I wake up in another room. I’m still on my back and feeling pretty dizzy, but the sweet smell of molasses calms me down a little.
I stare up, and I guess my mind’s still working—dark wood ceiling and walls, a huge bookshelf along one wall, and a big stained-glass window. No idea how the little guy got me in here. I must be twice his size. And my wings? I try to move them and fire shoots through the left one and I chirp out loud.
“Be still,” a voice to my left says.
When I look toward it, the little guy is hunched over a large wooden desk, clear on the other side of the room. Got his head down, reading something. Probably his Bible, I think. Because if this shit doesn’t send you to the owner’s manual, I mean, what does?
And I can barely hear it, but the choir is singing out in the main church. Bet they shit themselves when they saw the hole in the roof. Wonder how he explained that? “Nice choir, Father. They’re annoying as shit.”
He stops reading and sits up a little, but he still doesn’t turn toward me. “Yes, yes,” he says. “It makes a particular sound, doesn’t it. And you must stop cuss—”
“A shitty one,” I say. I never did like sitting through the singing.
“Please,” he says. “You must be familiar with it, given who you are. You know its sound.”
And everyone from God to the Devil to the clergy themselves are speaking in riddles, pissing me off. “Know what sound? Put down that Bible and get that choir to shut the fuck up. They’re killing my head.”
“There is no choir,” he says. Then he mutters, “Tuesday… I have no idea what I’m going to… The roof.”
The choir keeps going and he keeps reading. I ask my body to move and I get more pain and a crackling sound for an answer. When I realize I’m lying on the floor on a tarp, I get more irritated. “Why the hell do you have me on the floor?” I try to roll over, but I’m still weak and all … sticky.
“I had to roll you in here on my car creeper,” he says. “I could hardly… You are remarkably heavy. There was no sense even attempting to put you on the couch.”
“You still got a guzzler? Benefits of the benevolent, huh?” I say. “Got you changing your own oil, though. So that’s not totally legit.” I look at the big brown leather couch next to me. “Leather couch grease-monkey,” I chuckle softly and it hurts. And I try to sit up again, but the fire in my gut sends me back down.
“I told you not to do that,” he says. “It says to keep you still.”
“What says?” I ask. “Keep me still? I’m gonna kill that little fucker.” And I wince at the pain. Dead man turned angel or not, pain is still a bitch.
He holds up a finger at me. “Profanity,” he says. “And you are lucky that she did not kill you.”
“She?”
“Yes,” he says, “he is a she. You are—”
“That explains a lot,” I say. Leave it to a woman to tear the living shit out of a man for no reason. “Mean little bitch.”
“You have no idea,” he says.
“If you haven’t noticed there, Father Friendly,” I say, “I’m the one on the floor with torn-up guts.” I feel for my stomach. Angel, animal or asshole, you don’t last long with no guts. But when I touch them, my belly is mostly healed back up. It’s covered in sticky goo, though. “What the…? Why am I all sticky?”
“Molasses,” he says it like he just explained why it’s dark at night. “I had trouble finding enough. Only the black market carries pure…” And then he starts reading again. Not out loud, but I can just see his arm racing back and forth on his desk. And the choir fires up again.
“Dammit, I told you to shut them up.”
“There is no way for me to read,” he says. “If you want me to help you, you will have to endure the sounds. So be quiet and concentrate on healing. The molasses should help.”
I sniff in a big whiff and smell the syrup. When I feel around, he’s got me covered in it. I thought the smell was because she was lurking around. “What does molasses…?”
This time he looks up. “Wha—oh, yes,” he says. “Think of it like blood. It’s why yours is so dark. And the closest thing we have—molasses.”
He’s talking gibberish again, because pancake…? “You’re kidding me, right? I’m made of pancake syrup? It says that in the Bible. Jesus, you guys are really pushing piss at the people now. How do you get anyone to believe that crap?”
“This isn’t the Bible. This book … is the Book of Blood.”
— XXXIII —
THE WHOLE THING comes racing back to my mind—every last stitch. Book of Blood, I think. And my eyes roll into the back of my head and the images hammer my vision like strobe lights. That little itch in the back of my head I wanna scratch, talking to God and the Devil—saying his name—all of it. What did they call—Life and Dal? Makes sense, I think. And now I know the dream’s real.
“How did…?” I have no idea what to ask him first. “How do you know about that book? I never heard of it before. Not before I—” It’s probably better if I don’t tell him about meeting them. “Where did you get that?”
Now he turns his attention toward me. Then he pushes back from his desk and the chair squeals across the floor and the sound makes me wince. He stands up, walks around to the front of his desk, and slides the chair in front of it across the wood floor. The legs of the chair squeal across the floor as he pulls it next to me, and then he sits down and leans over to examine my stomach.
He sits back up and then looks around the room, like he’s a dying bank-jacker who finally gets to tell someone where the credit-papers are buried. Someone that he knows won’t rat him out.
He leans all the way down and whispers, like talking about it is a mortal sin, “Twenty years ago, I was in the basement.”
And I bet I know what he was doing down there. “And he was threatening to tell his parents on you, so you had to—”
He stops whispering and says, “No, why does everyone assume…? You need to let go of your hatred and concentrate. This is no time to be rude for no reason.”
“I wasn’t the one who—”
“Not now,” he says. “You want my help, you need to get serious. This isn’t about little boys. We don’t have time for you to indulge your arrogant ego.”
Damn… He’s right about two things. One, from what I remember, this guy… What was his full…? And I look at the name plaque on his desk. “Father Benito Octavio Benedetti” was one of the few God-dogs I respected. A straight-up, no-bullshit guy. He walked into Protection prisons and fifties to save souls, one murdering waste of blood at a time. He walked the talk—none of that preaching the Word from the pulpit piss. When he gave Kelly and me our pre-marriage counseling, he told us one thing: “Wake up in the morning and prop each other up all day, because the world is gonna do its best to knock the both of you on your ass.” It was about as real as the church ever got for me. No way he’s raping any kids.
The second…? I don’t have time to lie around on the floor bleeding. I got a bitch to burn, maybe two. “Okay, you found it in the basement.”
Now he eyes me like maybe he shouldn’t say anything. After a couple of awkward seconds, I give him the eyebrows. I guess he comes to grips with it, because he says, “Under a great stone. It … it broke when I touched the writing on it … and then I knew. I understood.”
“Knew what?”
He looks at me like I should get it. I don’t. “Don’t you see,” he says. “The stone was a great seal. When it cracked open, I heard the voice.”
He’s off in Neverland now. God-dogs and hearing voices. Usually happens right before they look into the camera and ask you to call in with your hex-card number. And I chuckle a little.
“Yes, yes,” he says.
He’s getting that bug-eyed, wild look again. Or maybe he’s been hitting the sauce harder since I been out cold. Hard to tell, because the stench-filled, piss smell of fear is doing its best to drown out the aroma of alcohol.
“I knew
that’s what would greet me when I came up from the basement,” he says. “Ridicule … judgment.”
I know I’m just encouraging him, but now I wanna know. “What did the voice say?” Mocking him? On another day, maybe, but it could help, ya never know.
He scrunches up his face and frowns.
I know the look, it’s the same “Are you serious?” one I give people who ask me why I need a gun. Gave them, anyway. It feels like a long time ago, and if I remember, after a while, I realized it was no use talking safety and security with slaves.
It takes him about the same length of time to get that “Is this even worth my breath?” look off his face, too. Then he says, “It said, ‘Come and see.’ That’s what all the beasts of the seals say. And I knew. I was sure I would be… I was no one, barely out of seminary. And I heard the voice of the beast of the Seventh, but there is no Seventh Seal.” He opens his flask and takes a swig. He’s trembling again. Then he screws the lid back on. “I would have been excommunicated at the very least. Maybe thrown in the sanatorium. So I hid it.”
“Hid what?” On the floor, I can’t see anything on his desk. “Show me what you’re reading up there.”
He turns to his desk, leans back, and slides a huge red book off it. The monstrous book drops heavily into his lap and he closes it and holds it up so I can read the cover—The Book of Blood. I can read it plainly this time. And now it’s my eyes that are bugging out of my head. Not only can I read the writing, but now I know what’s in it, too.
And he gets a satisfied look on his face. His frown turns to an eyebrow-high “told you so” look, and then he opens it and gets ready to read. “Mm-hmm,” he says. He thumbs and flips the pages all the way to the back of the book. “You know this book, don’t you? Listen to this. ‘And I looked up and beheld a brighter angel than any in the heavens, ascend through the roof of the house of faith; and the rain went with her. And the blood of The Fallen had spilled at her hand as sweet nectar from the sap trees in the garden. And The Fallen laid in stillness in the house of faith. And judgment under my power was restored.’ ”
Fuckin’ choir.
He shuts the book and we stare at each other. Seems like a couple of minutes before either of us gets up the guts to speak.
I’m all guts today. “How long ago you find that?”
“Twenty years,” he says. “As soon as I saw you lying there… I’m not crazy.” He takes his flask back out, unscrews the top, and takes another swig.
“Jesus, Father, you’re gonna suck the nipple right off that tit.”
He ignores that one. “They would have… I knew they would have. If not for… Certainly for blasphemy.”
He’s gonna have to refill that thing pretty soon. Probably got a whole State liquor lounge in his big desk. Twenty years is a long time. Depending on how you pass the time, it can be a little too long. The father is going on about two years too many. I gotta get his mind on something else, keep him occupied. The killing was impulse before, blind rage on the rooftop. Now … I remember that I got a job to do. And if the stuff rolling around in my head—long ago flashes from the past—is true, he won’t like it. “Read that to me again, will ya?”
He does, and the process seems to calm him down a little. The choir sounds still grind on my nerves, but if it stops him fidgeting, I’ll suffer through them. When he’s done, he rereads it in his head. Then he says, “That passage… I have never been able to … judgment under my…? Whose power?”
But by now it’s obvious. “You should know, you wrote it.”
It takes a couple minutes of protesting for him to calm down—denial is a powerful thing—and he’s confused as shit now. “Voices in the basement,” my ass. I point at his nameplate, but when he looks he still doesn’t get it. I frown at him and say, “Benito Octavio Benedetti.” And then I raise my eyebrows at him.
He’s clueless—total alcohol-induced amnesia. “Book of Blood—B. O. B. ” I can’t believe it myself, but coincidence? Not likely. Still, there’s no way he could have known any of the shit I’ve been through in the past couple of days. If that is how long it has been, because I’m losing track. “And that judgment part, that’s my name.”
“Your name is Jacob,” he says. “And I didn’t write this, I found it.”
Twenty years. That’s enough time to write a book that crazy. It would have to be an arrogant obsession. Something like that always is. It would leave even the strongest mind a little cracked. Especially if it all started coming true.
“My name is Jump,” I tell him. “He gave it to me. And you can say you don’t remember, but you wrote that book. I’d bet that on my last day in Vegas.”
He’s got a blank stare now. Confusion or denial, they still look the same. He shakes his head, probably hoping that will make what he’s saying true. “I could not have…?”
And it all makes perfect sense to me. Seven days for her to build it. And now it’s seven for me to burn it down. Time to get to the gutting.
— XXXIV —
IT TAKES ABOUT a half a day for me to feel well enough to sit up. After the father recovers from… Shit, he’s not recovering, but at least now he’s coherent.
He was a babbling mess for hours. When he finally calmed down, I sent him out for more syrup. Now that he’s back, my body laps up the molasses like a dehydrated dog. Weird shit. I can’t even pretend to understand it.
And he’s back to reading his book—passing the time hunched over his woobie—scouring the text, trying to understand. Remember, maybe.
I’m going bat-shit and bored lying still during the constant choir crooning, so I sit up and flex my wing a little. Better, I think to myself. I’m starting to get a handle on my new best friends. Still no clue how I got my talons out, though. Gotta work on that for the little bitch.
He picks his head up from his book and straightens in his chair. Bug-eyes again. I’m getting used to that. And when I stand up and spread my wings all the way out, he slides one of the drawers on his desk open and reaches in.
I watch his hand disappear into the drawer. Time to refill your little pacifier, huh. I was wondering about that.
But booze isn’t what shows up when he pulls his hand out of the drawer, and I’m staring down the barrel of a… I lean to the side a little to get a better look at the engraving on the barrel. Never stopped to think about it, but my eyesight is razor sharp and like … magnified if I want. I zoom in and read the writing on the side of the pistol:
King V99
K&T Arms
There’s a little dirt left under his fingernails. “Dug it up while I was sleeping, huh.” It’s not a question. They inspect all the churches once a month—dogs and metal detectors, barking and beeping their way to the truth. Used to be one of the best places to stash them. Now … only way he has this thing is if he had it buried. Save it for a rainy day kinda thing. Guess I qualify.
Apart from staring at the father’s pistol, there’s something wrong. Takes me a couple seconds of looking at the little round opening at the end of his barrel to figure it out.
Not raining? I think, because when I slowly turn and look out the window, it’s brighter than shit. The sun is breaking through the stained glass window in his office, casting rainbows on the walls. “Never figured you for a Gogo gun-guy, father.”
When I look back, he’s got both hands around it, and he’s shaking worse than the gun. He glances at his book. “When you’ve seen what I have…”
And I push out all my feathers and I guess the scraping of steel and clanking metal sounds unnerve him, because—Bam!—he shoots me.
And the bullet bounces off and zings into a bookcase. It’s an accident, I know, but he’s shitting himself. “I’m sorry-I’m sorry!” Bam! And he does it again! “Oh my god—I didn’t mean—”
And I screech and he drops the gun on his desk and grabs his ears and starts whimpering. Now I’m just annoyed. I fold my wings behind me—retract my feathers—even if I can be killed, I doubt it’s going t
o come from the end of his little 9mm.
I look down at my lap. Gotta get some underwear, I think. Not that I give a shit, but I’m not sure if that would survive another one of the father’s accidental discharges.
And now I drag the chair back over in front of his desk, scraping the floor like he did, slowly screeching his nerves on purpose. Torment is like a fine knife—depending on which end you get, it’s either sugar-sweet or it feels like a bitch bee sting. And I slowly turn the chair backward, sit down, and then I lean in at him. I cross my arms on top of the backrest.
When he tentatively reaches his hand back toward his gun, I spread my wings a little, letting him know he shouldn’t. Invincible or not, I don’t like having a gun pointed at me, much less getting shot with it … twice. “So…” I say. “Father Ben…” And I raise my eyebrows and point to his big red book, open on his desk. “Where … in your little red manual there, does it say you are supposed to shoot me with a nine millie?”
“It …” And now he’s reaching for the flask in his shirt again, shaking as he fumbles it out. “It doesn’t.” And he takes a good-sized pull.
“No shit,” I say slowly.
“But you are—”
I watch him screw the lid back on his little pacifier. “Boozing and bullets,” I say. “Tsh, tsh, tsh—you should know better.”
I let him pick the gun up this time and he puts it back in his desk drawer, then slides the drawer shut. It’s a good move for him, because I don’t have time for this shit. It won’t be long before that bright bitch is back. No idea why she left me leaking in the church instead of finishing the job. That was a mistake. And if this little boozehound did write this book, then I want some answers.
I reach over and touch the page that’s open and a faint screech and cussing comes out when I run my finger over the parchment, “Rain…” it says.
And his eyes are wide when I ask him, “How do I kill her?”
It takes a few minutes for him to stop acting like a rabbit trapped in a cage with an eagle. Not sure if it’s the five minutes or if it’s his flask talking, but he finally settles down and makes peace with the understanding that he’s helping me … and I’m not going to slice his head off with one of my wings.
Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 Page 14
