One thing was certain: He wasn’t Caesar’s puppet anymore. Augustus would have to deal with him now. Respect him. Perhaps even fear him. And while the Judean Army was no match for Caesar’s, the Romans wouldn’t dare invade. Not as long as Herod had the magus by his side. And not as long as he played his Jewish subjects right.
They hate Augustus as much as I do. I’ll whip them into a frenzy of independence. I’ll call it “a revolt against Rome,” and they’ll eat it up.
These visions twirled around him, dancing and spinning beautifully. It was funny how so many years of misery and doubt could be completely washed away in the blink of an eye. Herod had resigned himself to wretchedness. Secretly, he’d hoped, of course. But hope was the wine of the weak, and he’d been ashamed to drink even the occasional sip. Yet here was his health—returned more spectacularly than he could have dreamed. He looked down at his hands. Felt his cheeks. The only thing Herod craved more than the sight of his own reflected face was the sight of this “Balthazar” dying in the most terrible way imaginable: his fingernails torn away one by one, his genitals cut off and burned in front of him, every one of his appendages shattered at the end of a club, and his skin cut into strips and peeled away from the muscle beneath it.
A new sound greeted Herod’s ears as the smell of the salt air grew stronger. It wasn’t the crashing of ocean waves—not yet. But it was wet. It’s beginning to rain outside. He peeled back the curtains of his traveling chair for confirmation and saw the first fat droplets falling from the gray sky to collide with the desert’s dusty floor. It was a rare but welcome sight in the south of Judea.
The world was alive again. Rain was a blessing. And another sign that God was powerless to stop him.
II
The words “summer palace” conjured quaint visions of a little villa by the shore. But all told, Herod’s seaside compound was nearly twice the size of his twin palace in Jerusalem, though this one was contained under one roof, not two. It was one of Herod’s newer projects, built with all the amenities the modern world could offer: chamber pots, glass windows, heated baths. It also contained a large silver mirror in the king’s bedchamber. Of all the amenities, this was the one Herod was most looking forward to using.
The palace rose from the rocky shores of the Mediterranean, a towering mass of beige bricks, with some walls reaching a height of 200 feet. Architecturally, it was a simple affair—an enormous central cube made of limestone, surrounded by a handful of smaller brick outbuildings. “A big, boring block on the beach” as Herod called it. There were no walls around its perimeter. No guard towers. The sea provided a natural barrier on one side and the flat, endless desert on the other three. There were virtually no locals to keep out. Just the Egyptians to the south, the sea to the west, and a few wandering Bedouins to the north and east. The sentries posted atop the palace’s roof would see any man, let alone an army or navy, coming miles off.
A marble terrace ran along the base of the cube’s seaside wall, where, in his healthier days, Herod had taken to sunning himself with select members of his harem. A wide marble staircase descended gracefully from this terrace all the way to the sea, where it met with a long wooden dock. Its planks were the first things to greet Herod and his guests when they arrived by boat from the north. Today, however, they were crowded with Roman warships, bobbing on the sizable waves that had been kicked up by the growing storm.
The Roman Navy had sailed south down Judea’s coast to join up with its army. The fleet was led by a legendary admiral named Lucius Arruntius, who’d been instrumental in helping his friend Augustus win sole dominion over the empire. The emperor had dispatched his most trusted admiral to keep watch over his prized magus and his promising, but untested, young officer, Pontius Pilate.
As Balthazar was pulled toward the distant palace, his wrists bound with rope, he could make out the tops of several ships bobbing up and down, their naked masts swaying like reeds in the breeze. The rain was coming harder now—each droplet providing welcome relief from the scrapes and barbs that marked his flesh. On reaching the palace grounds, he was dragged unceremoniously away from the main procession and through a small side entrance. And what had been a gray, rainy sky was suddenly an inky black passage whose darkness was permeated only by the flickering light of torches on the wall. He was in a dungeon. Never to see the sky again.
He was brought to the center of a large, dark cell, rainwater seeping through tiny cracks in the ceiling and falling to the stone floor in drops that echoed against the smooth walls of the dungeon. A rope was tied around each of his wrists and both ropes tied to a large wooden beam that ran from wall to wall above his head. When these ropes were pulled taut, Balthazar was forced to hang by his wrists, his toes dangling less than an inch above the floor. His ankles were bound together and a cloth tied around his waist—the sole concession to his modesty.
Or more likely, theirs.
In contrast to the cool droplets falling from the sky outside, the dungeon was hot. Unbearably hot. A fire raged in a brick oven that was built into one of the cell’s walls. Various metal instruments had already been lined up in its flames, each on its way to glowing red-hot. Balthazar supposed they were metal pokers, brands and the like, though he couldn’t tell, as only the wooden handles were visible from where he hung.
Whatever they are, I’m not going to like them at all. Not one bit.
Nor would he like any of the sharp instruments that had been neatly laid out on a small table against the wall, not far from the glow of the oven. He couldn’t see exactly what these were, either, but the setting reminded him of a physician’s table—with scalpels and clamps and scissors all lying neatly in a row, meticulously sharpened and ready for action. A bowl of water and a cloth had been placed beside them.
“What is it the fishermen say?” asked a familiar, gravelly voice.
The cell door swung open, and the guards made way as Herod entered.
“‘The harder the fight, the sweeter the catch’?”
Herod was followed closely by a strange little man in black robes. Balthazar hated the little man at once, mostly because he suspected that he was about to use those sharp instruments to do terrible things to him. But also—and there was no way to be sure of this—because he suspected that the little man had played a role in making those corpses rise from their tombs and attack him.
The magus dipped his hands in the bowl and washed them before taking stock of the various instruments on the table before him. He made sure Balthazar had a clear view of it all, fully aware that anticipation was the most painful part of any torture. He examined the small knives and other instruments, so sharp that you could almost hear them sing. A chair was brought in for Herod, who took his seat a few feet away from the condemned. A small table was hurriedly placed beside this chair, and an assortment of orange slices and dates arranged on it. He was close enough to see every drop of blood but far enough away to avoid getting any on him. The old king reminded Balthazar of a spectator at a chariot race.
“Whatever you do to me,” said Balthazar, “it won’t get you any closer to them.”
“And what would I hope to get from you?” asked Herod. “The knowledge that your friends are headed to Egypt? Of course they are. They’re running for their lives as we speak, because they believe they’ll be safe once they cross the border. But they’re mistaken, you see. Egypt may be the end of my domain, but our Roman friends have dominion over the world.”
Balthazar could only glare back at him, fantasizing about getting his hands around that decaying little windpipe.
“I’m not interested in what you know,” said Herod. “I’m interested in watching you scream.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
“We’ll see,” said Herod with a smile. He could see the beads of sweat running down Balthazar’s face. The trembling in his fingers. Maybe it was exhaustion, but Herod thought it more likely that the mighty Antioch Ghost was quietly terrified.
“You look frightened already,” said Herod.
“And you look like a diseased dog, with Rome’s leash around its neck.”
Over by the door, Pilate struggled to suppress a laugh. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Herod glared back at Balthazar for a moment, then laughed. If he’d heard such a thing yesterday, he might’ve let it anger him. Even wound him. But that was before everything had changed. Before his body and his future had been pulled out of the ashes. Today, he saw Balthazar’s words for what they were: the desperate swings of a dying man.
The magus chose his instrument—a scalpel—and came forward. Balthazar prepared himself for what was coming. There was a place inside. A place to which he could retreat. A place where Abdi was waiting for him. Where his mother and sisters were waiting to welcome him. And Sela. She was there, all golden and forever. Wildly welcoming and naked beneath the surface of the Orontes.
Pilate remained close to the door. He wasn’t much for torture and wanted to be near the exit in case he began to feel sick. In his experience, the practice only succeeded in extracting lies. It was for the pleasure of the torturer more than pain of the tortured.
“Take your time,” said Herod as the magus stepped close to Balthazar, his blade glistening in the torchlight.
There was no need to be hasty. The public already thought the Antioch Ghost was dead. With no risk of provoking sympathy for their prisoner, they were free to be as cruel and as meticulous as they pleased.
The magus began his work, taking the knife to Balthazar’s side. He’d decided to start by stripping away the victim’s flesh, a little at a time. Later, they would move on to other, less surgical methods of inflicting pain. He liked to begin with the flanks—the strips of flesh that ran from the bottom of the armpits to the waist. They were rich with nerves. Excruciating when sliced open and peeled away. But removing them wasn’t fatal. Others preferred to start with the face and work their way down. And while removing the face was painful and shocking, it was too often deadly.
Prolonging death was akin to prolonging an orgasm. The closer you could bring the victim to the finish line without crossing it, the better it was. The trick was to take it slow. To give the victim time to recover from the shock, to keep him conscious and keep enough blood in his body to keep it alive for days on end. That was the trick. That was good torture.
Balthazar closed his eyes and pictured the boats slowly floating by. He sat with Abdi on his lap beneath their favorite tree. The one with the scar down its side. Just like your brother’s about to ha—
Stop.
That wasn’t helping. Think of something else, Balthazar. Think of something else, quick. Get your mind out of this room. Get it away from the pain. He flipped through a series of images, of words, of memories, of anything, looking for the one that was strong enough to wrap his arms around. Strong enough to keep him safely anchored when the pain came calling, trying to pull him back into the now. Trying to make him scream.
Balthazar looked up, past the rope that bound his wrists, past the wooden beam that held his body aloft. He looked up past the droplets of rainwater growing fat on the ceiling above and past the ceiling itself. Balthazar looked past the top of the palace and the top of the sky and the heavens alike, and he saw the thing he could cling to. The thing that was strong enough to keep him in its arms.
The Man With Wings.
He looked down again as the magus held the blade close to his skin, teasing him with the anticipation of pain. Staring at him with those black eyes. Balthazar stared right back. He was determined to remain perfectly silent. Determined not to squirm, no matter what happened. The magus pressed the scalpel to the skin just beneath Balthazar’s left armpit. With barely any pressure at all, the razor-sharp blade sank in, and then he began to drag it in a slow, straight line toward Balthazar’s hip. The incision was so fine that at first it didn’t bleed. Like a paper cut, it just hung there, breathing a moment, before the blood formed in beautiful dark beads that trickled down his body. And as they began to fall, Balthazar held firm, his arms wrapped tightly around the Man With Wings.
He remained silent and still even as the magus’s blade returned to the top of its path and made a second incision parallel to the first, then connected the two sides with small cuts across the top and bottom. Balthazar didn’t utter so much as a grunt, though his teeth were grinding themselves into powder inside his sealed mouth. He didn’t squirm. And as he opened his eyes, Balthazar was rewarded for his steadfastness with Herod’s scowl. Clearly, the king was disappointed with his prisoner’s performance so far. The Man With Wings—Abdi—had Balthazar firmly in his grasp.
And then the magus pinched the top of the long rectangle of flesh and began to peel it downward, away from Balthazar’s body. And Balthazar was peeled from Abdi’s arms with it.
He screamed.
He screamed as the flank was torn away, starting under his armpit and down toward his hip. He screamed as nerves and capillaries were severed, as skin and fat were uprooted, leaving only bare and bloody muscle beneath. It was quite enough for Pilate, who quietly excused himself from the chamber and into the hall. He couldn’t help but feel something for the poor wretch.
III
Ripped away, she thought.
Sela hid on a cliff just north of the palace, the waves of the Mediterranean crashing only feet from where she crouched behind the jagged rocks. Behind her, Joseph and Mary huddled close together, combining their robes to make an impromptu tent over the baby, though it wasn’t enough to keep all of the rainwater off of him. Despite the intermittent droplets falling on his head, the baby slept, soothed by the sound of rain and waves.
They’d watched from hiding as Balthazar had been overwhelmed and beaten unconscious. Against their better judgment, they’d followed from a distance as the army journeyed to Herod’s summer palace—dragging Balthazar with it. They’d crouched in the driving rain, watching as he was led inside. And here they stayed, huddled in a rainstorm, a few hundred yards from where half the Roman Navy was parked.
Ripped away…
“What can we do?” asked Mary. “Two women and a carpenter are no match for the Roman Army.”
Sela knew she was right. There was nothing they could do for him, except get themselves killed and ensure that Balthazar’s imminent death would be in vain. She’d promised him she would get them to Egypt, and that’s exactly what she would do. But she owed him a moment first. A moment longer, here in the storm. Lamenting what could have been between them. Mourning what was.
Funny to get so close…only to have him ripped away again.
Sela paid her last respects to the wretched love of her wretched life, lost in her thoughts and the steady noise of rain and sea. Noise that masked the footfalls of the three men sneaking up on them from behind.
IV
Herod strode into his bedchamber, which was far smaller than the cavernous one in his “pleasure palace” in Jerusalem but still a respectable thirty feet square. Soft, cloud-filtered light streamed in through a pair of glass windows on the seaward wall, casting a sleepy glow on the carpets that encircled his oversized bed and its silk pillows and making his long, freestanding silver mirror beckon.
After cutting two strips of flesh off of the Antioch Ghost, the magus had suggested they take a short break from the torture. It was important to give the victim time to recuperate after the first big shock to the system. It was equally, if not more important to give him a false sense of hope. Hope that the worst might be behind him, when in fact, the worst hadn’t even begun. Herod had been happy to oblige, especially since the break had given him a chance to visit his bedchamber and its silver wonder.
Herod wasn’t taking any chances with his prisoner. The Antioch Ghost had proven too smart and slippery for his Judean guards. Even though he was tied up and weak, he couldn’t be trusted. Before adjourning, Herod had ordered two Roman soldiers to remain in the cell with him at all times. No, he wasn’t risking anything. Not when the Hebrew God was
meddling with them. Not when everything was coming together so beautifully.
Herod stood in front of the mirror and removed his robes. He wanted to look at every part of himself, wanted to admire the speed with which he was healing. His lesions were all but gone; the sickly flesh that had been stretched over his skeletal rib cage was now hearty and healthy. Even his teeth, those blackened, crooked little vultures, had grown whiter. A miracle.
It was a little strange that none of his courtesans had complimented his appearance yet. They’re probably afraid to be too hasty. Or perhaps they’re afraid to make any mention of my appearance at all. He smiled at the thought. I can’t blame them. It’s been a sensitive subject for years. But the women…I can tell that the women are already eyeing me differently. I can tell that they’re quietly overjoyed…as am I.
The magus was quietly overjoyed too. He reclined on a couch in Herod’s throne room—our throne room—enjoying a cup of wine. A harmless little luxury. One of several he was considering taking up in his new role as ruler of Judea.
Pride was a dangerous thing. The Jews had a saying, didn’t they? About pride being prelude to destruction? So be it. The magus was allowing himself a little pride today, for he’d finally succeeded in doing the impossible. With a little patience and a lot of distant persuasion, he’d manipulated two of the world’s most powerful men into giving him exactly what he wanted: a chance to rebuild. A chance to pull a lost religion out of the ashes.
His fellow magi—my brothers, requiéscant in pace—had spent centuries locked away, studying the dark power of a bygone age. Back when miracles had been commonplace. A time of burning bushes, of plagues and floods. For centuries, they’d kept the world out, mastering this darkness. Sharing their secrets with no one. But the world had changed. Empires had grown out of the desert. Man had conjured his own magic: controlling the flow of rivers with dams, curing sickness with medicine, building towers that touched the heavens. The miracles had ceased, and try as the magi might to remain separate and pure, the world had forced its way in.
Unholy Night Page 24
