Jesus released him. Pilate fell to his hands and knees and uncontrollably voided all bodily wastes, violently retching and soiling himself until he was dry.
“You washed your hands of me,” Jesus accused him. Pilate"s hands began to burn. The talons sprung instant from torn finger tips and shred flesh, but the burning pain persisted. “Your soul shall now be cursed,” the Christ judged, “with eternal earthbound life.”
Pontius Pilate cried out in agony and despair. He knew what was coming. Pilate was cursed with earthly damnation. He rejected the Blood of Christ, so shall he now survive, instead, on the blood of man.
Until he remembers, Pontius Pilate cannot change his fate.
A vampire was he.
Pontius Pilate came to with a start. He looked all around. Jesus of Nazareth was gone. Pilate heard dark laughter faintly and fading.
A servant entered the room behind Pilate. She was trying to be as quiet as a mouse. So quiet as to make no discernable noise, but he knew it was his servant. He even knew which one she was.
Pontius Pilate could now smell her blood as if it was bread rising. The vampire thought his servant smelled delicious. She tip-toed ever so slowly and carefully toward Pilate, but he could hear even her fears.
Drool slopped down Pilate"s chin and his night vision sharpened. The torches that clung to the sconces on the walls became as the midday sun. He closed his eyes and could still see the brightness from behind closed lids.
Pilate heard her heart speed along now, the heady scent enrapturing. She was right behind him. She reached her hand out to him and he opened his yellowing eyes.
The fangs dropped and he turned to her. Vampire speed and the servant fell beneath him. He went for the strongest scent: the blood closest to the skin. He pierced her neck with his fangs and fed on her until nothing was left of the fruit save the peel. He dropped her empty and dry to the floor.
Pilate vacated the building flush and ready. He entered the darkened city of Jerusalem, still hungry. With the greed of a spoiled child let loose among the honey hives, the newborn vampire wanted more.
He hunted from the dark corners; the inky spaces.
The night was his ally.
It swallowed Pontius Pilate whole.
Chapter Fourteen
I
awake and open my eyes. I am numb and long past feeling any physical pain. I remember the torture and Herod"s maniacal laughter. They
used railway ties in my wrists and one through my crossed ankles. I am naked and I just want to die, but my mind is clear. I know who I am. I look to my right and I see the Christ.
She smiles at me, I can"t believe it. She is here with me. The two of us are in this together. The wrists of Immanuel freely bleed.
“I know you,” I tell her. “You are Jesus of
Nazareth.”
“Yes,” she says.
“You are the Christ,” I testify.
“Truly,” she agrees, “And you are Pontius
Pilate.”
She is nude. They stripped the Christ and made her nude. They hung her from a tree and are torturing her like a criminal. The sorrow I feel for Immanuel knows no limit; it has no bottom. I wish God will change His mind about all of this. I wish God will ask Holy Mother to wash it all away. If she is allowed to be hurt, then nothing deserves to live.
I ache to help Immanuel, but I am bound and nailed. I am worthless to her. Like the two thieves being crucified on either side of Jesus on Golgotha, I am impotent and useless. I cannot even save myself. My frustration is agony.
I turn bac k to her: “I know who I am,” I state. “I am nobody. No one, I am nothing but garbage, that"s what I am. I turned my back on you. I knew you were innocent and I washed my hands of it.”
She nods, “Go on,” she says, “my child.” “I brought you here,” he continues. “I knew they wanted you dead and I brought you here. I delivered you unto them so I could save my drug dealing business. I did it for the love of money. And the power that goes with it.”
“Yes, you did,” agrees the Christ.
“You are innocent and I helped them do this to you,” I tell her. I begin to cry. “I am ashamed of what I"ve done.” I am weeping now, the bloody saline spilling, trying to hide my shameful nakedness. “You gave me so many lives,” I cry, “So many chances!”
Herod stands before us his pungent lit opium pipe curls tiny seductive fingers toward the inky black ceiling. He smiles at Immanuel and I his penis stained deep with the same shade of blood that is leaking out of her bottom. It drips like holy paint down the rough wood of her cross. I dangle from its twin.
“I"ve sinned Lord, and have the blood of countless innocents staining my hands,” I confess to Immanuel. “More than I can ever atone for. I deserve punishment,” I say, “I deserve damnation.”
Herod orders his albino circus-geek Ovid to get his machete. They are right. It is time to end this madness. The albino goes around the corner to pry it from the wall.
“I know I deserve no mercy from you,” I cry out, trying to move closer to her. The distance between us remains. A few scant feet that"s a gulf, it seems to me. I wish I can make the Savior understand how horrified I am at myself. How disgusted it makes me feel. Mostly, I wish I can touch her one last time, to hold her and beg her for forgiveness.
Ovid is tugging on it. His decades" worth of homemade tattoos wiggle and strain as he struggles with the giant blade. He makes a satisfied grunt when he pulls it free from the wall. He straps it on.
Immanuel is looking at me lovingly. She makes me believe that I am the prodigal son. I have been away for a very long time. completely different. I feel punishment. How many have I had to kill in the last two millennia so that I may live? Too many to count, I believe. Can I even count how many have been slaughtered by me, just in this lifetime alone? And they were not all for food. I have acres and acres of blood-stain on my accounts payable sheet. It is a debt too high for me to ever pay.
I believe my fate ends with a one-way hand stamp to Hell. I accept it. An image of the Diabolous, two thousand years before, licking my ear and encouraging the washing of my hands is born whole in my mind: the dark fading laughter. Hell is where I deserve to do my Time. Eternity, I feel, might just be long enough to make amends.
“Roman,” she says to me, hearing clearly my thoughtsand fears, “Look at me and heareth these words: all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.”
I shake my head. No. The damage is done and there"s no going Home. Not for me.
I, she knows, feel that I deserve
Old Herod nods at Ovid. He turns his dumb face toward the wall.
“The Father has sent me to wash away the sins of the world,” Immanuel tells me.
“But the wages of sin is Death,” from me.
“And through my suffering and death is forgiveness and Life everlasting.”
Herod hits his pipe again and watches the two of us as we hang and speak to each other in tongues that he has never heard before. Herod asks his men, many now covered from head to toe in our blood and pain, what it was we are saying. They didn"t understand what we were saying. They don"t know anything. Regardless, Herod has had enough of this shit.
“Kill the vampire,” he states flatly, “First.”
Ovid nods and starts for the wall on which we hang and speak in new tongues to one another.
“Can you ever forgive me?” I finally ask out loud. My head drops then, the will to live long gone. “Is it even possible?” I wonder, heart-broken and Hell-bound.
Ovid tramples over to us, the machete clanging as he co mes.
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee,” she tells me as I despair, “Before today is done, we shall be together in Paradise.”
Ovid draws nigh. I know what he is going to do. I am ready for it. I raise my head to him, offering my neck. The machete is slung back, high behind Ovid"s ear. The blade reaches its peak and hangs, for the tiniest of moments, suspended in air. Fuck them. Do it.
�
��I am forgiven,” I, Pontius Pilate, state.
Ovid swings the machete and the blade flashes.
“My beloved child,” Immanuel says, “it is time for you to come Home.”
Ovid"s swing is true. The blade slices through my exposed neck; the eyes of the Roman locked with his Christ. My head fa lls to the plastic sheeting. Great gouts of blood are an explosive torrent from my rent neck. It smothers Ovid and he has to wipe it stinging from his eyes. He tugs on the blade until it is loose from the thick wood. Ovid turns and regards Herod.
“Her next,” he orders around a plume of opium haze.
Immanuel gazes up at the ceiling. Above her she sees all those in Heaven that await her. They all love her so, she knows. They always hate this part, no matter how many times through the Ages she has done this, they hate it. But God so loved the world…
Michael the Archangel stands nearby, also dreading the next. He waits for her, too. He waits for it to end. She did what she came to do and he waits impatiently to collect her Spirit.
Ovid steps up to the tiny Christ. With a wicked-wide smile, Herod watches. His men line up behind him to get a good view to the kill. They are watching with interest the executions. Immanuel considers them. She raises her head toward the Heavens.
“Forgive them,” she tells those who wait for her, “for they know not what they do.” Then Immanuel looks next at Herod who blows her a kiss. “Except for him,” she amends, glancing back to Michael. He nods. It will be no problem. It shall be the angel"s pleasure.
Ovid pulls the machete back again, his wide face expressionless. Michael snorts with a fury that is unseen by the humans. Oh, what he wants to do to these filthy, conniving little monkeys. He grabs the hilt of his sword. He can lay such waste to these wretches. but dust. conjure up a howling wind and blow all the ashes and dust away. But it had already been written.
The machete swings forward, blade singing. “It is finished!” Immanuel cries.
Michael releases the grip on the handle of his mighty sword as Ovid"s machete strikes home. The blade buriesitself in the wood of Immanuel"s cross. Her decapitated head drops unceremoniously to the floor. Ovid scoops up both of our severed heads. He approaches the throne. With head bowed in supplication, Ovid kneels before the Herod. He lifts us up by our hair to him.
A beastly happy Herod is presented with the severed heads of Pontius Pilate and Immanuel Christ. But he doesn"t see Michael as he stalks toward him with a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound. He grips the hilt of his fiery sword and pulls it free, still moving. Herod looks up and sees a pissed off archangel bulling through his china shop. Herod"s smile fades into confusion as Michael raises his sword. The archangel slices a downward arc at him. Herod is still trying to gauge the level of danger as his torso is split from right neck to left waist. He separates top from bottom, slides apart and drops dead to the floor with two separate thuds.
The blood and filth-stained cops stand dumbfounded. Pleading silent, they stare fearfully at Michael. He sheaths his Retribution, the flame dying as he does so. Michael notices the men. They are quaking now as children that are being taunted by bullies. The angel lets loose the hilt of The angel can turn them all to nothing Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He can his sword and points to both pieces of Herod, bleeding all over the Compound floor.
“Repeat Offender,” he tells them.
And then Michael winks out, just as She instructed. Leaving the cops unmolested, forgiven and unharmed.
For God still loves this world. Inexplicably, She does.
…… END
THE FALL Page 8
