by J. R. Mabry
The crowd stamped and cheered its agreement. A couple of celebratory shots rang out, echoing explosively through the hall. Terry’s eyes grew wide as he saw hundreds of pistols raised in the air like a salute.
“The Islamic terrorists are winning because we are losing heart. We are floundering without leadership. We are losing the war against terror, against godless heathenism, against violence and despair.”
More guns went off to punctuate his words. The bishop held his hands up, looking both patient and pleased with the response. “We need another man like Prester John. We need another leader who will rise fearless before our common foe, who can unite our scattered and despairing forces. We need someone presidential, someone resolute. We need someone with the confidence that he is fighting for Almighty God!”
A cheer rose up, so loud that Terry wondered if perhaps the Hayward Fault had finally given way. The crowd hooted and stamped for a full three minutes as cameras and handguns flashed. Bishop Preston looked grave as he waited. When the noise level fell, he continued.
“I’m not going to lie to you, my friends. My job as a minister of the Good News is to tell you the truth—even when that truth is hard. None of the people put forward by the nominating committee have that kind of resolution. And I can say that with confidence because deep in your hearts, you know it’s true.”
A murmuring filled the hall, and Terry could see heads nodding all around him. “But you know something else, too. You know that there is in your midst one man who has already proved that he has the courage, the resolve, the innate sovereignty to stand up to the forces of evil; one man who can unite the scattered Christian armies; one man who can carry the cross into battle and emerge victorious.
“We know he has the courage because he has already acted. We know he will be victorious because he has already saved this nation from unparalleled destruction. We know he is the man because the Muslim forces in Dearborn, Michigan, never knew what hit them.”
The cheer that erupted was so thunderous that Terry put his hands to his ears to block out the noise. His head swam. He watched the bishop closely, looking for an opportunity to step up and snatch the crozier, but there was none. Terry began to hyperventilate. He began to panic.
Then he noticed a disturbance out in the crowd. Straining to see, he watched as a lone figure climbed up onto the runway from the floor. It was an undignified scramble. The figure almost fell, but finally he got his leg up and pulled himself onto the boards. Then he stood. Terry’s heart fell into his stomach as he recognized Dylan, standing alone in the spotlights, facing the stage. His thinning hair was mussed, and his cassock was dusty. Terry could even see that the ragged edge of his hastily sewn rip had come undone.
Dylan swayed back and forth, and Terry was terrified that he would simply topple over. But he caught his balance and simply stared directly at Preston. Terry held his breath. What in the world is Dylan up to? he wondered.
But Dylan didn’t do anything. He just stood there. Bishop Preston seemed stymied. He stared at Dylan. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it and cocked his head. On the enormous monitors, Terry could see a close-up of Dylan’s terrified face, beads of sweat dripping down his wide Melungeon nose.
Preston looked behind him, directly at Terry. His eyes were furious and pleading. Terry gave an exaggerated shrug, and he mouthed the words, “I don’t know.” He really didn’t. Was this what Dylan had meant by “confronting but not opposing”? Terry thought it was crazy. And yet…
And yet it had stopped Preston cold. It had shattered the momentum that was beginning to verge on collective delusional hysteria. Everything had simply…stopped. The crowd fell silent.
On the Jumbotron, Terry could see Dylan’s hands shaking. His heart went out to his friend. He wished there was something he could do. But Dylan was doing it all, simply by standing up and not doing. Not opposing, not forcing, not fighting—just being. It was madness. It was brilliant. It was, Terry realized, prophetic in the grand tradition of the Hebrew prophets who stood before power armed with no power of their own, who had the courage to say, “This goes no further.”
Then, behind Dylan, Terry saw the telltale shimmer of an opening in the Void. At the far end of the runway, he saw a ripple in the veil that separates the worlds, and out of that ripple a Presence emerged.
A Mongolian stallion twenty hands high stepped out of the Void and onto the runway, blowing and snorting its protest. A firm hand on the reins, however, kept the distressed beast calm and under control. The hand belonged to a Crusader king, who sat erect and tall in the saddle, his royal carriage obvious to all. His mail shone like silver in the bright lights, and his blinding white cappa bore the jagged slash of a bright red cross.
He reined to a stop and removed his helm, hanging it on his saddle. Jerking the reins to the right, he turned the stallion clockwise as he cast his eyes around the room, taking in his surroundings. Once again facing the main stage, he halted, and his dark brows lowered as he took in the speaker.
He urged his mount forward, and with slow, deliberate steps, the stallion advanced toward the stage. Dylan scrambled to get out of the way, more or less throwing himself clear of the runway and into the relative safety of the Republican throng.
Terry’s muscles froze as he recognized the Mongolian khan. It was as if time were standing still. The Jumbotron appeared frozen on Bishop Preston’s face, his mouth gaping open in stunned disbelief. There was no sound—only the echoing of plodding hooves on planks and a screaming whinny so alien and fierce it sounded like the howling of a demon.
And then, like a booming crack of thunder, a cascade of applause erupted into the air. The crowd hooted, stomped, and shrieked their excitement and joy as they watched the Crusader king advance. They waved their arms, and a few random shots were heard. When the guns went off, Terry saw the horse start, but the khan’s hand was sure and the beast bucked but did not bolt.
The crowd, however, would not be controlled. Here was political theater at its most surreal, its most bombastic, and they were loving every moment of it. Never had they seen such a pageant, never had a speaker’s words been so dramatically enacted in their midst. A hundred thousand voices raised at once to cheer their assent, their wild approval, their glad participation in this unexpected stagecraft.
Only Bishop Preston seemed immune to the infectious carnivality of the moment. His visage, still plastered on the Jumbotrons, was confused, dazed, and scared. Moved to compassion for him, Terry stepped forward and placed a comforting hand in the middle of the Bishop’s back. “You invoked Prester John,” he said in the direction of the bishop’s ear. “And now he is here.”
Bishop Preston looked over at Terry with stunned disbelief. “Is this a stunt?” he mouthed.
Terry shook his head gravely. “It’s him. It’s really him. I know because I’ve met him.”
“You’ve met…?” The bishop seemed to shrink three inches before his very eyes, and Terry could see the fear tearing at the lines on Preston’s face as control of the situation was wrested from his grasp. “How…?” he began.
“Did you think you were just playing with ideas, Bishop?” Terry asked him. “Prester John isn’t a story. He’s a person.”
Preston’s eyes registered fear and despair, in equal measure. “But he’s supposed to be a dead person.”
“Either we share in the Resurrection, or we don’t,” Terry said.
Preston looked at him like he was out of his mind, but Terry could see the wheels spinning in his head. The bishop looked back at the khan, who was now nearly upon them. Oblivious to the cheering crowd, Preston quailed, and his knees buckled. Terry’s hand, however, was fast around his waist, and he steadied the bishop. Preston struggled to regain his footing. He clutched at the podium, glanced around, and seeming to remember where he was and what he was doing, he regained his poise.
The Ong Khan Toghrul dismounted his horse. Terry felt the boards beneath him dip and buck under the weight of the
horse’s hooves and the great mailed feet of the khan. The crowd’s ecstasy reached riotous proportions as the Crusader king approached his descendant. Preston’s hands shook, but he looked at his ancestor with both wonder and terror in his eyes.
In that moment, Terry realized that, misguided as the bishop might be, he believed his rhetoric. If this truly was Prester John, then the bishop had every right to expect his blessing and it seemed to Terry that he stood before his ancestor in exactly the same way as he would one day stand before his Lord—with hope and fear.
Terry stepped back as the khan approached the bishop, and held his breath as the great mailed arms rose—and then closed around the bishop in a tender embrace. Preston’s hands falteringly reached up, clutching at the khan’s back, as he returned the bear hug uncertainly.
Prester John broke the embrace and held the bishop by the shoulders, looking into his eyes. It seemed to Terry that he was searching Preston’s soul, yet so impassive was the khan’s expression that Terry could not divine what he read there.
Terry held his breath as the khan threw a mailed arm around the bishop’s shoulders and turned to face the cheering crowd. “This is my son!” His voice boomed out with royal authority, clearly audible above the cheering of the crowd. “This day I have rendered my judgment upon him!”
Terry saw a flash of silver in the khan’s free hand. After a blur of motion, an arc of blood sprayed high into the air, and Prester John cast the bishop’s body into a crumpled heap at his feet.
The roar of the crowd plummeted into dead, stunned silence. Looking directly into Terry’s eyes, the khan gave a curt nod. “Today, Hell will feast,” he said. The hall echoed with his words.
Then, with a swift, elegant motion born of years of mastery, the khan swung himself into the saddle, and the massive stallion neighed, reared, and plunged forward, disappearing into a ripple in the air.
It seemed to Terry an eternity before anyone moved—then chaos erupted. Women screamed, men shouted, guns fired, and black-suited agents swept in from all sides and flocked around the bishop.
Terry watched the scene with a surreal sense of detachment. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, and Terry felt a dread calm descend over his mind and body. Dodging the agents flying across his path, he walked serenely past the cluster gathered around Preston. Distantly, he heard one of them shouting for a doctor. Terry walked directly to where the crozier had fallen, calmly picked it up, and with an unhurried gait turned and strode offstage, disappearing into the roiling crowd.
99
RICHARD STARED at the streams of late afternoon sun coming through the shades. He was sitting in Bishop’s room on the mattress, nursing a beer and waiting for his sense of calm to return. Toby lay on the floor beside him, all four paws in the air, snoring loudly. The room was messier than he liked. It made him uncomfortable, and he resisted the urge to stand up and start sorting Bishop’s laundry.
Down the hall he could hear the sleepy bustle of the coffee shop. It sounded like there were only a couple of customers, but every now and then he heard a sharp laugh—Bishop’s laugh. For all of the guy’s problems, he seems happy, Richard thought.
A few moments later, Bishop appeared in the door with a cruet in his hand. “Stockton’s going to mind the store for a while. So, we have some time together.” He shut the door and sat next to Richard on the mattress. A cowlick was acting up, and the goofiness of it made Richard’s heart melt. His urge was overwhelming.
Before he could act on it, though, Bishop leaned over and kissed him. Tentative at first, but then crushing. Richard opened his mouth to receive his tongue, and his passion roared to life. Panting, Bishop sat back and laid his hand on Richard’s chest.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said.
Richard didn’t want to hear about thinking. He wanted to hear about fucking. But he smiled patiently and said, “Oh?”
“About your problem,” he said.
“Which problem?” Richard asked. “I have a deluxe assortment.”
“I’m thinking about your bishop problem,” he said, moving his hand playfully across Richard’s chest, slowly making its way down to his belly, then threatening to move lower.
Richard grabbed Bishop’s hand before it made him so crazy he couldn’t carry on a conversation. He kissed it and let it go. Then he rubbed at Bishop’s arm encouragingly. “Do tell,” he said.
Bishop smiled, taking the minor rebuff in exactly the right way. “I don’t think I should be your bishop,” he said.
Richard sat up straighter, tensing. “Why not?”
“Well, two reasons.” Bishop tried to soothe him by grabbing his hand and squeezing. “First, dual relationships. I like you. I want to see you again. If I were your bishop, it wouldn’t be…appropriate.”
Richard hadn’t thought of this, but of course he was correct. Richard wasn’t at all sure about an ongoing relationship, mostly because of the distance, but it occurred to him that Bishop would be an ideal fuck buddy. He didn’t bring it up—there was plenty of time to negotiate the specifics later. Best to keep to the point, Richard thought. “Okay, I can see your point,” Richard said. “But that puts me back at square one as far as the order is concerned.”
“Not necessarily,” Bishop said, the light in his eyes dancing playfully. “It’s not appropriate to have a relationship where there’s a power disparity, but there’s nothing wrong with a relationship between equals.”
“What do you mean?” Richard asked, turning to face Bishop squarely.
“It seems to me that a lot of your trouble has come from superiors who just don’t understand you.”
“Very true. Tom did, but no one else ever has. That’s why we’ve had so much trouble with the synod.”
“Right. So why not cut out the superiors?” Bishop asked.
“Meaning?”
“You are prior now, right?” Bishop asked.
“Yes,” Richard said.
“Why shouldn’t you be bishop?” he smiled.
“I…I never thought about it.”
“Think fast—because, you know, in extraordinary circumstances, it only takes one bishop to make another.”
“Are these extraordinary circumstances?” Richard asked.
“Feels extraordinary to me,” Bishop said and kissed him again. When he came up for air, Bishop extended the cruet he’d been carrying.
“What’s this?” Richard asked, although in truth he didn’t care. His cock was about to burst through his jeans, and he was becoming impatient with all the talk. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a position in which his groin wasn’t screaming.
“I spent the day mixing spices for this oil. Musky, manly spices,” Bishop said and nibbled at Richard’s ear.
“There are manly spices?”
“Well, they’re strong.”
Richard laughed. He pulled the cork off the cruet and sniffed. He smelled frankincense, myrrh, lavender—cardamom? He couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, it was pungent and rich. But his concentration broke as he felt Bishop’s hand reach under his cassock and light on the blood-thick bulge of his cock, straining manfully against the containment of his jeans.
“So, are you suggesting that we use this for lube, or the chrism of consecration?” Richard asked, referring to the oil used in the ceremony for the ordination of bishops.
“Well,” Bishop said, squeezing at the bulge in his jeans, and leaning down to nuzzle Richard’s cheek. “Why choose?”
“I’ll read the Gospel,” Richard volunteered.
“I’ll smear the oil,” Bishop whispered.
“Let’s pray,” Richard said, arching his hips up against Bishop’s hand and pressing his lips hard against his.
A QUARTET OF EPILOGUES
EPILOGUE 1
HOLY APOCRYPHA FRIARY, BERKELEY
TERRY SAT IN THE KITCHEN at his regular place, hoping that coffee would magickally appear in front of him. It did. Brian leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Good mo
rning, sunshine,” he said. “You missed morning prayer.”
Terry gulped at the coffee. It burned his tongue, but he ignored it.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay with me, Honey Pants,” Brian said, laughing. “The others are just wrapping up.”
Terry nodded. He faintly heard Dylan’s sonorous voice chanting the final benediction. Reflexively, he crossed himself. Today, that would have to do.
He felt catatonic. No, that was hyperbole. He felt exhausted. “Is it okay if I do nothing today?”
“Honey, it’s okay if you do nothing this week,” Brian said, putting a large platter of waffles on the lazy Susan. A platter of sausage followed. “I think you’ve earned a vacation. Where should we go?”
“You mean, if we had the money?” he asked.
“Uh…right. If we had the money, where should we go?” Brian asked again.
“Some place without magick,” Terry said flatly.
“Ah, but you know what?” Brian placed a bowl of yogurt and fruit on the table. “You’d be miserable there.”
Terry said nothing. Susan came out of the office, waving an empty coffee cup. “They done yet?”
Dylan shot through the door and caught her around the middle. “We’re finished, but we’ll never be done, Darlin’.”
Susan laughed. “I don’t even know what that means.” She planted a kiss on his bulbous nose. “And neither do you.”
As soon as Dylan cleared the doorway, Mikael followed with Kat right behind him. Mikael’s head was bandaged—Terry noted the blood seeping through the gauze that had been a brilliant white the night before. No doubt Kat would change the dressing after breakfast.
Looking at Kat, Terry noted that she had just about the worst case of bed hair he had ever seen. He had never thought of her hair as angular, but here it was, a tangle of black vectors pointing in every conceivable direction. He realized that it was not dissimilar to Mikael’s normally shocking mane when it wasn’t buried under bandages.
