by J. R. Mabry
The Glory
Berkeley Blackfriars • Book 3
J.R. Mabry
Apocryphile Press
1700 Shattuck Ave #81, Berkeley, CA 94709
www.apocryphilepress.com
Copyright © 2018 by J.R. Mabry
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-1-947826-60-1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the author and publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews.
Lyrics from “In the Falling Dark” written by Bruce Cockburn. Used by permission of Rotten Kiddies Music, LLC
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OTHER BOOKS BY J.R. MABRY
The Berkeley Blackfriars Series:
The Kingdom
The Power
The Glory
The Christmas at Bremmer’s Series:
What Child is This?
The Temple of All Worlds Series:
The Worship of Mystery
The glory of God is only conveyed
by the chariot of truth.
—Rabbi Isaac Bar Baalam of Damascus
The sun will no longer be your light by day,
nor will the moon shine for illumination by night.
The Lord will be your everlasting light;
your God will be your glory.
—Isaiah 60:19 CEB
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near.
Like destruction from the Almighty it will come.
Then all hands will fall limp;
every human heart will melt,
and they will be terrified.
Like a woman writhing in labor,
they will be seized by spasms and agony.
They will look at each other aghast,
their faces blazing.
—Isaiah 13:6-8 NRSV
Some [apocalypses], such as Daniel, contain an elaborate review of history, presented in the form of a prophesy and culminating in a time of crisis and eschatological upheaval. Others, such as 2 Enoch, devote most of their text to accounts of the regions traversed in the otherworldly journey. The revelation of a supernatural world and the activity of supernatural beings are essential to all the apocalypses.
John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Quartet of Preludes
Prelude 1
Prelude 2
Prelude 3
Prelude 4
Friday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Saturday
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Sunday
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Monday
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Tuesday
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Wednesday
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Thursday
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Friday
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
A Quartet of Epilogues
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
Epilogue 4
Also by J.R. Mabry
Acknowledgments
The Blackfriars books have always owed much to books that have gone before, and The Glory is no different. Larch probably discovered his ascension oil from reading Charles Williams’ War in Heaven, just as I did.
I want to thank http://www.wiccanway.com/ for guidance on conducting a proper Mabon ritual. I give continued thanks to Josephine McCarthy’s The Exorcist’s Handbook for more creative ideas than I can possibly use. More thanks to my editor, Amanda Noonan, for her encouragement and keen eye.
Grateful thanks to my wife Lisa Fullam, who heard each scene hot off the printer, and who was constantly freaked out by the fact that she was often eager and ready to hear the next scene and it did not yet exist. There’s a deep philosophical meditation in there somewhere.
Thanks to my old friend Tony Davis, who said, “I enjoy the novels, but can’t we see some magickians who aren’t assholes? I mean, I want to see someone who looks like me.” Tony is a magickian, and definitely has his heart in the right place. I promised him that the third book would contain just such a magickian. Tony, Marco is for you.
About 1/3 of the way through writing this, Marillion’s 17th album, FEAR (F*ck Everyone And
Run) dropped into my lap, and it became the soundtrack for writing the balance of the book, much as their previous CDs have provided the soundtrack to most of my adult life. Thank you, boys—my life would be far less rich without you.
And I know this will be strange, but I want to thank my characters: Richard, Dylan, Susan, Mikael, Kat, Terry and Brian—and hell, even you, Larch—I really love you guys. I have had so much fun hanging out at your house, struggling alongside you, and laughing with you. I never knew what any of you would say until you said it and you constantly surprised and delighted me. This is intended to be the final Blackfriars novel, but you never know. I might just miss you too damn much and will need to come back for a visit, you know?
A Quartet of Preludes
For not from the east or from the west
and not from the wilderness comes lifting up;
but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another.
—Psalm 76:6-7
Prelude 1
Palestine, 1878 BCE
“If we tell him Joseph is alive, it will kill him.” Rueben sighed.
It was after breakfast, and Serah the daughter of Asher was cleaning up after her uncles. They barely noticed her as she gathered their plates and carried them to the kitchen, but she took notice of them. Not a word escaped her.
“I agree. He won’t survive it. The strain on his heart will be too great,” Dan added.
“Then we will have the death of both our brother and our father on our souls,” Naphtali said, flicking a walnut shell across the room.
Serah dropped the plate she had just picked up. Her uncles looked up at her, their knotty eyebrows raised at her error.
“My Uncle Joseph is…alive?” Her eyes were wide.
The brothers glanced at each other, then looked down. None of them were giving her reproachful looks now.
“How could you have kept this from us? How could you have kept this from grandfather?”
“You don’t understand,” her father said, with more edge in his voice than usual. She understood his meaning. That edge in his voice meant, It is not for you to know, and it is not for you to question us.
“Then perhaps you should explain it,” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips. Cool evening air wafted in from the windows, stirring a hanging cluster of bells.
“Asher, control your daughter,” Reuben commanded.
Serah ignored him.
“Serah,” her father’s tone softened. “I will explain it to you…later.”
“You will explain it to me now.”
Her uncles gasped at her impertinence. Wives spoke to their husbands like this in private, but never in public. A daughter never spoke in such a way—not ever. The brothers looked at Asher, expecting him to discipline her. He looked at the rug below his chair. “Serah, I must speak to your uncles in private. Then I shall come and speak to you. Do not shame me in front of my brothers.”
Serah looked at her father, then at her ten uncles. Without a word she snatched up the last of the plates and turned, slamming the door to the kitchen behind her with her heel. She handed the plates gently to her mother and put her forefinger to her lips. “Shhhhh.” She leaned her head against the kitchen door and listened.
“—is shameful.” She couldn’t tell who the speaker was.
“Maybe,” her father said. “But no daughter could be more precious to me than her. She always tells the truth.”
“That is not always a good thing,” her Uncle Levi noted.
“It is when she does it.”
This made some of them laugh.
“No, I am serious. She’s normally a quiet girl, so you may not have noticed. But when she does speak, she says what is true—and when she tells the truth, it somehow…makes things better.”
“Is she touched by God, then?” Uncle Simeon asked.
“I believe she is,” her father affirmed.
Serah felt her chest swell. Her father had never complimented her that way before, certainly not in front of her. He’s not doing it in front of me now, she reminded herself. Serah watched her mother tiptoe to the basin, trying to carry on her work without making any noise.
“Asher, are you saying that whenever your daughter speaks what is true, good comes of it rather than evil?”
“That is exactly what I am saying.” There was a long silence.
Serah held her breath. She backed off the door a bit, worried that one of her uncles might burst through it and find her eavesdropping. She glanced at her mother and she smiled, unconcerned. It didn’t bother her mother one bit that Serah was listening—her mother did it all the time.
When no one opened the door, she leaned closer to it. Is what father said true? she wondered. She had always considered telling the truth to simply be a good idea. And in her experience, good always resulted when she did. But is that not true for everyone? She had never thought of herself as special in any way.
“This is news indeed,” Uncle Reuben finally spoke.
“Asher, your daughter might just prove to be our salvation,” her Uncle Zebulun said. He rarely spoke, but when he did, people tended to listen.
“What do you mean?” Uncle Reuben asked.
“When we threw Joseph into that well and left him for dead, we created a deep pool of evil that each one of us drinks from every day. And it is poisonous to us. I fear it will be poisonous to Jacob our father as well.”
Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. Her uncles had always told her that their brother Joseph had been killed by lions. Is even my father guilty of this? It seemed he was. Her mother continued to smile. She was oblivious. Serah longed to tell her mother this awful truth. But…later—she didn’t want to miss anything. She kept her ear pressed to the door.
Uncle Zebulun continued: “Every day you send Serah to the well to draw water. This day let her draw healing forth from our poisoned well. Let her tell our father Jacob the truth about his son. Let her tell him, so that good and not evil will come of it.”
The sun was setting when she slipped into her grandfather’s bedchamber. He was standing at prayer, bobbing toward the window, his hands palms up before him, as if to catch the last rays of the sun. It was not unusual for one of his daughters or granddaughters to enter, tidy his room, or remove his soiled clothes from the pile in the corner. Serah gathered up his laundry and set it by the door. She hummed as she worked, as she often did. Her grandfather continued his bobbing, not disturbed by her presence or her song. When she finished humming a verse, she added lyrics.
“Joseph is in Egypt
And dangling on his knees
are two of Jacob’s grandsons
whom he has never seen.
Joseph is in Egypt,
living like a king.
His heart breaks for his father,
whom he would like to bring
to Egypt,
to Egypt land,
to Egypt,
to Egypt land.”
When she finished singing, she leaned against the wall and looked at her grandfather. He had stopped bobbing, his eyes were open, and tears streamed down his cheeks. “I cannot tell,” he said, his eyes still fixed on the darkening sky, “if you are the messenger of God or if you are simply a cruel, cruel child.”
“Grandfather, you know that I love you. Have you ever known me to be cruel?”
“No.”
“Have you ever known me to lie to you?”
“Not once.”
“Then believe me now, and be glad. Your son, my Uncle Joseph, is alive in Egypt. My father and his brothers met him when they went there for food last month. They were afraid to tell you.”
“But he is dead.”
She shook her head. “No. They lied to you.”
“Wicked children.” He turned his face away so she could not see it.
“Yes. They were wicked children. But as men they are contrite.”
His face was still turned away, but his fingers reached
for her, trembling. “My son, the son of my heart, he is…alive?”
