by Robert Ryan
“So you think maybe that’s a mineshaft?” Zeke said.
“Could be. Could be many things. I’m just giving you theories my mind is trained to give.”
“Whatever it is,” Zeke said, “we need to check it out. Let’s figure out the strategy for going the rest of the way, then start tomorrow, when we’re fresh.”
On the trip back to base, Zeke tried to think of more pleasant things, but his mind kept returning to that opening in the earth, wondering if it was the doorway to Hell.
CHAPTER 58
Late that night Unger was in the room with the relics, trying to reach hesychasm with a very specific goal in mind. Tonight he must purge himself completely of the stubborn remnants of Anthony Unger. His former venal self was polluting the vessel he’d spent years purifying as John the Baptist. Sowing his seeds of doubt and jealousy, Anthony Unger was the opening through which Satan might enter. Tonight that portal must be sealed off forever.
He sat in one of the hotel armchairs, near the center of the makeshift altar he’d fashioned by placing folding tables end to end. Jesus’s burial shroud was fastened around his shoulders like a cloak. On his head was the Crown of Thorns. Not pushed down, merely resting there. He didn’t want his blood tainting any blood of Jesus that might still be on the thorns. The blood-stained Sudariam was around his face, just as it had been around the face of Jesus in the tomb. With it pulled over his nose like a mask, he might be inhaling actual particles of Jesus that had remained embedded in the fabric. He felt his faith strengthening as the sacred energy flowed into him.
He’d left the chests with the crucifixes and holy water on the floor at either end of the altar, unsure if the folding tables could support their weight. The lids of the chests were open so he could feel the full effect of the relics inside. Pilate’s mirror was in front of his chair.
Unger closed his eyes. As his mind cleared, he saw himself walking along a golden path. Ahead, he saw Jesus on the cross that fateful day. Satisfied that he was now ready for divine communion, he opened his eyes and stared into Pilate’s mirror, hoping to see something to reassure him that his ministry was still important.
The faint flutterings of an image began to appear, gradually gaining strength. It was not the image he had hoped to see.
His monk’s clothing slowly disappeared and was replaced by an impeccable suit and tie. His beard got shorter and shorter until he was completely clean shaven. His unkempt hair became a neatly manicured stylish cut.
He was looking at his vain former self. In the mirror Anthony Unger preened, smoothing back his hair, adjusting the knot on his tie, looking at himself from all angles until he was satisfied.
The gigantic head of a serpent burst up from the bottom of the mirror, its huge mouth open. The image jolted him back in his chair so hard he almost fell over.
Like some impossibly large python, the serpent clamped down on Unger’s reflection in the mirror, halfway up his body. With deliberate swallowing movements it slowly drew him, screaming and writhing, into its body. The serpent’s eyes glowed a demonic red.
He tried to look away but couldn’t. Some palpable force kept his eyes locked on his own body being devoured. Finally the ingestion was complete, and the snake’s swollen body lazily withdrew back into the bottom of the mirror. Just before it disappeared completely, it turned its head to glower at Unger. He could have sworn it was smiling.
Then it was gone.
Numb with horror, he continued to stare at the mirror, waiting for his own image to reappear. Instead he saw only an empty chair. It was as if he had ceased to exist, as if his soul had been swallowed.
He jumped up and began to pace. He had to do something to reclaim his destiny. His true self. Only as John the Baptist did he have any reason to live. What was his purpose now? What did God want him to do?
He heard tapping at the door. Someone punching in the security code. It had to be Zeke. He was the only other one who had access. Thank goodness. He needed to see a friendly face.
The door opened and he was startled by the last person he expected to see.
“Nice outfit,” the intruder said.
“What are you doing…how did you get the security code?”
“That was the easy part. I hid a small surveillance camera in the ceiling near the door to the hallway. Those little cameras are really something these days. I got a very clear picture of you punching in the code. Luckily you used the same code for this door. Bad move.”
As John he had never trusted this man, and now here he was—dressed in a black hooded robe as the mockery of a priest. “You cannot come in here. You have to go.”
“Wrong, Padre. You’re the one who’s got to go.”
The betrayer began walking toward him. John backed up, knowing he could not beat this man. He needed help, but even if he screamed, from the top floor no one would hear him. He turned to the relics. If God had not abandoned him, they were his only hope.
He sprinted to the chest with the holy water, shoving a bottle into the pocket of his cowl. The betrayer merely watched in amusement while he scrambled to the other chest to grab two crucifixes and hold them up, as if to ward off evil.
“You’ve been watching too many horror films, Father. Why don’t you try some garlic while you’re at it?”
The betrayer snatched the crucifixes and flung them across the room. John opened his mouth to yell. With lightning quickness the man’s hands clamped onto his neck and choked it off.
The iron grip loosened slightly. He sensed that the man was deciding whether to kill him or not. He fumbled for the holy water.
The man yanked John’s hand from the pocket and squeezed until he dropped the bottle onto the floor. The hand on his neck loosened a bit more.
John broke free and tried to yell but could only cough. He started to run but got only a few steps before the man slammed him against the wall. Looking at the evil streaming from those eyes, John knew his life was in God’s hands now. He said a silent prayer that his soul, at least, would be saved.
CHAPTER 59
“Help us…help us…help usss…”
The pitiful moans were haunting Zeke again. Dozens of disembodied faces floated through his dream, their lips all moving in the same silent scream of despair. “Hellp ussss.” Their soundless cries rose like the din of a mob, until they reached an unbearable frenzy.
Zeke’s eyes snapped open. He lay stiff as a cadaver, expecting the faces to start emerging from the darkness in his room.
As the nightmare receded his taut muscles relaxed and his breathing became steady. Leah lay beside him, her breathing that of deep sleep. Thank God for her. If he didn’t have her…
All the death and horror felt like a weight settling on his chest. He thought of the man during the Salem witch trials who had been pressed to death with stones.
He needed to do something, to fight back. But how could you fight an enemy that wasn’t there?
He watched Leah sleeping, studied the face he adored, tried to recall happy moments they’d shared to rouse himself out of his depression.
But he couldn’t. Even awake, he kept seeing the ghostly faces from the Dead Sea.
Who were they? Souls trapped in Hell, asking him to rescue them? That didn’t make sense. Souls in Hell were supposed to be punished. At least that’s what he’d always been taught. Except that everything we think we know about Hell is mythology. We don’t know anything.
The unanswerable questions floated in his head like the faces. Only if he found Hell would they be answered. He tried to fall back asleep but the faces kept popping into his head, like phantoms from some diabolic Jack-In-The-Box.
On a sudden impulse he grabbed the silver St. Peter’s crucifix on his nightstand and laid it over his heart. He imagined the crucifix purifying his beleaguered faith by pulling these stubborn doubts into itself.
The crucifix felt warm against his skin. Warmer. It was getting hot. On the verge of pain, he took it off.
Now it was co
ol.
What had just happened?
He didn’t want to turn on a light and wake Leah, so he stared at it in the dim light coming through the window from the night sky.
It began to melt, dissolving into silvery droplets that slid off his hand and through his fingers. Then it was gone. Staring in disbelief at his empty palm, he was jolted by a sudden thought.
The relics. Had Unger been checking on them? He must be. Zeke hadn’t been up there for days. He clicked on the lamp and looked at the clock. Twelve-thirty.
Leah moaned. “What…?”
Trying not to alarm her, Zeke explained while quickly but calmly putting on sweatpants, T-shirt, socks and running shoes. “I’ve got to go check on something. I’ll be right back.”
“Check on what?”
“The relics. Unger is really worried about antiquities thieves. I know they’re fine, but I’ll sleep better if I check on them.”
“Can’t you wait until morning?”
“This would the perfect time for a thief, when it’s dark and everyone’s sleeping.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He started to protest but remembered the crucifix that had just melted in his hand. The demonic presence stalking them might be in their room. “Okay. Put something on your feet besides slippers.”
While she put on sweats and sneakers Zeke got a flashlight from his nightstand. A minute later they were going up the stairs. When they reached the fifth-floor landing, they froze.
Through the door they heard a muffled, chantlike mumbling.
Fervent.
Frenzied.
Heart pounding, fighting off a tidal wave of anguish that threatened to engulf him, Zeke stabbed in the security code and opened the door.
They sprinted down the hall. The chanting was coming from the room with the relics.
The door was locked. No sign of damage.
Only one person had the code. Unger.
No time to think about it.
Zeke punched in the numbers, but in his haste he hit a wrong one and had to wait while the lock reset itself. Finally, after the longest 13 seconds of his life, the door popped open.
CHAPTER 60
A scene straight out of Hell staggered them.
Zeke dropped the flashlight to free his hands as a furnace blast of evil assaulted their senses.
A man stood facing the front wall of the room, his profile to them. The Sudarium was around his head like a cowl, concealing his face. Jesus’s burial shroud was draped over his shoulders like a cloak. Black votive candles flickered throughout the room. The chest with the bottles of holy water was on the floor directly in front him, its lid open. A vile smell came from somewhere.
In one hand the mock priest held a scepter, nearly as tall as he was. Affixed to its top was what appeared to be the bleached white skull of some small animal.
In the other hand he held his penis. He was urinating into the chest with the holy water while moaning some incomprehensible incantation. Ceasing both actions instantly when they burst into the room, he brushed the Sudarium off his head and locked his demonic gaze onto them.
Zeke tore his eyes away from the appalling sight below the man’s waist to return his stare with equal ferocity.
The shock of recognition knocked Zeke backward.
Michael Price.
A pentagram was drawn on his forehead. Split-second bursts of thought flashed through Zeke’s brain.
He had been tricked by this worshiper of Satan. Again.
Satan.
Liar.
Deceiver.
Betrayer.
Inviting Price had led to the worst possible sacrilege. All in the name of forgiveness. Looking at Price and the scene before him, a blinding thought exploded in Zeke’s head: Some things were beyond forgiving. Not every soul could be saved.
He summoned what shaken faith he could against the palpable evil radiating from this mockery of a priest.
But Price was a believer, too. And he had conjured up the power of his own god.
Locked in a primal face-off, the two men stared each other down.
Zeke’s words came out scraped raw with emotion. “How did you get in here?”
“That was the easy part. I hid a small video camera in the hallway. Got a good picture of your self-proclaimed holy man entering the code.” His voice changed to the inhuman, mocking one they’d heard before. “Great power is vested in me.” His eyes glowed red. “I’ve been watching you.”
Zeke wondered if Price or his spirit could have been the thing outside Leah’s room in the hospital.
“No,” Price said, reading his mind. “That was my good friend.”
“What?”
“The one I told you about. Randy Stokes. My spiritual twin. Born on the same day. Inseparable. We got physically separated, but we were finally reunited again. Guess where, Ezekiel.”
“Say what you’ve got to say before you die.”
“Oh, I’m scared. All right. You’ll find this interesting.”
He came closer until they were face to face. His raspy voice cut off Zeke’s mad struggle to make sense of it all.
“Remember the story your father told about when he was a POW at the Hanoi Hilton? How a prisoner escaped who believed in Satan? That was my friend Randy.
“My lord saw the exquisite symmetry in having Randy be the one to execute his plan. Randy was the one outside Leah’s hospital window. Or I should say, his spirit. He flew out of his prison cell using Lucifer’s wings.”
Zeke wanted to smash the gloating face in, but he needed to know. “What about all those other visions?”
“Those were also Lucifer. He controls the air, and therefore the airwaves. It amuses him greatly to play the types of video games he did with you the other night in the lounge. And the cloud game on the plane.”
Fury swelling in Zeke’s chest was making it difficult for him to breathe. It seemed to goad Price on.
“Randy is the one who killed your family. The man I interviewed in prison.”
Zeke’s body became taut with rage. Before he could explode, Price twisted the knife.
“Randy’s spirit came into me before he died, so I could finish the work of the Wicked Priest.”
Wicked Priest. The phrase from Lot’s scroll. A chill stirred Zeke’s scalp. “Which is?”
“To destroy you. You’ve been a marked man since that white light in the hospital. Lucifer keeps close tabs on God’s Chosen. Remember that night in Nam? You said you were going to send me to Hell. Guess what, buddy. You’re coming with me.”
An explosion of pent-up wrath from the jungle and the restaurant launched Zeke into him. Price swung the scepter. Zeke blocked it with his rock-hard forearm and the wooden rod cracked in half. Unfazed, Zeke yanked the remaining half from Price’s hand and flung it aside. In one continuous motion he slammed his palms against Price’s chest with cannonball force, hurling him backward so hard he dented the wall before crumpling to the floor. He scrambled to get up but Zeke was on him.
Leah hovered nearby trying to find a way to help.
The pentagram on Price’s forehead triggered another surge of rage. Zeke aimed a short, vicious punch straight at it. Price’s head banged loudly against the floor, leaving him momentarily dazed. An instant later Zeke had him completely pinned. The foul smell assaulted his nostrils but he was too enraged to consider it.
“What have you been doing in here?”
The force of his words sprayed spittle onto the hate-etched face. Like some mindless gargoyle, Price displayed no reaction. At last his face contorted itself into an expression of amused contempt.
“My job,” he said in a suddenly lifeless monotone.
“Your job?”
“I do what he tells me, not you.”
“He?” Zeke knew who he meant, yet hoped somehow he was wrong.
Price’s inevitable response sounded like a prison door slamming shut. “Not Him.” His eyes flicked upward before locking onto Zeke’s. �
�Satan.”
Zeke tightened his grip on Price’s wrists until he thought he heard bones cracking. The gloating expression did not change.
“Satan is god,” said Price.
“You’re insane.”
“I’m not insane. You are. You have deluded yourself into thinking you can defeat the all-powerful Belial. Hail Satan!”
“I will defeat him.”
“Wrong. You have been ours from the beginning.”
His taunting fueled the inferno in Zeke’s chest. At the molten core of his rage was the stabbing realization that it must all be true.
Price—Satan—had deceived him every inch of the way.
He’d heard enough. He wanted this garbage called Price out of his life for good, but if he released him he would undoubtedly attack. Zeke was stronger than him—always had been—but in this demonic state he might possess some superhuman reserve. He’d already absorbed a lot of punishment that had barely fazed him, and he was still ex-Delta and appeared to be in very good shape. Zeke looked around for a way to keep him subdued.
“What do you need me to do?” Leah said.
The holy water. Price had desecrated it, but hopefully it still had some power. “The holy water. Rinse it off and bring some here. Quick.”
Leah grabbed one end of the chest and dragged it into the bathroom. Price struggled but Zeke had all his weight on him and held his wrists in a crushing grip. Seconds later Leah returned with several clean bottles of holy water bundled in a towel.
“Take the caps off and get it on him.”
Leah shook the water onto his face from inches away.
The water turned into hissing steam and Price shrieked with pain. Leah helped hold him down as he writhed violently. When he was subdued enough for Zeke to handle him, Leah emptied the rest of the bottles into his impossibly contorted face. His inhuman screams were the sound of the burning damned.