“Then meet me somewhere, okay,” she stressed. “Ben, I swear I will tell you everything, I just…”
“Call me when you get into town,” Ben said, cutting her off. He’d had enough of her mind games and refusal to talk. He was still sore over the fact that she’d kept so much from him, and he had to wonder if he could have saved his sister if he’d just had all the information before he walked into that compound.
Without waiting for her response, Ben ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He walked inside, feeling stressed and agitated. His face was flushed and he let out a breath, trying to calm his racing heart. For all he knew, Stella could have been the one to tip Nike off in the first place, and Ben couldn’t trust her. She had clearly manipulated the situation and she had encouraged Ben to go after his sister, not letting on at all what she knew. Ben walked in there without a real plan and no idea what was in store for them. It was possible Stella knew about the bomb.
Alex was sitting near Andrew’s feet, her expression patient, the DVD in her hands. “I take it that didn’t go well?”
“That was Stella,” Ben said, letting out another long breath. He rubbed his face and shook his head from side to side roughly. “I can’t think about her right now. That is a situation I just don’t have the energy to process.”
“As I don’t have all the info, I can’t make a real judgment call, but I’m going to encourage you to be cautious of her,” Alex said, not sounding like herself at all. There was a sort of wisdom and age suddenly, in the light voice of the woman, and it startled Ben.
He said nothing, however, as Alex rose from the bed and slipped the DVD into the small, cheap device she’d hooked up to the TV. She grabbed the tiny plastic remote and hit a button. The screen went fuzzy, and then black.
“What is this?” Ben asked quietly.
Alex rose without a word and made sure the door to the room was securely shut. She closed the curtains and then lowered herself down to the floor, her back against the bed. “It’s security footage.”
The screen suddenly flared to life, grainy video showing an empty street, scanning along the road slowly, with a slight hitch as the camera moved back and forth. It was night in the video, that much was clear from the soft glow of a streetlamp far off. The tiny numbers on the bottom of the video indicated military time ticking by.
They watched for several minutes, and just as Ben thought the video was a waste, light appeared from a source off screen. The camera slowly moved in the direction of the light, and a car came into focus. It only took Ben a second to recognize the car he’d seen at the funeral. It was Mark’s rental car, and a very tall, burly man stepped out from the driver’s side.
A second man, short hair, much thinner, stepped out of the passenger side and they walked to the front of the car, clearly having a conversation. This went on for several moments and then, together, the pair of them went to the back seat and from what Ben could make out from the grainy video, pulled a body out of the car. They tossed the body on the sidewalk carelessly, the head bouncing off of the pavement, and as the burly man stepped aside, Ben could make out the curly, short hair of Mark.
But he was burned. Despite the poor video quality, Ben could make out the charred, blackened skin, cracked and peeling on one side of his face. Ben sucked in his breath at the damage and felt guilt flood through him like a violent wave. As the second body, which obviously had to be Judas, was laid down, Ben doubted that either man was even alive.
They were ravaged by the explosion, their clothes burnt and skin charred, hair nearly burned completely away. He hung his head, keeping the video in his peripheral vision as the two men on screen slowly dragged them into the building and out of sight.
“This is my fault,” Ben muttered as Alex switched the video off. He felt sick, his stomach twisting into a giant knot as he realized that if he’d just listened to Mark at the funeral, this might have been prevented.
He’d been so caught up in his anger with them, in the grief of his sister, and so startled by Heimdall telling him that his sister was alive, he couldn’t see past his own emotions. He had never really grown very fond of Mark, and blamed him for Abby’s death, but he didn’t deserve this.
Rationally he knew none of it was Mark or Judas’s fault. None of it. Nike, whatever she was, whoever she was, was insane, cruel and needed to be stopped. She had done this, and now Mark and Judas had suffered for it. For his misplaced anger, and he hated himself for it.
“They’re alive, you know,” Alex said, her voice soft and soothing.
Ben looked up, his eyes dry but aching. He shook his head and cleared the lump from his throat loudly. “How um… how can you be so sure? I mean, you saw them. They were destroyed by that explosion. How could they possibly have survived that?”
“Because they will survive any and everything,” Alex said with a shrug. She tossed the small remote on top of the bed and gave a little sigh. “They’ll feel agonizing pain and torture, every second of it, but they’ll survive it. Mark described it as a curse when I met him a few hundred years ago.”
“You met him before?” Ben asked, his eyes wide.
Alex gave a slow nod. “It was by accident. He was traveling between churches and I happened along him. I noticed he was… different. Not like the other humans, so I stopped to talk to him. We drank so much wine, laughed a lot, and I think he knew I was different, too. He never really worked it out, I don’t think, but right before I went on my way, he told me he was cursed. He said he was cursed to live, to experience everything, without the ability to slip into madness. I thought about him for decades, about his curse and what that must feel like. To be a human, to suffer the idea of mortality but never able to escape the mortal coil… I couldn’t imagine.”
Ben listened to the words without really hearing them. He felt the emotions, though, Alex’s pity for Mark, and Mark’s absolute desperation to just let go, and he hated himself even more. “We have to find him,” Ben said, his desire to bring Mark and Judas peace and rescue flaring to life with passion. “Where was this video taken?”
Alex fished a piece of paper with an address written on the top. “The police searched the building but couldn’t find anything.”
“They probably have some sort of hidden room or something,” Ben said, staring at the address. He wasn’t familiar with the area, and he suddenly wondered if maybe there was a way to find out if Stella was trustworthy. If they could know for sure, for absolutely sure, she would be the one to help track them. Stella was part of them, her god side could likely sense where Nike and the others were, and that was their best chance at getting Mark and Judas out of there.
“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not a good idea,” Alex said. “I don’t have a fool-proof way of knowing who is lying to me.”
“Do you know who she is?” Ben asked, slipping the address into her pocket. “You know, what god possesses her? Or is she just sort of an open body to them?”
“I believe she has one,” Alex said. “I have my suspicions, but it’s probably better that you ask her.”
Ben let out a breath and searched the hotel for the last lukewarm bottle of water that had half-rolled under the bed. He twisted the cap off and took down half the contents in one go. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he sighed and glanced down at Andrew’s prone form. “We can’t really make any moves without him. We need all the help we can get. I don’t suppose you have any other god brothers willing to help?”
“It took everything I had to get Bakers to talk,” Alex said, sounding somewhat defeated.
“How much time to you think we have before Mark and Judas crack?”
“Nike is smart, and she’s probably already figured out their weaknesses. It’s likely that she’s already got Mark scribbling away.”
“Is that really what she wants? For Mark to write down the true gospel, or whatever?” Ben asked with a wrinkled nose. It didn’t really make a lot of sense to him. What could Nike poss
ibly gain with having some cult following of Jesus? It certainly wouldn’t help her cause, the way Christians reacted to worshiping other gods.
“That’s exactly what she wants, she wants to start a religious revolution, and she can do it with Mark’s gospel and Judas’s ability to heal and raise the dead,” Alex said. “The question is why, and no one I’ve spoken to seems to know the answer.”
“Without motivation we might as well be completely defenseless against her. How long until your buddy wakes up? The faster we can move, the faster we can get this over with.”
“Well we have two options. We can either wait a few hours for him to wake up, or we can head off to some seedy area, score some heroin and let him shoot up.”
Ben started to laugh until he realized that Alex was being serious. “No! I’m not going to ‘score’ heroin,” he said, using air quotes, “to let your friend get his rocks off. There has to be another way. I thought your powers of healing and all that shit would speed up this process.”
“We’re bound to the weaknesses of the human body when we’re in them. We have enough power to manipulate the common cold, but to battle a years-long addiction isn’t something we can just switch off like a light. It’s drugs or wait it out.”
Ben hung his head. There was no way he was going to let the kid shoot up. Absolutely no way. They would have to wait. He would talk to Stella when she got into town, and if Andrew wasn’t better by then, he’d just have to go it alone. His hands were tied, and he just didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“We wait,” he finally said. Alex looked a little put out, but she conceded to Ben’s decision and they both sat, silence filling the room, and a heavy weight on their shoulders. This was it, and if they didn’t rescue Mark in time, the whole world would be lost.
Chapter Fourteen
A massive boom startled everyone in the room. It was followed by muffled shouts and what sounded like gun fire. Mark, who had been mid-sentence, dropped his pen and followed Nike’s gaze at the door. Her face momentarily slipped into a mask of worry before fading back to neutral. She fixed Mark with a firm stare and glanced over at Jude who was still lying unconscious, his breathing ragged and uneven.
With a heavy sigh, she crept towards the door, hand on her hip, her other poised above the case with the syringes that was sitting on the low table. She closed her eyes, appearing to listen, and then she gave a huge sigh. “Shit,” she mumbled. She whirled around to Mark, fixing him with a firm stare.
“I’m going to take care of this. I don’t think I need to remind you what will happen if you try anything stupid. No getting up, no bathroom breaks, and I really don’t advocate smoking breaks, really bad for your health, so I’m going to say no to that, too. There is no way to escape so I’d recommend you keep your ass in that chair, and pen on the paper.”
Mark gave a slow nod, his face giving away nothing. It was obvious to him that Nike was worried and hesitant to leave the room, but whatever was going on, there was a pressing need for her attention. The longer she stood there, the louder the noises became, and the more anxious she got.
“Don’t. God damn. Move.” She fixed him with a last threatening stare before she left the room, the door closing with a loud, metal clang.
Mark heard the sound of a lock clicking into place, but that didn’t deter him. He glanced around the room, now fully free to take in his surroundings. It was clearly a basement, there was electricity, but likely not a strong current as it was barely able to sustain the small desk lamp. From his swift inspection, he couldn’t see any traces of cameras, which meant that they weren’t watching him at the moment.
Still, he had no idea where he was, what was up the stairs, and how strong he really was since his body was in agony from the burning explosion. He stood, his chair scraping on the floor, and before he had the chance to think of a way to wake Jude, the other man sprang up from the bed.
He looked better, his eyes alert, his face passive, but his movements were stronger. “Let’s go,” he said in a ragged whisper.
“Are you able to walk?” Mark asked. He was concerned for his companion. Whatever that drug was had taken a serious toll on Jude’s nervous system, obvious by the tremble in his hands.
“I can walk,” he said.
“Are you in any pain?”
“We both know that right now our very existence is agony,” Jude said, his tone even but his words were sharp. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is we need to get the hell out of here before she gets back. I don’t have the strength to overpower her, and she clearly has a small army up there. With guns. Neither of us will be any good if we’re trying to heal from bullet wounds.”
Mark nodded and started to gather up his papers. Jude tried to stop him with an arm on his, but Mark wrenched his wrist away. “Don’t. You know as well as I do that we cannot leave these here for her. She may not realize it yet, but one word is all she really needs. One word, and it’s over.”
Jude’s arm fell back down to his side as he watched Mark roll up the papers and stuff them under his arm. It would be cumbersome to carry and fight, but Mark would not leave a single scrap behind. They walked to the door and Mark put his ear to it. He couldn’t hear anything now, and he knew that if they didn’t move quickly, she would be back.
Taking a deep breath, Mark gathered together what little strength he had left and yanked on the door, pulling the lock free of the wall, ripping the door away from the hinges. It gave a massive crack as the pair stumbled back, and Mark froze in terror, his entire body exhausted from the effort.
Jude helped him shove the door to the side, his hand falling to rest on Mark’s shoulder as they strained to listen, but there was a still, tense silence above them. Mark glanced down at Jude’s hand, and then up at his burning eyes, feeling a sort of elated glee that something had finally cracked and given Jude back his fire.
Mark wasn’t sure if it was the pain, the torture, or the threat, but he wasn’t going to question it now. Jude had broken free of his absolute apathy and Mark was going to take full advantage before the other man slipped back into his madness and left Mark to fight alone.
“Let’s go,” Mark hissed and started up the narrow, dark stairs. He strained his eyes and in the dim light he could make out a second door above. Their steps echoed, the walls lined with metal sheets, and he wondered where they were and how they got there. The landing at the top was barely big enough for the pair of them to stand together, and the door had no handle, telling Mark that it was a hidden door, and there was a latch somewhere.
He felt along the wall, his sensitive fingers tracing out every groove, and when he finally moved his hand up the door jamb, he found it. The smallest depression in the metal which gave way under his hand. The door popped open with a hiss, like air escaping a plastic bottle, and he gave it the smallest shove, trying to get enough space between it and the wall.
He pressed his ear to the opening as he gently pushed the door aside, and still he heard nothing. Fresh air rushed up against his face, gentle and damp, telling him they were somewhere near the water, likely in the south since the air was much warmer than the biting chill of the northern part of the country.
The light in the empty room in front of them was dim, but abundant from tall globes hanging from the bare ceiling. From what Mark could see, the building was under construction, or possibly renovation. There were no walls, just huge frames of wood waiting for the drywall to be put up around them. The room was huge, which meant there would be an echo, and it also meant that if there was anyone around, Mark would have heard them.
“I think we’re safe,” he said as he pushed forward. The secret door slid open and together they crept out, ears wide open, minds stretching out trying to grasp onto any supernatural life-force around them. Their feet were bare, their shoes long gone, and they crept along the bare concrete almost silently.
Mark felt naked in that huge room, no furniture or walls to duck behind, and he felt an incredible urge to race a
cross the floor, find some way to shield them from view should anyone come in. He glanced around as they slid through the room, eyes trying to find some escape route, but all he saw were walls and frame work.
“This way,” Jude hissed suddenly. He nodded to the west and that was when Mark saw the door. It was dark in the corner, but there was no mistaking it, and he realized that was likely the only exit. They rushed to the side, Mark resting his hand on the knob. It was unlocked, and from the temperature, he could tell it led outside.
This was it, they were free. Mark wrenched the door open, air rushing into his face. He saw they were on an empty street. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was blazing down. He squinted against the light, stepping onto the street and turned to grab Jude’s arm.
But Jude wasn’t there. Mark froze and heard the scuffling back in the room. Panic rushed through him as he took a step toward the building and from beyond he could see Nike with her arm around Jude’s neck, forcing Jude to his knees.
She had the syringe poised at his eye, the needle dripping with clear fluid, and he realized she was going to jam it into his brain. Mark dropped the papers on the ground, paying no mind to the pages spilling into the house and onto the street.
“Grab those, you moron!” Nike screeched to someone, and Mark was shoved aside as a big, burly man rushed outside to grab the fallen papers.
“I told you to stay put,” she said, her voice taking on the tone of a mother scolding a child. “I told you that you’d get into trouble if you didn’t finish your homework.”
Mark tried to jump forward to Jude, but he was held back by impossible strength. He’d used the very last of his reserves to remove the door, and Mark sank into the grip of the faceless god who held him. He could do nothing as he heard Jude screaming while Nike slowly pressed the needle into his eye, bypassing soft tissue, straight into his brain matter.
2 The Judas Kiss Page 18
