2 The Judas Kiss (26 page)

             
Maryam sobbed, begging Yosef to go after him, but everyone knew as well as I did, there was nothing to be done.  There was no answer as to why they couldn’t go after him, but it simply was.  We slept fitfully, I dreamed of the men in orange taking Yehuda to a large temple, shaving his head, and making him sit in front of a large golden statue.

             
What I didn’t know then, was the men were Buddhists, come from what became ‘India’ to the western world, in the hills of Kashmir.  They took him as the incarnation of the Buddha himself, and they taught him.  They taught him the way of peace, the path of nonviolence and transcending the bitterness of the world.  It was a lifestyle that I would come to study, to adore, yet never fully understand as my ability to fear death had been robbed from me on the day I was cursed with immortality.

             
The road back home was a lonely one, not just for the loss of Yeshua, but also as Yaakov had been accepted into the Pharisee school alongside his cousin Yochanan, and the full, happy home I’d walked into was now small, torn, and grieving. 

             
We reached the banks of the sea in three days, our walk slower, stopping when Maryam could no longer keep her head up.  She mourned, raged and cried that they had taken her son.  They had given up everything to protect him, they had uprooted their family, they had taken risks and lived in fear, and it was all for nothing.  My heart broke for her, but nothing anyone said could console her, and after we reached home, she went into the home and didn’t speak a word for several days.

             
But life went on.  There wasn’t anything else for life to do but move forward.  We grew up, we worked hard, and we built our own homes near the family.  I married young, only seventeen when I took my wife.  She was not much younger than me, pretty, and she made me forget about my past, about my heritage, and with her I was Makabi, and I was a Hebrew man, and a proud husband, and after a year, father to a little girl named Maryam, after the mother who took me in. 

             
Yehuda never took a wife.  He worked, he loved my children as they were born and grew up, and he was a part of our family.  But he was quiet after that, after Yeshua had gone.  He let the bitterness take him, and he never recovered.  I loved him; he was my brother and I loved him and there wasn’t a moment that went by where I didn’t worry about him.

             
And then it all changed.  It was a spring morning; I was outside with Yosef working on a rather large order of furniture that was to be delivered to Jerusalem.  It was warmer that year than it had been in some time, and as I sanded down the top of the table, sweat was pouring from my brow.  The heavy, salty sea air whipped across our faces, stinging a little, but in that way that lets you know you’re home, where you belong. 

             
Yehuda was off to the side, working on fitting a glass pane into a wooden frame when we first saw him.  The road was clear, and there was no mistaking the man with the face identical to Yehuda, strolling across the land.  He was wearing wrapped robes from the East in gentle colors of the earth, brown and green, and his smile carried with it a serenity that would never be seen on Yehuda’s face.

             
I didn’t notice him until the sound of glass shattering startled me out of my work.  I whipped around to see if Yehuda was okay, and it only took me a moment to see what he was staring at.  Yeshua was coming up the road.  He gave a little wave, so unlike the boy who had disappeared to the East so long ago, and with him came this moment, a dread passing over me, when I realized that nothing was going to be the same, and the world was about to crumble down around us.

Chapter Thirteen

              By the fourth time Andrew vomited on the carpet, Ben was done.  He was absolutely and completely one-thousand percent done.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle vomit; he was a homicide detective for Christ’s sakes.  He’d seen more gore and filth than any human should ever be subjected to.  But having to take care of a god-possessed heroin junkie going through withdrawals sent Ben over the edge.

             
He had no way of reaching Alex, he was worried that Olivia was going to be considered missing and the last thing he needed was to be implicated or involved in any reported kidnapping.  His desire to call Stella and demand a little help was pressing on him more and more as time went by.

             
He’d managed to get Andrew cleaned up and into the bed, and he was airing out the smell of smoke, booze and vomit through the cracked hotel door and open window.  He was pacing the room, missing those quiet minutes he’d spent strolling on the beach, his hand in Alex’s, trying not to associate holding hands with her with holding hands with Thor, because frankly that was just a little too bizarre for him.

             
He was about to give up, to tell Andrew thanks for nothing, and leave the room when he was startled by both Alex strolling through the door and his cell phone ringing at the same time.  Eyes trained on Alex, he fumbled with his phone and answered without checking to see who it was.

             
“Stanford,” he barked, not really in the mood to speak to anyone.

             
“I’m in trouble,” came the shaking, half-whispered plea. 

             
He ripped the phone away from his ear and glanced at the caller ID to see that it was Stella.  He held a hand up to Alex and then stepped outside of the hotel room, feeling panicked and worried for her despite his anger over her secrets.  “What’s happening?  Where are you?”

             
“I’m being followed,” she said, her voice still husky and quiet.  “I’m in a diner about an hour outside of San Diego.  It’s somewhere off the freeway.”

             
“Do you need me to come get you?” Ben asked.  He could see through the slit in the curtain Alex bending over to check on Andrew who was still unconscious in the bed.  He wasn’t quite sure how he could possibly get away from these two, no matter who it was that needed help.

             
“No, I have my car, but I’m worried about you.  They know you know,” she said.  Her voice echoed slightly, cueing Ben in to the fact that she was likely in a bathroom.  “Part of my agreement was that I kept what I knew a secret.”

             
“What agreement?” Ben demanded, no longer distracted by his two companions.  “Agreement with whom?”

             
“It’s better that I don’t say,” she said.  “I realize I’ve been keeping a lot of secrets, but it was to keep you safe.”

             
“Fat lot of good that did,” Ben all-but shouted at her.  “My sister’s a puppet, Mark and Jude were kidnapped, and I’m in some hotel with Viking gods, one of which is currently having a heroin fit on the hotel bed.  I don’t think it could get much worse, Stella, so why not just tell me the damn truth.”

             
“What do you mean Viking gods?” she said, ignoring everything else he’d just shouted at her.

             
“You know what, that’s not important,” Ben said.  “You met Andrew already, so you already know all about that.  What I want is answers.”

             
“I’ll explain everything when I get there, okay.  Where are you?” she asked.

             
Ben let out a sharp laugh and shook his head, despite the fact that she couldn’t see the gesture.  “Oh no.  I’m not telling you anything.  I have no idea who you’re talking to or what you know.  You could be in league with that crazy bitch for all I know,” he said sharply, unable to utter Nike’s name. 

             
“Then meet me somewhere, okay,” she stressed.  “Ben, I swear I will tell you everything, I just…”

             
“Call me when you get into town,” Ben said, cutting her off.  He’d had enough of her mind games and refusal to talk.  He was still sore over the fact that she’d kept so much from him, and he had to wonder if he could have saved his sister if he’d just had all the information before he walked into that compound. 

             
Without waiting for her response, Ben ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket.  He walked inside, feeling stressed and agitated.  His face was flushed and he let out a breath, trying to calm his racing heart.  For all he knew, Stella could have been the one to tip Nike off in the first place, and Ben couldn’t trust her.  She had clearly manipulated the situation and she had encouraged Ben to go after his sister, not letting on at all what she knew.  Ben walked in there without a real plan and no idea what was in store for them.  It was possible Stella knew about the bomb.

             
Alex was sitting near Andrew’s feet, her expression patient, the DVD in her hands.  “I take it that didn’t go well?”

             
“That was Stella,” Ben said, letting out another long breath.  He rubbed his face and shook his head from side to side roughly.  “I can’t think about her right now.  That is a situation I just don’t have the energy to process.”

             
“As I don’t have all the info, I can’t make a real judgment call, but I’m going to encourage you to be cautious of her,” Alex said, not sounding like herself at all.  There was a sort of wisdom and age suddenly, in the light voice of the woman, and it startled Ben.

             
He said nothing, however, as Alex rose from the bed and slipped the DVD into the small, cheap device she’d hooked up to the TV.  She grabbed the tiny plastic remote and hit a button.  The screen went fuzzy, and then black.

             
“What is this?” Ben asked quietly.

             
Alex rose without a word and made sure the door to the room was securely shut.  She closed the curtains and then lowered herself down to the floor, her back against the bed.  “It’s security footage.”

             
The screen suddenly flared to life, grainy video showing an empty street, scanning along the road slowly, with a slight hitch as the camera moved back and forth.  It was night in the video, that much was clear from the soft glow of a streetlamp far off.  The tiny numbers on the bottom of the video indicated military time ticking by.

             
They watched for several minutes, and just as Ben thought the video was a waste, light appeared from a source off screen.  The camera slowly moved in the direction of the light, and a car came into focus.  It only took Ben a second to recognize the car he’d seen at the funeral.  It was Mark’s rental car, and a very tall, burly man stepped out from the driver’s side.

             
A second man, short hair, much thinner, stepped out of the passenger side and they walked to the front of the car, clearly having a conversation.  This went on for several moments and then, together, the pair of them went to the back seat and from what Ben could make out from the grainy video, pulled a body out of the car.  They tossed the body on the sidewalk carelessly, the head bouncing off of the pavement, and as the burly man stepped aside, Ben could make out the curly, short hair of Mark.

             
But he was burned.  Despite the poor video quality, Ben could make out the charred, blackened skin, cracked and peeling on one side of his face.  Ben sucked in his breath at the damage and felt guilt flood through him like a violent wave.  As the second body, which obviously had to be Judas, was laid down, Ben doubted that either man was even alive.

             
They were ravaged by the explosion, their clothes burnt and skin charred, hair nearly burned completely away.  He hung his head, keeping the video in his peripheral vision as the two men on screen slowly dragged them into the building and out of sight.

             
“This is my fault,” Ben muttered as Alex switched the video off.  He felt sick, his stomach twisting into a giant knot as he realized that if he’d just listened to Mark at the funeral, this might have been prevented.

             
He’d been so caught up in his anger with them, in the grief of his sister, and so startled by Heimdall telling him that his sister was alive, he couldn’t see past his own emotions.  He had never really grown very fond of Mark, and blamed him for Abby’s death, but he didn’t deserve this.

             
Rationally he knew none of it was Mark or Judas’s fault.  None of it.  Nike, whatever she was, whoever she was, was insane, cruel and needed to be stopped.  She had done this, and now Mark and Judas had suffered for it.  For his misplaced anger, and he hated himself for it.

             
“They’re alive, you know,” Alex said, her voice soft and soothing.

             
Ben looked up, his eyes dry but aching.  He shook his head and cleared the lump from his throat loudly.  “How um… how can you be so sure?  I mean, you saw them.  They were destroyed by that explosion.  How could they possibly have survived that?”

             
“Because they will survive any and everything,” Alex said with a shrug.  She tossed the small remote on top of the bed and gave a little sigh.  “They’ll feel agonizing pain and torture, every second of it, but they’ll survive it.  Mark described it as a curse when I met him a few hundred years ago.”