Mike
Despite the strange and unusual circumstances, not to mention the outrageous story Jude and I had spun, Leslie was a gracious hostess. Heck, if it had been me, I might have called the nearest mental hospital for a brace of straitjackets and a pair of big Iowa farm boys to help strap them on.
I must admit that, upon first meeting Leslie Winchester, my adolescent fantasies from the early ’80s dimmed somewhat against the harsh light of reality. Even so, she remained a fine figure of a woman, lush and emanating enough sex appeal to make my collar feel tight. It was the first time in a long while I heard the siren call of the opposite sex.
Leslie was kind enough to offer us a bed for the night, but we declined, our business being too urgent for us to lose any more time. Sighing, she found her smart phone and tapped an icon. Obligingly, she hit the SPEAKER and let us listen in.
A clicking noise as a gravelly voice answered, “Ma? Is that you?”
“Yes, Alexander, it’s me,” replied Leslie with a melancholy smile.
“Look, if it’s about the glass rose, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.” Alexander, despite his deep, gruff voice, sounded petulant and childish.
I looked at Jude. Glass rose? I mouthed silently. He nodded once, affirming that the Grail’s camouflage capability was at work.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Leslie purred. “It’s not about that. Where are you?”
“At our place in Bend.”
“Good. Honey, a couple of friends of mine want to talk to you. It’s important.”
Alexander’s voice became even rougher. “I don’t wanna talk to anyone, Ma.”
“Sweetie,” she soothed. “It’s all right. They’re good people. One’s a priest.”
“And the other one, Ma, is he a slim, darker man, dark like an Ay-rab or Jew?”
I felt a prickle down my spine. Jude shook his head, eyes hooded with concern. This wasn’t going to end well.
“Yes, his name is Jude. I believe he’s a good man.”
“Ma, I see either that priest or that Ay-rab Jew up here and I’m gonna put a hole in ’em. That also goes for that uptight Limey bastard you got waitin’ on you hand and foot.”
Leslie’s face became a study in apprehension. “Alexander, please!”
“The name’s Baphemaloch, Ma.” Behind me I heard Jude swear softly. Later, I’d have to talk to him about his language. “Me and the Demons are going to Keep the Glass Rose Safe.” I could hear the capitals in his voice. “So if you see your two pals, tell them Baphemaloch is waiting.” The line went dead.
“Shit,” Jude muttered while Leslie moaned and began to weep, laying her head on Nigel’s shoulder.
“Language,” I admonished. Still, I couldn’t put any heat into the rebuke because of the creepy feeling skittering over my skin. Alexander/Baphemaloch’s voice had carried a diamond-sharp edge.
“What? What’s going on?” Nigel said, perplexed and angry.
Jude sighed. “Alexander is under the influence.”
Nigel raised an eyebrow through the curls of Leslie’s hair as she dampened his tux with her tears.
“What, Jude?” I kept my tone neutral. “What kind of influence? Drugs?”
He shook his head, avoiding our eyes. “Who are the demons he was talking about?”
“The biker gang he belongs to, Demon’s Blood,” Leslie’s voice was muffled by the stiff fabric of Nigel’s jacket.
“Mate, the priest asked you a question. What influence is Alexander under?” Nigel inquired calmly, features set in stone.
He fingered the notch in his ear. “Drugs, man. Probably meth.”
Jude’s lie caused a wave of nausea to sweep through me. His terrible poker face was visible only to me because he was half turned away from Nigel. He knew I’d caught him out.
Leslie sobbed harder as Nigel stroked her hair.
A few minutes later the couple escorted us through the front door/garage/drawbridge affair all the way to the wrought-iron gate. Jude turned to the shaken Leslie and said, “I’ll do what I can to help Alexander.”
A spark of hope caught behind her eyes and blazed. “You promise?” she begged in a little girl lost voice.
“Hey!” Jude said suddenly. “I still owe you some magic.” He turned to Nigel and me. “Give us a moment, gents.”
Obligingly we moved away, watching curiously as Jude leaned in and whispered into Leslie’s ear.
I looked at the butler. “Nigel, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
He grinned impishly “You want to know what a former SAS chap from Liverpool is in the States acting like a proper butler to her nibs?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Not too ruddy hard to figure. I retired from service and was dithering around my flat when a chum of mine who runs an employment service calls and informs me that the Leslie Winchester was looking for a real gentleman butler.” He sighed, staring at the woman talking softly with Jude. “My friend knows I have it something bad for the lady, always have since I bought my first Cinnamon Relic back in the ’70s. So I donned my best high-end accent and he puts me into the job. That was six bloody years ago and I’ve been happy bugger ever since.”
One thing puzzled me. “Why the upper-crust dialect?”
“Americans expect the snooty, snide type of talk they see in Merchant Ivory productions,” he said as if that explained everything. At my look of incomprehension, he said, “I must of watched Remains of the Day at least a dozen times so I could sound like Anthony Hopkins.”
I nodded sagely, wondering if Leslie realized how much he cared for her.
A few seconds later Leslie gave Jude a tight hug, her face bright and happy, while he surreptitiously rubbed his nose.
“Thank you very much for your generosity, Ms. Winchester,” Jude said with false good cheer. “I’m sorry for any ruckus we might have caused.”
“Nonsense, Jude!” she said, dimpling prettily. “I’m sorry for all the screaming. And please, it’s Leslie.”
“Leslie it is, then.”
“Hey, I still have to call Alexander for you, just a sec.” She began toward the castle, but Jude put himself in her way with one swift move.
“No need, Leslie, I’ll find him. I have my ways and it will be just fine.”
Nigel and I gave each other a puzzled look but kept our traps shut.
“You still owe me some more magic,” said Leslie.
“Right you are!” Jude ran his slender fingers though her hair and said a Word.
I’ve heard Jude use Words and, like all the others, this one slipped into my ear and nestled in the frontal lobe like a happy cat before screeching and tearing off out the other ear. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant.
Whatever Word he whispered in her ear hit like an electric shock, causing her to tremble violently. Her eyes grew so round, so wide I thought that they would pop out.
Nigel rushed forward, body poised to lash out with lethal force, but suddenly the tension went out of Leslie as if someone had blown out the candle of her rigidity.
“Oh, wow … what a rush,” she breathed, face flushed and streaming with sweat.
“You all right, mum?” Nigel asked, voice tight.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and planted a long wet one on him that carried so much heat that even the neighbors must have felt it.
“Good lord,” I said, crossing myself and pulling Jude away from the two and their frantic embrace. “Jude, what did you do?”
“Hit her with a Forgetting, erased the memory of the conversation with Alexander.” The happy couple continued their clinch, Nigel giving as much as he got and adding a bit of interest. “I also gave her Vigor, which is a lot like a super dose of caffeine without the tremors.” He eyeballed the two for another moment. “I think it tore down the barrier that has kept those two apart.”
I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, “Was a Forgetting necessary?”
“You saw how broken up she was,” he whispered back. “This is much better, although I hate messing with peoples’ minds. The smell of licorice makes me want to barf.”
“How’s your ear, by the way?” I asked, pointing to the notch right above the lobe of his left ear.
He fingered the gap. “I wish Healing would regenerate lost tissue. But I’m okay, man.”
The two lovebirds hadn’t come up for air yet, so I grabbed Jude (who seemed enthralled by their embrace) and led him out the gate. “You need to find a nice girl, Jude.”
“If I find one, I hope she can hold her breath like that,” he remarked with a smile.
“Don’t be a perv.”
The smile slid from his face. “Least of my sins.”
Jude did the driving from there, heading out toward 25 North, but before that we stopped at a Circle K, where he asked me to gas the truck while he went inside to pay. As the digits on the pump climbed, Jude exited the store with a small plastic bag and a donut in one hand.
“You got twenty bucks for gas,” he slurred through a mouth of day-old pastry.
“Cool. Get me one?”
He shook his head. “Last one, but I did you one better.” Smiling through powdered sugar, he handed me a Mountain Dew. “I know it’s not sacramental wine, but-”
“It’ll do.” Ah, the sweet caffeinated brew caressed my throat like an old lover. I so missed the buzz of stimulants, the only vice I really subscribe to. “That hit the spot,” I belched. “Now what?”
“Now we drive a while.”
“Then?”
“We make a phone call.”
Lovely. Great time to get all mysterious on me, but pushing him wouldn’t get me jack-squat, so I sat next to him, basking in a comfortable silence that only good friends can generate.
Before too long we passed a wide spot in the middle of the road called Socorro, a flash of neon and halogens that met our eyes briefly before it became a quickly fading memory. It was about five miles north of that little town that Jude pulled over and eased out of the car, taking the bag with him. He left the engine running and the headlights on.
“Jude, what is it?” By the dim light of the sliver moon and the stars, I saw him hold up a plastic case and drop the bag to the ground.
“Don’t litter,” I snapped, picking up the bag.
“Saint Michael.” The smugness in his voice was thick enough to cut.
“Smartass. Now what gives?”
“Phone call.” He turned toward me and ripped the plastic case open and held up a disposable cell phone. “I have some things to tell you that are going to seem rather … fantastic. You have to stay strong.”
Uneasy, I nodded. “I think I have heard a few fantastic things already.”
“Oh, and get my duffel, please.”
After I set the duffel at his feet, he rummaged through, pulling out the liter bottle of holy water, a plastic sleeve of Dixie cups and a small make-up case. Opening the case he removed a small fat jar with a white label.
“What’s going on, Jude?”
He unscrewed the cap and took a sniff. “This, my friend, is a mixture of dill seed, edelweiss and foxglove. Mixed properly they provide protection from magic.” The bottle flew through the air and I caught it reflexively. Inside was a whitish paste. I brought it to my nose and smelled a kind of electric tang. I tossed the bottle back.
“You see,” Jude continued, setting the bottle carefully on the ground and picking up the sleeve of Dixie cups. “Herbs are at their most potent when fresh; however, keeping a greenhouse with you wherever you go puts a damper on your travel plans. So I mixed these while fresh and made a paste out of them using a mixture of agar agar and holy water.” He pulled seven tiny cups from their sleeve. “Can’t use corn starch or tapioca starch to thicken the mix-they unbalance the ingredients-but agar agar is almost perfect.” A slim finger dipped into the jar of paste and emerged with a tiny glob, which he smeared on the top inside inch of the first Dixie cup.
“Mike, when God created the world, he used a Word. The Word. First there’s nothing, then poof! God says the Word and there was light. Then he says the Word again and poof! Our happy little planet. All the Words are mere reflections of the Word, like copies of a copy of a copy ad nauseum until all you can see are a few smeared, broken letters.
“Elemental and Botanical magic are different, man. They are leftover divine sparks when God spoke the Word bringing life to this world. The elements had their Primals to keep the balance just so, while plants grew into their potential, each one with a capacity for a kind of magic … Protection, Purification, Healing, Wisdom, Strength, etc.”
Soon all seven cups had their smears of paste and he laid six in a circle with the seventh in the center. Then he poured the holy water into each cup until it barely touched the white paste.
“Botanical magic is the most versatile,” he said quietly. “The subtlest. So many uses for the spark of divine magic in each plant. The Family has always regarded Botanical magic as the weakest, because it requires so much preparation and the ingredients aren’t conveniently located in one spot. However, with a little discipline, a little patience, you can achieve miracles Words or Elemental magic can never touch.
“Now, as you’ve read in my … memoir, only males in my family can use the Words. In fact, the magi not related to my Family are all male, at least as far as I know, my exposure to magi outside the Family has been rather limited. However, the use of Botanical magic is not gender specific, nor does it require you to be a magus. All you need is a slight … sensitivity to magic. Male or female, if you have that sensitivity to magic, you have the ability to use Botanical magic.”
Like firecrackers on a string, words popped out of his mouth faster and faster while I listened, rapt. “That’s where Wiccans come from, you know. Back in the day someone stumbled onto their magical heritage, usually by accident, and formed a religion based on nature.” The words trailed off. He looked up at the clear sky, staring at the slew of stars overhead. “Nature’s not a bad thing to worship, really. It’s all about balance and acceptance, realizing that things have their time to live and die. There are worse things to worship … much worse.”
I couldn’t keep quiet any more. “Why are you telling me this, Jude?”
“I love the stars, man. Always have. People look at the stars and think that Heaven must be there, despite what the Hubble telescope shows.” He laughed and the sound was like cracking ice. “Did you know that Christ had two brothers and a sister?”
The conversational whiplash nearly spun my head about. “What?”
“God used the Word to impregnate Mary and she was still infused with the divine spark when she gave birth to the other three children. Not surprising really, considering zero birth control and what kind of a loving God tells people to go forth and multiply, but leaves her without the ability to have more? That doesn’t make sense, considering she was married. So that little bit of divine spark got passed to her kids. The line of Joseph and Mary has some of the most powerful magi that have ever existed. The Sicarii have been trying to eliminate them for two millennia, man. And failing miserably.”
“Jude-”
“No, you have to hear this, man. Please. It’ll prepare you for what’s to come.” A deep sigh. “You know Luke 22:3–6 and John 13:27 … the Gospels that said Satan entered Judas and that led to the betrayal of Jesus?”
“Of course.”
“Of course … look who I’m talking to. Think about this: Satan never enters anyone else in the Bible, does he? Not until Revelations. Whom does Satan merge with in Revelations, Mike?”
An easy one. “His son, the Anti-Christ.”
“Good. Now put two and two together here, man … Satan only enters his son, or relative maybe because they are strong enough to be entered, to be able to contain Satan’s might. Reasonable, yes?”
“Yes, but-”
“So logic dictates,” Jude broke in. “That he can only enter a family member, like his son, or grandson, someone with resilient flesh.”
I stroked my moustache. “That’s possible, I guess.”
“When Christ comes at the end times, who comes to oppose him?”
“The Anti-Christ.”
“Good, we’re getting somewhere. Okay, big question here … so who opposed Christ two thousand years ago? Who betrayed him? And who is most likely to be seen as a kind of Anti-Christ?”
Oh, my … his words tumbled about in my head like pachinko balls ding ding dinging against my skull and knocking about everything I’d ever learned in Seminary. “Judas …” I breathed.
His look was bitter as vinegar. “Yeah. And because he was entered by Satan and, in the end, opposed Christ …?”
I wanted to puke. “The Anti-Christ?”
Jude nodded. “Yeah, he was Satan’s first born son, the one sent to betray Christ.”
The ground was warm and sandy under my butt; however, something prickled my left cheek. A thorn perhaps, but I didn’t feel it, not as pain, more as a minor irritation. That pachinko ball continued to bounce off the soft gray matter, scattering my thoughts, so I fell back on the only thing that could offer any comfort.
“’Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name …’”
I guess it was a kindness that Jude let me finish.
“You okay, Mike?” he asked when my voice trailed off.
Centered again, I nodded. It came to me that anyone else would haul Jude away to the laughing academy, even if they believed in magic, but in all my time in the army, as a priest, I know when someone is lying to me or delusional. Jude was neither. I just wished he were. “I’m fine.”
“Good, because here comes the fastball. Judas Iscariot … do you know the origin of the name Iscariot? It’s not a family name. Judas claimed to be the son of Simon. No, the name comes from the band of rebels he formed, fanatics who would do anything to drive out the Romans, led by a man who practically foamed at the mouth. A group of assassins called the Sicarii.”
“Judas Iscariot is-”
“The Founder. Founder of the Sicarii and of my Family. Except the spark that created the magi in the Family is not quite divine, is it?”
“Oh, dear Lord.” Ding ding ding. Why was he hitting me with all this? Was the sand shifting under me? No, I was lying flat on my back, staring at the stars. They winked at me, impervious to the shock my system had just received.
“Trust me, He has nothing to do with it.” There came a soft thump as Jude sat down beside me. “Sorry to hit you with all this, Mike, but you had to know. It wasn’t all in the memoir and we’re about to enter the lion’s den. It’s here, right before the plunge that you have to decide whether to fish or cut bait, man.”
Kind of him to give me the option, although it wasn’t needed, not by a long shot. Some things you feel right down to the bone because the people you share your strange little worlds with, the people you let inside the walls of your life and who let you into theirs, deserve the benefit of the doubt. But one essential truth shone like the light of the Lord:
He was my friend.
“Let’s see what we catch, then,” I said.
The phones little LED cast a harsh light on Jude’s features, turning them a ghastly green. Dit, Dit, Dit … He dialed, pressed the SPEAKER button, and gently balanced the phone on the center cup inside the ring.
Only three numbers? I thought.
Three numbers or not, a tinny ringing noise came from the cell. Two, three, four then five rings without an answer.
“Olivier, my boy, I am so glad you called.”
Oh my … that voice, the Voice. It had to be … It rolled out of the tiny speakers as if thrumming from the very atmosphere we breathed, bypassing any mere mechanical contrivance built by man. Smooth as silk, almost greasy, deep and vibrant with a paternal undertone that set my teeth on edge.
John Noble, I thought. The voice sounded like that of John Noble, the actor who played a crazy scientist on a sci-fi show called Fringe (a priest who watches and reads sci-fi, who’da thunkit?). The Voice had the same cadence and inflection, but there was a deep … wrongness to it that reminded me of a shark swimming just below the waves, dorsal fin breaching to declare its menacing intentions.
“Hello,” Jude said distantly, as if he didn’t care a whit about the Voice.
“You’ve blocked me. I’m impressed; no one has ever done that before. It just proves to me once again how special you are.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need you tracking me or blowing a phone up in my face.”
“You’ll just have to forgive me that one, boy. I lost my temper. Won’t happen again.” It sounded sincere, but I could see the big muscles at the corner of Jude’s jaws clench.
“I think I’ll have to opt out of believing you this time.”
“No problem, my boy,” the Voice purred. “Come on home soon. All is forgiven, you have my guarantee. No one will gainsay me, you know that.”
“That’s true.”
“For fifteen years you’ve evaded me and the Family. That ought to prove to anyone with half a brain that you’re the One we need, my boy, despite the fact you have the Liar’s talking monkey traveling with you.”
Jude’s alarmed gaze met mine. “What?” he asked. “You talking about the priest who tried to help me fix a flat when one of your gate crashers attempted to trim my hair down to the neck? He was just passing by.”
“I think you’re using him to help you find the Liar’s Cup.”
Jude grimaced. “No, I’m not, but something tells me it’s no longer where I think it is. You’ve got it, don’t you? Or, I should say, one of your party boys has it.”
“Ah, so you’ve spoken with the lovely Ms. Winchester, have you?”
“Not really spoken. More like she screamed all she knew before I bled her out like the pig that she was.” I shot him a surprised glance, but he shook his head slightly.
“Good boy, nice to see that all your years in America have not dulled your killer’s edge.”
“Yeah, talk to Burke about it, man.”
“Burke was good, no doubt about it, no doubt at all.” A brief moment of silence. “You sound so very American, Olivier, the cadence, the inflection. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I spent a long time trying to blend in. Cultural camouflage.”
“So come home to us, boy. Tell me where you are.”
“I don’t think so, sir. I’m not strong enough yet to take on Julian.”
The laughter that burst forth from those speakers made my hair stand on end. “Boy, you have the Silver. With that you can remove Julian handily.”
Jude scratched his head. “Yeah, but I don’t have the Silver anymore.”
If the laugher was unnerving, the silence that followed was horrifying. In place of menace there was a thick, gelid sense of evil that froze the breath in my lungs and drained all electrical impulses from my brain, leaving me in a senseless limbo.
That limbo stretched to infinity and back before the Voice spoke again. “You are lying,” he said, breaking the pregnant pause with a snap.
“No,” Jude refuted. “I’m not. Three years ago in Libya I located the Ark. Took some working, but managed to smuggle it home in a tramp freighter out of Benghazi named Star of Rawiah. I had placed the Silver inside so you couldn’t track it, surrounded by all that holiness, but somewhere off the coast of Sardinia the ship went down with all hands. For all I know, the Ark is at the bottom of the Med with the Silver still inside.”
Oh, Lord … I felt it before it happened.
Screeeeccchhhhhh! Razor blades slicing through skin, fingernails on chalkboard, the ripping of tin and high pitched whine of a stressed turbo as it headed toward failure. The sound that leaked through those tiny speakers was all those and more; a mix of noises so ghastly it was if someone had stuffed them into a blender and hit frappe.
Mere seconds passed, but to my poor tortured ears it seemed a lifetime. Just when I thought the fine bones of my middle ear would shatter, the cell’s LED screen cracked with a soft pop and let out a curl of dark smoke.
“Well, that pissed him off.”
If that was an example of being pissed off, I sure didn’t want to be around when the Voice gave vent to some serious anger issues. I stared numbly at my friend as he removed the phone and threw it out deep into the desert before empting the cups of holy water. Surprisingly, there were only a few drops left in each.
Jude caught the edge of my curiosity. “The presence of holy water acts like buffer between the real world and the Voice so he can’t track us, but the sharper his focus, the more holy water is dissipated.”
“Jude,” I said slowly, my brain refusing to engage past first gear. “That … that Voice, the Patron of your family … he is, is he … ah …” My mouth didn’t want to work right and I felt unyielding pressure bearing down upon my shoulders.
“Yeah, man.” Jude nodded. “It’s who you think it is. My many time great-grandfather, Lucifer.”
I watched the hardening of his tortured features, his expression more eloquent than a scream. I didn’t respond. Words wouldn’t suffice to console a man with Hell in his blood.