My Wicked Ways Ch. 22 - Final

Our enjoyment of the Hobbit was cut a bit short when Stephanie received a text message from Captain Yanagi, showing photos of a fireball that rose from his native Kyoto, followed by a message..."Check the news, now!"

Stephanie showed it to me and I nodded, reluctantly switching to the news...and there it was. A series of fireballs had risen from no fewer than fourteen cities in East Asia, throwing the governments and economies of the nations into utter chaos. This catastrophe threatened to spread to the West, of course, and already the Department of Homeland Security had issued an official travel warning bulletin, apparently ordered after Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong were incinerated. Panic had grown in several cities in other nations that had not yet been hit, particularly as the cascading effect of the crisis became obvious with the second round of fireballs that smote South Asia.

"Oh, my God!" Stephanie wept openly as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were officially listed among the devastated population centers...cities of her birthplace, Vietnam.

Katrina burst into tears soon afterward, as Mumbai, Calcutta, and New Delhi were laid waste. It was the most Earth-shattering tragedy to ever strike humanity in living memory, possibly since the Black Death. As Karachi, Islamabad, Dhaka, Rangoon, Kabul, Alma-Alta, Tashkent, and Samarkand were struck, the officially confirmed death toll really climbed into the hundreds of millions. What remained of the United Nations Security Council reportedly met in special session to see what could be done to resolve the disaster, but no realistic ideas could be proposed, since the cause of the phenomenon was yet unknown.

That was when I recalled that Marcy had prophesied to me that I was to undertake a leadership role in the post-apocalyptic society, a prediction that I chose to keep under wraps for now. This was evidently the beginning of whatever global apocalypse from which I was to save civilization itself, or at least some notable part of it. I also remembered what Marcy told me about Shelby, and I whispered it to her, holding her more like an uncle than as a lover right then, though I was still definitely both. Shelby cried a bit, but she also put her head on my shoulders for solace at that moment. She needed the comfort of my arms and I reached out to her, just as I did to the others, especially Katrina and Stephanie at that time. It turned into something of a group hug for a moment, in fact, before more news interrupted it.

"Regrettably, the horrors of today, July 6, 2013, have not discontinued by any means, as witnessed by this video sent to us by our embedded staff near Mecca, who have thankfully managed to avoid being consumed by the flames which have absolutely destroyed not only that city, the holiest of Islam, but also Medina and Riyadh. So far, the absolutely staggering fatalities have accumulated to a minimum of four hundred millions, possibly as high as half a billion people. Many are already calling today Doomsday. Let us hope not. The world in my lifetime has been subject to many terrible events, but nothing on this scale," the anchorman looked grimmer than I could have pictured him looking, even in these conditions.

"It will get worse before it gets better, friends," a voice broke our concentration...a distinctly familiar and feminine voice, in fact.

"Mama!" Shelby turned, knowing that voice anywhere...she rushed to embrace her dear, departed mother.

Marcy being Marcy, she actually held Shelby in her arms for a moment and cradled her before continuing, "I know that this is something truly awful, and I do not blame you if you do not understand the reason for this calamity, but believe me when I tell you that their suffering is over. It is the living that have cause for grief. This is an event that was coming. It was determined long ago, even before the reign of my master, the King of Heaven. All that my lord the King could do was mitigating the harm and ensure that the pain ended with the Great Reckoning. This was necessary, if horrible. Man must die to be reborn and from that rebirth, he will emerge stronger and better than before. This is part of our...your evolution. I do wish to offer my condolences, however, to any of you who lost loved ones."

"Is this why you're still around, Mama? To help us through this?" Shelby asked her.

"Yes, and because your Uncle Mark needs the benefit of congress with Heaven through me. He has been chosen for a special purpose and he must fulfill it. His birth was never an accident or a mistake. He is here for a reason. Someone must lead the way to the New Era, and who better than your uncle? He was tailor-made for this time and place. He will not be the only leader, of course, for this time and place, but he is the only one to receive the approval and sanction of my master, the King of Heaven. He is the Lawgiver. The new Lawgiver. The last few have been...a little drunk with their power and they had to be cut back down to size. Let that be a warning to you, my dear Mark. I want you to succeed as the Lawgiver, so don't emulate the others," Marcy explained.

"Other Lawgivers?" I now showed my own confusion.

"Yes, Your Eminence, Holiness, whatever. You're the current Lawgiver, but there were Lawgivers appointed by the previous Kings of Heaven. The majority were not chosen for quite the tough role that you have, but they had an important function in molding civilization. The last one was called Hubbard, but he sadly got the message all wrong and his movement became corrupted and perverted over time. The one before him was called Wilson, but he, too, disappointed the King of Heaven. Then there were the Spiritualists," Marcy continued, still holding Shelby to her bosom.

"So...the founder of Scientology?" I asked for clarity's sake.

"Yes, that very same man. He was one of many, of course. Moses, Jesus, Zarathustra, Mohammed, among others. All started well, but were affected by their conviction of their own righteousness. Most major religions started with a Lawgiver who lost it, but the Kings of Heaven kept trying to limit contact while using their man. My new Master is a bit more hands-on, at least for now, so as to avoid the traps into which the others fell. He doesn't want you going too far, so he'll contact you through me, but otherwise leave you alone to do your thing," Marcy assured me in front of the others.

"Um...we should probably let the Captain and Security Chief know about this, since we might wish to make landfall soon. I think that our cruise is likely to be cut short well ahead of its destination," I declared.

"Yes, I would strongly counsel that, Mark, since Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, Istanbul, Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Amman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ankara are gone," Marcy informed us, bringing shock to Jannat's eyes now.

"Beirut has been spared?" she inquired.

"Beirut has suffered enough, the King of Heaven told me himself," Marcy intimated to us, "besides, he is fond of the Levant, due to its role in forming written language and the alphabet."

"What about Jerusalem?" I asked Marcy.

"To be spared, per that covenant between a former King of Heaven and your people. It will probably be one of the largest cities to survive, and certainly one of the oldest. Rome and Athens are also to be preserved, as major cultural centers without much hegemonic power. No great power capitals are safe, as the great powers must be cut down to size, all of them. So is Alexandria. But Cairo, Tripoli, Benghazi, Tunis, Algiers, Khartoum, and Rabat are doomed and next on the agenda. You can tell the Captain that much, so he'll know that you're a Prophet and Lawgiver," Marcy informed me.

This led me to text that to the Captain, scant minutes before the TV displayed the horrific destruction of the cities that she just named.

"Strangely, Nicosia, Jerusalem, and Beirut have all benefited from some kind of Providence or protection, given that they have not been consumed by the fireballs," the anchorwoman told us what we already know, just minutes before Captain Yanagi and Chief Bryne entered our suite.

"How did you know about all of this, Mr. Schumacher?" Yanagi demanded to know, just before he saw Marcy, who incidentally wore nothing but her wings.

"Who are you and how did you get here?" Bryne confronted her.

"I am an angel, sir, but I used to be a mortal woman named Marcy Swenson. I'm Shelby's mother. To answer your other question, Captain, I told Mark about these events. I know which cities will be destroyed and which will not, because the King of Heaven has told me that. However, I will only tell you through Mark, because that's the hierarchy with us. Mark is a Prophet of the King of Heaven. He is also the Lawgiver. He has just been informed of his appointment, as it happens. The new information was the first prophecy that he has issued, in fact," Marcy informed him, much to his shock.

"Wow, and here I thought that angels weren't...anatomically correct. You're rather distinctly female," Bryne coughed.

"She is beautiful!" Yanagi exclaimed.

"Thank you, but I am mainly staying here to touch base with Mark and to officially confirm to you that Mark is the Lawgiver, the hand and voice of the King of Heaven in making just and righteous laws for this world. He is a Prophet with a divine appointment and a servant of the King of Heaven, the very God of this universe. I must depart for now, but it was a pleasure to meet you...I will advise you, however, that it's best to return to port, rather than continue on your voyage. Avoid Los Angeles, naturally. It's doomed to be totally destroyed," Marcy announced before she vanished in front of them.

"Holy shit! Did I just see a stark-naked, drop-dead gorgeous lady angel?" Bryne wondered.

"Crazy, isn't it?" Luis shook his head.

"Wow!" Mandy expressed her surprise.

"Yep, very odd," Dave spoke up.

"She's my mother, too, but, yes, I would do her, given the chance," Shelby admitted, making me laugh before I recalled that millions were still dying.

"This just in. Every national capital in Africa but Juba, Freetown, Monrovia, and Antananarivo has been destroyed. Johannesburg was laid waste as well, much to the horror of our embedded correspondent, Thaddeus Mivago, who was regrettably seized and attacked by a gang shortly after sending us these videos. Sadly, there is not much that can be done to help him, since the South African government no longer exists. I must warn you that some of this footage is extremely and graphically violent," the anchorman was visibly shaken as he told the world that his hometown of Nairobi, Kenya had been incinerated.

"The death toll continues to climb with each phase of what some are calling Fireball Day and others are simply naming the Apocalypse or Doomsday. Reports continue to grow of riots in every major city with the increasing panic, of looting, of overextended emergency, fire, and police services, of disruptions of the global food supply chain, of coups and revolutions, of strikes and layoffs, of stock markets and government bonds in freefall, and of people trapped in foreign nations that they wish to escape due to the destruction of airports and seaports. Refugees have swarmed into the outskirts of unscathed cities, while others have attempted to flee major population centers to escape sudden death, camps are already forming, sometimes under UN supervision, more refugees have fled to other nations, planes have fallen from the sky due to lack of fuel, or been forced to make emergency landings. Furthermore...," the anchorwoman started to say before she was cut off.

"Excuse me, Connie, but I have yet more unfortunate news. Additional fireballs have struck the cities of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Vichy, Munich, Edinburgh, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Vienna, Berlin, Geneva, Strasbourg, Brussels, Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris, London, Madrid, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Dublin, Belfast, and Vatican City, though the rest of Rome was oddly spared. As you can see, this has had a devastating impact on Europe, where already social and civil unrest had taken hold in many areas. Fear has gripped every nation that has not yet been hit, since there are no guarantees that further such fireballs will not arise from even more cities in the future," the anchorman interrupted, prompting a new bit of weeping on Tamara's and Anton's parts.

I now did my best to comfort Anton and Tamara, even as I heard Marcy's voice in my head, telling me that it was time to pass on a message, "Next will be Ottawa, Toronto, Quebec City...and Montreal. Sorry, Josie and Jeanne. I really am sorry."

"I know. It's not your fault, mon cherie. You did not consign these cities to oblivion," Josie reassured me, giving me a deep kiss, as did Jeanne after her.

Indeed, right then, word came in that those four Canadian cities had been incinerated. To say that our moods had been changed a bit was a given, but we also knew that life had to continue somehow. This was the end of the old world, but it was also the beginning of the new...and God help us, we would do better this time! Even so, it was enough to eliminate our jovial atmosphere and cast a real pall over our honeymoon cruise, to put it mildly. This was when I made my decision, to say the least.

"We must make for the nearest port, ASAP...period. I have enjoyed this honeymoon and cruise, up to this point, and it is true that we will have a chance to enjoy ourselves in spite of this, but we absolutely must begin to rebuild human civilization with those of us we have on this ship. This does not mean an end to any more physical pleasure. On the contrary, as we will have to breed in larger numbers, it will be even more critical to enjoy each other that way, in addition to the benefits to our community from such shared intimacy. To put it more bluntly, we on this ship will have to bring about a new nation of sorts, so we will have to fuck each other a lot. This doesn't mean an end to recreational sex, either. It just means a greater urgency to more frequent sex.

"However, for the moment, we need to deal with our sorrow and grief, and find out just what remains of the Old Order, as one might call it. I doubt that any of us will be in any mood for sexual solace just yet, though that will likely change and sooner than we expect. We also need to find out which if any of our loved ones are still around after this is all done," I said, barely a minute before the TV showed live footage of the immolation of Washington, DC.

"Oh, my God! It has happened...the President, the Congress...the monuments, memorials...oh, damn!" I exclaimed, right before yet more destruction was revealed.

Next was New York City, of course. It was incinerated right in front of my eyes and that of the remnant of humanity in the world. Not much later, we witnessed the fireballs and smoke which rose from the ruins of Chicago and LA. The next two targets shocked us all: Lynchburg, VA, and Salt Lake City, Utah. This turned out to be the final round to affect the good ol' US of A.

We waited in dread for the rest of the devastation to follow, namely the obliteration of Mexico City, Veracruz, Havana, Panama City, Bogota, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, Montevideo, Caracas, and Managua. It was over, I now realized. The end of the world had happened on live TV, and I had been a witness to it, as had my growing family. My heart sank as I thought of the millions of people who had perished in the process, but what could I do? At least as the Lawgiver, I could bring humanity back from the abyss, I hoped. There was nothing else that could be done.

Since Atlanta wasn't destroyed...at first, that is, I saw it live on CNN when the city dissolved into anarchy over the course of the evening. Finally, however, at about 2:45 am, the network went off the air, presumably because it had been overrun back in its headquarters. Exhausted, I retired to bed and snuggled most with those who grieved their family, such as Tamara and Josie. Ninve had lost some relatives, too, as had Sandra, of course, so they kinda dogpiled me on the main bed as we drifted off to our nightmares.

*****

This is not the end for Mark, just a shift away from his old life and toward a new beginning.