Chapter
3 – The Lies
Today’s another meeting day, one
that I hope goes well, but I have my doubts. The three people I’m waiting for
soon appear as I finish my first cup of tea. One flies in with the wings on his
back. His name is Archelaos, and his crimson mask has many eyes on it, and he
wears a one-piece suit that covers his body, which has eyes bulging out of it. Lavinia
transforms from a bird into a woman. Her white mask has makeup on it and
stitches. She wears a silky red dress, has long blonde hair, and wears black
high heels. Finally, there’s Ragnar, a muscular man in army fatigues, and a
mask with three mouths on it and no eyes.
Yelling over to Ragnar, I ask,
“Have you ever ridden on a horse or sat in a cart or a car?”
“Not since the times of Noah, and I
never tried another car after the first one was invented, and I never liked
either. Running and walking everywhere has been my preferred mode of travel,”
Ragnar says as he walks over to me.
“If you weren’t superhuman, I’d
think you were mad, or rather, I’d think you’re crazier than you are now.”
Lavinia walks over to my table,
takes a seat, and says, “Is this meeting about business or pleasure?”
“You know the answer to that. It’s
never about pleasure with Caiaphas,” Ragnar says.
“That’s why all he does with his
time is hurt other people. You can’t let them enjoy their lives, can you?”
“I only hurt the guilty and those
who haven’t set their hearts on fire for love of the Lord. It’s an everlasting
joy better than the fading pleasures you’ve been experiencing,” I say.
“So speaks the priest who had
multiple affairs.”
“That’s how I know the true vanity
of lust since I’ve experienced it firsthand.”
“Can we please get on with this
meeting? There’s much more to be done in the world,” Archelaos says as he sits
down, and his eyes dart around everywhere.
“There are always things to be
done. Some things will be done without your help, while others will never be
truly completed by our hands,” I say.
“That’s what you think! There must
be more events that need to be set in motion so that the perfect future can be
achieved.”
“Please, don’t get him started,
Caiaphas. Let’s get this done. I have people waiting for me,” Ragnar says.
“People who are waiting to be
tortured or people you have on your hit list?” Lavinia asks.
“Both. As Archelaos says, certain
events need to be set in motion.”
“We don’t need any more of the
conflicts you want to start, Ragnar. The Dominion will see to it that the world
is kept in a state of relative peace for the foreseeable future,” I say.
“Conflict is how humanity grows and
what it uses to change the world. Even the Dominion knows that.”
“You should know better than all of
us that humanity hasn’t changed that much since the days of Noah.”
“Did you just bring us all here
because you wanted to start up our rivalries again? If it’s a fight you wanted,
you could’ve simply said so.”
“I wanted more than a fight. I
wanted to bring to your attention the Dominion’s control of the world and the
Lord’s Holy, Catholic Church’s domination of it.”
“He wanted to rub his side’s
victory in our face now that he has more than a couple of victories under his
belt,” Lavinia says. “It’ll be over before you know it, and my vision of what
the world should be may come to fruition.”
“The closest you came to world
domination was burned up in the same fire that gave you your powers and glassed
Sodom and Gomorrah, and you and you perverts haven’t come close since, even
though you continue to be as pervasive and stubborn as cockroaches. Anyways, I
was hoping that ‘rubbing’ the Lord’s victory in your face would get you to
repent,” I say.
“It hasn’t. Not in the slightest,”
all three say.
“One day the world will be a
paradise of unending happiness and pleasure,” Lavinia says.
“It will be engulfed in endless
conflicts so that humanity can continue to grow and learn,” Ragnar argues.
“It will follow my designs,”
Archelaos objects. “It needs my guiding hand.”
“You people never change, do you?
Very well then. Let’s commence with the pleasantries. Waiter? Can you please
get three of our usual teas for us?” I say.
“Yes, Mr. Caiaphas. I already had
it started, so they should be ready in a few seconds.”
“That’ll be plenty of time.”
All four of us activate our powers
and pit ourselves against one another. Razor wire comes out of my face, hands,
wrists, neck, and back that I use to slash at Lavinia, who puts me in a
dimension full of lewd imagery, moaning, and tempting perfumy smells. I cut my
way through it all, and as my razor wires spread through her dimension to cut
it all apart in a less-than-pleasurably painful way.
“Lust is the second sin that all of
mankind is guilty of,” Lavinia says. “It will submit to their passions so that
they’ll forever be happy and in a state of perpetual ecstasy.”
My razor wires start to turn into
solid ice, freezing everything they touch.
“Those pleasures of yours come and
go, and then leave their victims wanting more, longer-lasting, and perverted
thrills. The world will grow bored if it were dominated by your kind, and
mankind would start killing each other just to get any kind of excitement,” I
say.
The entirety of Lavinia’s dimension
of pleasure is frozen and now silent. My razor wires wrap themselves around her,
freeze her, and shatter her into pieces. The dimension is then shattered and
melted by Ragnar, who runs through it. We’re now on an island with an erupting
volcano and rivers of lava around us. Ragnar throws dozens of punches at me as
my razor wires do their best to block his attacks and wrap themselves around
him.
“You can’t prevent the endless wars
and conflicts that humanity craves, Caiaphas. We may be of the same lineage,
but you still have much to learn,” Ragnar says as he relentlessly pursues me.
“I could say the same to you,
elder. What you haven’t learned in the hundreds of thousands of years of living
is that you can be fundamentally wrong about what you believe, no matter how
much wisdom you’ve gained in your years. A long life doesn’t automatically make
you wise or smart, nor does it mean that you’re better than the young. At the
end of the day, you still worship God in an old and expired way. You’ve yet to
realize that the savior has come and His name is Jesus Christ,” I say.
Ragnar can no longer keep up with
my razor wires as they grab him and drag him into the river of lava. The
dimension shatters around me once more as eyes emerge from the ground and sky
around me until there’s nothing around me but eyes and darkness. I can’t keep
my feet on the ground as gravity is nonexistent here, and I’m uncontrollably
pulled towards Archelaos, who is also aimlessly floating around.
“Admit it. You want to control the
events and goings on in the world. You want it to always be in submission to
your Lord so that souls may be saved. What makes us so different?” Archelaos
asks.
“I do as my Lord commands, and
nothing more. I gave up trying to control the opinions and actions of others
after the Lord humbled me. The world will turn in the ways that He allows, no
matter what other people or I do,” I say.
“I’ve influenced many leaders and
people who have changed the world. I have made the difference I’ve wanted to
make.”
“But there’s still more to do, as
you’ve said. Some of those people made mistakes and didn’t do exactly as you
said, or other people came along and ruined your plans. You can’t be everywhere
influencing everyone perfectly. You’re playing checkers, while the Lord is
playing chess, and He knows all your moves before you make them.”
“I still have time to do what I
need to before your Lord can fulfill his plans.”
“Do you? What happened to the
Babylonians that you commanded? The Spartans? Athens? What of the Huns? The
Viking clans you influenced? The Islamic Empire? The Soviet Union? All have
fallen and been relegated to footnotes in the history books, while the Lord’s
Holy Catholic Church still stands strong to this day.”
My razor wires burst through the
many eyes around us and wrap themselves around Archelaos and tear him into
pieces. In the blink of an eye, I’m back in the tea shop. The bodies of
Lavinia, Archelaos, and Ragnar reform themselves as our waiter gives us our
tea.
The waiter says, “Here I thought
I’d be able to serve the tea before you four would finish killing each other. I
guess I have to be faster next time.”
“Maybe you or your descendants
will, but I doubt it,” I say as I sip my tea.
“You’ve been getting stronger,
Caiaphas,” Ragnar says. “I remember the years when you would be the first one
dead.”
“I remember when I had him wrapped
around my finger, and we had a thing going,” Lavinia says with a hint of
disappointment in her voice.
“I remember when we talked for days
on end about how we would change the world and acted on those plans,” Archelaos
adds.
“The secret to my success is-”
“Your Lord. We know,” the three of
them say as they start drinking their tea.
“When will you all learn that a God
of suffering, love, and truth is the only true God of all since He so closely mirrors
the realities of life?”
Lavinia, Ragnar, and Archelaos
finish their tea and leave the shop. I ask the waiter for another tea and a
piece of strawberry shortcake.
When they’re brought to me, the
waiter asks, “Will those three ever change?”
“They’re still alive hundreds of
thousands of years after they should’ve died, with powers and abilities granted
by the Lord. What I’m saying is that there’s a chance, so as long as they’re
alive, they have the opportunity to change and save their souls,” I explain.
“Don’t you ever get tired of this
song and dance that you have with them every so often?”
“Not really. I’ve converted people
who were just as old as them, and as long as the Lord pushes me to convert
them, I’ll keep pushing to do so and convert others like them, no matter how
long it takes.”
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