Follow the Devil / Follow the Light

This is part seven of Follow the Devil/Follow the Light. Read all the previous parts here.

Zoological Emporium

 

The gate was wrought iron, suitable for Victorian city parks and gothic asylums. ZOOLOGICAL EMPORIUM, rendered in De Vinne, appeared above the fluted ornamentations of the gate to form a half circle at the topmost of the entrance.^[1] Stately brick walls in disrepair ran east to west on either side of the black gate to mark an abrupt end to the forest where Joe and the demon had emerged from the north. Ivy made a concerted effort to colonize the weathered brick. The forest launched a volley of pinecones over the wall like a grenadier, only to have them lobbed back by some invisible defiance.

Night assumed its mantle over Hell as a fractured blood moon washed the surrounding geography in a rosé of wine light. Somewhere in the distance, a man ranted about a mystic cabal. He claimed there were microscopic extraterrestrials in the atmosphere and perceived a direct correlation between the price of toilet paper and the inevitability of a fascist coup. Another voice echoed back a conspiracy about Freemasons, the inflated price of precious metals, and the gene altering properties of municipal tap water. That was all Joe could make out before the voices were subsumed by an array of nocturnal hoots and hollers somewhere in the encroaching dark. The unwelcome snarl of a Griffin. The howl of a frumious Bandersnatch.^[2]

A padlock cast in the visage of a disconsolate lion secured the two doors of the gate’s entrance. Magari produced a key of distressed white bone out of thin air and opened the lock with ease. The right door of the gate skipped and scraped along the stony path, pulled white gravel along with it as Magari dragged the door open on its heavy hinge. The demon then made a gesture of invitation with the flourish of a chauffeur.

“After you. The Weltschmerz. Second sequence. The Violent Against Truth.”

“Will this be as entertaining as the first?” Joe asked deadpan.

“Don’t be daft. Your method was inventive, I’ll give you that, but you were also lucky. The Engineer is usually a better shot with that blunderbuss.”

“Another round of gore and pyrotechnics?”

“Think like a poet, not a pragmatist. Hell is perfectly rational. It’s Heaven that strains credulity.”

“Bring on the head trip,” Joe said, stepping past Magari and through the open gate. Before him stood a long avenue of cages fit for a zoo, positioned on either side of the cobblestone street. They were made of the same black iron as the gate with vertical bars running ten feet high. The top of each cage rose to a fleur-de-lis. Each one was occupied. They were as diverse as tribes, nations, coalitions, and centuries. A metal plaque, set in a masonry of granite, provided rationale for each internment. Joe paused at the first cage on his left to read the inscription:

Violent Against Truth

Family: Charlatans

Genus: Deception

Species: H. sapiens

Beyond the bars, an elaborate puppet theatre had been erected in the center of the cage. A figure clothed in shadow stood over the theatre and used both hands to manipulate a three-foot-tall marionette. The stage had a small wooden pulpit with a book fronting as a Bible. A white cross glowed against a black backdrop. The puppet wore an executive business suit, mustard yellow tie, and matching handkerchief. Hair slicked back like an oil spill. Next to the stage, a capuchin monkey in a bellhop suit played the accordion, its red cap inverted on the ground to welcome loose change.

“God loves you very much boys and girls.” An anomalous falsetto came from the puppet. The puppeteer’s ventriloquism left much to be desired.

“Got that?” the minister continued. “Take notes on this. Jot this down. He loves you and wants you to be very happy.” The word happy was emphasized at the syllabic break, making the word sound more like ‘Ha-pee.’ The strings were lowered to make it look as though the minister had either bowed his head in prayer or received sudden intelligence (via earpiece) from a divine operative.

“You want to be happy, don’t you?” The puppet continued with a sudden jolt from a string tied to its head. “We all wanna be happy. If that’s not what life’s all about, then I don’t want to know something different. Life. Abundant life.^[3] Those precious words tell me: Don’t settle! Don’t settle for anything less than your beloved billionaire birthright. Those precious words tell me life is about winners and losers, sheep and goats, and by God you’re a lily-white winner, and by God you’re a lily-white sheep.

“Abundant life. Those precious words tell me the Big Man upstairs has big plans. Big plans for the seed money you’ve so generously placed in the offering plate or phoned in to our dedicated prayer team. Big plans for our community. Big plans for our church. Big plans for our Christian nation and our kingdom expansion. Big plans for my marriage. Big plans for my children and for children just like you boys and girls. Big plans for my 401k. The Lord’s even got big plans for my vacation to Cancun this spring. I can see those beaches and supple blondes now. Just don’t tell the missus.” The minister paused as a static laugh track missed its cue four seconds late. Visibly perturbed (the effect was achieved with a tremulous shutter from the strings) the minister continued. “Abundant life. Those precious words tell me I deserve better than a split-level suburban ranch home, an aging wife with eczema, a last generation smartphone, and a shoddy nylon upholstered sedan with no cruise control. Abundant life. What wondrous love is this? Can I get an Amen!?”

Accordion music from the capuchin began to swell.

“Can I get a Hallelujah!?”

Light from the stage stretched its surveillance out over the bare concrete floor.

“Now, I’m not here to tell you how to vote. What I am saying is there ain’t no ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done‘ without the right judges in our courts, the right faith-based curriculum in our public schools, and the right god-fearing president in our White House. Mark my words. If we fail, this nation will be the Devil’s due in a decade. Shenandoah to Sodom and it’s curtains.”

With that, the minister was pulled heavenward, raptured as it were, from behind the pulpit and off the stage. The white cross was replaced with the word ELEVATE branded in 80s neon. The pulpit was removed to make room for a single microphone and red electric strobe lighting. A second puppet fell from the sky wearing a Gucci sweater, ironic bandanna, and form fitting jeans. The puppeteer manipulated the marionette’s head to make it look as though he had just witnessed the other minister’s swift ascension.

“What’s with the corporate hack?” the puppet wondered aloud. Laugh track again. “Where’s the love, people? Where’s the L-O-V-E? That’s what I’m talking about. Love of friends. Love of self. Love of creation. Love of life. Go home Boomer. Love wins!” The marionette did a slow swagger across the stage like a wannabe rapper before he continued. “I want you to get out your phones right now. Get ’em out! Right now. Text ten people you know: ‘Hey beautiful. Ignore the haters. #loveyourtruth.’ Everyone got that?”

Accordion music from the capuchin swelled a second time.

“And I’m not being rhetorical. I mean everyone!”

Red epileptic lights flashed out over the bare concrete floor.

“What if I don’t have a phone?” asked a recorded voice.

“You don’t have a what!?” the minister stuttered in jest. More canned laughter as house music hit the stage from invisible speakers with an unrelenting trip hop beat. “Love your truth,” the minister continued. “It’s not just the title of my latest book. It’s an invitation to each and every one of you. Love your truth. It’s time to say “no” to self-doubt and negativity. It’s time to say “yes” to self-care and empowerment. Text #loveyourtruth to 43887 right now for a chance to win a free beanie. That’s #loveyourtruth, 43887 to join the movement. You can also grab a signed copy of my book Love Your Truth along with some swag on your way out. You know I love you. Now go love yourself.” The veiled puppeteer managed a backflip out of the marionette before it glided off the stage in time with the music.

The monkey paused as the onstage spectacle faded to black. It made a low chattering noise, removed a coin from the breast pocket of its jacket, tossed it into the hat, and continued to play a mournful dirge on the accordion.

“What was that?” Joe asked.

“An average Sunday in America. And like the good minister promised, we demons couldn’t be ha-pee-er. We’ve got religious fervor grafted to politics like a symbiotic parasite. We’ve been at it for decades. It finds expression in different ways across the political spectrum, but some of these churches, I’m telling you, paranoid eschatology, grievance culture, conspiracy peddling, anti-beatitude bigotry, the works. And all under the guise of pious devotion. Coddled in the arms of a 501c. Are you getting a vision of things?”

“I’m not sure,” Joe replied.

“Our work in modernity wasn’t to destroy the church. Quite the opposite. Why relegate idols to the Parthenon when they elicit more attention in the public square? We simply made everything church.”

“Making a Seahawks game its own form of Sunday morning,” said Joe.

“Precisely. Think of it. The Internet: your Delphic Oracle. The stadium: your sanctuary. Comic-Con: your pilgrimage. Reddit and Twitter: your holy writ. Credible witness, reasoned argument, even acts of divine revelation, lost in a deluge of keystrokes and thumbs. Dignity and decorum lost in a generation.”

“But wouldn’t that make everything sacred then, everything holy?” The words floundered like a foreign language.

“Quite the opposite,” the demon replied. “When everything is sacred, nothing is fixed. Particularity matters Joe Muggeridge. It’s what makes you you and not a worm, not a proton, not a wave. It makes the sign not the signified. The virtue not the vice. Have you not read Baird’s treatise on the peaceable difference of things? Semantics was our first real success in the Twentieth Century. After His resurrection, we settled too soon, contented ourselves with the whole War, Famine, Pestilence, Death routine, although I still say the Black Plague was our finest hour. It then occurred to us (Astaroth is credited in the annals) that there was a more efficient way round it. We assaulted words rather than bodies, names instead of nations. Truth. Love. Sin. These words and more, gutted like fish in your lifetime. We made short work of it. All will be lawful Joe Muggeridge. Mark my words.”

“And what then?”

“No enchantment.”

“No enchantment?”

“It’s what He does. He enchants the universe.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It is the one mystery we cannot master.”

“It’s only about power for you, isn’t it?”

“In the absence of love … and having fallen, brave combatants all, from Heaven inhospitable, maligned under a monarch … ” The demon paused, lost in a mire of thought, the searing emotion disrupting all sense. Joe was about to inquire further when Magari broke the silence. “Up ahead. We’re almost there. The EMPORIUM’S central plaza.”

“And what’s waiting for me there?” Joe inquired.

“The Weltschmerz. Second sequence. Arguably, the hardest trial of them all. Here you must confront an ultimate truth about yourself.”

Joe and the demon headed further down the street, passing an increasingly weird menagerie of exhibits along the way. Some cages merited observation; others were too terrible to contemplate. They paused only at the final cage along the avenue. It was standing room only, stuffed to the gills with a crowd of urbanites. The cage door stood wide open, but the prisoners were too occupied to trouble themselves with escape.

Violent Against Truth

Family: Sowers of Discord

Genus: Misinformation

Species: H. sapiens

None of the inmates acknowledged one another or the reality of their shared predicament. They texted wordlessly into nonexistent smartphones, updated social media feeds, voiced maudlin sighs, and exclaimed from an incoming correspondence. Heads down, shoulder to shoulder, their eyes stared at a scrolling barrage of invisible content. Joe had seen the look many times before. Of all the baroque vanities he had observed with Morte Magari, this cage, with its congregation of beguiled inhabitants, bore the closest resemblance to his life back home.

“Look at them go,” Magari said with mawkish delight. “Getting off on the latest scandal, outrage, fringe gossip, and bloviation.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Joe said. His inherent optimism toward progress and technology asserted itself.

“Best of luck convincing them,” Magari replied.

“Give us a year. Scion Digital has two platforms in development set to upend all of this. We’re putting Zuckerberg and Dorsey on notice.”

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”^[4]

“Sorry. I don’t speak that language.”

“There are few left who do.”

Joe and Magari directed their attention away from the exhibit. There was nothing more to say, let alone critique, from a cohort whose countenance was so thoroughly estranged both from one another and from anyone who happened to pass by.

“Judge the fallen angels if you must,” Margari said, unprompted. “But the dogs of our passion run riot. Words like “acedia” and “apathy” are noticeably absent from our Dictionary of Devilry, and the libertine instinct remains thoroughly unimpaired post-paradise. We’d sooner “drink life to the lees”^[5] and castigate laziness with a cattle prod than join the idle ranks of the Sowers of Discord.”

The moon remained fixed in its constellation high above. Joe’s second labor now stood before them. It was an even grander Rube Goldberg than the Abacus he had encountered in the woods. The symmetry of cobblestone that ran the length of the avenue met a sudden upheaval of rock to form a circular trench, five feet deep, running the full circumference of the ZOOLOGICAL EMPORIUM’S expansive central plaza. Three other streets, equally cage crowded, met their intersection here.

A few dozen souls walked along the trench with headsets fused to their faces. It reminded Joe of the VR back home. L-shaped copper pipes emerged from the front of the headsets, rose a hundred feet, to weld themselves to a kind of mothership suspended in midair. The ship, with its network of rotating gears, hissing exhaust vents, and steaming pistons turned on a stationary axis, causing (or so it seemed) the individuals to walk in a perpetual circle. The hull of the ship itself consisted of steel plates welded to calcified bone and animal hide. Black banners hung from its hull like belligerent strands of knotted hair. There was no indication of how it maintained altitude: no sound, nothing to suggest hover technology or an engine of any kind. Joe stood for a long time, the demon beside him, observing this perverse merry-go-round with human subjects for painted horses. The cages he had just observed were a severe mercy by comparison.

The victims called out to one another, distressed, or struck dumb by an endless broadcast of images. One man perpetually screamed. Another gave up walking entirely and allowed the headset to drag him by the face. A third, a woman, instructed her son (a boy named Henry) to close his eyes. She promised the pictures weren’t real. She promised it would be over soon. There wasn’t a single child among them.

“The trench wasn’t there when they began,” the demon interjected. “They dug it themselves. CODA extends those pipes every few months just to keep pace. Who knows what we’ll do if they keep at it? Fifty yards down and its molten core. Probably go to committee. Belief in progress is so innate to the human nature. They actually believe they are getting somewhere. Stubborn bastards. Not a single wretch has even attempted to remove the headset. Release lever is on the back. They accept the enslavement as a given – so convinced of the carousel’s fixed determinism.”

“The torment is self-inflicted?” Joe asked.

“That is the sin nature.”

“I don’t believe in sin, remember?”

“Or Hell?”

“I don’t know what to believe in anymore.”

“It’s really no bother what you believe in Joe Muggeridge,” the demon said, picking an irksome scab on its left elbow. “We said goodbye to philosophy and its charms hours ago.”

“And my feelings are no philosophy.”

“Your feelings are no philosophy worth believing in,” the demon amended.

Under the foreboding shadow of the airship, an impressive white altar commanded a dais at the plaza’s epicenter. Behind the altar, a T-shaped cross with balance scales mounted on either side of the horizontal beam suspended two objects in midair. Tattered banners, identical to the ones fastened to the airship, hung from the cross, fluttered about in an aimless wind. If the scales were accurate, the objects weighed the same despite their disproportion in size.

Seven figures cloaked in red, male and female, heads shaved to reveal the tattoo of their order, kneeled at a circular railing that surrounded the altar and its resident priest. Their stillness suggested prayer. Eyes closed. Mouths oddly agape. In addition to his ecclesial vestments, the priest wore a beaked plague mask of Moroccan leather with lenses like moons caught in a solar eclipse. The smell of lavender and theriac hung in the air as mantis-green miasma began to rise from the plaza’s storm drains and sewer grates. The priest elevated an ornate chalice before the altar with both hands before turning to face the penitent. Words of institution were muffled by the otherworldly mask. The cadence of the liturgy shifted from speech to song and back again, rose with intensity to a final corporate Amen.

From the ciborium in his left hand, the priest drew a gold solidus (bearing the likeness of Constantine) and placed the coin on an outstretched tongue of one of the faithful. Joe watched the priest make his way around the circle until he was surrounded by seven gleaming coins on seven wet tongues. The priest elevated the chalice toward the ship high above a second time before returning it to the altar where it rested next to a ceremonial knife. The cloaked worshipers remained perfectly still – coins pillowed like pearls on the flesh of clams. The trench walkers with headsets continued their march around and around the outer perimeter of the plaza. Footfalls beat the earth like small drums. Copper pipes squeaked on hinges. Miasma from the storm drains filled the air. The priest removed the mask to reveal the top half of his head. It was wrapped in beige linen as a large crimson stain on the forehead blazed like a bleeding sun. His high cheekbones were gaunt, mouth black as pitch. He placed the mask on the altar along with the ciborium and pronounced the words of institution.

“To Mammon all glory, laud, and honor. Worship him in the opulence of his gilded halls. Bow down in the bejeweled splendor of his courts. Ascend the mount of his Ziggurat with praise. Receive now this morsel of his glory, and feed on him in the belly insatiable with thanksgiving.” As if on cue, the monks retracted their tongues in unison to swallow the sacrament. Thunder pealed across the atmosphere.

“Have a look through these.” Magari handed Joe a binocular-like device. “It’s time for Joe Muggeridge to face some truth of his own.”

Joe glassed the center of the plaza to get a better look at the cross and hanging scales. It took a moment for the lenses to come into focus, but when they did, Joe felt his mouth parch, the hair on his neck bristle, as Fear rubbed its cold snout on the small of his back. Magari caught the binoculars as they fell from the sudden palsy of Joe’s trembling hands.

“That’s not possible,” Joe said. “I never told anyone.”

“Do you now believe?” the demon asked.

“I believe,” Joe said.

“Help thou your unbelief.”^[6]

Intervention

 

The girl waited behind the high school library, stared at the laces of her red Converse, and texted friends on her Nokia 6070 until he arrived. Friday afternoon. Three-day weekend. Party at Derek Manning’s cabin on Bainbridge Island. If she hurried, she and her friends could still catch the 5:00 ferry. Her friend Karen, a senior, had a car. The Facebook invite promised no “parental units,” two-dollar Jell-O shots, free beer, and a hot tub.

“Alyssa said you could hook me up,” the girl said with an affectation. Skater chick. She wore cargo pants and an American Idiot tee. Her hair was jet black with daring bangs of cobalt blue.

“First time?” With a glance he tried to pass off as blasé cool, Joe looked to his left and right to make sure no one was watching. The alley behind the library concealed a large blue dumpster next to lopsided rows of stacked desks and chairs abandoned for eventual recycling. Adults never went back here. Joe had interrupted two students making out on a previous sale, but no lip-locking today.

“Yeah,” the girl confessed. “I’ve been told it makes you stupid.”

“You don’t want uppers for a party?”

“No, I want to feel relaxed. I hate my life.”

“Don’t we all. Say hello to Mr. Percocet.” Joe said, producing a nondescript baggie of pills from his backpack. Bottles were a dead giveaway. Bags like this could be packed in a lunch with no one the wiser. “Virgins” he called them. First-time customers only.

“Start with one and go easy on the alcohol if you know what I mean,” Joe said. “You don’t know me, and this didn’t happen.”

“How much?”

“Twenty and we’re even. Cash only. Introductory special,” Joe said, trying to sound older than he was.

“Thanks,” she said, handing him a folded Jackson from her pocket.

“No problem. Have fun this weekend.”

“Will I see you there?” She seemed interested in more than opioids. Joe didn’t mind.

“New game release day. Headed home.”

“Too bad. Thanks again.”

“See you around. Next week maybe?”

“Definitely,” the girl said.

The next time Joe saw her was at the Muggeridge residence. KOMO News 4 at 6:00. A photograph from her freshman yearbook appeared on the television. She looked nothing like the girl he had met behind the library. Hair up like a prom date. No cobalt blue. Evening gown with a matching wrist corsage. All the same, he knew it was her. Local Teen Fatal Overdose went the headline. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Just terrible what kids are getting into these days,” Wendy said. She was four pieces away from solving a puzzle of Mt. Rainier (1000 count) on the coffee table.

“Yeah,” Joe said, getting up to go hide in his room. “Really bad.”

 * * *

“That’s Catlyn Gruit over there and you know it,” Magari said.

Catlyn Gruit. Joe had never forgotten her name.

And now Catlyn Gruit was apparently here, on one of the scales, hands in her lap, swaying back and forth in some sort of trance. Same Green Day tour shirt. Same Converse. Same highlights. Cobalt blue. Even with the binoculars, Joe still couldn’t see what occupied the opposing scale. A case of some kind, quite small, obstructed by the monks and altar. He’d have to get closer if he wanted a better look.

“Is there another path?” Joe asked. “One of those other streets?”

“The Order of Avarice needs you to complete the ritual that began on the day of her death,” Magari said, with a nod toward the altar.

“That was nine years ago,” Joe exclaimed. “They’ve been waiting nine years for me to get here?”

“Disciplined lot, no?”

“What do they need me for?”

“You’ll have to go find out. The ritual is quite old, and The OA is notoriously fussy, detail oriented you might say. Everything must be just so, or Mammon is liable to fly into a petulant rage. Last year he wanted a car. But not just any car: a Rolls Royce Phantom Mansory Conquistador. The year before that a call went out for wine. But not just any wine: a bottle of Jeroboam of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945. On and on it goes. One year a diamond. Another year a derby horse.

“Eventually, CODA was obliged to hire The Order of Avarice to manage the logistics of Mammon’s appetite – sort of a full-time nanny operation with lots of bribery and appeasement to boot. Thankless work. The OA spent so much time in service of Mammon’s bidding they eventually fell wholesale under his spell, added a few exotic rituals to the roster and made religion of it. We’re not exactly sure when it happened, but during one of the annual Lurid Festivals they entered the Sacrarium of DIS like a Jonestown reunion and began worshipping him like a god.

“Fundamentalism is the death of humor, and The OA fast became a byword for Zealotry 101, a public relations nightmare. They were apologists for Mammon’s crystal-gazing and Ponzi schemes. There was no point trying to convince them otherwise. Try as we might to name his failed promises, Nostradamus forgeries, brethren abuses, and baseless threats, if it came from the Mouth of Mammon, it was gospel truth for The Order of Avarice.”

“So how do I play into all of this?” Joe asked.

“Every so often, human blood tickles Mammon’s fancy more than House of Knipschildt Hot Chocolate or Fullblood Wagyu. And if those scales are to be believed, Contestant #1, our young Catlyn Gruit of Issaquah, Washington is the donor of choice. Unless, of course, you’re able to find some way round it.”

“It would be like that,” Joe lamented.

“Once begun is half done. It’s time to finish the ritual you started behind the library with a bag of pills and a twenty-dollar bill.”

“Any advice?”

“Don’t bother with an axe this time.”

Joe and the demon jumped down into the trench and up the other side before one of the tormented headset runners had a chance to steamroll them in their tracks. They now stood in the center of the plaza, twenty yards or so from the altar. The monks had begun to chant when the priest caught sight of Magari and Joe. He made a sudden jolt, ready to cast damning aspersions until he realized who they were.

“The Deacon? Already? We’ve waited so long.” There was a note of genuine surprise.

“The Deacon,” the monks chanted in unison.

“Go on,” said Magari. It prompted Joe with a push toward the altar. Joe stumbled, regained his footing.

“For nine long years we have performed the blood ritual as it was preached from Mammon infallible and transcribed by his theologians inerrant,” the priest began. “For nine long years we have followed the sequence of the cracked moon, the hanged man, the two-headed adder, the white ox, the lost child, the contemplative snail, the wilted flower, the protean porpoise … ”

“Oh, get on with it,” Magari scoffed.

“Apostate,” came a sharp rebuke from the priest before he continued, ” … the hollow mountain, the charitable fox, the blind owl, the red queen. And now, having completed the thirteenth sign of Mammon’s favor, the eucharistic coin, all that remains is for the Deacon to complete his charge.”

“And what is that exactly?” Joe asked.

“Retrieve The Regret and The Desire from the scales,” the priest commanded. “Offer them to Father Mammon with gladness and receive full remission of sin.” A massive umbilical hose fell from the mothership above, twirled like haywire spaghetti until it came to rest on the alter. A ghastly sucking sound came from the two-foot diameter of the hose, a wet vac of saliva and digestive juice.

Joe walked past the altar with its monks and attendant priest to stand before the cross and hanging scales. It was her. Catlyn Gruit. She broke from her trance to cast a look both reserved and spiteful. The years had not prepared Joe for a proper apology, to say nothing of an embodied reunion with his greatest regret.

“Catlyn.” Her name was all he could muster.

Catlyn Gruit began to speak, and a torrent of white pills flew from her mouth, pinged against the scale she sat on like metal BBs on bronze. Mortified, she brought her hands up to her mouth. You. You did this to me. Her gaze accused as much. She tried to speak again only to achieve the same result. Another shock of pills filled the space of words. She crossed her arms, bowed her head, and resumed her rocking trance. Tears drew lines down her cheeks. Equally distraught, Joe peered on tiptoe at the object that occupied the scale of equal weight next to her.

And there it was. Joe’s “holy grail.” A 1976 Apple I in mint condition, the motherboard and makeshift keyboard (no monitor) set in a briefcase for easy transport. The other computers he’d collected back home were bottom tier antiques in comparison. He’d be the envy of colleagues and online aficionados, the stuff of geek legend and Wikipedia lore. If he decided to sell it, a unit in this condition would auction for several hundred grand.^[7] Only sixty-three still in existence. Six in known working condition. And here, apparently, was one of them. An elegant motherboard boasting a 6502 microprocessor with 8K bytes of onboard RAM memory. An Apple I of unquestionable historic import. An Apple I. “Set for Life” retirement policy included.

Joe made an impulsive grab for the briefcase and Catlyn’s side of the scale went lopsided from the sudden imbalance. More pills for a panicked cry, and the girl tumbled to the ground. Two monks left their designated post to assist Catlyn to her feet and lead her to the altar. She offered no resistance.

“Catlyn. I’m sorry!” Joe exclaimed, feeling like the ass he was.

“Deacon, The Regret now stands before the altar. Now bring us The Desire,” the priest commanded. Joe made sure the lid of the briefcase was secure and carried it over to the altar. The hose continued its vile suction as the priest retrieved the ceremonial dagger next to the ciborium and plague mask.

“Lord Mammon’s belly requires two score and a dram,” the priest said.^[8] “Bring forth The Regret.”

The two monks pulled Catlyn closer to the altar. Sounds from the hose were enough to inspire revolt. The girl convulsed in a desperate attempt to break free. The monks tightened their grip. When her legs and feet went limp, they dragged her the rest of the way. The cobblestone of the plaza was now littered with pills, tokens of earnest protest.

“Place her hand into the Mouth of Mammon,” the priest commanded. More Spartan resistance from Catlyn Gruit. Another unsightly rush of pills. One of the monks drew her right hand toward the esophageal maw. The second monk loosened his grip in the false belief that his comrade still had control. Catlyn took advantage of his miscalculation and slammed the hard bone of her elbow into his side. He cowered under the blow and backed away. She then grabbed the second monk by the shoulders to plant a knee squarely into his groin. The monk voiced a sopranic note and released his hold as well.

“Wait,” Joe yelled. “This isn’t about her.”

“You mean to go first?” the priest inquired.

“Just leave her alone and tell me what you want.”

“It’s not what I want,” the priest said. “It’s what he wants.” He turned his blind and bandaged gaze sharply toward the mothership above.

“Then tell me what to do.”

“Place The Desire into the Mouth of Mammon,” the priest instructed.

“What? The computer?”

“The Desire. Yes.”

The command was harder for Joe Muggeridge than he expected. The handle of the briefcase reasserted its weight in anticipation of a quick getaway. It felt grafted to the palm of his hand. He remembered evenings on eBay trolling through replicas and fakes. He remembered the lost bid for an inoperative Apple II from a seller in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Second best, but close. He remembered reading interviews with Wozniak about the Apple I in old computer magazines and thinking, I want one, not even fully understanding why. The Desire, as the priest called it, had consumed innumerable hours of his time, industry, and attention. Here was no mere possession. The Apple I possessed his heart.

The priest grew impatient, grabbed Catlyn forcefully by the waist, and placed the ceremonial dagger against the girl’s throat. “Now!” he commanded. “Time is short by the moon’s mark.”

“Okay,” Joe said, approaching the altar, “just calm down.” An indigestion of sick emanated from the dark chasm of Mammon’s so-called “mouth.” Joe covered his nose with the back of his wrist in disgust.

“Now complete the ritual,” the priest said. Joe obeyed. The task itself required minimal physical effort, but the sheer act of will, the violent neglect of desire, was Herculean. Resting the briefcase on the altar, Joe gave it a violent push toward the hose where it was sucked up into the belly of the mothership a hundred feet above his head. So long Apple I. So long holy grail retirement. “There,” Joe said, “happy now?”

“Offer The Regret,” the priest said impatiently. He pulled Catlyn close to the altar, knife still at her neck.

“She has nothing to do with this,” Joe said. “And Catlyn,” he looked directly at her to make eye contact, “I’m more sorry than you can ever know.”

Catlyn’s reply came in the form of a heel. Specifically, the left heel of her red Converse. She brought it down like a repeating jackhammer onto the priest’s foot and ran headlong toward one of the avenues when the hostage grip eased enough for her to break away.

“After her,” the priest commanded.

“Don’t bother, ” Joe said. “She’s not The Regret.” He unbuttoned the left cuff of his shirt and rolled up the sleeve.

The monks, intent on giving chase, suddenly wavered. Even Magari, observing the scene from several yards away, was visibly stupefied.

Joe approached the altar and placed his hand into the mouth. Contemplate the scald of boiling water or the tinder crack of bone to underscore what happened next. Mammon imbibed his two score and a dram. The pain was unbearable. Exquisite.

Joe looked up from his private Hell to catch a glimpse of Catlyn Gruit running down one of the cage-crowded streets of the ZOOLOGICAL EMPORIUM. He was certain what happened next was a pain-induced hallucination. As Catlyn ran, she began to rise into the air. Wingless. Weightless. Her body detached itself from the surrounding miasma of nether gloom and into a parallel dimension. Joe watched as Catlyn Gruit sprinted skyward on a fabric of light, a formidable seraph on either side, cheering her on.