“Yes, but that’s not as easy as it sounds,” Whitely reminded him. “I mean, a few hours ago four big men had the motive and the method and the opportunity, and they’ll be buried in a couple of days. I suspect that even if you drugged her, there would be something, somewhere, planted as a booby trap to prevent it. They know the stakes as well as we do, and I’m certain they allowed for this eventuality. No, to do it she would have to do it freely, willingly, out of desire and out of love.”
Maria had sat in the back in silence, not translating any of this in spite of Angelique’s pokes in the side to do so. “She might do it,” she told the men. “She might do it for one person. She’s got a real, solid thing for you, Greg, and I mean it.”
Although, deep down, he knew it, he still was startled by all this and fought to reject it. “What—would it do to her?” he asked, not caring who answered.
Whitely, too, felt somewhat uncomfortable with this, but he saw it as the only expedient out of a dangerous situation. “Tell her about it, Maria,” he ordered sternly. “Ask her that question.”
And Maria did so, as best she could.
The very fact that the Dark Man planned to use her as the ultimate instrument of Satan’s final war had shaken her, and she’d remembered the Dark Man’s comment that the war between Heaven and Hell had yet to be fought. Now, here it was—a choice. A choice she did not wish to face.
“She wants to know if this would cause the ruination and fall of their ultimate plot,” Maria told them.
“No. I’m afraid not,” responded the Bishop. “It buys time, that’s all. Time for us while they frantically search to cover their losses and find another candidate. A few years, perhaps. Perhaps longer. They will create a puppet Angelique to take control and proceed as before, I suspect, but they will not be able to use her. They may have someone in the wings—they certainly seem to plan ahead—but I suspect that their Angelique will become pregnant and bear a daughter who will be a direct heir and will also be totally under their control from the beginning. It might buy us a generation.”
Maria told Angelique what Whitely had told her, and the strange young woman nodded sadly. “As I thought. Still, a generation is a long time, and the cup will be passed from my lips. Yet, for a Hapharsi Mother to surrender herself and her office, there is a high price to be paid both for me and for the other.”
“What—will happen to you?” Maria asked nervously.
“Me? I do not know what traps the Dark Man laid, if any, for they are beyond my detection. But it is certain that I will lose all my power and all my communion with nature. I will surrender my self and my will. Hapnarsi Mothers are supreme because they have all the great attributes of womanhood, yet call no man their master and thus are superior to men, having the highest attributes of both. This is not so of a Hapharsi wife. Wives surrender their own selves to their husbands. A Hapharsi wife is totally loving, and obedient to her husband’s will. She becomes an appendage of him. As he has arms and legs, and moves them as he wills, so is it with his wife. There is no choice, no other way. When his essence enters my body of my own free will, I become part of him always.”
Maria was appalled. “You talk like you’d be his slave!”
“In a sense, that is true, only it would be voluntary, willing, and forever. One is not a slave if the choice is a free one. Still, this much is clear. I will remain in this body, with these thoughts, with these limits, for the rest of my life, with no hope of ever being different and no way of even communicating save by sign with anyone else, for I will not have the power or authority to take on daughters such as you.”
Angelique dwelled on the implications as Maria gave what translation she could to the men. This way forever… No, not this way. Without power, she would be defenseless against anyone and anything. Her upper body strength would ebb. She would be weak, and ordinary, but she would remain looking like this, cut off, allergic or whatever it was, and out of place in the world no matter where she was. It was not a nice fate, and the only compensation would be that she would have Greg, although she would be in a way as dependent on him as she had been on Maria while in that wheelchair. Still, if the alternative was to become the Antichrist, her duty and sacrifice was clear. It wasn’t the hospital and the vegetative hell. She would do it—but she had to be honest with Greg about all the consequences.
Maria was startled by Angelique’s comment, but she relayed it. “Uh— Greg, she says that when her power leaves her it will exit through you, binding the two of you. As near as I can figure it out, if you make it with her you’ll never be able to make it with any woman but her again. You just won’t be able to get it up.”
“Enforced monogamy. Incredible,” breathed the Bishop.
“Unmitigated, superstitious bullshit,” muttered the Rook.
Greg, however, was not so sure. “Hey! Wait a minute! Doing it is one thing, but that kind of deal—I have to think about it!”
“You don’t mean you actually believe in that balderdash!” Frawley exclaimed angrily. “You remember our discussion of voodoo? It only works on you if you believe it. If you believe it, then it’s true. Get your brain back in the real world where it belongs, boy!”
“Leave him alone, Pip,” Whitely said seriously. “I’m sure at one time or another we all would love to live in that wonderfully ordered, totally predictable universe of yours. It must be so nice. Unfortunately, few of us do. I think the young fellow deserves a chance to think it over.”
“And the alternative if I don’t?” MacDonald asked them, hoping for some easier way out himself.
“I’m afraid, old boy, that there is only one alternative,” Lord Frawley responded. “We must stop somewhere in a civilized area, then take that fancy little weapon you have there and shoot her to death, after which we will mutilate her so badly that only fingerprints and dental information will be available. She actually retains a crown and two fillings from her old days. Then we call the police, they try and identify the body, the information goes through the telenet and is intercepted by SAINT, and this in turn triggers that nasty little wipe out monster lurking in its system, for while they can fool the world about Angelique, they can not fool themselves, which is all that’s really necessary we think. I’m well skilled in how to do it right and proper, if need be.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Gregory MacDonald.
Maria said nothing for a few moments, then said, “I thought it would come to this. You have no choice in the end but to kill her. I know people just like you. I knew them in New Orleans. Oh, you’ve got national security to rationalize your deed and they were in it for the money and power, but you’re really the same people.”
“Now, wait just a minute!” Greg almost shouted at them. “Nobody’s going to be blowing her away! I didn’t go through all this just to have that happen. If I did, it would have been easier and better to do it back there in the islands. And don’t you dare translate any of this for her or I’ll cheerfully kill you, Maria!”
“No,” Maria responded almost woodenly. “You couldn’t have done it back there. In your head, yes, but she wouldn’t have permitted it. Now—I’m not so sure she wouldn’t welcome it. At least, she wouldn’t stop you, Greg. You’ve pretty much ignored her, or treated her as some kind of strange creature, and it’s hurt her, but you’re the only thing she’s got.”