by JL Terra
The Teacher said nothing.
“If you want me, there are a few non-negotiables.”
A low chuckle emerged through the phone line. “I will decide what is necessary. The golem belongs to me.”
“And here I thought there was a chance you could be reasonable.” Ben tossed the phone on the dresser and palmed a gun. Checked the clip, chambered a round. Nothing made him feel alive like gearing up for a fight. That rush was all him, nothing to do with the golem. It was a feeling the golem couldn’t corrupt—his desire to protect.
Ben hadn’t always done the right thing. His life was proof enough of that, considering he had not one thing he’d always wanted. It was all out of reach.
Perhaps this was some kind of penance. Was God asking him to pay for what he was to be given? A kind of…deposit on happiness. Perhaps he was being tested, to discover whether he was worthy.
Whichever it was, Ben was prepared to pay it.
The phone line went dead. Now or never. He counted down from ten in his head. When he got to four, the door blew in. A flash grenade rolled across the floor. Ben covered his ears and shut his eyes. When he opened them a second after the flash, he had to blink to see armed gunmen in black fatigues standing all around him.
One lifted Ben’s gun before he could move.
Not like Ted and his cattle-prod buddy. These guys were professional.
Five men. They walked him to the door, to a van parked outside. One driver, nervous glance. Ben strode, a slow gait. Cooperating, but not eager about it. Two steps from the van, he swiped out with his right hand. A chop to the diaphragm. Spin. A back-handed punch. A left jab. Two more fell to the ground. The driver squealed.
The last two men had been afforded time to lift their weapons. The first bullet tore through his shoulder. That didn’t go well. At least he’d put up a fight. He never would have gone down willingly. Ben hissed, and his leg gave out. The second gunman coldcocked him with the butt of his rifle.
They’d caught him. Again. This time he intended to find out who the Teacher was. Ben wasn’t going to relinquish control of the golem. Not if it was within his power to do.
Unconsciousness crept in like a mist.
“He’s still awake.”
The last gunman slammed his rifle down on Ben’s forehead, and everything went black.
**
Ben sucked in a breath as he awoke. His lungs filled with water. He coughed the liquid out, and it joined the cold world that surrounded him. So dark, he could barely see past his nose. Underwater. Ben struggled against what bound him.
Chains around his ankles held him fast. His shoulder ached, but the wound seemed to be mostly gone.
This was the Teacher’s plan? Keep Ben contained and go after the golem? He’d led them right to him on purpose, keeping Ted’s phone, but not for this.
Ben tugged at the chains. Minutes passed as he fought the bonds and held his breath.
Two.
Five.
How long could he hold his breath?
Forever?
Chapter 39
Bowers Hill, VA. Monday, 08:02hrs EDT
Taya waited an hour on the sidewalk before Mei finally parked on the side of the street, a quarter mile down from the Chevron. Mei swung open the driver’s door of the pickup truck, and raced over.
She launched herself into Taya’s arms. “Mom.”
Taya shut her eyes. At least part of this was going right—they were back together.
Mei leaned back. “Are you okay?”
“I was worried about you.”
“Remy called me. Daire woke up from his coma. He got out of bed and walked out of the hospital.”
“It’s good he’s okay.” She pushed back a strand of Mei’s hair.
“Yeah, but what is he thinking?” She shook her head. Her gaze snagged past Taya, where the golem stood. “Why is he all wet?”
“I don’t know. It happened hours ago, on a bus.” Taya shook her head. “That was interesting to explain. ‘Sorry sir, my mute friend here must have been in a rainstorm even though the closest cloud is a hundred miles away.’”
After the initial confusion, Taya got to thinking about it. There had to be a reason why the golem would all of a sudden be completely wet.
At least Ben was still alive.
“He got you out okay?”
Taya nodded. Squeezed her daughter around the middle, just because she could. “You?”
Mei lifted the chain from her neck. The medallion she’d found in Roger’s house. “I guess I command it now.”
The golem shifted.
Taya shoved Mei behind her back and faced it down. “No way.”
“This?”
Taya glanced over her shoulder to see Mei hold up the medallion. The golem’s eyes narrowed. Mei said, “Finders keepers.”
Taya watched the tension in both of them diffuse, then said, “When this is over, you should send it to Chicago to scare the dickens out of your no-good ex.”
Mei studied the golem. “I can do that?”
“Great. I gave you an idea.”
“I’d have thought of it eventually.”
Taya sighed. “So what now? It found me. There’s no reason why it can’t find Ben, right?” She’d have sent it to do that already. Mei had only commanded the golem to find Taya.
Mei waved at the golem. “Why are you all wet?”
“Because Ben is underwater.” But it was still alive. Still Ben. “Which means we need it to find him.”
Mei didn’t move straight away. Didn’t launch into action. Taya ignored that fact, and the physical pain it caused, and got in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t force her daughter to do anything. Not now that she was an adult, and not when she’d been a child, either. Mei had been a force of nature her whole life. Strong. Independent. She said what she meant, and she thought what she thought. There was no changing it.
The fact that part of Mei might not even want to find Ben was telling. Mei needed to find a man she could trust. One who would never hurt her. Maybe that wasn’t possible. Humans were…well, they were human. Not perfect. Even a good-natured man could hurt a woman and still love her. Things happened, and you forgave each other.
Mei just needed someone…normal. A characteristic currently in short supply in their world.
Taya got on the highway. Now or never. “East or west?”
Mei sat in the front seat, head bent over the medallion. Eyes closed. Her lips moved slowly. The golem was in the back.
It just sat there, soaking wet. Dampening the rear seat. Completely silent. Riding in silence, enjoying the scenery. Had it ever been in a car before? Don’t feel sorry for it. You only care because it looks like Ben. That was the only reason. It wasn’t a person. Didn’t have a soul. How could it?
The car behind her honked.
Taya hit the gas.
“West.”
She swung the wheel to the right and doubled back to get on the freeway. “Where are we going?”
“Lake Drummond. He’s tied up underwater.”
“The Teacher?”
Mei shrugged, her face twisted like she didn’t know whether to cry or rage. She dropped the medallion back inside the neck of her sweater. “Do we need it to come with us?” She tipped her head toward the back seat.
“It’s yours now. Do you want to leave it by the roadside?”
“It’s easier to give it instructions if it’s elsewhere.” The look on Mei’s face told Taya what she needed to know.
“Because you’d be separated from it. From the reality, the emotion.”
Mei looked out the window, so Taya could see her face. “I always thought separation was bad. You. Ben. Separation from Roger was good, then. The golem?” Mei shook her head. “It’s like…inert. Except when it was walking toward me.”
“Because Roger had commanded it to kill you.”
“But now I’m in command.”
“So you’re the one who tells it who to kill now,” Taya sai
d. “Only it’s still connected to Ben. I see part of him in it. It has some of his mannerisms.”
“It’s a copy of him. That’s how it works.”
“And it’s infecting him. Its corruption is corrupting Ben. Making him do things he doesn’t want to do. It can control him, and maybe Ben can control it. At least to an extent.” Taya thought for a minute as she drove, then said, “Did the Rabbi who made it centuries ago make a copy of himself? Did he connect with it and control it?”
“Does it matter? I’m doing fine, aren’t I?”
“I’m not critiquing you. I’m just thinking this through.” She squeezed Mei’s knee. “It acts with the will of the person controlling it and also takes on the characteristics of whoever bonded with it. The problem is, it was supposed to be an instrument of justice. But it isn’t. It’s corrupted by our selfishness.”
“You mean my selfishness.”
“People are essentially the same. Which is a sweeping generalization, but we all want to be loved. We all want to be the top dog in our own lives, for good or bad reasons. We’re all the sum of our experiences, and those dictate the person we are. Our fears. Our reactions. Whether we’re trying to move past it, or we’re oblivious to it. The things that happened to us as children are imprinted on us to such a degree it shapes the way our minds see and interpret the world.”
“And then we try to act all selfless and impartial.”
Taya tapped the steering wheel. “The golem is supposed to bring justice to the oppressed. But justice is bringing harmony where there’s been war. Problem is, which side do we rule in favor of? Do you strip one side’s rights in order to balance it out?”
“Is that why you told me life wasn’t fair?”
“It isn’t,” Taya said. “Fairness is everyone getting what they need. Not what they want.”
“What if I need the other person to suffer and die?” No emotion bled into her words. Mei could be completely rational if she wanted to. No feeling, just pure judgment. “I could send the golem after all the pimps. Take them out one by one.”
“Another would take their place. You’re fighting the symptom, not the disease.”
Mei shifted in her seat. “We’re not like people who do that stuff.”
“You wanted revenge on Roger. We spent years locating him. When we finally did, it was to find that he had cancer. Was that justice?”
“Not enough to satisfy me.” Mei folded her arms.
“Because you wanted vengeance, not justice. That’s the problem. Roger used the golem for vengeance as well. It’s too tempting to have that much power and not impose your own ideals on it. Justice should find each of us and render a judgment, otherwise it’s not perfect. If we want to judge one person, then we have to judge everyone. No one can escape it, because who gets to decide who is good enough that they’re ‘above’ judgment? And why do we insist it has to happen now, before we die? People in pain want a sentence rendered, but they refuse to wait.”
Mei said, “Is this where you tell me about heaven again?”
“If you’re so unsatisfied with what’s happening in this world, then perhaps that’s because something inside you is looking for more than what you’ve found here.”
“So I should let God command the golem?” Mei asked. “Is that what the Rabbi did when he made it?”
“Maybe God never intervened because he didn’t require the creation of a golem. It was just one Rabbi, seeing the way his people were being mistreated, and reacting. His pain caused him to force judgment now, instead of trusting God for His perfect justice later.”
“I don’t trust Him.”
Taya knew that. She had lived this with her brother. That time it was her who had been in pain. Eli had told her that pain and bitterness would poison her, the way it was doing to Mei now. Taya had to make the choice to love. The choice to forgive. It had taken years, and they’d had some rough days. One baby step after another had brought her to a place where she could actually be happy. Where she could accept happiness for herself. A place she could trust it the way she trusted God.
“His judgments are perfect.”
Mei’s head whipped around. “They’re taking too long.”
“You’re talking from your pain. What Roger did, what…” Taya didn’t finish. They didn’t talk about that. “It dictates everything.”
“Pain is all I have. It’s all I am. I don’t want to get rid of it.”
“I know.” She sighed. All she could do was pray for them. She didn’t want God’s judgment to fall on them, but she couldn’t take away their choice. Taya’s father had forced his will on her. She could never do that, even though sometimes she might want to. It was how she knew a person could be good, do good things and say good things. But they could never be perfect.
Taya said, “That’s why when Ben found you in that dumpster and brought you to me, I decided that if I could change just one life—make it happy—then I should.”
From that day, Taya had wanted to shield her from every potential hurt. She’d quickly realized that was impossible. She’d have had to keep her home, never let her meet anyone who might harm her. Taya had realized even she could inadvertently pain her daughter, even just with words.
Short of locking her up in a padded room, there was no way for her to keep Mei from being hurt. Life would bring pain. It was what Mei did with that pain which shaped the kind of woman she was. Mei might not have it all right, but neither did Taya. She was still proud of the strong woman her daughter had grown up to be.
Mei swiped tears from her face, and Taya squeezed her shoulder.
The turn for Lake Drummond came up. The golem had been connected to him against his will, without his knowledge. To end that would be to set Ben free from a creature that had infected his life for years. Would Ben be able to survive without it? Would he want to? She wanted to set him free, but that freedom might make his life worse. Not better.
Taya said, “Do you know how to sever the connection between Ben and the golem?”
“You want to turn him back into mud?”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to think about her answer to that question.
“It’s in Roger’s book. I read it, but I’ve never seen it. He tested me. When I wasn’t a match he didn’t need to do it because he wouldn’t have been able to connect it to me.” Mei shivered. “I have no idea what it would feel like to have that thing inside me. And I don’t want to know. Sure, not being able to die…or be injured… That might be cool, but so totally not worth the rest of it.”
“Is he…what, immortal? Is that even the right word?”
Mei turned back to the golem. “Can Ben be killed?”
It said nothing.
“What happens if we just explode you into pieces? Would that hurt Ben?”
Taya sighed into the silence and took the only road to the lake. Dawn stretched across the sky. The long, straight lane bent at right angles a couple of times before ending at the dock. A dead end big enough she could turn around and leave.
She got as close as she could to the dock. Parked so Mei could open her door and step right onto the wood. No one else was here this early. How would they find Ben? Could the golem get him out of the water?
Mei pulled out the medallion and whispered words in a language Taya didn’t understand. Taya hadn’t worked in Israel, but she knew other agents who operated alongside Mossad. What would they do if they got their hands on the golem? It would mean hell for Israel’s enemies, but was it the right thing to do? Just because it was possible to make a nuclear bomb didn’t mean everyone needed to have one.
The golem got out of the car, and she watched him walk to the calm gray water of the lake.
“You told him to get Ben?”
Mei nodded. “He’s at the bottom.”
“So we just wait—”
Gunfire shattered the window behind Mei, and blood sprayed across Taya’s shirt.
Chapter 40
Lake Drummond, VA. Monday, 09:13hrs EDT
Water rippled around him. His hands had gone numb, as had his legs and feet. The warmth in his chest had receded in on itself. Self-preservation, maybe. The golem certainly wasn’t trying to help him.
Ben shifted his hips. The motion made him sway. His wrists and ankles were raw. A light stream of blood drifted from him in a cloud of pink. Morning had dawned, the sun’s glow up and to his right. The lake was deep. Ben in the shadowed center.
With morning he’d been able to see enough to know he was secured with chains to a cement block as big as a car.
They had to have hauled him to the middle of the lake by boat. Swam down here and locked him in place.
Then he saw it.
A dark figure, under the water.
The golem walked toward him. His clothes rippled with the motion of each stride through the water, along the bed of the lake. He came all the way to Ben. Pulled at the chains around his feet. Couldn’t break them.
Ben had tried that until the metal cut through his skin. He didn’t want to stay down here forever if he was going to live. He might welcome death, but chained underwater wasn’t the way it would come. He had expected to drown eventually. It had never happened. Not in the hours he was down here. Ben simply held his breath. And yet, no oxygen could get to his brain if he didn’t breathe. So how was he still alive? God. The golem. Something kept Ben alive when he should be dead. And whatever it was didn’t originate from him, it came from outside.
His life made no sense, and yet it didn’t make him any less alive. He’d been down here hours. Long enough he’d decided that since water had oxygen in it, somehow he was absorbing the compound. He couldn’t think of a better explanation.
The golem grasped the chain with two hands. What did he think he would—
The chain glowed white. Orange. Then red. Heat grew along the metal circling the skin of his ankles. Ben gritted his teeth as it stung, then burned. When it reached red-hot-poker temperature he cried out. The sound was muffled by the water. He swallowed a mouthful of water and coughed it out.
The chain broke.
Ben kicked his legs despite the pain. Cold water licked at the burns as he swam to the side, his hands still chained. The golem untangled the chain and released him. Ben motioned to the surface with one finger.