The Thieves of Heaven

by Richard Doetsch

  “I’m going to rip Mary’s soul right out of her body and ravage it every single day for all eternity. Do you understand?” He shook Michael violently. “Give me my KEYS!”

  Like a rag doll, Michael was hurled against the wall. He crumpled, bloody and dazed, the wind knocked out of him. He didn’t have the strength to move. He was certain another rib was broken. He looked for the bartender, praying for help, but the man must have slipped out at the first sign of trouble. Finster walked about the room, cocksure. It was clear that he’d get what he came for and be gone in moments.

  “Smart son of a bitch.” He picked up Michael’s beer. “Never renege on a deal, Michael. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that? And if you do, be prepared for consequences.” He emptied the mug in one gulp, wiping the foam from his mouth. “I gave you what you wanted. You got the funds for her treatment, not my fault it didn’t take. That wasn’t my fault, you know. I have no power like that, despite what the storybooks tell you. Giving life is beyond anyone’s means. But taking it…” He let the threat hang in the air. “I helped you, Michael, and you betrayed me. I agreed to your terms, I let that delusional priest live, I swore to you your wife would have her eternal life. And you betrayed me a second time; you broke your word to me, Michael. So now Mary’s mine.”

  The hatred in Michael’s eyes blazed as he struggled to stand.

  “Don’t bother.” Finster motioned Michael to sit down. “You’re finished.” He flicked his wrist and a table upended itself, careening across the floor into Michael. “You had two sets of keys.” Finster spat.

  “Three actually.” The cheerful voice came from behind the bar. “But you were never known for your intelligence, were you?”

  Finster swung around to see the bartender leaning over the bar. The man was bandaged, a sling holding up his right arm. The wounds on his face would heal in time, but the scars would be a reminder for the rest of his life. Without another thought, Finster grabbed Simon by the hair, smashing his head into the bar, then lifted and threw him against the wall of bottles.

  From across the room, Michael’s voice came. “You were in too much of a rage to think clearly—”

  “I want the real keys and I want them now!” Finster screeched. He flashed to Michael, a blur as he sped through the room, violently ripping him off the floor, pulling him in close. “Only one of you can have them, so only one of you is protected by them.” He discarded Michael in the corner.

  Finster closed his eyes. He was starting to shake, more beast now than human. As his frustration built, any hint of humanity washed away. The wind continued to howl through the place, the raging fire in the fireplace refracting like broken rainbows off the shattered bar glasses. Looming shadows danced off the ceiling.

  Simon was on his feet, dazed, fighting to recover. He pressed his good shoulder into the side of the bar, pushing with all his might. And slowly, slowly, the bar moved. Not much, only a couple of inches, but it moved. It slowly slid across the floor, as the silent priest put every ounce of his remaining strength into it.

  Finster, perplexed, again grabbed Simon, lifting him into the air. “What are you—”

  “Did you ever hear the expression, ‘Fool me once shame on you’”—Michael’s ragged voice come from across the room—“‘fool me twice shame on me’?”

  Finster ignored Michael. Squeezing Simon’s throat, he snarled, “Nothing is going to save you this time, holy man—no guns, no knives. No God is going to step in and pluck you from death. And when you die, you will have nowhere to go—no Heaven, no eternal reward for the life of sacrifices you have made to your God.” He hurled Simon into the wall. “There will be only me.”

  Michael struggled to his knees. “At any rate, I’d say I’ve fooled you three—”

  Finster stretched out his hand and Michael was dragged into his grasp, flying across the room like steel to a magnet. Michael struggled to free his throat from the vise-like grip.

  “Four,” Simon said, correcting Michael as he gasped for breath.

  “Four times fooled,” Michael agreed, his voice ebbing along with his consciousness. Bloodied and battered, he pressed on through gritted teeth. “Tricked you into that dance club, which was really a church. That’s one.” The words were coming in a faint whisper. “Tricked you with the first set of fake keys I put in your gallery. Two.”

  “The second set of keys into the well,” Simon added.

  “Three,” Michael agreed, looking toward the priest. “And number four—”

  Finster had reached his limit. Nobody toyed with death, particularly malevolent death, and he personified it. He was finished with Michael’s and Simon’s games; his would be the last game this pair ever played. “No number four for you. I’m going to chain your soul to my feet so every single day you will witness the torment I will bring to your wife.” He hurled Michael against the far wall, but this time Michael didn’t fall, he hung there affixed like a picture. The blood flowed freely from his nose and a gash in his head.

  Finster reached out with his left hand and from Michael’s belt shot his knife. It flew across the room straight to Finster and with only inches to spare, it turned and landed in his outstretched hand. He rolled the handle to and fro in his palm, admiring the blade’s glimmer, the way the edge had been honed to a deadly point. Again, Finster stretched out his left hand. Michael’s shirt ripped open, buttons flying. His chest was naked and completely exposed.

  Finster stepped to Michael and held the blade before his eyes. “You will take your own life.”

  Michael was silent, his lips trembling.

  “I can’t do it,” Finster sneered. “I can remove your will, bring you within seconds of death, torture you until you plead for death’s release, but I can’t bring you over that edge. You seemed to have learned this secret so well from your dying friend there.” Finster pointed the knife at Simon. “I cannot commit the final act; so you will do it for me. You will give me the keys. Then you will take this blade and plunge it into your own heart. And if you aren’t willing to give them to me alive, I have no problem removing them from you when you’re dead.”

  The terror rose in Michael’s eyes. His body was unable to respond to his mind’s command. Any reply he might make to Finster’s threats was lost, replaced with fear—fear that he had failed Simon, that he had failed his wife. And—Michael finally admitted it—fear that he had failed God.

  Finster dragged the blade down Michael’s bare chest. The point came to rest over his heart. He reached across Michael’s body and grabbed his left hand, effortlessly pulling it toward him. Against his will, Michael’s fingers opened, pried by an unseen force. Finster placed the knife in his hand as Michael’s fingers wrapped around the hilt. A pinprick of blood drooled down his chest from where the blade’s tip pressed over his heart. Finster stepped back, admiring Michael’s form against the wall, hovering at the edge of suicide.

  Michael fought with all his spirit. His arm trembled from exertion, sweat broke out on his brow, but he could not pry the knife from his body. Even with all his might, muscles distended in effort, he failed to halt the dagger’s will.

  And then, without warning, his arm snapped away like a catapult released, his knife hand arcing back, slamming into the wall. Astonishingly, he had regained control of his arm. He slid slowly down the wall, bewildered and not knowing why. Until he looked at Finster. He was staring at Michael, or more precisely, at his shirt pocket. His concentration broken, no longer concerned with Michael’s immediate death. A smirk creased Finster’s face. For sticking out of Michael’s pocket was Mary’s cross, on a long gold chain. And dangling next to it were the two keys.

  Finster reached out for them.

  Michael blanched. “You can’t touch them.”

  “Fool.” Finster laughed. He leaned over and without fanfare, pulled them from Michael’s pocket by the long chain. As they dangled there in the air, Finster felt the all-too-familiar nausea sweep over him. His body jerked as the keys drew nearer. Yes,
these were the right ones. And despite the pain that new flooded his body, he felt a wave of triumph wash over him. “Mine,” he said, with naked satisfaction.

  Michael looked down at his chest where Mary’s cross had hung. Gone now. He had worn it not out of reverence for God but out of reverence for his wife. She had insisted it would keep him safe, that it would protect him and bring him home again to her. He didn’t believe her at the time. But he did now. “All yours,” Michael said.

  And with that, he ripped the chain that held Mary’s cross—and the keys—out of Finster’s hand and forced the chain over Finster’s head and around his neck. Finster tried to pull away but it was too late, his brain was fogged and his body weakened from being in the presence of the true keys.

  With the chain about his neck, the keys fell against Finster’s chest. An ungodly cry from the absolute depths of Hell erupted. The pain unbearable, Finster spun about the room bouncing off walls and tables, whirling in a frenzy, falling to the floor, where he writhed in unspeakable agony. Fire and blood oozed from his black shirt as the keys burned into his flesh, embedding in his skin.

  Michael scooted back toward the wall doing his best to stay out of the way. Simon watched through impassive eyes, witnessing what he had striven for for so long. And then Finster was still, stock-still, not a movement, not a sound. Smoke rose from his scorched chest, his eyes rolled back in his head. Tables and chairs were upended, claw marks scarred the floor before him. Life had slipped away from the billionaire.

  Michael looked to Simon. The priest was barely hanging on to consciousness. They each spilled a fair amount of blood and had their share of bruises and broken bones. And Michael thought: To Simon, this must be old hat, but for me, this is the first and last time.

  Michael approached Finster; he looked at the keys embedded in his chest, at the burnmarks around his torso. No one would believe what he had borne witness to. He had seen more than enough to last ten lifetimes. But in the end he had gotten what he had come for with a bonus: he would survive.

  Michael crouched down over the body, the stench of burned flesh assaulting his senses. The keys were hot to the touch; he wrapped a cloth about them and pulled. They didn’t budge. They had burned into the flesh and into the very bone of Finster’s sternum. Michael braced his foot, took a tighter grip around the keys, and pulled with all his might.

  Finster’s eyes flashed open. Michael froze in shock as Finster leaped to his feet, spinning, frantically clawing at his chest. Tearing, ripping into his own skin. Desperately trying to rid himself of his death sentence. His skin peeled away as his fingers sunk into his flesh trying to free the keys from his body. Then it happened. In a frantic last-ditch effort, he caught the chain and ripped the keys free. They sailed through the air end-over-end, across the room, skidding under a table.

  Finster lunged. His hand clawed around Michael’s throat. Michael was choking, dying. And all he could think of was the scorched flesh before him, the shape of the keys burned into Finster’s chest.

  “No more tricks.” Finster’s voice was pure evil now; there was no hint of the seductive German tone that the captains of industry had grown to know over the last ten years.

  Michael gasped. His eyes fluttering, darkness creeping in the periphery of his vision. He fought to muster just one last scrap of energy, just one final push to bring an end to this insanity. And with his last breath he uttered…“Number four.”

  Michael reached up and ripped a tapestry from the wall. It depicted a knight upon a black steed driving his lance into the heart of an enormous, snarling dragon. The handcrafted weaving tumbled to the ground to reveal an altar recessed back into a vestibule. There was only one thing on it: a crucifix. It was a simple thing, made of wood and stone, and dated back centuries.

  Finster’s eyes went wide.

  Michael continued with newfound energy. “This time there is nobody here to carry you out or expected for a long time.”

  Finster fell to a fetal position, unable to control the pain that ravaged him. One last clear thought ran through his mind, before it burned to ash. He had come so close to avenging himself before He who had cast him down. Finster cursed himself for taking human form, for falling for a human’s vices and pleasures. He had fallen prey to the frailty of man, addicted to the lust and greed that infects so many. The only way he had been lured into this church was through the weaknesses of this body. It had dulled his senses, blinded him to the truth. And now as this human shell dissolved around him, his spirit no longer shielded by flesh, the pain blazed within him like an inferno. His soul was awash in light: it was like being forced to look at the sun, unable to avert your eyes. Finster’s body was shriveling, beginning to smoke, bursts of small flame erupting from his flesh.

  The shell that was August Finster was burning away.

  Michael struggled to stand and helped Simon to his feet. The two men put the simple chapel back in order. They pushed the phoney bar out the front door and removed the stacked pews from the rear, remaking the neat rows where parishioners gathered to pray. With great care they reset the altar with its chalice and candles, ready for a service that would never come.

  Simon lifted up the tapestry depicting the valiant knight from the floor and passed an end to Michael. They carried it across the little church and stood over what little remained of Finster’s body. Simon laid his end over the feet. As Michael reached down to cover Finster’s head, a hand snapped up, snatching his wrist. The hand was blackened, charred, more claw than finger.

  What could barely be called eyes shone up from the shadows of the floor, bloodred and vengeful, from a face that was gone, darkened into nothingness unlike anything that Michael had seen. This was truly a monster that lay before him, no longer the facade known as August Finster.

  The voice was not from lips, nor did it carry to the ears of Simon. It spoke solely in Michael’s head. And Michael knew it delivered the truth. “I can never die.” The voice came from everywhere. “Without darkness there can be no light.” Michael looked deep into the thing’s eyes as it continued, “I will always be.”

  Without another thought, Michael removed Finster’s pitiful fingers from his wrist, walked across the room, and picked up the keys. He held them reverently in his hand, running his fingertips over the ancient metal. Like Mary’s cross, they were objects of minimal design, unassuming in their simplicity, yet the faith and power they invoked was far greater than anything Michael had ever imagined. To the world they represented faith; to Mary, they represented hope. And to Michael, they represented love.

  He removed the keys from the chain, leaving only Mary’s cross upon it. He passed the keys to Simon, then stepped to Finster, crouching down. Finster was motionless, his feral eyes frozen open, the smoke continuing to smolder from his charred body. Carefully, Michael placed the necklace around the corpse’s neck, setting the cross in the center of the blackened chest.

  Chapter 38

  Five minutes later, two men stepped from the chapel. Night had fallen, deeper and clearer than any they had ever experienced. The forest seemed alive around them, crickets and owls, tree frogs and cicadas. A sliver of moon crept up over the trees, providing just enough light to see by.

  Simon had helped Michael lay the medieval tapestry over the scorched remains of Finster and then pushed him before the altar. They snuffed out the fire in the hearth and stacked the tables and chairs in the corner, leaving the place as ordered as they had found it.

  Michael stood in the moonlight as Simon removed the fake German beer house sign they had hurriedly crafted and pulled the true sign from the underbrush. The carved words were German, but Simon had translated them for Michael:

  CHAPEL OF THE HOLY REDEEMER

  NO SERVICES SCHEDULED

  ALL TRAVELERS WELCOME TO PRAY

  OR SEEK SANCTUARY.

  It had been a hastily conceived plan, one crafted on the fly in sheer desperation—not Michael’s favorite method, but he was getting good at it. The allies they ha
d contacted were more than accommodating, actually preparing the chapel, window-dressing it as a bar hours before Michael and Simon had even arrived.

  As Simon replaced the church sign, there was an almost imperceptible movement around and within the other buildings, as if they were coming to life. People, scores of them, stepped from the buildings and converged on the chapel. They moved silently, their cassocks and skirts brushing the earth as they walked. Others came from the darkness, bringing wheelbarrows and tools. A large ancient handcart was pushed by a monk; within it were loads of brick and sand.

  In hours, the new walls were built; within days, the building was completed. A brick-and-mortar structure now entirely encased the chapel. There were no doors, no windows, no way in or out. The dirt took a bit longer. About a month. It was wheeled in by hand and, when they were done, a giant mound of earth covered the entire building. Trees, flowers, and grass were planted on it so that it blended with its surroundings. At the apex of the mound, a marble statue was placed. It had been sent from the Vatican, coming from the Sistine Chapel itself. Handcrafted by Michelangelo in the year 1530, it had been blessed by the Pope and revered by the Church for its poignant rendering: Jesus handing a pair of keys to the Apostle Simon Peter.

  Chapter 39

  The humid air was condensing on the hospital windows. It was ninety-five and only seven in the morning, truly the dog days of summer. The shifts were changing; bleary-eyed doctors and nurses replaced by bleary-eyed doctors and nurses. A bruised and battered Michael walked the vacant white halls, past empty rooms and empty stations. He had the distinct feeling there was only one patient in the entire hospital.

  He had boarded the first flight he could find out of Munich, at dawn, racing the sun; he’d flown across the ocean perpetually at sunrise, the luminous glow floating on the eastern edge of the world. Dead tired, up for at least seventy-two hours, he couldn’t will himself to sleep for even a moment. His eyes remained fixed on the watery horizon, the skies above it clear with that mixed blue and pink that the world has just before it awakens. Michael willed the plane to fly faster.