The Judas Line

by Mark Everett Stone

  Julian moved his lips into an unkind smile. “Don’t worry, Olivier, you have so much to offer the family. With all twelve lesser Words at your command you will rise far in the Sicarii, most likely to the rank of Dagger Man Grand Commander.” He sounded as if he were throwing me a bone instead of informing me that I could be the leader of all our forces in the world, second only to him. However, in his eyes, anything less than top dog was unacceptable and I knew that if Burke became head of the Family, my time on earth would be severely … limited.

  My answering smile was as close to absolute zero as I could manage. “Thank you, Julian.”

  As soon as I could, I bowed out, but not before hearing the Voice say to Julian, “Send for Burke.”

  Andre, Julian’s driver, dropped me off at the estate, mercifully vacant except for Annabeth. Her mouth, hot and hungry, greeted me with enthusiasm as I walked through the front door.

  “Hello, lover,” she purred when we came up for breath.

  “Hello yourself, beautiful.” Again I dipped my mouth to hers and for a long, long while we forgot about the world around us.

  Later, caught in the tangles of post-coital bliss, we held and stroked each other. A small island of peace in the ocean of my life.

  “What are you thinking, Olivier?” she breathed while nuzzling my neck, a caress I’d always found irresistible. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “I may have to kill Burke.”

  The nuzzling stopped. “Why?”

  “The Patron and Julian are looking to him, now. They’re going to test the Silver on him.” No one from the female side of the Line had ever been tested with the Silver before. Only direct Line members were guaranteed to survive the experience, while those from the more distant branches tended to die gruesome deaths. Somehow I knew that Burke would survive.

  “Why don’t they look to you?’

  “They tested me,” I said, running my fingers up and down her arm. “I only drew six Words. I think they were hoping for more.” The lie slipped easily from my mouth. I lusted for Annabeth, but that didn’t mean I would trust her with a secret.

  She propped herself on one elbow and looked deep in my eyes. I saw gold flakes in the brown of her irises and it struck me as unusual that I’d never noticed before. “But you have all twelve Words and are a natural at the other two branches of magic. Why would they choose him over you?”

  “Burke has the respect of the entire Family, from the assassins to the bureaucrats. He’s a natural leader and as ruthless as they come. I think Julian sees me as too … soft.”

  Her hand dipped under the covers. “You don’t feel soft to me,” she grinned as her lips met mine. I responded immediately to her touch.

  My troubles disappeared. At least for a little while.

  New Hampshire, just outside of Durham on an estate at the edge of Great Bay, near the Adams Point State Wildlife Refuge. It was Julian’s favorite place outside of Switzerland, the only place in the United States he could tolerate for more than a week.

  The night of one of the worst blizzards to hit the region found me, Annabeth, Burke, cousins Fergus, Anton and Simone in a Huey copter flying over the white bones of trees, the snow so thick it seemed a swirling fog of white. This was the final test, the final toughening point. If I survived, I would be part of an SS Team, a member of an elite brotherhood of assassins that only the most lethal and skilled Family could join.

  Two days earlier, I had received the summons from Julian, a summons I couldn’t refuse and one that surprised me. As the last male in the direct Line, it was understood that I would not have to undergo the rigorous final test. I guess my inclusion was a testimony to the Voice’s displeasure. What really piqued my interest was Burke’s involvement. He had never evinced any interest in wet work, preferring to run his highly successful R amp;D department of Wellington Arms Manufacturing-one of the Family’s largest companies, in fact-which was producing his design of the new repeating ballistic knife prototype that had been touted as the next big thing in urban warfare.

  The mission was simple: all of us would attempt a high altitude drop at night and must survive the next four days in the forest on our own. If we encountered another, we attempted a ‘kill’ with a paintball gun. Those who struggled back to the estate alive were SS. Words were not allowed and the Professor supplied potions we were forced to drink to block our access to all magic, so for the next few days, we were effectively “normal.”

  Fergus, a wild-haired blond from a distant Scottish branch, grinned sourly at us just before leaping out of the helicopter. Next came Burke, then Annabeth, Simone, myself, and Anton.

  I gave my French cousin a cheeky grin, which he returned with enthusiasm. A short twenty-year-old, he had an infectious good humor that made him my second favorite cousin after Annabeth.

  On a summer’s day twelve thousand feet slaps your face with a chill you won’t soon forget, but in winter-with the winds approaching 50 mph, in the dead of night where the demons of imagination roam-it is like having your skin removed, layer-by-layer, by a sadist with a cold iron knife. The wind’s passage clawed at my ears and I was extremely grateful for the thin plastic goggles that shielded my eyes, certain that they would otherwise have frozen solid on the way down.

  At three thousand feet the altimeter automatically deployed my parachute and the world became silent except for the gusting of the blizzard. After the terror of the fall, even the storm was a relief.

  No night vision, no magic, no relief from the fear of not being able to see where I was going as the parachute was buffeted remorselessly by frigid winds. Not for the first time I cursed Julian for his sadistic streak.

  Branches and twigs slapped and scratched me, tearing with woody fingers. A ragged piece as big around as my thumb punched into my left bicep, not ripping though my protective clothing, but hitting with enough force to sear the muscle with a pain that momentarily paralyzed the arm.

  I flexed my knees just in time to absorb the bone jarring impact that even a foot of snow didn’t lessen. My right hand slapped the chute release as the shock of my landing traveled straight up to my balls and set up shop for a few painful moments.

  Teeth gritted, I unclipped a glowstick, bent it to break the glass capsule inside and shook it hard, letting the phosphorescent chemicals mix. A cool green glow lit the immediate surroundings. Stark sentinels-beech trees bare in the harsh winter climate-surrounded me along with tall hemlock and creek maples. Not what I needed. If I were unable to find shelter, all that would be left would be my corpsicle.

  Not wanting to abandon any resource or leave telltale signs of my arrival, I searched for and found my ’chute, tugging it out of a grasping hemlock. With the white fabric tucked under one arm, I went in search of shelter, flexing my left arm to work out the pain of the growing bruise.

  By the green light of the glowstick I finally found what I was looking for-a white spruce, its bottommost branches so heavily laden with snow that they touched the ground. Perfect. Imitating a snake, I slithered underneath the branches to find myself in a sheltered cone next to the trunk, a spot safe from the clawing wind. Withdrawing a small packet from the pocket of one arm, I worried the plastic apart and unfolded a thin Mylar blanket. That along with the ’chute would keep me alive until morning. Rolled up like a burrito, I took calm, even breaths to ease the burning in my lungs, the plumes of frost from my mouth hanging like the spirits of the dead in the eerie light of the glowstick.

  Despite the howling wind and freezing cold, it was surprisingly easy to fall asleep.

  Footprints, poorly hidden and leading west. The diffuse morning sunlight oozed through the wooden bones around me, faintly illuminating the drag marks that failed to fully conceal the passage of what I assumed was one of my cousins. Slowly, carefully, I followed those drag marks, alert for the possibility of ambush.

  According to my watch I had been following those marks for forty minutes and it was only a handful more before I rounded a maple and saw my target
, heavy white winter coat and leggings blending almost seamlessly with the pristine surroundings, the same kind of camouflaging winter gear I wore. The figure crept along, evergreen branches dragging behind.

  I smiled, lifted my paintball gun and fired. Alcohol and blue dye spheres tore through the air to splat onto the figure’s back, knocking the person down.

  “Kill to me,” I called softly.

  Grunting, the person rose, sky blue blotches marring the formerly white coat. “Yeah, you got me,” came a voice I knew so well.

  “Annabeth!”

  She turned, arching her back in discomfort and raised an eyebrow. “That’s the problem with you, Olivier, you lack the killer instinct.”

  “What?”

  Her smile was mirthless. “You followed my tracks. I meant for you to find me.”

  The smile that had so beguiled me was wrong. That situation was wrong. My danger sense kicked in too late to avoid three sharp impacts along my spine … the last thudding home with a hollow sound that tore my body away from conscious control.

  Cold on my face, needles of frost that melted and reformed with every hitching breath. Coppery blood filled my mouth, my nostrils. A lung was punctured, quickly filling with blood, but I could not feel the wound. A numb feeling of horror gripped me as I realized that my spine had been severed near my neck and I was insensate to the cold stealing through my body.

  I was dying.

  No Words, no potions, no elementals. Cut off from all help, I could only lie there and feel my life slowly drip away.

  Abruptly my perspective changed and the cold left my face as light flooded my eyes. Someone was kind enough to turn me over. That someone was Burke, also clothed in heavy white winter gear.

  “Hello, Olivier,” he smiled nastily, holding up one of his prized repeating ballistic knives.

  I grunted painfully in reply.

  “You really are a simple creature,” he continued. “So easily duped.” Annabeth came within view to stand next to him. Her grin was anything but nice.

  “Bitch,” I bubbled, spraying blood from my lips in a red mist.

  “Opportunist,” she corrected haughtily. “I always go with a winner and we know who the real winner is, don’t we, Olivier?”

  Burke’s teeth shone as white as the snow around him. With one gloved hand he casually reached through the opening of her white coat and cupped her left breast. Fury ripped through the blood in my throat as I vented a sharp whistle of a scream, soon followed by Burke’s laughter.

  Annabeth’s sweet voice floated toward me. “So what do we do with him?”

  “Nothing,” came the contemptuous reply. “Let the forest swallow him up.”

  Gray skies and snow flurries. A cold wind brushed my face with icy fingers and blood steamed on my lips as I desperately struggled for air. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew my body was starting to get colder and colder as I slowly froze to death. That is, if I did not bleed out first.

  Burke and Annabeth. Annabeth and Burke. I should have seen it, should have at least felt something, but I had been blinded by my lust, my passion. At least my wounds did not hurt, not compared to the pain of Annabeth’s betrayal. I had actually started to trust her and she used that to help Burke get the drop on me.

  I wondered if she was Julian’s idea. It had been one of his cunning, sadistic plans and I had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

  Nose and cheeks started to go numb, and it would not be long before I gently slipped into my final slumber. Well, at least I would not be the Vessel for the Voice, the Family’s precious Redeemer. Death was far preferable to being someone’s puppet.

  Oh, who was I kidding? Burke had pulled my strings, so had Annabeth and no doubt Julian. I had been a puppet all along … the best kind, one who did not know he was a puppet.

  The soft, golden glow slowly coloring the bones of the beech trees hovering over me matched my feeling of weary lassitude.

  Golden glow? What? A pique of interest pierced the veil of my drowsiness.

  It stepped into view. No, not an It, but a He, a perfectly built, golden-hued man with lustrous, long black hair that flowed to his hips. Dressed in a white wrap of silky material that encircled his waist, he seemed impervious to the biting cold.

  “Who?” I coughed, spraying more blood.

  Then the wings unfurled, eagle-like pinions banded in white, bronze and silver. It came to me that I knew this being … one of the Liar’s messengers, a winged servant whose charter was to deceive the true believers into accepting the gospels of the Lying God. Fear like nothing I’d ever known clawed at my mind and I smelled the urine I couldn’t feel.

  As if reading my mind, the messenger, the deceiving angel, smiled sadly and crouched, laying an aureate hand on my cheek. Even up close his perfection blinded me, rendering me unable to recall his simplest features.

  “Know this, young Sicarius, and decide,” he said, voice like the music of the world.

  And the heavens opened up to me.

  I heard the first Word and saw the creation of everything. Everything. It all came together in a clash of sound so immense I couldn’t even really define it as sound-more a vast feeling too intense for mere mortals to conceptualize.

  The world came into being, with Primals to maintain the delicate balance of nature. They fought, they struggled, but always with a harmony that made the struggle beautiful to watch, a ballet of violence and joy. With the creation of the Primals came the Angels, and none so powerful, so beautiful as Lucifer. He was the sun, the light that eclipsed all others. Then came plants and animals, growing, rising and falling quickly as time accelerated faster and faster.

  It was almost too much for me to bear, this kaleidoscope of imagery that unfolded like an origami rose with millions of petals in my mind. Faster and faster the visions whirled and danced until the Word was spoken again-softer this time, a mere breath of celestial magic-and Man was born.

  I felt the joy of the Creator as the divine spark flared inside Man, a spark that became the Soul … and I felt jealousy, the jealousy of an Angel. Lucifer. He saw in the Soul something that was lacking in him, a callous joke mocking his perfection. For the first time something new had been born in the universe that was not fashioned by God.

  Hate.

  Lucifer’s hatred for all men, their lack of perfection, their Souls, infected many Angels until they banded together in discord and tried to use their Words, the Words of their jealousy and hatred, against the Throne.

  A struggle raged in Heaven as angel fought angel, the dead winking out of existence forever. Angelic blood ran in rivers along the splendid silver streets of the City of God and the Creator wept, unwilling to raise a hand to stop His children. It was a struggle that had to be decided by angels, a painful evolution of their moral hearts.

  The angels of hate and jealousy were defeated, falling flaming from the heights, beautiful wings taken from them, bodies stripped of their perfection not because they defied the Creator, but because they wasted all that they were, all that they could have been, on Hate. They let it consume them and shape them into something horrific to behold.

  Lucifer fell the farthest-far enough that God’s grace no longer touched his wounded, burned body. In that place, the Abyss, he began to craft Hell, a trap for the souls of Man whose evil denied them Heaven.

  The Morning Star began to disguise himself with many Names, the foremost being Satan. In the world’s infancy, he walked its surface, often in disguise. Serpent, Dragon, Leviathan, all forms and names he used to bedevil man until Lucifer’s Hate gave him such power that the world could no longer contain his power, his form. He had grown swollen and pregnant with abhorrence. In his attempt to foster hate, he was denied the earth; he had no portal to give him access save in dreams.

  But the damage was done. Man had defied the Creator, maturing too quickly, the divine plan thrown awry, and Man was cast out of Eden, which was removed from the boundaries of Earth. So they would not toil in loneliness, the Word was s
poken again and more Men came into being, filling the earth with their industry. Satan’s stain still wreaked its havoc, though, as the first murder was committed, brother killing brother.

  Satan laughed and he plotted.

  “I am Harachiel,” said the being softly, his breath a faint tickle against my face. “Angel of Knowledge.”

  Back. I was back and aware again of my surroundings. The vision that had held me faded like yesterday’s dream, but that vision left one certainty in its wake: the knowledge that it was the truth.

  The Voice wasn’t the victim of an insane, lying God, wasn’t the poor oppressed savior of mankind, the one who would provide much needed order. All my life I’d been lied to. My life was a lie.

  I began to cry at the injustice of it all, wiping my eyes.

  Wiping my eyes? My arms … they moved! I could feel. Sure, I felt so cold that I’d bleed ice cubes, but I felt! Shakily I stood, swaying for a moment with pins and needles pricking my feet. I looked up to thank the angel (an angel-one of the good guys!) and was stopped cold by the look of compassion in his eyes.

  “You have the choice, Olivier Deschamps.” The angel smiled and it was the most glorious thing I had ever seen. “Thou mayest choose between good and evil.” That said, it vanished, as if it had never been, no sign, just a lingering tinkle, like fairy bells. Not even footprints in the snow.

  For a long time I wondered at the archaic verbiage, but it was not until I met Mike that I realized those words were the equivalent of a smack to the back of the head.

  Sighing, I headed deeper into the forest. I had some planning to do.

  Thou mayest.

  ?

  Wow. I could hardly believe what I had just read. Morgan/Jude met an angel! The concept stunned me, almost left me breathless. Silently I praised the Lord for showing Morgan the truth and letting him decide for himself.

  Carefully I tucked the pages of the manuscript into the back pocket of my uniform and drank the cup of tepid tea that had been left for me. Once again I pondered the lonely roads we find ourselves on.