Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

any damned thing he liked. It didn't matter.
    "The Church's previous Patriarch, the very venerable Roland Wentworth, has resigned," Angelo said flatly. "Reasons of ill health. He is gone, and he won't be coming back. I have therefore replaced him as Patriarch. I lead the Church of Christ Transcendent, the glorious Church Militant; and there is no room in the new Church for such as you. For such . . . ostentatious self-indulgence. The new Church is all about service and loyalty and rigid self-discipline. You do nothing to advance the Cause, you are incapable of serving in the holy war to come; and your very nature brings the Church into disrepute. You disgust me. I have therefore taken the decision to excommunicate all Ecstatics, and ban the surgeries that produce you.
    You will all be expelled, denied the comforts and protections of mother Church. You don't fit in with our new image."
    Angelo realized he was saying more than he'd meant to, more than he needed, but there was something about the calm unwavering smile and gaze of the Ecstatic before him that goaded him, trying to find something that would crack that serene self-control. He wanted to hurt the Ecstatic, frighten him, make him squeal and cry and beg for mercy. Not that it would make any difference, of course.
    "You don't want us around because you can't afford to tolerate the existence of any other power base in the Church that might oppose your will," said Joy, in a surprisingly rational voice. "I knew this was coming. We all did. It's why I'm here."
    "You knew?" said Angelo, honestly shocked. "How could you know? Who talked? None of my people would have talked . . ."
    "No one had to tell us," said Joy. "You never understood who and what we are, Angelo Bellini. What we see and what we know. With our bodies freed from the demands of the now, our minds are freed to roam through past, present, and future. Our thoughts are unlocked, unshackled from the rigid restraints of rationality. I see through and beyond you, Angelo, as clearly as I see the functions of your desk. Behind you is the Durandal, and ahead of you is terror. We see so much, all of us. It's just that mostly we can't be bothered to tell anyone. There are Light People who walk among you, unnoticed and unobserved, intent on their own unknown missions. There are angels in the skies and demons in the earth. We hear voices that aren't there, and see things that may never happen. I have seen the future plummeting back into the past, and the dead rising to walk again. I see your aura, and it's really very ugly."
    "Shut up!" said Angelo. "Shut up, damn you!" All the hairs were standing up on his arms and on the back of his neck. He was sweating and his hands were icy cold, as though someone had just walked over his grave. He was scared, horribly scared, and he didn't know why. "You're here because I ordered you here, to listen when I speak! You don't have to die. You could go back to the surgeons, go under the knife again. Let us put controls in your heads. Live on in service to the new Church . . ."
    "No," said Joy pleasantly. "I don't think so. We won't go back to being human. To being only human.
    We'd rather die."
    "Then die," said Angelo Bellini viciously.
    But even as his hand moved towards the control on his desk that would detonate the new transmutation bomb under the Ecstatics chair, Joy leaned over suddenly, reached under his seat, ripped out the bomb and held it up before him. He looked at it curiously for a moment, and then tossed it across the desk, aimed nicely to land right on the control that would activate it. Angelo screamed and shrieked with
    horror, and erupted up out of his chair to grab the bomb with both hands. He moved quickly away from the desk, put the bomb down on the floor very carefully, and then backed away from it; his mind full of the awful death of the previous Patriarch. He spun around, breathing hard, suddenly sure Joy would be leaning over his desk with his hand poised over the activation pad; but there was no sign of the Ecstatic anywhere. He'd left as silently as he'd come, while Angelo was preoccupied.
    How could he have known the bomb was under the chair? What else did he know, and who might he tell it top And what one Ecstatic knew . . .
    Angelo leaned over his desk, and hit the comm panel with unnecessary force. "Security! There's an Ecstatic loose in this building! Kill it! Shoot it on sight! And when you're sure the unnatural thing is dead, bring the body here