2 The Judas Kiss Page 8

  He was singed, but he wasn’t incapacitated. His eyebrows, eyelashes and front of his hair were burnt, but he could see in the dim light, and nothing was broken. Mark vaguely remembered the blast, the searing heat rushing through the apartment as the walls blew out. He remembered the couch he’d been sitting on flying out from under him, and he hit the floor with a heavy thud, flames erupting along the walls just before his world went black.

  And now he was here, wherever that was, lying on an uncomfortable bed in the middle of a cold, damp room. Rolling onto his side, Mark gasped at the pain, but forced himself to sit up. He moved sluggishly, his brain now completely aware but his limbs refusing to follow suit. He realized that it was likely he’d been drugged, and he stared around in the dim space, trying desperately to see who could have possibly done this.

  Obviously it was them, the ancient ones, and Mark was certain it was Nike, but he had no idea how strong she was since her preferred vessel had been destroyed. He stood, looking down at the pants and shirt that were burnt and barely intact. His feet were bare, and the floor beneath them was freezing cold as he padded across the concrete and into the main room.

  It was small, about the same size as his bedroom at the school had been, with bare walls, a low ceiling, and a small desk in the corner with a small, green-shaded desk lamp. Mark heard breathing and turned to look behind him.

  In a chair was the answer to the last question running desperately through his hazy mind; where was Jude? His companion was unconscious, tied to a chair propped against the wall. His head rested forward, chin on his chest, and his breathing was a little stilted, but steady.

  Mark’s brain snapped into rescue mode, but as he took a few steps toward his unconscious friend, the door to the room banged open and in strolled someone Mark thought he would never see again. Laying eyes on Abby was almost as much of a shock as the explosion had been, and Mark stumbled, his breath catching in his throat.

  “Surprised to see me?” she asked, her voice low and husky. She smiled widely, her face looking gaunt and sallow in the dim light. Mark took a step back as she took one forward, and put her hands on her slender hips.

  In the glare of the desk lamp, Mark could barely make out several, winding scars covering her arms, and a little across her neck, which told him she hadn’t escaped the blast, but had somehow survived it. He backed up until he was pressed against the far wall, feeling safer knowing that everything in the room was now visible to him.

  “How?” he managed to ask after composing himself.

  Crossing the room, Abby, or rather Nike, pulled the chair away from the desk and set it in the middle of the room. She sat, smoothing the red skirt she wore down over her knee, and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s amazing what these bodies can withstand when there’s a higher consciousness inside of them,” she replied after studying him a moment. “You know, I think it’s less the fragility of the human form and more the weakness of the human consciousness.” She gave a nonchalant shrug and sat back. “And look at you, all awake and alert, ready to just go, go, go! How do you feel?”

  “Surprisingly well for being blown up,” Mark said dryly, his hands clenched at his sides. “You do realize that whatever it is you want, I’m not going to give it to you.”

  Nike laughed and clapped her hands together twice, giving a little shake of her head. “Yes you are! Mark, darling, you’ve been the easiest to manipulate out of all of these little sacks of meat.” She rose, her eyes going narrow and dangerous, and she took three steps toward him. Mark could make out the intricate scars along her neck now, showing how deeply she’d been wounded, and he wondered if there was any of Abby left inside.

  “I don’t care what you do to me, I’m not giving you anything,” Mark said through clenched teeth. He was absolutely prepared to face whatever hell she had for him. He’d done it before in history, and no one had ever made him give in.

  She rolled her eyes and reached out a long, slender hand, giving his cheek a gentle pat. “Oh my darling, I’m not going to do anything to you.” She backed up, glanced quickly over at Jude’s unconscious form and smiled back at Mark. “I’ve been watching you two for some time now, trying to figure out how you tick,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Just watching, poking at you a little. Seeing what, oh what, makes little Marky flinch.” She clapped her hands hard an inch away from Mark’s nose, making him do just that.

  She let out a peal of laughter as she crossed the room. She grabbed Jude by the back of his hair suddenly, wrenching his head up. Mark flinched and nearly dashed forward before forcing himself to stop. Nike’s grin widened and she let Jude’s head fall back down. “He can’t feel a thing right now. He’s drugged up, playing in his happy little dreams. But believe me, I can make him hurt.”

  “What do you want?” Mark asked through clenched teeth. He looked around the room for something, anything he could use against her. He cared for Abby a great deal, but not enough to stop him from killing her once and for all.

  Nike grinned wryly and approached Mark again, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Oh my sweet little human, you know what I want.” She looked over at the writing desk and Mark followed her gaze, his eyes settling on the stacks of paper in the center. “I want story time, Mark. I want you to tell me that once upon a time, there was a gospel writer named Mark, and I want you to write it down like a good little boy.”

  “It won’t work for you,” Mark said, trying to wriggle out of her grasp. She was too strong, especially in his weakened state. She held him in place effortlessly, and eventually he stilled. Letting out a breath, he forced himself to meet her eyes and he shook his head. “It only works on humans.” Mark wasn’t sure if that was true or not, which scared him, but he had to sound confident.

  “I know,” Nike said. “I do have a plan for that, you foolish man.”

  “You do realize it’s not going to bring humans back to the worship of old gods, don’t you?” Mark said. He struggled as Nike forced him over to the desk and pushed him down in the chair. Hissing in pain, he pulled away from her and crossed his arms over his chest, still determined not to give in.

  “Of course. I’m not interested in resurrecting the temples of the old ones, you idiot,” she snapped at him, giving his face a hard slap. Mark’s head moved with the force of the blow, but he didn’t react. She grabbed him by the bottom of the chin and forced him to look up at her. Her eyes were wide, mad, and glowing with Nike’s power. “If everything goes according to my plan, and it will, there’s going to be a new boss in town. A new boss who will help take care of your little immortality problem.”

  It was meant to be a threat, Mark realized, but for a brief moment, just a second in time, Mark thought about the peace death would bring. He felt the pressing desire to finally close his eyes and be free of it all. And then he remembered the cost, and he looked up at Nike’s smiling face.

  “I can’t,” he said. He shoved the paper and pen away from him and crossed his arms.

  “I’ve discovered a little about you and your friend,” Nike said, eerily calm as she crossed the room over to where Jude lay in the chair. Kneeling down, she pulled a small wooden box out from beneath his chair and with her free hand, tipped the chair back and dragged his unconscious companion into the middle of the room. “You see, you were both gifted something by the same being, that much is obvious. You carry the same signature of whatever god decided to shit his powers down your throat and let you meat-sacks live forever. Or whatever.” She paused, fumbling with the latch on the box, and looked up with triumph as it finally opened.

  “The gift worked differently on you, though,” she continued. She pulled out a small bottle of clear liquid and a syringe. “Now, you can both live forever, that much is obvious. Hell, I watched ‘ole Jude here get shot in the face and by the next day he was up and about like nothing had happened. Still,” she said and began to fill the syringe with the liquid, “the gift wasn’t so much a gift as a curse in some ways, right?”
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  Mark clenched his jaw, desperate to stand up and defend his friend, but he had no idea what Nike was planning, and for the moment her powers seemed limitless. “I suppose,” he said, “but you forget that we can live through anything.”

  “Well that’s just it, isn’t it?” she asked with a grin, holding up the syringe to the light. She gave it a little tap and then dropped her arm. “You can live through anything. I could burn you, stab you, shoot you, flay you alive, and you’d live. Hell, I think you’d probably stay conscious for most of it. I mean I just blew you up and here you are, sitting at my little desk, talking to me like you have some chance at stopping me.” She let out a small, girlish giggle and shook her head.

  “What’s your point?” Mark asked in a low growl.

  “My point,” she said, grabbing Jude’s arm and pressing on the inside with her fingers, “is that you can live through anything. I could jab this particularly fierce poison into our friend here, and he’d live through it. It’s a chemical compound, something I discovered back when I could manipulate matter with my own form, and it sort of…” she hesitated, cocking her head from side to side slightly, “let’s just say it makes the blood boil. Literally. Agonizing, really, and in a normal human it would kill them in about six seconds. I wonder how long our friend here can withstand it without going completely mad.”

  Mark clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut as Nike, with a triumphant grin, shoved the needle into his arm and pressed down on the plunger. It only took a second before Jude’s piercing screams of agony filled the room, echoing off the stone walls.

  Mark jumped up and ran to his side as Jude’s body contorted, breaking the restraints and he fell to the floor. Blood poured from his mouth and ears as his body twitched, an inhuman growl rushing out of him as he shivered and shook.

  Nike laughed again, setting the syringe in the box and snapping it shut. “That’s the least I’ll do to him if you don’t sit your ass in that chair and write,” she said, her voice deep and commanding. She grabbed Mark by his arm and pulled him back to the desk.

  He fought her this time, but it was as though he was bound, unable to raise his hand to her, and he started to panic. He’d never been so completely powerless, not since he was cursed with whatever this was, and for the first time, he wasn’t sure how to escape.

  “You’re not going to escape,” Nike said, as though answering his thoughts. “I discovered something else about you boys, and it’s something that you need to keep in mind just in case you feel like getting frisky.” She grabbed him by the chin again, her fingers digging painfully into the skin below his jaw. “I know how you work. You, hyper-rational, absolutely sane to a fault. Whatever this gift is, it doesn’t let you forget. It doesn’t let you slip into madness. It lets you experience everything. And him, our poor little drooling mess over there,” she said wrenching Mark’s head to look at his fallen friend, “he feels it all. Driven mad by the touch of a stranger, his gift makes him feel everything deeper than any human could. Every poke, every prod, every slap to the face hurts ten times worse. Every time he’s brought to the edge of mortal death, he’s in hell, and you know it. You know it, because that’s what you do, Mark. That is your gift. So I’ll let you take the wheel for a while. You decide how long you want him to suffer. Believe me, I have plenty of tricks to use on him, and just like you, I have eternity to work this all out.”

  Mark sat in the chair as Nike drew her hand away, and he stared down at the pen and paper. He’d done this before, picked up a pen and had written it all down. He’d done it many times before, and each time he’d watch as the words would twist, and that light in the person’s eyes who read it as the false meaning took hold. He watched as their eyes brightened with passion and conviction.

  He’d seen nations fall, people tortured, murdered, exiled for refusing to believe. He’d seen churches rise, and religions persecuted because of what he’d done. He remembered the last time he vowed to never write a word, and he didn’t think a single thing existed on earth that could make him do it again.

  He looked over at Jude lying on the floor, blood smeared, drying on his pale skin. He was shaking still, the stench of his bowls having emptied on their own, and he lay frozen on the concrete. He couldn’t watch that again. He could only imagine what Nike could really do, and he realized that there was nothing he could do to stop her.

  She would get tired though, he thought as he slowly pushed the desk chair to the front of the desk. He glanced at her triumphant smile and he realized that she would get tired. That body would wear down, unlike his. If he delayed long enough, took his time until her human form grew weary, he might have a chance to make his move. He had no other option at the moment, other than to comply, and bide his time.

  Chapter Seven

  Ben came to a stop at the entrance to the parking garage where he’d first run into Andrew. Andrew was there waiting, his arms folded over his chest, looking mildly irritated. Ben blew out a puff of breath, his head spinning from the events up in the hotel room, and he rocked back onto his heels.

  “What are you waiting for?” Andrew demanded.

  “You,” Ben said with a frown. “You were uh… leading the way.”

  Andrew rolled his eyes up and let out a sigh. “Right yes, human brains don’t work as fast as necessary to get anything done,” he said more to himself than anything. “Car. We need your car.”

  “To go where?”

  “We need a portal,” Andrew said. “Believe me, it’s not something I want to use, I’m not even remotely interested in contacting any of my kind, but I don’t think we have much choice.”

  “Okay,” Ben said slowly. “What portal did you have in mind, exactly?” His tone was slightly sarcastic, only because the last thing he wanted to do was involve more of those things. Whenever one of them got involved, everything seemed to crumble apart.

  “The only one active and large enough to talk to the one I want to talk to is in your friend Greg’s office,” Andrew said impatiently. “I know he’s not in this city, so come quickly. Car. You drive. Now.”

  Ben gritted his teeth and led the way to his car, hating himself every step he took further with the kid. He slid behind the wheel, tempted to hit the lock button on the car and peel out, but he had a feeling that even if he had tried it, Andrew would have been able to stop him. They weren’t gods, Ben was sure of that, but they were something far more powerful than he was. Ben didn’t have to be a believer to see that about them, and he didn’t have to believe in them to be really damn terrified.

  Andrew got into Ben’s car and without a word, Ben pulled out onto the main road. Luckily they weren’t far from the freeway entrance, and with nothing but the white noise of the car’s heater to distract them, Ben sped down the street.

  Nearly an hour passed before Andrew spoke again, and when he did, he sounded a bit tired. “Does your body often feel the urge to sleep like this?”

  Ben shrugged. “Sometimes. You know that kid was probably on drugs? You’re likely feeling it coming off of whatever the kid had taken.”

  “Interesting,” Andrew mused, staring at himself in the small sun visor’s mirror. He pulled down the skin under his eye to stare at the whites. “I suppose it makes sense why he felt a bit odd, and why he’s so enjoying the dream state I put him in.”

  Ben snorted and shook his head. “Nice.”

  “How do you refuel?” Andrew asked. When Ben quirked an eyebrow, Andrew crossed his arms defensively. “I don’t spend a lot of time in these things; I’m not completely familiar with how they work.”

  “Coffee and food usually do it for me. How long have you been inside that kid?”

  “About twenty-four hours, waiting for you. I knew you’d eventually show up at Stella’s hotel, so this person seemed the most logical choice.”

  “Have you eaten anything since?” Ben asked.

  “Ah no, I’ve not,” Andrew replied.

  Ben realized that if Andrew was going to stay coheren
t, he was going to need some sort of food. He remembered Asclepius’ fierce appetite and he suspected that when they were inside human bodies, they burned up more calories than normal. Ben spotted the familiar yellow sign off the side of the freeway for a fast food drive-through and pulled off.

  “No detours,” Andrew said fiercely.

  “Look, you need to eat, and this is the fastest way to get you what you need and get back on the road. We have about six hours ahead of us on the freeway, and the last thing I need is that body crapping out on you the way that priest did,” Ben defended as he pulled in behind a line of cars.

  Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “That priest was already dying.”

  “Well I’m sure you weren’t a lot of help to him. We’re going to Greg’s office, so you can ask him all the questions I don’t have the answers to about borrowing humans,” Ben said. “Until then, just eat something and shut up.”

  Andrew glared at Ben but said nothing as Ben pulled up to the speaker and ordered a few burgers, some french fries and a couple of drinks. The smell of hot, fried food soon filled the car as Ben sped back onto the freeway and headed down the coastal highway toward San Diego.

  With fierce abandon, Andrew quickly devoured most of the food, his eyes lighting up when he took his first bite. “It tastes good,” he said, making quick work of a very large cheeseburger.

  Ben laughed just a little as he nibbled on a few fries. “Yeah well, it’s not good for you, but it’ll do until we have time to stop for an actual meal.” He shook his head and then asked, “How do you not know about fast food, or eating at all for that matter, but know about something like Facebook?”

  Andrew gave a little shrug as he chewed. “Some things make a bigger impression when I’m floating through your world in the wind and rain.”