“Just one foot in front of the other will do it,” came a soft voice Ben didn’t recognize right away. He looked over and saw a man standing there, tall, thin, curly hair clipped neatly to his ears. He had a shadow of a beard across his wide chin, his skin tan, and the areas under the brown eyes even darker. The man was wearing a suit of ill fit, like something he had picked up last minute at a department store, and he looked uncomfortable in it.
It took Ben until he saw Mark getting out of a sleek black car to realize who this stranger was. He looked very different from the man who had been disheveled and dirty in the church. And different, still, from the man lying in the hospital bed hooked up to wires, machines and tubes. “What are you doing here?” Ben asked.
“I’m sorry for barging in without an invite, but I had to come. I just…” Mark said, his voice trailing off. He blinked rapidly and looked off to the side. “We can leave if you like,” he finally finished.
Ben shook his head and forced himself to put one foot, and then the other, onto the grass. “I just want to get this over with,” he said shortly.
“Can we talk later?” Mark asked.
Ben let out a small sigh. “Maybe.”
He walked swiftly, seeing Judas and Mark behind him at a slower pace, and he took his seat in the front. The priest looked relieved as Ben sat, and he began to shuffle his papers around, preparing to start the services.
A whiff of heavy alcohol and cigarette smoke overwhelmed Ben suddenly as someone sat beside him, and he turned to see the sallow, wrinkled face of his mother as she lowered herself into the chair. Her hair was a mess, greasy and unkempt, pulled back thoughtlessly into an old clip. She likely hadn’t showered in days, and her yellowed fingers were trembling as they sat atop her old, blue dress.
“She’s really gone. My baby,” his mother said loudly with a small sob. He stared her in horror as she looked around to see who was watching, and then sobbed a little more.
“Don’t,” Ben bit sharply, not caring who heard him. “I don’t want to hear you pretending like you gave a shit about your daughter. This is not the time to gain sympathy from others about your losses, do you understand me? Abby was a good person, a genuinely good, selfless person, no thanks to you and your pathetic attempts at parenting. I swear to God if you think you’re going to use her death for attention, so help me I will take you out right here, in front of everyone.”
Unsure if it was his words, or the absoluteness of his tone, but she fell quiet and moved a row behind her estranged son. Ben closed his eyes, his head bowed slightly, and he tried to ignore the murmurs and stares of the people around him as he listened to the priest’s ramblings on prayer, God, faith and goodness.
Half-way through the opening prayer, Ben felt his chair shift over as someone sat down next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the curly hair of Judas, and next to him, Mark, his head bowed, cheeks wet with tears. Ben let out a breath and wondered if he was going to cry. Wondered if he was going to lose it right there as they lowered the coffin into the ground?
He didn’t. There was an awkward pause while everyone stared at him, and it took Ben a moment to realize they expected him to get up there and speak. He knew that he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be possible. His legs refused to budge, and he could barely find the strength to shake his head.
When the priest realized Ben wasn’t going to move, he gave out the final blessing and then the horrible sound of whirring metal pierced the air as the machine turned on and the casket lowered into the ground. It startled Ben enough to give him strength and he stood up, approaching the giant pile of dirt lying beside the green tarp covering the ground. He took a handful of it and squeezed his fist hard, feeling the small rocks biting into his skin.
Everyone was watching now, but he no longer cared as he stared down into the hole at that empty coffin that was just a symbol of his sister’s life and death. He felt the dirt in his hands grow hot with the temperature of his palms and he held his hand over the hole. This was it. This was his goodbye. There was no more waiting, no more searching for signs of a woman who was absolutely and completely dead. He let out his breath, opened his hand, and winced at the harsh sound of the mud clumps hitting the casket as it lay there deep and dark, and completely alone.
His throat tightened as he tried to whisper goodbye. His lips moved but nothing came out. He felt someone take his arm and he figured it was either Mark or Judas, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up into the person’s face. He was dragged along the grass, away from the crowd, the heavy soles of his shoes sinking into the freshly watered lawn. The grip on his arm was tight, too tight, but he just didn’t care. If it was Mark, he had nothing left to say to him. Ben was done.
It wasn’t until they were a hundred yards away that the person spoke, and it wasn’t anyone he knew. Startled, Ben’s eyes shot up at the large, red face of the priest, but there was something off about him. Something wasn’t right.
“I didn’t want to do this here.” The voice was tense and almost metallic, nothing like the preaching voice he’d used during the eulogy.
Ben stiffened. He’d heard a tone like that before. It was the subtle shift Greg’s voice acquired as he shifted into the other thing that resided inside of him. It was the shift he’d heard in Abby’s voice as she mocked him at the compound just before she died. “What are you talking about?” he forced himself to say, despite his throat trying to prevent him from speaking at all.
He was older, just a bare ring of hair above the nape of his neck. His skin was fairly pale, with rosy centers on the cheeks, giving him a jolly sort of look, but his eyes were dark, and as he looked around, his eyebrows rose, wrinkling his entire forehead. Ben had seen him in passing when he would visit Abby at Sacred Heart. He’d been present as Ben was collecting Abby’s things from her office after she’d gone, but he hadn’t said anything to Ben at the time. They knew each other, but not well enough to constitute being dragged into a private conversation.
“I’m here bearing a message,” he said.
“Who are you?” Ben demanded, pulling away from his arm.
The priest gave a tense smile and took a step back from Ben. “You know this priest is dying? I can feel his heart struggling right now. When I leave him, I think he might die, so you might want to dial emergency services.”
“This isn’t goddamn funny,” Ben hissed.
“Oh believe me, Ben, I’m not trying to be funny. This is serious, and you need to understand something really important.”
“You’re one of them?” Ben asked. “One of the old gods?”
His smile brightened. “You could say that, but I’ve been called a lot of things. I’m not attached like your little friend Asclepius. My identity doesn’t define me now that my legends have burned out. But I’m not here to talk about me, not really.”
Ben felt a wave of exhaustion hit him so hard he thought he was going to fall over. That reaction surprised him as he steadied himself and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to will this person away. “What do you want?”
“You’re in danger,” the priest said. “Frankly I wouldn’t be here warning you. You humans mean very little to me as a whole, but the plan being hatched could ruin it for all of us, and you need to keep damn aware of your surroundings.”
Ben stared at the priest’s face hard, his eyes narrow and sharp. He saw it then, the flash of light in the eyes, but he didn’t look away. “If you don’t care about humans, why do you care what happens to us?”
“Because this affects us all. Every being in existence, conscious or not. I know you don’t like those two clowns,” he said, and nodded towards Mark and Judas who were still standing over Abby’s open grave. “I don’t blame you, none of us do, really, but you have to protect them. What’s coming for them is young and dumb, but determined. Determination coupled with stupidity can cause some very serious damage, and I’m not sure it’s anything we can repair.” The priest faltered a little, stumbling forward. Ben g
rabbed his arm and he continued, more breathless than before. “I don’t know how you can stand these bodies, I really don’t.”
“Look, I’m done with all of this, okay,” Ben snapped as he tried to steady the old man. “My sister is dead, and nothing I did made a goddamn difference. So let those two idiots disappear. I don’t care anymore.”
“You will care,” the priest gasped. He shook his head, sweat pouring freely down his face now. “Shit, this body is actually dying on me.” He let out a cough and tightened his grip on Ben. “Your sister isn’t dead, and if you don’t stop her, she’s going to drag the entire world into something that makes that Christian version of hell look like a goddamn Caribbean vacation. I don’t…” but the priest trailed off as he slumped to the ground.
“Shit!” Ben cried, unable to bear the dead weight of the fallen man. He scrambled for his cell phone as a few of the people still milling around ran over to help. Ben punched the emergency number into the phone and barked out specific instructions. “White male, about sixty to sixty-five years of age, possible heart attack.” Ben reached down, feeling along the neck for a pulse and didn’t find one. “I’m going to begin CPR,” he said sharply and then handed off his phone to the nearest person.
It had been some time since Ben had used his CPR skills, but managed to bring back shallow breathing and a pulse. The priest’s lips were blue tinged, though, telling Ben that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen, but before long the ambulance wailed up and two EMT’s hurried out to take over.
Head spinning, Ben stepped back away from the crowd and watched absently as they strapped the priest onto a gurney, rushing him into the truck. One of the EMT’s started taking notes from a witness, and Ben backed away, too shocked from the priest’s revelation to answer any questions. There was no way he could have been telling the truth, though. No one had been able to find any evidence that Abby had escaped the blast. She’d been in it. The thing inside the priest had to have been lying. That was the only explanation. Swallowing thickly and trying to keep a low profile, Ben started across the lawn to his car, hoping to escape unnoticed.
“What happened?” came Mark’s voice from behind him.
He’d just gotten the door unlocked, and with a heavy sigh, Ben turned and leaned against it. “I don’t know. He was talking to me and then he just sort of keeled over.” Ben briefly heard the priest’s words in his head, declaring his sister alive, and felt a cold chill race up his body.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me,” Mark insisted. He glanced over to the right where Judas was still standing, apart from them, watching as the ambulance started to make its way back down the hill.
“What, are you psychic now? “ Ben snapped, his emotions getting the better of him.
Mark let out a small sigh, his face pained. “I should have come to see you before today, but I thought you needed space.”
“And you were right,” Ben confirmed. “In fact, I still need space, so if you’ll excuse me-”
“He was one of them,” Mark said shortly. “I knew it as soon as he stepped off the pulpit. Look, I just need to know what he told you, okay? There’s something…” Mark trailed off, hesitating. He scratched the back of his head and looked over at Judas once more. “He’s not all the way better yet, you know, and I think there’s someone—something— following us.”
Ben felt his face grow cold, and deliberately chose not to address Mark’s last comment. “Not going with the whole blind man act, anymore?”
“Seems pretty pointless since I’m not working at the school. A couple people asked me about it, I told them I had surgery,” he said with a shrug.
Ben gave a slow nod and shoved his hands into his jacket pocket. “Yeah I think you mentioned something like that before on your message.” It had stopped sprinkling, but the wind was picking up and he could see the fog rolling in just beyond the hill. “I have to go.”
“Please tell me what he told you,” Mark all-but begged. “Please.”
Ben hesitated, remembering the priest’s warning, and request that Ben protect them. “He said that you and Judas were in danger.” The word ‘Judas’ came out stilted, but Ben forced himself to say it.
“In danger of what?” Mark asked, his voice dropping low. “Please.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “He sort of keeled over before telling me anything else.” Ben deliberately chose not to mention what the priest said about Abby. His stomach started to clench as he felt a wave of grief surface, and he turned his face away from Mark. “I need to go, okay? I just… I can’t do this right now.”
Mark took a step back and gave a short nod. “Okay, I understand and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t important. After he was taken,” he said, nodding towards Judas, “I had to realize that what we’re dealing with is stronger than we are. I’m dealing with something that I don’t understand, and after being around for two thousand years, that’s rare for me. We need all the help we can get.”
Ben pursed his lips and sat down into the driver’s seat of his car. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, and then he looked up at Mark. “Call Greg, okay. Just… just call him and see if he’s heard anything, and when I get a few things sorted, when I have time, I’ll call you.”
Mark let out a short breath of relief and gave a quick nod. “Okay. Look Ben, I guess I never said how sorry I was that-”
Ben stopped Mark immediately, shaking his head. “Don’t. Not right now.” With that, Ben slammed the car door shut and jammed the key into the ignition. He glanced out the window briefly as Judas walked up, but he didn’t pause, pressing the gas and leaving the cemetery as quickly as he could.
People were panicked and confused by the priest’s sudden collapse, and while Ben knew he should have stayed to sort the affairs, he couldn’t. A few officers were arriving on scene, and Ben passed them with a nod as he pulled out of the cemetery gates and onto the street. His phone buzzed in his pocket as he sped toward his apartment, but he ignored it.
He wanted to be home, comforting himself with another bottle of scotch and a movie with violent shooting scenes. He wanted to be surrounded by anything and everything that didn’t remind him of his sister, and how today he had buried the idea of her. Today he had given up hope that she was still out there. And today, for the first time in his months of desperate searching, someone had confirmed his secret hope that she was still alive.
Chapter Two
Mark flinched as the tires of Ben’s car squealed against the pavement. Jude, as he preferred to be called now, was at his side, close enough that their elbows were touching. Mark felt as uncomfortable standing there in his suit as Jude looked in his, and he let out a heavy sigh.
Ben hadn’t given him any answers, and for the first time since Mark discovered he could not die, he was truly frightened of the unknown future. He reached into his pocket, palming his keys as he led the way to his rental car. Jude followed slowly, his steps deliberate, as though he wasn’t sure of his balance.
Mark tried to be patient with his companion, but it had been four months since Jude had returned, and Mark had been expecting a faster recovery. He started the engine before Jude slid into the passenger seat, and he ignored the irritated look Jude shot him as he slammed the door.
“What did he tell you?” Jude asked.
Mark sighed, gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Nothing. He didn’t tell me a goddamn thing.”
“He said he’d call,” Jude pointed out with no inflection in his voice.
Mark gave a slow nod as he navigated around the people slowly making their way to their cars. “He said that, yeah. Doesn’t mean he will.”
“Why don’t you trust him?”
“Because after everything he saw, everything he went through, he still doesn’t believe in what we are,” Mark said. He pulled out onto the narrow main road and began making his way toward their small apartment.
Almost directly after the events a
t the compound, Mark had quit his job to head off to Europe for an “experimental surgery” to correct his vision. With Jude at hand, Mark had not intended on returning to the States ever again. He was certain that whatever gods were left that wanted him and Jude would be willing to try and use Ben to get to them. In order to protect the remaining Stanford sibling, Mark felt the further away from Ben they could get, the better.
Mark had settled them in a small cottage just outside of Paris, in an old neighborhood being slowly modernized with two story homes, backyard pools, and a McDonalds just down the street. The cottage was barely big enough for the two of them to function without getting in each other’s way, but it was quiet and allowed for Jude to start recovering his sanity as Mark tried to figure out what their next move was going to be.
Unfortunately, the peace and quiet wasn’t to last. He’d gone out to the supermarket one afternoon, leaving Jude in their small garden, staring at the trees. Jude would do that from time to time; sit in the garden without making a sound for hours upon hours, staring off at nothing. Nothing could get his attention when he was in that state. Mark had seen it before, every time throughout their long lives that Jude went off on his own and returned fractured and hurt. It was self-healing, Mark believed, and he usually left his companion to it.
That afternoon, however, when Mark returned, there was a man in the garden on the phone. He was wearing a black suit, his hair neatly trimmed, and his face plain looking, almost generic. He was pacing in front of Jude speaking rapidly into the little device in rushed Italian.
Mark entered the gate, the black iron bars giving a violent squeak, and the man turned. Mark saw the telltale flash of a god in the stranger’s eyes, and Mark reacted with instinct. Moving quicker than any human could, Mark crossed the path and took hold of the man’s head.
Before the god inside could react, Mark broke his neck with a sickening crack, letting the body fall to the ground with a thud. The man’s dead hand flopped onto Jude’s crossed knee, drawing the meditating man out of his thoughts with a gasp. Jude looked up at Mark with still, wide, brown eyes.
2 The Judas Kiss Page 2
