And now, he thought, we know. The Catharists had come bleakly close, had guessed one piece: that the world lay in the control of an evil adversary and not the good god. What they had not guessed was contained in Job, that the “good god” was a god of wrath—was in fact evil.

“Like Shakespeare has Hamlet say to Ophelia,” McComas growled at Lurine. “ ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ “

Lurine, sipping coffee, said prettily, “Up yours.”

“See?” the Dominus McComas said to Father Handy.

“I see,” he said carefully, “that you can’t order people to be this or that; they have what used to be called an ontological nature.”

Scowling, McComas said, “Whazzat?”

“Their intrinsic nature,” Lurine said sweetly. “What they are. You ignorant rustic religious cranks.” To Father Handy she said, “I finally made up my mind. I’m joining the Christian Church.”

Hoarsely guffawing, McComas shook, belly-wise, not Santa Claus belly but belly of hard, grinding animal. “Is there a Christian Church anymore? In this area?”

Lurine said, “They’re very gentle and kind, there.”

“They have to be,” McComas said. “They have to plead to get people to come in. We don’t need to plead; they come to us for protection. From Him.” He jerked his thumb upward. At the God of Wrath, not in his man-form, not as he had appeared on Earth as Carleton Lufteufel, but as the mekkis-spirit everywhere. Above, here, and ultimately below; in the grave, to which they all were dragged at last.

The final enemy which Paul had recognized—death—had had its victory after all; Paul had died for nothing.

And yet here sat Lurine Rae, sipping coffee, announcing calmly that she intended to join a discredited, withering, elderly sect. The husk of the former world, which had shown its chiltinous shell, its wickedness; for it had been Christians who had designed the ter-weps, the terror weapons.