by J. R. Mabry
“Ninety-eight, my khan.”
Jahn looked out the window and measured the sun. “Good thing the day is still young.” He stepped to the next man, huddled on the floor, and placed the flat of the blade against the quaking man’s temple. Jahn looked up at his lieutenant, and smiled. “Hell will feast well today.”
PRELUDE 2
HOLY APOCRYPHA FRIARY, PRESENT DAY
A HALF HOUR BEFORE anyone would stir in the old farmhouse that served as the friary of the Old Catholic Order of Saint Raphael, there was a rustle of wings in the yard. The cherub touched one foot to the earth, then the other, and paused to gain his balance. When he straightened himself, he stood nearly nine feet. His hair was white like bleached wool, and his eyes shone with fire.
Beneath his arm was a package wrapped in cloth that glowed in the dim light of dawn. The angel knelt and unwrapped it, unfolding the cloth with care and laying it aside. He had uncovered a mirror framed with rough wood. He propped it against the house near the back door and turned to go.
“Hey!” a tiny voice shouted. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Where am I? Are you just going to leave me here?”
The angel turned back, lowered his face to the mirror, and placed a raised index finger to his lips. “Shhhhhh,” the angel whispered. Even so, his voice rolled like thunder.
Looking around to be sure that no one had been disturbed, the angel waited. He heard no shouts, detected no movement—only the twitter of birds and the distant honking of early morning traffic. Satisfied, the angel turned to go. He made to launch himself, but just short of flight, he clutched at his chest, stumbled, and fell to the grass. A low moan shook the earth.
A short time later, a muffled barking pierced the air, followed by the slam of a screen door. A large yellow Lab bounded out onto the lawn, barked once, froze, and sniffed at the air. He dropped his nose to the ground and began to follow the scent.
In a moment, he was hovering over the angel, drooling onto the divine countenance. The angel opened one eye and saw an enormous black membrane, slick with mucus, whiffling and snuffling with curious abandon. The angel reached up to touch the nose, choosing it as his point of entry.
PRELUDE 3
LODGE OF THE HAWK AND SERPENT, SAN FRANCISCO
STANIS LARCH LIT THE censer and then stood back in a posture of prayer as the smoke, fragrant with frankincense and myrrh, filled the temple. Once the air was thick with haze, he approached his Enochian table and sat on a high stool. The table was covered with symbols and signs carved precisely according to the instructions of John Dee, the court astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I.
Reverently, Larch removed a red velvet cloth from its place in the center of the table, revealing a shiny black stone about seven inches across and two inches thick. Larch breathed deeply and uttered an angelic invocation in the Enochian language. Closing his eyelids halfway, his focus became soft, and he rested his gaze upon the stone.
He concentrated on his breathing—even and deep coming in, long and slow going out—freeing his mind of concepts, and likewise freeing his eyes to see whatever the spirits chose to reveal.
At first, he only saw wisps of nondescript images flashing here and there in the stone. A gauzy flash of white, the momentary appearance of a horse’s head neighing, the spinning of a distant crown. A pickpocket looked over his shoulder, caught in the act. Larch watched him cringe in shame, and then run away out of the range of the stone’s vision.
The picture blurred again but resolved into a vision of white lace. A young woman stepped out of shadow into full view and faced him directly. She was so beautiful that Larch caught his breath—he had to concentrate to get his meditative rhythm back. Like the surface of a pond, the disturbance in his meditation made the vision blur and fade. But as he unfocused his eyes and settled back down into a contemplative state, the young woman appeared to become more solid.
He became aroused just looking at her. She appeared to be about twenty, and her lithe form was barely hidden by the wispy gauze that covered her. Long, light-colored hair hung nearly to her waist, and her nose turned up in a fetching, sprightly way. He could see the points of her apple-size breasts clearly, and they moved from side to side as she swayed back and forth. It made him crazy. There appeared to be a slit in the gauze that hung to her ankles, revealing a leg that seemed just a little too long, yet ended just a little too soon. Larch ducked to see if a change in perspective would afford him a glimpse just an inch higher beyond where that slit ended, to where legs joined together maddeningly just out of sight, but to no avail.
“What vision do I behold?” he spoke out loud.
“What vision are you looking for?” the young woman answered playfully.
“I seek Wisdom,” Larch said.
“Oh, you’ll have to go a very long way up the food chain to find her.” The young woman shook her head. Golden bangs fell over her eyes in a way that Larch found absolutely irresistible. If this were a human woman flirting with him as openly as this ghostly vision seemed to be doing, Larch knew he would already be out of his clothes.
“Who are you, then?” Larch asked. “By what name may I call you, and what are your powers?”
“Call me Pim,” the woman said, twirling her hair fetchingly and raising one leg as if ready to begin a dance. She didn’t dance, though. She seemed merely to be playing with him. “And as for powers, I don’t have many. But what I do have, I use pretty well.” She was flirting with him; Larch was sure of it.
“I am a man with many questions,” Larch said carefully.
“I’m not what you’d call a very smart spirit,” Pim answered, a little apologetically. “So, I don’t really know if I can help you.”
“I want knowledge,” Larch said.
“Oh, poop on knowledge,” Pim said, with a little wiggle. The urgency in Larch’s groin leaped as he saw her breasts bounce. Did she notice? Of course she noticed. It was all on purpose. “But I can give you something much, much better.”
“And what is that?” Larch asked.
“I can give you power,” she said, sucking on her index finger.
PRELUDE 4
SAINT JAMES’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH, THE BERKELEY HILLS
REVEREND FELICIA DUNNE closed the door to the sacristy and turned the key in the lock. She spun around, placed her hands to her cheeks, and squealed. Her girlfriend, Jan, mirrored her perfectly, and they shrieked at each other in glee for several seconds before proceeding to hop up and down.
“Oh my God, Baby,” Jan said, placing her arms around her partner’s shoulders, “You did so good today.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Felicia nodded, almost in tears. “Oh my God, I think I did!”
“They are going to love you!” Jan said, adding in a singsong voice. “But not as much as I do.” She drew her partner in for a kiss, which was long, luscious, and slow.
Felicia held her partner’s head lovingly as they kissed, Jan’s dreadlocks feeling rough on the reverend’s fingers, her perfume intoxicating to her, inflammatory. When their kiss broke, Jan said, “As sexy as the…what do you call this, Honey?”
“A chasuble,” said Felicia.
“Right. Sexy as that thing is, I can’t wait to get it off you.”
“I don’t see anyone,” Felicia giggled.
“You know the Altar Guild is going to be pounding on that door any minute,” Jan warned.
“I think we have time for another kiss.” Felicia put her nose on Jan’s and stared deep into her brown eyes. “Do you think the sermon was too harsh?”
“Honey, you got to tell these white people like it is,” Jan playfully switched her accent, sounding an awful lot like Felicia’s father. “’Cause if you don’t, they ain’t gonna respect you for a moment. You know that’s true.”
Felicia felt her partner’s thumb trace her cheekbone, and she smiled. “I know that’s true. It felt right when I wrote it. It felt right when I preached it, too.”
“It was right, Baby,” Jan said, sw
itching back to her own voice. “These folks are going to stand behind you.” She raised herself up on tiptoe, pressing her lips against Felicia’s again. The priest squeezed Jan’s ample body against her own, and breathed in her scent, her head swimming with desire.
Just then a flash filled the room. Felicia drew back and looked around, alarm spreading across the features of her face. She heard the sound of a chair scooting back, and the figure of a man stood up, blocking the light of the tiny stained glass window that supplied the sacristy with natural light.
“My wife told me that these things were easy to use.” The man’s voice was deep and sonorous, possessed of an educated Louisiana drawl. He held up his hand, and Felicia saw the outline of a smartphone. “I don’t like modern things, generally, but she insisted. I’ve never used the camera before, but I couldn’t let such evidence just…well, evidence is ephemeral, isn’t it?” The man stepped closer and smiled. After a few uncomprehending moments, Felicia recognized him.
“Oh, it’s you, Bishop.” She relaxed, but not much. Bishop Preston was new to the Episcopal Diocese of California, serving as an interim suffragan for Bishop McClary. It was he who had installed her today as the rector of Saint James’s. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Obviously.” His voice was grave. He placed the smartphone in his pocket. He looked at Jan with disdain and made a dismissive scoot motion with his hand. Felicia exchanged a worried look with her partner. “You should go,” she whispered. Jan shot Bishop Preston a poisoned look but stepped quickly to the door, turned the key, and let herself out.
“It was a beautiful service today,” Bishop Preston said gravely. “I’m just sorry there was so much wasted effort.”
“What do you mean?” Felicia felt her panic level spike.
“Well, I understand that the good people of Saint James’s spent years looking for just the right rector. And now they are going to have to start all over.” He had begun pacing, his hands behind his back. “Pity, really. Very sad. God’s people deserve better.” He cocked his head at her, and she heard his unspoken words loud and clear: they deserve better than you.
Felicia realized that she was sweating now. “I…I don’t understand.”
“Oh, but I think you do. You’ve been hired under false pretenses. You lied to these people.”
“I did not lie to them!” She allowed a flash of fury to erupt in her voice.
“Oh, but my dear little pickaninny pervert, you did.” He stopped pacing for a moment and smiled. It was an ugly smile. “You see, Sweet Pea, a sin of omission is just as wrong as a sin of commission. I know you didn’t tell these people you were heterosexual—you wouldn’t lie, after all. But you didn’t tell them you weren’t a pervert, either, did you?”
Felicia said nothing. She realized that her hands were balled up into fists. She willed them to open and felt the coolness of the sacristy’s air on her palms. “Bishop Preston, I know you are new to this diocese,” she began, her voice betraying her fear. She plunged ahead, “And so maybe you don’t understand the kind of place it is.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot, Sweet Pea?” the bishop snarled. “Do you really think I did not know the kind of sin-sick cesspool I was stepping into when I came to this place? Do you think our church raises fools to the episcopacy as a matter of course?” He waited a beat but did not let her respond. “My wife and I came here because our daughter is sick. You knew that, right? She’s still sick, so we’re still here. I volunteered to help because, well, I’m retired and I like to be useful.” He smiled the kind of smile that an alligator might display just before eating a wounded rodent. “This is not the kind of place I would choose to live. It’s a diocese populated by hippies, activists, and perverts of the most unrepentant variety—such as yourself. Hell, you may be all three.”
Felicia kept her mouth shut. He had her on two out of three as she’d always been more preppy than hippie.
“But from what I’ve seen, there’s a big difference between this diocese and this parish.” He gestured toward the grand, wood-framed, gothic-arched architecture of the sacristy, and, she imagined, beyond it, to the rest of the building. “The homos might run this diocese, Sweet Pea, but they do not run this congregation. This is an affluent congregation, a Republican congregation. They are not fond of perverts.”
He gestured to the smartphone in his pocket and began to walk toward her. She felt his menace increase with every step. “I wonder what your vestry will make of your sacristy shenanigans? And on your very first day as rector? What other indecencies await them? Their imaginations will simply reel.” He stopped with his face mere inches from her own. “They deserve better. I will see a letter of resignation on my desk by tomorrow. Am. I. Clear?”
Felicia saw her future crumbling. Her heart nearly beat through her chest. The chasuble felt like a sheet of lead hanging from her shoulders. She felt faint, and stumbled to a chair by the door.
“Here, let me help you,” the bishop said, taking her hand in an icy grip until she had settled into the chair.
“A letter” she repeated, staring straight ahead at nothing. “A letter!” she jerked upright. A flash of insight stabbed at her brain, and a bolt of hope struck at her heart. “Wait here, please,” she said and rushed from the room. Without pausing to consider whether it was right, whether it was prudent, she rushed to her office—the office that had been given to her just this day—jerked open the top drawer, and snatched up an envelope. She turned on her heel and marched back to the sacristy.
The bishop was pacing again, a look of bemused triumph playing on his face as she opened the door. Felicia clutched at the envelope and spoke without rehearsing her words. “Okay, you asked for a letter. I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal? How quaint. This sounds like one of those ‘stages of grief,’ or some such nonsense that we’re always hearing about from the liberals.”
“A letter for a letter. I’ll give you this one instead of my resignation. I’ll give you this letter, and you destroy that picture. You let me keep my job.”
“That must be some letter, Sweet Pea.” A note of pity entered his drawl.
“The last rector wrote it for his successor, whoever that might be. I found it in the drawer. It was sealed. It was obviously meant for me, so I opened it. You leave me alone, and it’s yours.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll have to let me see it. For all I know, it says, ‘Welcome to Saint James’s, you poor, sorry bastard.’”
“It doesn’t,” she said defiantly. “You’ll see.”
He snatched the envelope from her trembling fingers and pulled the letter inside free. He unfolded it and turned his back to the window to catch the best light.
As he read, Felicia watched his face carefully. She saw his eyebrows shoot up. She saw a range of emotions pass over his aging features: amusement, shock, lust…triumph. He looked to the ceiling, obviously enraptured, fantasizing, intoxicated by the possibilities the letter portended.
Eventually, he looked down at her with the curious expression of a man who has decided to have mercy on an insect. “Yes,” he said. “This letter will…satisfy me.” He began to walk from the room but at the last minute turned back to her. “I’ll keep that photo as our little secret—but I’m going to keep it, just the same.” He nodded, obviously approving of the prudence of this course of action. “The perverts need to be kept in line in this diocese. This way, I’ll know that at least one of them will keep to the straight and narrow.” He opened the door to the sacristy. “Good day, Rector,” he said and was gone.
FRIDAY
1
THE CROWD ROARED. Terry stood up and whistled.
“Ow!” Kat howled, dropping her newspaper and slapping him on the shoulder. “That hurt! Knock it off!” She picked at her ear for some remaining hearing.
Terry ignored her, jumping up and down and whistling more insistently. His small frame barely registered on the metal bleachers as he hopped. His features—half-Japanese, half
-European—screwed up into a howl, followed by another shrill whistle.
“Arggggh!” Kat growled, snatching a Kleenex from her bag and stuffing it into her left ear. She could almost have been Terry’s twin as they were nearly the same size and their hair was the same jet-black shade of midnight. She lacked his Asian heritage, however, as well as his whistling skills.
As the roaring of the crowd subsided, Terry took his seat again, punching at the air. He wore a bright yellow T-shirt that said Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.
Kat cocked an eyebrow. “No cassock today, Terry?”
“Do I look like I’m at work?” Terry asked. “A girl gets to break out and show a little style sometimes, doesn’t she?” Then he whistled again. “Besides, all my cassocks are in the wash.”
Kat leaned over and yelled so Susan could hear her over the din. “I never would have taken Terry for a sports fan.”
“He’s not, generally,” she said, her plump face a mixture of amusement and compassion. She ran her fingers through her blonde perm. “Notice that I artfully sat with a person between Terry and myself?”
“Oh thanks a lot!” Kat yelled back. She glanced at the tournament floor where two contestants bowed to one another and faced off for another bout. One lunged at the other, who bounced back out of reach. The attacker kept coming. He threw a punch, but the other grabbed his wrist and twisted it away.
Kat held her newspaper in front of her face to block her view. “Remind me why we’re here!” she yelled in Susan’s direction. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dylan seated on Susan’s other side, digging into a bag of peanuts.
“Will you stop being silly?”
“This is violent. There’s no difference between this and…and those gladiator fights in ancient Rome.”
“Except that none of those people are slaves?”
