a small army of lawyers. Some of them were established as dTCorp executives, having come up through the ranks as the company grew so rapidly, now finding themselves in a position to perhaps legally dump the original owners, Tazio and myself.
They contended that "Miss Øgård's la-dee-dah approach to managing a modern business was detrimental to the profit margin that should be streaming into the company's coffers" (and their own pockets). They also attempted to establish that they could far better protect the interests of Tazio, the absentee inventor, rather than some gold-digging foreign woman who had carried on an illicit and immoral sexual relationship with the innocent under-aged boy genius.
The executives had planned to disenfranchise one defenseless lone woman, as males often do in the world of business intrigue, having no idea that they would be up against three women who were far more powerful than them in every way: especially intellectually.
Mariangela, Cindy and I arrived to an official meeting of the board on the 88th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, casually dressed and looking like hicks from Nowheresville, gazing out the windows and being impressed by such a Big City. The executives assumed that it would be no problem to discard these women. But when the meeting began and the movement to vote me out of my position as Executive Chief was announced, I only smiled and awaited my turn to speak.
Within moments of my address to the meeting of the board it was clear exactly how solid my legal rights were established in Europe, Asia, Africa-- pretty much everywhere, including the USA. Tazio had officially and legally bequeathed absolute authority over each of his copyrights to me personally, so if dTCorp fired me they would no longer have access to his inventions.
But if I was ready to defend my position, we were even more ready to retaliate: I'm afraid we got rather bullish. Cindy, now in charge of personnel, recited from memory a list of 123 names of those who were immediately discharged from dTCorp employment, most of them in executive positions they had themselves created while they thought I wasn't looking. Mariangela then announced a complete restructuring of the company, eliminating all superfluous jobs that did not contribute to better product or service. At the end of the day dTCorp New York was reduced to a third of its personnel and three Angels were running the show.
I remained Chief Executive, attending to global deployment of Tazio's inventions; Cindy took charge of managing personnel, since she was genuinely concerned about people; and Mariangela, who as a nun had spent several years doing foreign aid (before being mother to the Antichrist), controlled the various charities.
Mariangela had originally come along because she was most concerned about "Our Daughter" than any business venture, being the child's grandmother after all, and had become a dedicated Nanny. But once she became involved with the charities, and observing how often corruption and swindle were a problem, she became avidly involved, often traveling to the recipient lands and dealing with those who would steal the money on a very personal level. African kings, Arab shieks, maharajas and mustafas soon learned not to swindle with dTCorp Charity Funds; Mariangela had no compunctions about thrashing a thief with her Avatar skills. This made her unpopular with the most corrupt governments and a few disastrous attempts were made on her life while she was visiting, until even the Mafia learned not to fuck with the crazy ex-nun.
5 years after the cataclysm
That could only mean to the ruins of La Villa della Strega, which was a signal the angels had been waiting for. Immanuel was notified and went to bring Buffone in.
Buffone arrived among the angels, now 14 years old, but still seemingly the same age as always.
Tazio had lost all inertia. He had been adventuring for years, but with constantly diminishing enthusiasm, having no emotions or desires or wishes of his own. He finally grinded to a halt, having walked to the middle of a desert in central Africa, one of the most inhospitable and desolate places he could find. It seems that he considered it as good a place as any to sit and meditate undisturbed, then sat there for a month without moving.
The coven of angels united as an astral flock to monitor him as best they could, which was made easier by the absence of any other human souls in his vicinity. Telepathic probes suggested that he was dreaming of Hell, wherein he was entangled in a symbolic struggle with Theron, which Tazio seemed to be losing. This concerned the angels and they decided that he needed to be disturbed before he lost all touch with Earthlevel.
They tried on the astral plane, but Tazio did not respond to their telepathy. They considered sending a Solar Finger to pick him up, but the AAMM would not cooperate with that plan. Instead, their attention was directed to the shaman Wa'Lah'Kabi of the Ma'Waaluuki people, a tribe of 300 Africans who had been exiled from their own village and were starving on the edge between desert and jungle. Psychically empowered by the entire coven, Mariangela sent that shaman a dream.
It took the shaman a week to reach Tazio, walking alone out into the desert and finding him, saying, "Awaken, earth god. I had a dream the new moon night. Your mother told me to find you here and challenge you to be god to my people."
Tazio was groggy, "huh? people?" he mumbled, then shook himself awake. "Whew! Maybe I'd better."
Tazio went to join the Ma'Waaluuki, finding a completely defeated and impoverished African tribe. Their village was overtaken by government troops so that their land could be used to grow cotton instead of food, since the government wanted more international currency for buying weapons and military equipment. Tazio led the tribe back to their village, commanded the soldiers to leave, burned the cotton crop for the fertilizing ash, planted crops of soon to be gigantic fruits and vegetables, built an organic water pump, redesigned the huts and invented an electronics-nullefector to keep government troops away. He did indeed become their god.
When the villagers asked, "Lord, are these things magic?" he answered, "No, just symbiotic catalysis." But they knew better.
Jytte was in Copenhagen at the time so Sophia said, "Then I'll meet with Cindy Suthers, the Personnel Manager...we're sort of old friends from Rome."
As usual, I was almost never in my office, preferring to move around the building and visit personnel in their work environments, so I was quite surprised to find Sophia waiting there for me.
It was true that we had known each other in Rome, but we had not exactly been friends. Rather competitors for Tazio's affections. Also victims of Anton's lust, enduring weeks of total debauchery and decadence. My perception of Sophia had been of an obsessedly wanton nymphomaniac. Sophia's perception of me had been of an innocent little schoolgirl (which I was).
Sophia had originally been a fat butcher's wife in la Destinazione, who was stabbed to death by her drunken husband but immediately resurrected by Tazio, who simply could not resist making some improvements while he was reconstructing her damaged body. He had exceeded his own expectations, transforming poor fat stupid Sophia into a very sexy genius.
Anton had discovered the newly-improved Sophia during a stop in la Destinazione and had brought her to his penthouse in Rome, to partake in hi-octane sex orgies with both him and Lust-afflicted young Tazio several times a day. I had also been there at the time and was sucked into the debauchery, unable to resist the erotic energy of two male Avatars wallowing in The Lust. When I had been sent away for my own good, Sophia was still ardently serving herself to Tazio and Anton, so I couldn't help feeling jealous of her.
We hadn't seen each other since then--almost 5 years past--although I could not avoid noticing that Sophia had meanwhile become a famous movie star and singer, as well as having written several best-selling books (winning most awards and prizes for The Whore of Babylon, considered "a masterpiece of sheerest genius!"). But I had avoided all of her movies and books because of a nagging resentment of Sophia for having horned in on Tazio.
But it did not take long to break the ice once we started talking; we were both avid human rights agitators, both dedicated to women's empowerment, both still loved Tazio and wanted to be on his side at the Apocalypse--and both hated Anton Artemis for how he misused women, ourselves included.
"Then you'll be happy to know that we--our coven--severely punished Anton a couple of years ago," I revealed. "Drained off some of his life-force, made him old. He's still trying to get over that." Sophia's blank look called for details, "It's what we witches call Withering..."
Sophia understood at once. "That's exactly what Tazio did to him while they were sailing on the Charon! That's why I was able to get away from Anton's apartment in Rome--he was holding me prisoner by psychic domination, you know--but suddenly he was too old and weak to bother with sex and I was on my own. So I escaped to USA."
Sophia had already written her Putanna di Babylonia opus in Anton's penthouse and submitted it to a publisher in Rome. Before it was even accepted she had translated it to English, French and German herself, then went to LA to become a movie star. She was one a week later.
"It was all so easy," she told me, "I was absolutely supercharged from all that Avatar sex--as you must have been too--as if I was the only adult in a world of children who all loved me and gave me whatever I needed: I was suddenly considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood and was evidently smarter than most of the men I met. My book was accepted by publishers in all four languages at once. Just like that, I was a success."
"While I just dedicated myself to curing AIDS by having lots of group sex," I offered, as if that was my excuse for not becoming famous.
"Oh, I'd had enough of that--although there have been many affairs and scandals. But I have never forgotten my--our--most beloved Tazio. So I've been researching his whereabouts online and I know where his journey must lead to: Armageddon (whatEVER that's going to be).
"I want to be there for him," she said, "so I came here to dellaTerra Corporation, where Tazio's interests are being managed by his mother and two previous lovers, figuring that you three are also going to be there when the time comes."
I did not speak for a moment, deciding how much I should tell Sophia. (Who actually IS Tazio's creation, just like me, so maybe I should drop being jealous.) Finally I said, "Yes, we'll be there. In about a year. But if you want to go with us you'll have to join our society. In fact, please do, we have a job for you."
"A job at dTCorp?" She looked confused, being far too rich to need a job.
"No, the House of Angels in Jerusalem."
"Angels? I thought you were witches..." then Sophia gasped in comprehension, "Avatars! I knew it!"
"Just how much do you know about Avatar Angels?" I asked her.
"Not a lot, there are only vague hints about the real thing on the Internet. But I've figured out that both Tazio and Anton were...Trueborns, I think they call them. And proximity to their auras affects people, who can become Proxies. As you and I were becoming...oh wait, you look stronger and younger than 5 years ago."
"So do you."
"Not anymore," Sophia said, indicating some fine wrinkles around her eyes, "I haven't been near any Avatars for years now, that energy has worn off. Not that I'm complaining--Tazio made me super-healthy and I still am. Although..."
Sophia sat across the desk from me, but she stood up and stepped closer, hands up as if warming herself near a fireplace. "...you still have it. Lots of it."
I nodded, then allowed my angelic aura to expand, just a little, eyes barely glowing. Sophia gasped as the positive energy inundated her body and soul, staggering back with awe. Then forward again to receive as much of a charge as she could get.
When I pulled my aura back in those wrinkles around her eyes had already vanished. Sophia couldn't see that, but I could. She was suddenly stunned and unsure of herself, having just been allowed a glimpse into the Avatar world once again.
I asked, "Are you certain you wish to be with us at Armageddon?"
"Now more than ever!"
"All right, then I will sponsor you."
"Oh, thank you, Cindy. I know we weren't especially..."
"We were all swept up in Rome, even Tazio, none of us were in control of ourselves except for Anton. But now we are."
"Yes. Now we are."
"Listen, you must go to the Angels, but I can't just send you to them: you'll have to find them yourself to prove that you have the kind of talent they want--which I'm sure you do, Sophia. But The House of Angels is hidden by magical spells and psychic protections, impossible for normal people to find or enter. If you can do that anyway, then you'll be in."
"Jerusalem, you said?"
"I suppose I did."
"And what is that job you referred to?"
"You'll be told that if you ever arrive."
"Then I'd better go now," she decided.
"I'll let them know you're coming. Good luck, Sophia."
A NEW MOON NIGHT
5½ years after the cataclysm
Jytte, Cindy and I had been involved full-time running the dellaTerra Corporation out of the Headquarters Office in New York. But we were glad to take a little break and reunite with old friends and become witches again. Besides, it was always fun at Evangeleva's place: a magnificent log cabin perched deep in the Muir Woods on the slope of Mount Tamaulipas, hot tub, a feast every day, a bonding of the coven every night.
We were gathered because word in the Angelic Community was that the long-awaited Armageddon would occur on the next Vernal Equinox, only 6 months away.
As almost always on a New Moon night, Ulfa's supernova presence tingled in the atmosphere and there was a moment of contact. But this time Ulfa was not so abstracted as usual, she managed to deliver a message: "I will soon become manifest as The Angel Ulfæon, who wishes to communicate with your coven, so hang on girls..."
Then she slipped beyond physical existence and was light. Which happens every month, but this time the light became the image of Ulfæon, which is seldom seen, usually for some important information.
And so it was.
"My Demon is manipulating a technological disaster. It has kept my enlightened self out of the loop, so I cannot say exactly what it plans to do, except that it has to do with the nuclear capability of every military organization on the planet. I am powerless to stop it. But perhaps I have a way out: to rid the world of My Demon.
For that, all of my Ulfæ selves must cease to exist on Earthlevel.
But as you all know, death for the Ulfæ is hardly a permanent solution-- I/he/she dies every month and my Lunar cycle always brings me back. I need to finally break that bond and be free of it: by dying and becoming reincarnated in another body.
So it is being requested of the coven that one of you conceive a new vehicle of incarnation with Ulfo, a child whom I can occupy once I manage to end this cruel existence I have endured for almost 3 centuries: I want out.
This conception must happen quite soon--before I become The Demon again and act to prevent it: within 2 weeks. I have a plan, which will involve both Tazio and Immanuel, to end my days as Ulfo during Armageddon-- it cannot be sooner, the Demon has me in thrall until then, and should not be later if I am to escape the Moon-- so I will need a fetus to inhabit at that time.
Due to various spells concocted by My Demon I cannot escape from this secret military complex, which is hidden deep under the seemingly innocent cornfields of Nebraska. So one of you must come to me to become impregnated. For that I only need to outsmart the military, and that's a no-brainer.
I realize this is a lot to ask of any woman--not only is she to come here and break into a dangerously top secret military base just to give me a quick fuck, but also to become mother of whoever I become for the rest of her life. So she should be someone with a good sense of humor, please.
Let me know by tomorrow, so that I can arrange the break-in. Send an e-mail to: ulfae@delaterraspa.it, even if the government does trace it they still can't shut down Tazio's software."
The girls discussed the situation.
"I'm sure we all agree that we must aid the Ulfæ in this, he/she has been the most significant angelic entity incarnate in many generations. Ulfo fathered Immanuel, the Angel Ulfæon engineered the evil Theron into becoming the good Tazio, Ulfa was mother to Anton Artemis."
"Of course, we would raise this child among us, but the duty of actually conceiving and bearing the child falls to one woman: who should it be?"
There were several eager volunteers. Most Avatar women would welcome the chance to mother a True Born Avatar, but since there can only be 144 incarnate on Earth at any time such opportunities are limited.
"It should be me," I stated, "Ulfo was my lover for years, thus it is almost my duty to bear his next incarnation. Although he might fear that I would be as terrible a mother as I was for Tazio."
"Genetically it should be me," Evangeleva said, "I have already concieved one perfect child with Ulfo. Another would be brother/sister to Immanuel."
"Hopefully brother OR sister, poor Ulfæ has suffered changing genders long enough."
"We could determine that, but just which gender should the next Ulfæ be?" was asked, "Male or Female?"
"Allow nature to determine that, Ulfo wants a normal life."
"No matter what comes out, that child will be a True Born Avatar with abilities and advantages normal people never have."
"Or we could end up with another child without a soul," Jytte said, as she suckled her own soulless child, "if Ulfo cannot actually escape His Demon's thrall."
It was decided to determine the Intent of the AAMM, so the coven assembled under the night sky and asked the cosmos what to do. Other angels around the world tuned in, each offering an input. Even Eve of Eden came among them. But no clear answer made itself manifest.
Until just before dawn, a solar finger arrived and Immanuel landed among us. He seemed to be informed about everything and in quite a hurry, for he said to Evangeleva, "Mother, Ulfo awaits you. I'm to take you to him."
Evangeleva did not seem surprised, but she smiled quite prettily. "I'm going to be a mother again?"
"Yes, the AAMM has decreed that I am to have a brother."
Every woman there gave a sigh, for not even Angels are immune to that ancient female instinct of motherhood. They had each yearned for the experience of giving birth to a Trueborn Avatar.
Actually, I was relieved. I had loved Ulfo as a very sexual man--or woman--and had no wish for that to become a maternal relationship. But I would have accepted the duty had it been put to me. Also, I couldn't help desiring to make love with Ulfo in his best phase--a godlike normal man--for one last time.
The plan was to wait three days, until Ulfo was as human as he could be, in balance between his angelic and demonic natures. A solar finger would take Evangeleva and Immanuel to a cornfield in Nebraska, where they would challenge the defenses of a top-secret military base. Rather like an episode of Mission Impossible.
THE MISSION
But there were no rumors about the Other Base hidden underneath: the WorldWar Cyberlink HQ, and nobody in town knew anything about it. It was common knowledge that the White Buffalo Missile Base was about 6 city blocks in size, but it was still a strictly-kept secret that a second blast door led to an elevator that descended another 500 feet deeper, to where the real secret and really big base was hidden.
WWCLHQ was a small city, with a permanent staff of two thousand people, mostly men: scientists, technicians, military, support specialists. All assignments to this facility were for at least 10 years at a time, there was no traffic flowing in and out or back and forth to arouse any suspicion as to what was down there.
This was a specialized society dedicated to the science of Very High Tech War, living in a law unto itself, and it bypassed USA's mainstream moral behaviors. There were a few women in highly qualified technical positions, but since children were forbidden those women were required to be more attuned to a scientific ideal than a family. The authorized Base Brothel had an efficient staff of a dozen "sex therapists" to keep the men content.
The women of the coven were glad to see that the therapists were respected as skilled professionals and quite accepted socially in that culture. The local morality about nuclear warfare was also alternative to mainstream: they were enthusiasts.
This was where the Ulfæ had been held prisoner/master for the last three years. Not that the military authorities actually had the ability to contain him, he/she could have easily escaped under either extreme of the lunar phases, but the Demon had engineered the perfect Ulfo trap: sex and responsibility.
As Ulfo descended from sainthood to brute-man, he was constantly horny and easily tempted by the therapies being offered to him. Those women were not common prostitutes, some were specialists trained to pleasure men, all of them either quite beautiful or appealing in some other way. There were also doomed prisoners, condemned criminals, for when Ulfo became bestial, and expendable living sacrifices to the Demon Itself. There were also men available for the sexual needs of the brute Ulfa, who had rarely known the pleasure.
In the higher phase, those same sexual therapists were hostages to the Demon, who would kill them all horribly if the enlightened Ulfæ should attempt to escape the underground base.
So he/she could not leave. Nor could any others enter to attempt a rescue. The base was considered absolutely impenetrable: hidden 500 meters beneath a cornfield in Nebraska, the only way in or out was by the large elevators, guarded and defended by the most modern security systems and high-tech weaponry.
But even so, there was really nothing technology or alert guards could do to defend themselves from a solar finger. It arrived at night, bright as a sun, easily seen by the soldiers posted in the watch towers on the surface, who reported that a "UFO" was hovering above them. But it was invisible to the radar and cameras and sensors being monitored 500 meters underground, so they were confused. As far as anyone could tell, all it did was hover about 10 yards up and shine a powerful light down at the ground for a few seconds, and then it was gone beyond the horizon at blinding speed.
There was no way to monitor that the light ray had penetrated stone and steel and earth all the way down to the WWCLHQ facility below, or see two spirit-forms become lightly deposited onto the steel floor of the 33rd level, where they rematerialized as a man and a woman.
Alone on a balcony over a huge array of missiles pointing up at ceiling doors, everything on a vast scale, Evangeleva commented, "Oh my, look at this place."
"Yeah, they certainly spared no expense," Immanuel responded, then went on with one of his sermons to the choir. "The real waste of bases like this is that everyone in the world is being robbed by the military-industrial complexes, and anyone questioning or challenging them is accused of being unpatriotic. It's piracy."
"Always the revolutionary. So where is Ulfo from here?"
"He must be nearby, the Finger wouldn't misplace us."
The Coven was monitoring the mission from California. Not that they could be of any assistance, they just wanted to watch.
Ulfo found them, lead them to his apartment. Immanuel went for a walk around the top-secret base, to check it out for future reference and to give Ulfo and Evangeleva a little privacy.
But there was no privacy to be had: the other 12 Angels of the coven were telepathically plugged in, along for the ride, so to speak. This had been agreed upon by all involved.
Later, they analyzed the event: Ulfo's performance, Evangeleva's orgasms, the emotions of everyone at once: Mariangela's sweet longing for Ulfo, his own male joy of ejaculating into beautiful Evangeleva, the delivery of Avatar-charged sperm, etc. It was judged to be A Pretty Good Lay.
Evangeleva and Immanuel were soon back in California, mission a success. Not once had they had a problem with Base Authorities. Not even Immanuel, who usually did get into trouble in military situations--kind of on purpose. Within a day a faint new point of light was visible in Evangeleva's aura: she was pregnant.
This was an encouraging sign: The AAMM intended for an Avatar to be born three months after the Apocalypse was due, so the world should probably still exist by then. No one was sure of exactly how Armageddon was supposed to work out.
Sophia arrives
Shirley welcomed her, "Okay, you gotta be Sophia. Cindy said you'd show up soon, seems the girl's faith in you is justified."
"You ladies have got a job for me, I hear."
"Well, first comes Angelic training, although you do seem to be in good form. But yes, we need a qualified someone to play a ceremonial role in the Armageddon Festival, and I'm pretty sure you'd be perfect. After all, you're already a famous actress, and it's probably no coincidence that your first novel was entitled The Whore of Babylon."
THE ARMAGEDDON FESTIVAL
5 years 10 months after the cataclysm
No one seemed to know whether or not the religious aspect of the festival was to be taken seriously; some did, some didn't. But the media really didn't care, it was an entertaining concept, public interest stuff, the best of show biz, and there was money to be made. So the media coverage was going to be colossal, TV cameras from every major network, news teams from all over the planet.
A city of tents was already being erected on the field of Megiddo, the Host of The Lord established in the largest and whitest tent near the center of the festival grounds. This was to be Headquarters for Immanuel's fans, and our coven of Angels were expected to be stationed there as well. The Dark Templars also had a camp, their presence unsecret and unhidden for once; legions of black-uniformed bad guys ready to Win The Game; awaiting but the arrival of their Antichrist. And Anton, of course, who seemed to be keeping a low profile ever since we'd withered him.
But it wasn't going to be just for Christians and Satanists; thousands of other religious/mystical organizations were represented: from the big boys of the Catholic Church to fringe secret societies like the Kabbalists of Israel. A very popular rumor was that several Gods and Goddesses would be present, anonymous in the crowd, famous/mythic personalities such as the Wandering Jew, the Archangel Michael, reincarnations of the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc. Evangeleva and Jytte were especially amused about being "anonymous" media stars.
But of course, the stars of the show would be: Immanuel, the 17th reincarnation of Christ; and Tazio, Antichrist, Beast of the Apocalypse. It should be they who do combat to decide the Fate of the World, according to The Bible--and the program.
Our little "3 Angels for the Antichrist" entourage was to have our own tent within the great white over-tent housing the Host of The Lord. Our Child was to be with us, over 5 years old by then but still sleeping soundly. It was predicted that she might awaken soon, perhaps during the Apocalypse, but there was still no hint concerning the identity of her future soul.
It was also expected--among the Gnostic--that Ulfo would be showing up; probably during the apex of the Full Moon, just as he becomes The Demon, which would certainly add some drama to the show.
But Tazio HAD been Theron, and that little shit...no, never mind. I would wait, control myself and see how things went when we met again.
21st of MARCH / VERNAL EQUINOX / TAZIO'S 18th BIRTHDAY / FULL MOON
exactly 6 years after the cataclysm
But here is where this document ends, you can read the rest in the ARMAGEDDONQUEST Graphic Novel.
3R