…for in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Matthew 22: 30
Damien Thorn was sitting on a bench in the shade of ancient ash trees and enjoying the fresh July air. Summer was in full swing, the holidays had just begun, there was no hurry. Tomorrow his uncle, Mark and he were flying to London, his uncle – on business, Mark and he – for their own pleasure. Mark had already planned the program, and Damien had made the necessary changes to it, for example, added the Wax Museum and the Tower, unfairly overlooked by his cousin, to the list.
He stretched, flexing his muscles with pleasure. He'd better go home to pack a suitcase, but on the other hand, there was Murray, the driver. The man was excellent at handling small tasks of that kind and knew what Damien needed to pack better than Damien did.
Having solved this question for himself so easily, Damien was about to get up and walk around the park, when suddenly he heard girls' sweet voices above his head.
"Hello!"
"Aren't you lonely?"
The voices were unfamiliar, and Damien looked up, but his puzzled expression immediately turned admiring. For these young girls were really pretty and dressed exactly as he had imagined them in his youthful dreams.
The first, a raven-head, all curvy, with huge brown eyes, was wearing a leaf-green blouse with its top two buttons casually opened as if there wasn't enough room for her lush breasts; her beige skirt revealed very tempting knees. The second girl reminded him of a lily – she was slim, elegant, blonde, dressed in a cream blouse and an above-the-knee skirt. Her lovely slender legs were also lily-like, she was wearing mother-of-pearl lipstick so her lips seemed ideal for kissing. Damien swallowed. In the Academy, he'd never seen girls so close and in such a relaxed atmosphere. Of course, he'd danced at rare balls, but the girls there had looked all prim, worn corsets and long dresses made of heavy materials. And of course, none of those girls would have spoken to him so easily.
And besides the balls, he didn't have an opportunity to chat like that with ordinary beautiful girls outside his social circle. As for the fact that the girls were outside his circle, he realized it immediately.
"I'm terribly lonely," Damien assured the girls hastily, recovering from the initial shock. "My name's Damien."
The brunette's name was Linda, and the tender lily's – Sue. Damien noted to himself that the girls' names matched their appearance. 'Beautiful' and 'white lily' – definitely, the names suited them.
The beauties sat down so that Damien was between them, and immediately bombarded him with questions: how he was doing, where he studied, how old he was. He was sixteen, and they claimed to be already seventeen, but Damien wasn't upset at all. One year of age difference didn't change anything. He moved to the very edge of the bench to get a better look at both of them and, with a cheerful longing, suspected that Linda and Sue weren't wearing bras. This observation aroused his interest much more than the stories about their affairs. Slowly but surely, his masculinity was awakening in him. He didn't really know how such things should be done, and where girls were to be invited on a first date. A cafe? The beach? When he was about to make his offer, Sue suddenly turned serious and asked: "Would you like to talk about God?"
"Yes, do you want to talk about God?" Linda chimed in enthusiastically.
Damien's smile faded, the slight sense of anticipation that had been overwhelming him since the beginning of this fateful meeting faded. And here he thought… he imagined that… That he, like an ordinary guy, could just go and meet ordinary girls in the park, go out on an ordinary date with a possible ordinary – but so pleasant! – continuation! But no, he was unlucky, the girls turned out to be just these... things who spread their faith everywhere. Which meant, he had nothing to catch here.
"No, sorry, but I don't want to," Damien muttered and thought that they'd get up and leave now. After all, they'd approached him for the sake of talking about God, he himself was of no interest to them. The girls did get up but reluctantly. Damien got up, too, out of politeness.
"What a pity!" Sue said with a sigh. "I mean it's time for us to go back, we would stay and talk about God, but in this case... what a shame!"
"Are you leaving tomorrow, Damien?" Linda asked, and her face suddenly lit up with a shy, sweet smile. "If you want to see us again, come here, we come here all the time! When you're back from your trip…"
And then something happened that Damien didn't expect. Linda suddenly clung to him with her entire young body, and he clearly felt the softness and bounce of her breasts, while Sue followed her example. He froze, shocked by such a simple and natural embrace, and then the girls surprised him again: Damien felt light kisses on his cheeks. Linda smelled like mint gum, and Sue smelled like cherry one.
"Bye, Damien, it was nice to meet you!"
Damien realized two things. First, they were both really wearing no underwear. Second, he really, really wanted to talk to them about God, about anything, and right now.
His masculinity, almost extinguished by now, rekindled and prevailed over common sense.
They walked hand in hand all the way, and Damien had never felt so good. He had no experience in talking about God, nor in what he wanted to do with his new girlfriends. He wasn't worried though, Sue and Linda were a whole year older and so they could easily enlighten him on all matters. It was a pity that he obviously wouldn't get what he wanted, but this fact didn't make him upset: he was just eager to spend more time with these cute girls who had given him hugs.
Damien had heard about the close relationship between the sexes from his older mates at the Academy: they talked about it with such aplomb as if they had plenty of experience. As for Damien, he'd only seen naked women in photos in an adult magazine that he'd once found in the back seat of the car. His uncle wasn't engaged in his education in this regard. Paul Buher and Sergeant Neff had tried to start a conversation about 'masculinity' with him a couple of times, but he kept avoiding the topic, consistently and elegantly. These people were a bit strange, he didn't want to discuss his age-related difficulties with them.
As soon as they crossed the threshold of a small apartment consisting of a single room, Linda unbuttoned the remaining buttons of her blouse, and for the first time, Damien saw bare female breasts in front of him. He looked away delicately and felt his face blush.
"How hot it is!" Linda exclaimed. "Maybe we should take a shower?"
"We won't fit in there! Or rather, your breasts will fit, but Damien and I won't," Sue laughed. Her laughter was like the ringing of bells.
"What do you think, Damien?"
Damien was totally okay with taking a shower and everything else, too.
He remembered vaguely what had been happening in what order. It seemed that first they did take a shower, and even managed to fit in there. And then Sue drew the curtains because it was day and the sun was shining through the windows. Linda sat down on his lap, and they were kissing, and her chest was rising and falling with her choked breath. And Sue settled in behind and also demanded attention, so he had to redouble his efforts to kiss both of them and drink their sweet breath from their lips. His older pals from the Academy hadn't told him anything like that, which meant that they really didn't know anything about adult affairs! They'd picked up phrases and scraps of conversation somewhere, just as Damien thought. The real thing was completely different, it was smooth, unhurried, beautiful. He obeyed their instructions enthusiastically. And their eyes were shining with joy, and their desire was as natural as his.
They were lying on rumpled sheets and resting after their intercourse. Damien thought that all this usually happened at night, and now it was day, and the day was not over yet. They could do it again unless they remembered why they'd brought him here.
But they did remember.
Sue reached over Damien for the bulky book that was lying on the bedside table. It was full of bookmarks, and Damien realized what kind of book it was. Surprisingly, he didn't feel any irritation, while in a euphoric bliss and a relaxed state of mind. Everyone had their own whim, someone for example was into reading. But something was bothering him. While Sue was looking for the place she needed, he spoke: "I thought you were really going to talk about God, but I went with you anyway, because you're cool. However, to be honest, you surprised me. I thought since you were believers, you weren't allowed to do it. Especially with the first person you meet. Only after the wedding, and all that..."
Sue looked at him in surprise.
"Of course, everything's allowed, Damien, because God is love! Here, see?" She found the place in the Bible and handed him the book so that he could see for himself, and there were words on the page, but he wasn't looking at the book, he was looking at her. He believed her.
"God told us to love our neighbors. In heaven, angels neither marry, nor are given in marriage— that is, they don't need a wedding for this kind of things!" Linda announced, and Damien was listening to her words in awe. "When we get to Heaven, we'll be the same as angels. But we're young, it's a long time to wait, so we decided: we can become like angels now."
"You should love your neighbors so we loved you, and you loved us. We're like angels!"
He listened to them, his first women, and embraced the essence of things. At first, he imagined they were talking about love allegorically, but no, it was all true. Soon they finished talking about God, and the conversation went great, Damien realized a lot, and they began to love each other again.
And among other things, Damien learned that there was no sin in love affairs, it was a sin to do it without love, but doing it for love was good.
Then it was time to say goodbye because Damien hadn't told anyone where he was and what he was doing, and Mark might worry about him. He already knew that he wouldn't go to London and he'd return home only to inform his relatives about it, and Murray would have to unpack his already packed suitcase. There were more important things in the world than London and the Wax Museum, and in fact everything he'd known before, and he'd discovered this important thing here, in this apartment, with these girls who'd revealed the secrets of existence to him.
They hugged goodbye a great many times, and then Damien said: "It's so great to talk about God, I'm ready to come here at any time. Even tomorrow!"
"But you said you were leaving tomorrow, didn't you?" Linda asked.
"I've changed my mind."
They looked at each other and said in unison: "Then come back tomorrow."
At home, of course, he had to apologize to his family for making them worry. Damien did it easily and sincerely, and he was just as easily forgiven. But with the rest, it turned out not so smoothly, because he really couldn't say as it was: 'I met some girls in the park, we talked about God and came to the conclusion that it was necessary to do this on a permanent basis.' So Damien used a preterition and told his family that he'd re-thought his life, he was already an adult, he was sixteen, and it was high time for him to spend some time on his own. Therefore, he wasn't going to London but staying in Chicago. He'd be fine alone, especially since Murray would still look after the house, everything would be okay. All this was said in a calm, even, uncompromising tone.
Uncle Richard, of course, was shocked by his decision and he was trying to make counterarguments when suddenly Mark whispered something in his ear, and Uncle stopped in mid-sentence. He looked at Damien in a new way, smiled and allowed him to stay. Mark didn't look upset at all, he went up to Damien, patted him on the shoulder and went to his room with a completely stupid smile, whistling a frivolous tune.
The reason for Mark's behavior and his uncle's unexpectedly quick consent became clear when Damien saw himself in the mirror in his bedroom. There were hickeys on his neck, and his family, of course, had come to the conclusion that he'd set up his personal life, which, technically, was true.
In the morning, he said a warm goodbye to his family 'til the autumn. Mark promised to visit all the museums in London for him. Uncle said that he could trust Murray not only with the house but also with his beloved nephew. However, it would be easier for everyone to have another adult looking after Damien, so he'd called Paul Buher the previous night. They'd agreed that Buher would sometimes come to check on Damien. And most likely Aunt Anna would be worried, so they'd often call from London. Uncle had made big concessions, so Damien didn't get fussy and accepted his conditions.
So, the happiest days of his life began for Damien, he was basking in love.
He was greeted and seen off with hugs. It never got boring and soon became as natural as the air itself. He was loved, and he loved, and there was nothing shameful about it. It was even strange that in the world that had surrounded him before, it was considered otherwise.
Talking about God didn't prevent Damien from indulging in love at all. His mentors in love were also educating him in the spiritual search.
"God created people so that they have sex as often as possible, but the devil convinced them that it was bad. Then they covered themselves with leaves and felt shame— for which they were expulsed from Paradise," Sue said.
"So, to get back to Paradise, you need to make love more often and reject Satan. There's too little love in this world corrupted by hatred," Linda echoed her.
"In fact, it seemed to me that not only Christians but also Satanists are engaged in love-making. Well, like, they have orgies…"
"Orgies are a totally different thing!" Linda explained, "It's without love. Sex without love is terrible and dirty. Of course, they have sex. But they don't know true love."
Damien's friends didn't live alone, they were constantly visited by guests who shared the right faith with them. Damien also made love to these guests in order to strengthen the presence of this most important feeling in the world. Besides, he wasn't a fool and took what was offered to him. And the offers were generous since Damien was very attractive and many people wanted him. And not only girls.
One day, one of the elders arrived in Chicago. It happened that he was staying with Sue and Linda, so Damien couldn't avoid meeting him. This man made a strong impression on him.
Sue opened the door, and after the obligatory portion of hugs, she happily announced that the elder was already here. Then Damien saw a true heavenly angel walking towards him, smiling and holding out his hand for a handshake. Well, of course, it wasn't a real angel but a tall young man, beautiful like a celestial being. His blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, he was wearing simple light trousers and a black shirt.
"And you must be Damien! I'm Alex, an elder. I've heard a lot about you."
Damien shook the man's outstretched hand and, obeying the overwhelming feeling, locked the elder in his arms.
"Are you really an elder?" Damien asked later when they were having tea. Or rather, Alex was drinking tea, and Damien and the girls were watching in awe how elegantly he was doing it.
"And you, Damien, thought I'd be as grey as a badger and bearded?" Alex smiled subtly.
"Well, yes, I thought that elders should be old."
"He's not an elder because of his age," Linda cut in. "But because he does a lot of good! He helps orphans…"
"We all help orphans, my dear," Alex corrected her. "I'm only a servant of God and I do what I do best. For example, I distribute donations for a shelter… But I guess, you're here to discuss something else, aren't you, Damien?"
Damien immediately assured him that he really wanted to talk about shelters. Alex dilated upon this topic for a long time. Listening to him and seeing him was so good that Damien didn't even remember why he'd come here in the first place.
"By the way, Damien, do you want to get a new experience of love?" Alex asked thoughtfully.
Damien woke up from his trance and saw that it was dark outside the window, Sue and Linda had left, and he and Alex were alone. What is more, Alex was looking at him very pointedly. He was so perfect Damien was ready to agree and fall into his arms, but there was the Bible between them.
"I thought God was against sodomy," Damien said. "The Bible says..."
"In the Book of Ezekiel, God says to Jerusalem: 'Now look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in prosperity. They did not give any help to the poor and needy.' That is, sodomy is inhospitality, and for this, the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom, but love between men is no worse than the love of a man and a woman, this is also love. Or take for example David and Jonathan..."
"One example's enough. Angels…"
"Angels don't care about gender— so neither will we."
Damien found his arguments reasonable.
Making love to Alex was very different from doing it with girls, only one thing stayed the same: Alex became his mentor on this path. Like no one else, Alex understood Damien's thirst to bring good to the world and instructed him in this as well. Damien didn't notice how he began to donate his pocket money to a good cause, to orphans and orphanages, solely because he felt that this was an important and necessary thing, not to please Alex. He pleased Alex in a completely different way.
When Damien rang the doorbell, Linda, as usual, hugged him, and said: "We were just praying for you to come! We have a new girl."
It was nice: they hadn't arranged to meet today, Damien dropped in simply because they hadn't seen each other since the day before and he missed them. Only when he was already standing in front of the door, he thought that his friends might be busy. Of course, it turned out that his visit wasn't just something that happened for no reason – Jesus had given him this impulse.
A plump red-haired girl, Jessica, introduced herself shyly and suddenly stared at Damien adoringly.
"I know you," she said, "you're the Damien Thorn!"
Quickly, Damien went through all the girls he knew in his memory. He didn't remember this one for sure.
"No, we don't know each other," she laughed, "I've read about you in the newspaper recently. There was a picture of you there. You saved all the students who came on a field trip to the factory, right? There was a gas leak, but you didn't panic and managed to get everyone out."
"I didn't even know it was in the paper," he said sincerely, "but yes, it's true. I saved my friends, and then I met the One Who saved me. Have you read the Bible yet?"
Behind Jessica's back, for some reason, Sue gave him two thumbs up.
"We were just reading when you came in," Linda announced. "We haven't started reading the Apocalypse yet anyway, so we'll read it all together. We were discussing the Antichrist. When he reigns, he'll persecute us and order everyone to put his number on their hand or forehead, and those who don't bear his brand won't be allowed to sell or buy."
Jessica shuddered and asked plaintively: "What are we going to eat?"
"We'll go to the mountains," Sue explained gently. "There we'll eat berries and herbs, and all sorts of roots..."
That was the interesting part.
"Which of you knows how to get edible roots?" Damien asked.
The girls exchanged glances. Apparently, they didn't think at all that a person had to learn how to do it.
"Have you ever seen berries and roots anywhere other than in the supermarket?" Damien continued.
"We'll learn when it becomes necessary!" Linda came up with the answer.
"Then you're lucky to have me," Damien smiled. He felt that it was his finest hour. "We often went hiking at the military academy, so I can find edible mushrooms and berries, I can light a fire with one match or even without matches, I can shoot game…" Suddenly, a brilliant idea came to his mind. "You know what? I'll be able to get food directly from the Antichrist's servants! I have weapons, I can kill them and take their supplies."
For some reason, the girls didn't look happy. On the contrary, they stared at him with fear as if they thought that he'd suddenly gone mad.
"Damien," Sue said softly, "do you know that you cannot kill people? This is a sin!"
"But this is a war!" Damien exclaimed indignantly. "In war, you have to kill your enemies. Especially since no one feels sorry for them because they're the devil's minions! I'm sure it's okay to kill them." Then he came up with another idea, even better one. "Look, I can just kill the Antichrist right away! Then there will be no end of the world, no blood in the rivers, no Wormwood. I can get to him, and..."
"Damien!" Linda and Sue cried out in unison.
"You will not kill the Antichrist!" Linda said sternly. "You can't kill anyone. If God wanted to kill him, he'd have killed him himself. You don't think you're stronger and smarter than God, do you?"
"And you can't kill his servants, either," Sue added softly. "They're living people. They still can repent. And if you kill them, they won't be able to do it. Promise me you won't kill anyone!"
Damien sighed and promised. After that, they went back to reading Revelation.
The summer was coming to an end. Uncle Richard and Mark would be back soon. Damien hadn't told them about how his life had changed, he just couldn't tell them about all this over the phone. So he waited 'til he could take Mark to visit his new friends, and maybe even Uncle Richard and Aunt Anna. They'd love it, Damien was sure of that.
Paul Buher visited him from time to time, talked about the business of the company but didn't interfere with Damien's freedom in any way, constantly repeating that Damien was already quite an adult and he, Buher, completely trusted Damien. But this time Buher was very nervous. He walked into Damien's room uninvited and said: "Damien, I have to talk to you at your father's request… Or rather, on your father's orders."
"You mean Uncle Richard's?" Damien asked.
"No, your father's. God knows, I mean... Okay, He knows it, too. We, your faithful servants, wanted to give you more time, but time's up, and you should know. Tell me, have you read the Bible?"
Damien was surprised by such a sudden change of subject but also pleased. He'd never even thought that Buher was interested in spiritual things. He seemed too businesslike, too down-to-earth to be interested in the Word of God. But you couldn't judge people by their appearance.
"Yes," Damien replied happily, "not all of it, but I've already read many passages. For example, Revelation of John..."
"Great," Buher said, "so you do know the most important thing. I have to tell you who you are. You're the son of Satan, that is to say, the Antichrist."
Damien wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. These words echoed in his soul like a funeral bell.
"No," he said, though he already knew that he was just delaying the inevitable.
"Look in the mirror, there's a birthmark on your head. 666."
Damien ran to the mirror and tried to examine the bump on the crown of his head that always bothered him when he combed his hair. Buher silently handed him a pocket mirror, and then Damien saw it, 666, the mark from which he was going to run away to the mountains. Dig up roots, shoot game... make fires. Say grace…
"If that's the case," Damien said, "I won't start all this. The end of the world. Armageddon. And if I don't want it, none of this will happen."
"It's already started. Look out the window. You don't start the end of the world. The end of the world is started by our enemy. I'm telling you, we weren't going to let you in on all this so soon, but we don't have a choice."
Damien turned to the window and saw it – a bright red sky, purple clouds, and sparse drops of blood running down the glass. The drops became larger, there were more and more of them, and next moment a real bloody downpour was hitting the window.
"I must… I need time," Damien said suddenly.
They'd agreed at some point that they wouldn't run away without each other. That meant, in the apartment where he'd been happy so many times, his friends had gathered and were waiting for him. They were waiting, not knowing who he was.
Damien ran out of the house, got into his car and tried to drive, but bloody streams were flowing down the windshield, and he couldn't see anything. Sirens sounded everywhere: having crashed into each other or into roadside posts, cars were abandoned on the roads, it was impossible to avoid traffic jams, so Damien, just like many others, ditched his car and walked. He walked, wiping the streams of blood from his forehead, as the rain stopped completely, then it began to drizzle again, and then it came down in torrents, and when he finally reached the right house, he looked like a disaster victim, much as, for that matter, the rest of the passers-by who were running past him in panic. At the traffic light, no longer working, there was a motorcycle and a girl, all broken and covered in blood – it was unclear whether it was her blood, or she was just soaked in the rain. The girl was screaming, but she'd lost her voice, and Damien couldn't stand it. Without thinking about how many poor people were now in the country, all over the world, who'd failed to control their vehicles, he took her hand and did something he didn't understand himself. The girl stopped screaming and got to her feet.
"Thank you," she whispered in surprise. "Are you a doctor?"
Frightened by this suddenly revealed power, Damien answered nothing and ran on as fast as he could.
Of course, they were waiting for him. Linda and Sue, as usual, hugged him, without fear of getting dirty, and took him to the room. Alex and Jessica were busy packing backpacks.
"We were hoping that we could take our suitcases and go by car," Alex explained, "but you can see what's happening outside. We'll have to walk. Take your backpack and let's go, we need to hurry. The Antichrist's coming any minute now."
"He's already here," Damien said gloomily, and then suddenly he barked a laugh, loud and bitter.
"Have you seen him?" Jessica asked.
"Yeah, as close as I can see you now," Damien replied and laughed again but then suddenly sobbed and sat down at the table.
They crowded around him, looking at him with fear, curiosity and admiration.
"So how did you manage to escape?" Sue asked cautiously.
"I didn't. I am the Antichrist." With that, he waved his hand, and the bloody streaks just disappeared from his skin and clothes, and here he was sitting at the table clean as always as if there was no crimson rain outside the windows.
Damien thought everyone would laugh and argue, but he saw that they'd believed him right away, they'd just realized that he was telling the truth because it was the truth. And when they stepped back, he realized how much he'd hoped they'd say that it didn't matter, that they would love him anyway, that they could somehow help him out.
"Did you come here to kill us?" Linda asked.
"No, of course not!" Damien shouted and added in a softer voice, "I came here because I have nowhere else to go. Because I've never wanted to be the Antichrist. I wanted to leave with you so as not to accept the number of the Beast. But it was on my head all this time."
Alex went up to him, lifted him by the shoulders from the chair and said: "If you don't want to be the Antichrist, then it's simple. Don't be him. You have my permission. What we allow on earth will be allowed in Heaven, you know it. Just renounce Satan, and God will accept you. God is love."
"God is love," the girls repeated in unison.
It was so good, so right, that Damien smiled finally. Alex began to say a prayer and hugged him. Then he kissed him, and then Linda, Sue and Jessica came up and hugged them together, and then they started kissing each other again, repeating "God is love", and the doors of paradise opened again.
When Damien got home, the rain had already stopped, and he considered this a good sign. There were still stinking pools of blood on the roads, but it wouldn't last long. Maybe the usual rain would come soon, and after it a rainbow would appear, as long ago. After all, Jesus had no one to fight with anymore if the Antichrist himself had decided to renounce evil, right?
Paul Buher was still sitting in Damien's room, only he seemed to have aged ten years. Apparently, all this time he'd been thinking about how to live now that the end of the world had begun. He didn't know yet that there would be no end of the world because Damien had canceled it. And Damien felt that he needed to tell him the news right now so that Buher wouldn't worry. Of course, judging by Buher's words, he turned out to be a Satanist, but even devil worshippers were people, they could also repent.
"I've canceled the Apocalypse," Damien said.
Buher looked at him blankly, and Damien explained: "I refused to be the Antichrist and I let Jesus into my heart. Everything will be fine now. It's already stopped raining blood."
He thought that Buher would get angry or laugh at him, or suddenly realize whose side truth and love were on, and accept the Savior into his heart, too. But nothing like that happened. Buher looked at him with an odd pity.
"That's good," he said, "that's where the best of us started. Many of your Father's servants were monks. Father Tassone, Father Spiletto… To truly serve your Father, man needs to get through disappointment. I'm glad you've been through this, too."
"But I'm not disappointed!" Damien exclaimed indignantly. "I'm on the side of God!"
"Have you read the story of Moses?" Buher asked. "Do you remember the place when Pharaoh wanted to let Moses and all his people go, but God didn't need it. He didn't want to just negotiate, he needed to destroy the enemies, he wanted them to suffer." Buher took out a pocket Bible, found the right place and read aloud: 'And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel.' Damien, he doesn't want your obedience. He doesn't need a truce. All He wants is to destroy you and all of us. He's planned Armageddon, so he'll carry out Armageddon. He is not waiting for you and will not accept you."
Of course, it was all a lie from beginning to end. Truth be told, Damien hadn't read the story of Moses, Alex told it in a nutshell, but there was definitely no attempt to harden someone's heart in this story. Of course, Buher hadn't read anything in the Bible but just made it up. That was to be expected from a Satanist. He worshipped the devil after all, and the devil was the father of lies.
"I don't believe you," Damien said simply, "God is love. He won't send me away."
"Well," Buher's voice sounded ominous now, "I wanted to be nice. I know who you've been visiting all this time. Since we have no leader because of these people, I'll send assassins to them."
Rage and fear sparked in Damien's heart, and before he knew what he was doing, he raised his hand, and Buher fell writhing on the floor.
"You see?" he croaked. "You see it now?"
Damien dropped his hand in horror, and Buher got up from the floor. Damien understood what this meant – all his satanic power remained with him. He went to the mirror and examined his birthmark closely – the 666 hadn't disappeared. No one was waiting for him on the other side. The golden doors of paradise, delightful paradise full of light and love, were closed to him.
"Neff will be here very soon," Buher said. "You must lead the Earth, speak on television. It can no longer be postponed, catastrophes are coming. You'll have to protect people from all this."
That was the way it went.
To his surprise, Damien was doing quite well. The first days of confusion, when the mountains moved from their places, blood suddenly filled one or another river, a random meteorite fell from the sky, were replaced by order, which was managed to be restored with the help of his loyal and dutiful servants. Most people praised him for his help, but there were also those who blamed him for all the disasters. Funny as it might seem, he understood them perfectly well. If he weren't the Antichrist himself, he'd have definitely decided that the Antichrist was to blame for all the troubles. Mark was able to call him from London, only to accuse him of all the sins, and of the bloody rain, and the earthquakes that had destroyed houses, and even of poisoning rivers – Damien tried to explain that he hadn't dropped the Wormwood, an angel had done it, besides, he'd got wet under that bloody rain, too, but Mark didn't listen. In the end, he said that the Antichrist had no brothers, and hung up, and Damien kept looking at the phone and hated everything alive.
In this state, he was found by Neff, a former sergeant who'd become a general.
"My lord is sad," he began.
"Your lord has a name," Damien muttered as he sincerely wanted the general to go to hell.
"Damien," Neff continued immediately, "you've achieved impressive results lately. But you're tired and burned out. You need to recover. Would you like to come to the orgy today?"
"No," Damien snapped, "and don't ever offer me this."
He remembered that a long time ago, in a completely different life, Linda had told him about Satanists having sex, too, but it was without love. If Damien couldn't get any more love, he wanted at least not to soil his memories.
"All right," Neff agreed, "then let's get to the most important thing. You're taking too long to order the number of the Beast to be applied to every person on the Earth. I've prepared the papers." Neff really pulled out a folder. "Here's a ban on selling and buying to those who don't have the brand."
Damien reached for the seal, but suddenly plump red-haired Jessica's frightened face appeared in his mind's eye and he heard her question again: 'What are we going to eat?'
"No," he said categorically.
"But, my lord, the Bible says…"
Damien got up, snatched the Bible from Neff's hands, threw it into the fireplace, and it flamed up bright as a sparkler.
"I don't have to do what God dictates to me!" he shouted. "I will do everything as I want."
"I know," Neff said, not at all surprised. "Paul told me. You were on good terms with some Christians. I can understand it, you want to protect them. If you give me an order, I'll kill them immediately." In response to Damien's puzzled look, he continued: "Times are difficult for these people now. Of course, God promised to take His people before the disasters began, but I must admit I wouldn't trust Him to adopt a puppy from a shelter. I can kill them painlessly and quickly, so they'll go where they were going, and you won't have to worry about them."
Damien didn't expect such humanism from Neff so he was at a loss. Yes, it was probably the best choice right now. How many more angels would sound their trumpets, how many more torments would fall on the earth? Wouldn't it be easier to save them from all this?
But deep inside, in his black soul, there was a selfish hope that they'd suddenly wish to go over to his side, and then, in the end, they would be with him. It was a long shot, but if they died, there would be no chance at all.
He left things as they were.
Then time ran out. Angels kept sounding their trumpets, stars kept raining down on the earth like overripe apples, the water and air were poisoned, locusts were devouring people, and nothing could be done about that. The sky rolled up like a scroll, and the mountains moved from their places, and the former earth ceased to exist. Damien looked at the endless desert where everyone who'd ever lived in the world and hadn't been saved, the living and the dead, was now gathered, and he was walking among them and calling for the Last Battle. However, he hardly believed in victory. He'd rather go to God himself, to that distant, inaccessible Paradise where love reigned, but there was no way for him to go there. Even his Father was more fortunate – after all, he'd rejected God himself, of his own free will, keeping his pride, and Damien hadn't been able to do even that. He'd been rejected, and hatred was burning him. He was going to take revenge.
But among the many sinners, he suddenly saw familiar faces, and before he knew it, his hands opened in a familiar welcoming gesture and he was hugging Linda, Sue, Jessica, Alex, and many others, his former brothers and sisters who used to come to Chicago – Sam and Lucy from New York, Johan and Kerstin from Goteborg, Danielle from Paris, all those whom he thought he'd never meet again.
"What, are you here to spy?" he asked, trying and failing not to smile too hard. "Don't worry, I won't kick you out anyway. You can scout whatever you want. I'm so glad that at least now I've seen you for the last time."
But they were sad, they stood with their eyes locked on the ground, and their clothes were not white. Then a vague doubt crept into his heart.
"We're not spying," Jessica said in a dismal voice. "We were chased here. He closed the gates of heaven in front of us and said he didn't know us." With that, Jessica burst into tears.
Damien froze. Of course, as the Antichrist, he didn't know how to repent and didn't see the need to learn doing this, but now something like regret stirred in the most secret corner of his soul.
"Is it because of me? Because you were friends with me, and you loved me, because you prayed with me, right?"
"No, not at all!" Sue said. "You have nothing to do with it at all!"
"He told us we'd been preaching heresy and debauchery," Linda said.
"And sodomy," Alex added, confused. It seemed that there was still a shadow of horror in his eyes back from that meeting at the gates of paradise. "You have no idea, He's such a homophobe…"
"He saw how we prayed to him every day!" Kerstin sobbed resentfully. "He saw that we wanted to go to him, but he never told us what we were doing wrong! Why?"
"He didn't want you," Damien said slowly. "He's not really love. He doesn't understand anything about love, right? In paradise, his angels don't make love."
His friends were silent, pinned under the weight of their eternal mistake.
Only now did Damien think that he shouldn't have burned the Bible that Neff had brought him that day. He should have read the whole thing and then this simple idea would have come to him much earlier. Then he wouldn't feel rejected, because— why would he care about the one who'd rejected him?
"He doesn't deserve us, neither you nor me!" Damien said in a loud triumphant voice. "He doesn't understand anything about true love. And if there is no sex in his paradise, who needs his boring paradise at all?"
He looked around the desert and all the people, and there was triumph in his eyes.
"We'll go into battle and win," he announced, and his voice was heard from one end of the earth to the other, "and when we win, I'll build my own paradise, and in my paradise, we'll be like angels."
THE END