All religions issue bibles against Satan, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but evidence for the prosecution and yet we have rendered the verdict.
Mark Twain—1889
Omen Legacy—Chapter One
In Which our intrepid Hero changes History
Kate drove; Damien sat in the back seat with Peter, his arm around the boy's shoulder, and while the Antichrist could feel Peter's love and devotion for him, Damien felt nothing for the boy. As she drove, Damien's mind reached out to her; he had only had sex with Kate yesterday, so the likelihood that she was pregnant was slim.
He had let everyone think that he had been duped by Kate, but he had known that he would need her to carry his offspring in case he did not survive. Damien might have felt nothing for Peter, but his children…that he would miss. The thought that his progeny would have to make their way in the world alone troubled him more he would have ever guessed. He would not be a physical presence in their lives, but he would be there for them in spirit. He possessed six of the Daggers of Megiddo, which were now safely in the hands of Thomas Chambers. DeCarlo had managed to hang on to only one, and therefore would not be able to extinguish Damien's soul.
First, he would have a daughter. He would guide and teach her as best he could, and one day she would run Thorn Industries and grow the empire that Damien had built. A daughter who would be as powerful as her father, capable of making terrible things happen should she need them to protect the secret that she would carry. Damien smiled. Inside of his daughter would be the embryo of her twin brother, who at some point would be implanted inside his daughter's adoptive mother. Nine months later, Damien would have a son that nobody would suspect was Damien's spiritual successor…the Antichrist reborn.
The priest had chosen a far out of the way spot nearly three hours outside the city. Damien removed his arm from around Peter, who then reached out and took his hand and suddenly…
Elation, freedom…Damien felt better than he had since the nazarene had been born...strong, confident and above all, powerful; then, there it was again, corruption, perversion, repression, the nazarene sapping him of his energy.
Eventually, Kate reached the church, slowed down, and then pulled over. Once she got out, she walked ahead, leaving Damien and Peter to catch up to her…
He suddenly felt fine again, he took a deep breath…
And it was back, the horrific feeling that walls were closing in on him. The change in how he felt was so sudden and severe, he collapsed against the car. Nausea gripped him and he broke out in a cold sweat. Peter began coming back, but Damien waved the boy away; the last thing he wanted to do was make nice when the world at present was sincerely fucking with him.
Once he recovered, he followed Kate into the church, and then down a flight of stairs, Peter tightly clinging to him. He heard a sound behind him. Without thinking, Damien picked up Peter, and quickly turning, watched as the final dagger found its mark in an unintended target. He let go of the boy and moved towards the priest, his hands around the old man's neck, squeezing, intending to choke the life out of him. Instead, Damien continued into the church, his blinding lust for the nazarene driving him onward…
He was fine. A sweet moment of relief from the agony…the familiar consciousness of the nazarene pushing its way back into his mind, forcing him to his knees.
Something was happening, but Damien needed time to stop and think. The moments of tranquility would allow him time to sort out what was going on, but they were too brief. In agony, Damien moved forward. He noticed movement on his left and went towards it. Then he could feel IT happening again, but this time, Damien drew on strength from the depths of his soul and when he felt ecstasy and freedom, he held it and made it stay and he screamed as the other…reality tried to push its way back into Damien's mind, but he held on…then
LOVE
PROTECTION
FATHER
Damien understood, and realization took hold, and for the first time in weeks, he could breathe without feeling like there was a crushing weight on his chest.
Shortly after Damien had found out about his parentage, he developed an interest in jackals, not only in the animal itself, but also in the myths surrounding the animal. Not prevalent in the Western world, he had turned to African folklore, and it had not taken long until he had found what he had wanted. In Khoikhoi myths, the black-backed jackal was often paired with the lion. Stronger and larger than the jackal, the stories depicted the lion being outwitted by its smaller and more cunning counterpart. Even as a teenager, Damien knew that in Judeo-Christian beliefs, Christ was often associated with a lion. Only this time, it had not been the jackal that had used deceit, it had been the lion.
There had been an alignment of stars in the early morning of March 24th, but it had been meaningless. Instead, their god had taken possession of his mind, making Damien believe that the nazarene had been reborn. So completely had the charade worked, that even when he had reached out to his Father in the chapel, Damien had been prevented from hearing what Satan had been trying to tell him.
Now that the Antichrist was aware that it had all been a lie, the so-called god and his son could no longer control him
The shadow continued towards him, and he realized it was Kate…and that he had foolishly left the dagger behind after he had killed Peter. She was coming for her revenge. Not that Damien could blame her, he would be outraged too if someone had killed his child, but his empathy was reserved for himself, his Father and, hopefully, his children.
With the nazarene and the so-called god out of Damien's head, he was at full strength. He was in her mind, making her think that he was still ahead of her…she let out a gasp as he took her from behind, his hands around her neck, using the heaviest pressure he dared until she went limp, and he gently placed her on the ground. First, off came his belt; he bound her legs with that. Next, off came Kate's blouse, which he used to fasten her hands. Damien left her on the ground, picking up the dagger; he was now in possession of the only things on the planet that could kill him. Damien clutched the lone knife in his hand and made his way back to the priest.
"I asked you where your god was, but I'm guessing that that you've found that out for yourself. You can feel it, can't you? Emptiness, nothingness, flaccid rage? While my Father, God, Satan, to whom I give boundless gratitude for my salvation, works His will in the world, showing your impotent god and his worthless son to be the liars that they really are. Guess that baby was just a baby. Oh well, better luck next time." Damien turned the corner and DeCarlo was across Peter, the priest shaking with grief. He reached down and yanked up the priest by his hair, chunks of it coming away in his hand, but DeCarlo was past caring. He had been betrayed by God…that sense of loss, so many dead, his faith, gone…that misery poured over Damien like sacred water and baptized him with the sweetest agony. He wanted to look DeCarlo in the eyes, however, the priest had closed them.
"I hope all this grief isn't for Kate and Peter? In few months from now, well nine to be precise, his mother is going to get to give birth all over again, to my children. You fuck a woman, and you get her pregnant; that's how procreation works in the real world." Damien looked down at the knife and back up to the priest and then drove the dagger through DeCarlo's right eye, twisting it for good measure; he was dead before his body hit the ground.
Damien wiped the blood off on the priest's coat and pocketed the knife. He returned to Kate, fished her keys out of her pants pocket, hoisted her up over his right shoulder, and made his way back through the church to her car. He would need to send people back here to clean up. DeCarlo could be buried anywhere, but Peter would have to be brought back. Damien unlocked and opened the trunk and put Kate inside. No one had bothered to close the car doors when they had arrived, so he got into the driver's seat, started the car, and began the three-hour trek back to the city.
Thomas Chambers worked at Thorn Industries and headed up Mergers and Acquisitions, but more importantly, he was part of Damien's inner circle. He had come to England under the guise of looking in on things in the London office, but in reality, had come to take care of things if DeCarlo had been successful in killing Satan's son before he could kill the nazarene. It was eight in the morning when Damien arrived where Thomas was staying, which was a house owned by Thorn. He was exhausted when he rang the doorbell. Moments later, Thomas Chambers, in his pajamas, opened the door.
"Lost?"
"No, almost killed." Damien explained to Thomas what had happened, finishing with telling him that the birth of the Nazarene had been a trick to lure the Antichrist to his death.
Thomas smiled at Damien and then broke into laughter.
"So apart from giving me the good news to me in person, why are you here?"
Damien walked to the car and Thomas followed. Damien pulled out the keys from the ignition, unlocked the trunk and opened it.
"Is she pregnant?"
Thomas and Paul were the only ones who knew what the plan had been. "Not yet, but I wanted to take her to Oscar. Not only that, but we've got to get people to go back to the church and clean up. I need Peter brought back, but DeCarlo can be disposed of anywhere."
"Okay, give me half an hour."
When Thomas returned, he did so dressed, and with a brief case and a duffel bag. He drove while Damien sat in the passenger seat, struggling to remain awake.
"Okay, so the plan is pretty much unchanged from our original one. We had people at the ready to take care of any extra bodies, and it won't be you being taken care of by Taggart, it will be Peter."
Damien's personal physician had flown to London with Thomas and had been in contact with enough of their medical people on this side of the pond to put together a plausible story if Damien had been killed. Covering up Peter's death would be much easier.
"When did you have sex with Kate?"
"About twenty-four hours ago, so that gives us a few days of waiting."
"And you'll know when conception happens?"
"I'm hoping that I'll be able to feel it, the child inside of her. If not, my Father will have to send me a message that Kate is with child."
Thorn Industries kept houses and apartments available for visiting out-of-town business executives in cities where the companyhad branch offices. London was no exception, which had two such properties, one located in the city, where Thomas was staying and the other in the country to where Kate would be brought. Years ago, Paul had begun referring to the city dwellings as Felix and the more rustic dwellings as Oscar and the epithets had stuck. In this case, Oscar was a three-story house surrounded by oaks and rose bushes and covered with ivy, lovely by any standards, but in this case, its most desirable feature was that it was isolated with its nearest neighbors over a mile away.
Thomas pulled up to the house, removed a set of keys from his briefcase, got out first, and unlocked and opened the door. Thomas returned and helped Damien with Kate and the two of them brought her to the couch. All the dwellings were kept in a move-in ready state, so there was food in the fridge and the beds were made and ready to be slept in.
"Try to get some sleep. I'll be leaving at some point to meet up with the two guys getting rid of DeCarlo, but since nobody but the two of us knows that we're here, you're safe."
Damien didn't argue. Instead, he grabbed the knife out of his coat pocket and went upstairs, all the way up to the third floor so he could have the most privacy possible as there was only one bedroom there. Once inside, he shut and locked the door and closed the curtains. On the wall next to the door was a painting of, oddly enough, a fox hunt, behind which was a safe. He put the dagger inside, closed the handle, and spun the dial; he wouldn't need the combination to get back in.
Damien peeled off his clothes and slipped under the cool covers. He was hungry and could do with a shower, but neither one of those things were calling to him the was this exhaustion was. He let himself relax; this would be the first decent sleep that he would have since the night of March 23rd. He sent out love and gratitude to his Father, without whose intervention Damien would not be here. He had survived, and now Satan was the ultimate decider as to whether Kate became pregnant and as Damien succumbed to sleep, he hoped that his Father's answer would be yes.
