2 The Judas Kiss

by Angella Graff

  “Touch him,” Mark said, nodding at Judas. “Touch him, hold your hand on his skin.”

  Ben was shaking, and for some reason found himself obeying Mark without question. He was desperate, feeling insane, and he was willing to try anything. Everything. Something. He had to get Abby back.

  In the back of his mind, as he reached out for Jude’s arm, he remembered how that poor hospital boy had done that. He’d touched Judas and he’d been able to heal that woman who worked in the kitchens. He’d taken the powers into himself and it had driven him half-insane.

  The rational part of his brain scoffed at the idea, but that part was so small, suffocated by the grief of having to take his sister down, that he reached out and pressed his open palm to Judas’s feverish, dry skin.

  Nothing happened. He sat there, touching the fallen man, and nothing happened. Ben gave a little cry and his head dropped down, tears pouring from his face, though he hadn’t realized he was crying. He shifted onto his knees, ready to stand, but as he tried to take his hand away, something happened.

  It was stuck there, like it had been before when Judas’s impossible powers had healed his brain, and a white light enveloped him. His fingers tingled, and a buzzing sounded through his ears. He felt lifted up suddenly, as though he was floating above the floor, and his breath was knocked out of him.

  Gasping, Ben was thrust back down, suddenly and completely conscious. He hadn’t moved, but any pain in his throat was gone, and he felt something rushing through his body, crackling at the end of his fingertips.

  “Touch her,” Mark whispered, holding his jaw tenderly in his hands. “Just touch her.”

  Ben held his hands out in front of him, staring at his fingers, half-expecting to see blue, electric sparks coming off the ends, but they looked like hands. Regular, tired, detective’s hands. With a thick swallow, Ben looked down at his sister who was so pale she was almost grey, and he reached out. He laid one hand across her arm, the second across her neck, desperate for a pulse, and for a moment, just like when he’d touched Judas, nothing happened.

  It was sudden, the power shift, yanking him forward, an almost vacuum sensation, ripping the power from his body. His eyes squeezed shut, his breath caught in his throat, and his head began to spin. He could feel it draining down his arms and into Abby, his energy suddenly connecting with hers and he could feel it, racing through her body, swirling through her veins and animating her muscles, starting her heart, shoving out the bullet lodged in her lung, and closing the wound.

  Ben could see it in his mind, a map of her insides as the powers healed her, brought back her breath, her pulse, her life’s energy. Her life, wherever it had gone, rushed back into her frame and she gasped, giving a harsh cough as her breathing returned.

  Mark let out a laugh, startling Ben out of his reverie, and he nodded at Alex, who was breathing shallow and harsh. “Thor’s gone. You can heal her. Quickly though.”

  Ben shifted to the side and laid his hands on Olivia’s body and it happened again, tugging at him, pouring from his body into hers, closing the wounds, healing bones, repairing the soft tissue torn apart by the hands of an angry god.

  Olivia’s eyes fluttered open and then closed again, but she was breathing gently now, and before his eyes Ben could see the bruises on her neck start to recede. Her arm, no longer contorted, was returning to its original size and color, and when Ben shifted it, she didn’t protest.

  In absolute shock, Ben stared at the two women on the floor, unsure of how he’d actually done it, and not sure if he would be able to sustain his sanity after all of this. His hands were trembling violently now as he reached over and picked up his gun once more.

  “Can you move okay?” he asked Mark after a long pause. He forced himself to go back into detective mode, otherwise he was likely to slip into complete madness. “Do you need me to uh… heal you… or whatever?”

  Mark smiled gently and shook his head. “His abilities don’t work on me.”

  Ben nodded, remembering Mark had said that to him once, when Ben had first been told what Judas could do. He tucked his gun into his holster and stood up. He was still bloody, and he felt dizzy, but for the most part, he was fine. He assumed that when he’d taken the powers into himself, they had healed him as well, because his throat didn’t hurt and there was no sign that he was nearly strangled to death by a giant Greek god.

  Looking down at the man who had been possessed earlier, Ben realized that the chest had stopped rising and falling. The man was dead, and Ben took a startled step back from the body.

  “The Greeks take comatose patients. Often ones on life support. It was likely there was no soul left in that man,” Mark said, his voice still tense from the pain. “We need to get them out of here.”

  Ben stared down at his sister and frowned. “Shouldn’t she be waking up by now? Does it normally take this long?”

  Mark’s brow furrowed as he examined Abby’s body. The wounds had closed and she was breathing, but there was something off. “I don’t know. Olivia’s still unconscious but she’s healed. Perhaps Abby’s the same.”

  But something felt off to Ben, too, and he fixed his gaze on Mark, his eyes pleading for an answer. “Do you think Nike was right? Do you think Abby’s soul is gone? Is she just some empty body for them to puppet around now?”

  “I don’t know,” Mark answered. “I wish there was some way to tell, but aside from waiting for her to wake up, there isn’t.”

  As Mark’s sentence ended, they froze. Footsteps pounded down the stairs and Ben quickly raised his gun, hesitant to take another life, but willing to get them out of there at any cost.

  He was startled when Stella burst into the room, her hair a tangled mess, her gun drawn. “They’re on their way back. The others,” she gasped, out of breath from the run. We need to go now.” She allowed her gaze to venture around the room, taking in the blood splattered across the floor and the dead man just a few feet away and she looked at Ben in surprise. “What happened?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Ben said in a hurry, letting the gravity of the situation motivate him to move. “We need to get them up the stairs.”

  “We can’t carry them all,” Stella said. She grunted as she lifted Alex into her arms and backed up toward the door. “We’re not going to have time to come back for anyone.”

  Ben felt his face heat up with panic as he watched Mark scramble to shove all of his papers into a fallen briefcase. “Can you manage Judas on your own?” he asked, desperate to get his sister up the stairs.

  “I’m injured, I can’t lift him alone,” Mark said. His eyes were wide with fear as they both felt the presence of the Greeks getting nearer. “You have to help me with him.”

  “I can’t leave Abby!” Ben cried, walking to her side and kneeling down. “I can’t just…”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Mark hissed at him. “We cannot leave Judas behind, and you know as well as I do that they won’t kill your sister. They want her. They need her. We know she’s alive, we know they have her. When we have a better plan, we’ll come back for her.”

  Logic told Ben that Mark was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. “Mark,” he begged.

  “You’ve saved her life, and right now we don’t even know if she’s really in there. If it’s not, if she wakes and it’s Nike, we’re going to be in even more danger than before. There would have been no point to this rescue at all if you ask me to leave Jude behind, Ben.”

  Something snapped in Ben, and he wasn’t sure what it was, but with a strength he didn’t know he had, he grabbed Judas from the floor and hoisted him onto his shoulder. Mark walked up the stairs ahead of him and Ben forced himself not to look back at his sister’s fallen body as they darted into the main house and out the door.

  Andrew was waiting in the car, behind the wheel, looking ill and weak, but he was swift to drive off once everyone was piled in, and the doors had slammed shut. Ben tried to ignore the fact that he’d just left
his sister on the floor in that house, unconscious, but alive, unknowing if Abby was still in there, and he realized that yet again, he’d failed to rescue her from the gods. Yet again he left her to them, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He didn’t cry again, though he wanted to. Mark was right. Ben had saved her, he’d brought her back to life, and now he knew where she was. Now he knew he could find out if his sister could actually be saved, or if it was time to kill the body and stop Nike for good.

  Nike might leave the city this time, but Ben could feel her now, where she was, when she was close. Maybe that meant they could feel him, too, but that didn’t matter. If he knew she was coming, it meant he could be better prepared. Ben would fight her, he would take her down no matter what the consequences, and soon enough, it would be over.

  The lights from the neighborhood grew smaller in the rearview mirror as Andrew hurtled down the freeway, leaving behind the bloody scene and the threat of the Greeks. There was no telling where Nike’s consciousness had gone when Abby’s body had fallen. Maybe she was still in the room, waiting to take possession of the body once the body had healed enough to handle her. It was possible she was thrown as far as Thor had been thrown when Olivia’s near death had expelled him. Ben couldn’t know.

  What he did know, however, was that Nike wasn’t likely to give up easily. With Abby’s body still breathing, Nike would take possession of it again, as soon as she could. But that was okay. This time, Ben would be ready for her. This time, with his willing allies, and more time to form a cohesive plan. Ben was done denying the truth. He was done being blindsided by the things he refused to believe in, and he was done watching the people he cared about hurt and injured. He was going to walk into the next meeting with eyes wide open, and wholly prepared to end things once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mark wasn’t sure where they were, but they arrived at a house far outside of the city, down a winding road difficult to navigate even in the middle of the day. They’d managed to deposit Olivia back at her home before she regained consciousness, and Mark could only hope she would have little, if any, memory of the incident when she woke. As far as he could tell, Olivia hadn’t regained consciousness during Nike’s attack, and as Ben had healed her completely, chances of her remaining mentally unscathed were high.

  Jude was still unconscious by the time they reached the house, and with Ben’s help, they got him up the walkway and into the furthest bedroom of the house. It was a rather large place, at least six bedrooms, two levels and a basement. The floors were tile, cool on Mark’s burnt bare feet as he padded across the living room after getting Jude tucked away safely.

  He was nervous to leave his companion alone again, despite the comfortable feeling that they were safe and secure in this place. There was a sort of protection on it, courtesy of one of their Norse friends, and he didn’t understand it, but he could feel it humming all around them. Still, Mark was nervous with Jude out of his sight. Danger had proven to be everywhere, and the Greeks knew to strike when he least expected it. Even with Andrew’s presence, he didn’t feel completely at ease.

  Andrew seemed to be healing from whatever had been plaguing him, and when Mark found him in the kitchen, he was gulping a rather large glass of orange juice, a sandwich piled high with meats and greens on a plate next to him. He gave Mark a half-smile as he walked in and looked around at the unfamiliar room.

  The kitchen was a homey place, but barely used, and far too clean to be considered lived in. The stools at the counter looked inviting, with soft red cushions on the base, and Mark lowered himself down, his body aching as it worked hard to heal from the injuries dealt him. The briefcase with all of the papers containing his writing was sitting on the counter within reach. He hadn’t carried it in, and with all of the commotion he’d all-but forgotten about it. Now it was there, looming, dangerous and Mark felt a pressing need to chuck the entire thing into the fireplace and watch it burn down to ash. There were humans in the house, and humans near his writing increased the danger. Mark reached out and let his fingers touch the handle on the case.

  “What’s in there?” Ben asked, startling Mark as he walked into the kitchen with Stella at his heels. Ben looked better than he had in the basement room, Jude’s powers having long since dissipated, and he was obviously healing faster than normal from the power transfer. His eyes were narrow as he stared at the case, and then expectantly at Mark.

  “It’s my story,” Mark answered honestly after a moment of silence. “Nike needed the true gospel, and so I wrote it.”

  “That’s a gospel?” Ben asked. He approached the counter and touched the case, but made no move to open it. “As in the story of Jesus from the Bible sort of gospel?”

  “Sort of,” Mark said with a shrug. “I was counting on your rescue, so I gave her more of a biography than a synoptic gospel of Yeshua. I needed to bide my time, and I knew she’d get suspicious if I started copying down Webster’s Dictionary.”

  Ben gave a little snort and shoved his hands into his pockets. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Burn it,” Mark said with a shrug. He pulled the case over to his side and rested his arms over the top. The very existence of the words were a threat to the human race, and he couldn’t shut down the terror he felt at the thought of someone reading them. Even Ben being near them was causing undue anxiety. “It’s the only safe way to dispose of the words.”

  Ben nodded in understanding and watched wordlessly as Stella got herself a beer from the fridge and disappeared into the other room. Both of them seemed particularly subdued at the moment, and Mark knew that something had passed between them. Mark didn’t assume Ben knew Stella’s actual secret, seeing as she was still with them, but there was tension there, and Mark knew Stella wouldn’t be able to keep silent on the matter for long.

  But now was not the time. Ben just had to walk away from his sister again, unable to save her once more, and even though this time he knew he’d left her safely alive and healed, it was taking a toll on him. It was taking a toll on Mark, in all honesty, knowing she was alive out there, and not knowing whether or not Abby’s consciousness had survived through the entire process. Even having been trapped by Nike for as long as he had been, Mark hadn’t been able to tell if any of Abby really survived. Mark could only imagine how Ben was feeling.

  “I want to read the pages,” Ben said suddenly, interrupting Mark’s rapid thoughts.

  The request physically startled Mark, and instinctively he clutched the case tighter, giving his head a small shake. “No Ben. I’m really sorry but I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous.”

  Ben’s jaw clenched, but his expression was neutral and his voice flat when he spoke. “You all keep saying I’m special. There’s something different, unique, about my sister and me. The gods can’t sense me because of my abject disbelief, but there’s more to it. I’m stronger than other humans when it comes to them, and they want that strength. So let’s prove it. Let me read it. If it makes me go insane, if I try and start a cult, then I was wrong. Then you can kill me.”

  Mark stared at him with a frown, unsure whether or not Ben’s final statement was serious, which Mark believed it was. Ben was stoic and determined, and Mark realized that perhaps Ben was the one human being who could read the pages and not be affected. Maybe Ben was the only one who could take on the honest information and not be turned. It might offer some sort of insight into why Ben was special, why he was stronger than most.

  Mark’s fingers loosened on the case, but only slightly. “Ben, I’m not sure I want to take that risk. There’s no turning back if I let you do this and you become affected.”

  Crossing the distance between them, Ben reached out for the case and closed his fingers around the handle. “I am. I’m sure I want to take the risk. Obviously this isn’t over, and right now I want to know everything. I need to know everything. I want to know where you came from; I want to know the effect of your power, and how
you and Judas came to be. I experienced Judas’s power first hand today, and the time has come to know yours.”

  Mark let the words sink in, and as he did, he slowly released his grip on the case, letting Ben slide it across the counter. This wasn’t the Ben he knew, the angry Atheist who felt like the entire world was conspiring against his mental health. This was a Ben who wanted answers, who was prepared to accept them to fight Nike, secure Mark and Jude’s safety, and, if possible, save his sister from an angry, ancient goddess. And honestly, Ben was right, there was no denying that. This was far from over. They’d escaped Nike’s grasp again, but with Abby still alive, and no idea how to stop Nike in her true form, they would be pursued until the end of time.

  Not even death was available to free Mark and Judas from Nike’s desire to obtain their powers, and Mark had to try something, anything, and it seemed like Ben was the closest thing he had to hope. If Ben was right, if he really was special, the writing wouldn’t affect him, and maybe it would help guide them to the answer of why they had been given these powers, and, in the end, how to release them so he and Jude could move on. He simply had to try.

  With a deep breath he sat back and nodded at Ben, giving him his blessing. With an audible sigh of relief, Ben grasped the case in his hands and started up the stairs to the room he and Stella had chosen to occupy. They passed through the living room where Stella was sitting on the couch and she rose as they started up the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “I’m going to read Mark’s writing,” was the short, stilted reply that Ben gave as he made his way up to the landing.

  As they made it to the room, Mark didn’t notice that Stella had followed them until she closed the bedroom door. He turned and glared at her, but she crossed her arms, making it clear that she was going to be present for whatever Mark had to say.

  Ben settled himself in a chair near the window, popping the latches on the case, but he waited to open it. Mark could almost feel the power of his words locked inside, the threat they possessed, and the desire to grab them and burn them was almost overwhelming. He clenched his hands at his sides to prevent himself from making any rash decisions.