Pedro pulled the spike from his neck and applied pressure with a dirty kitchen rag. He collapsed.
While he lay, stoned out of his gourd, they came. It was time to pay the piper.
He heard screams first. Intruders dragged his five year old and her mother, dropping them next to Pedro. One knelt beside Pedro, two stood guard. The intruders wore ski masks. The one beside Pedro rolled his up, leaned in close.
“I hope enough’s left of your brain to recognize me,” he said.
Pedro didn’t acknowledge, but he recognized him, alright. He couldn’t move, still in the solid rapture phase, but he knew the fucker. He knew this gonna end badly.
Ski mask’s the dealer Pedro stole ten grams from. Pedro was to buy the Plata, but didn’t have the dinero to pay for it. Pedro waited until nigga was elsewhere and helped his damn self to what lay out. He almost cried when it weighed in at ten grams.
“You recognize me,” ski mask continued, “and that’s good. Your baby girl shouldn’t be the only one to see this.”
Ski mask pressed the assault rifle to Pedro’s chest. He faded out of the solid rapture and into silk-smooth bliss. The euphoria washed away all the pain of his marginal existence. It was Pedro’s mistress, his Lillith, his Delilah, his golden wide paved road to Hades. He let his mistress have her way with him and now the bill came due. Pedro was left empty-handed, holding the bag.
This bliss lasted for hours. Much longer than needed for the intruders to methodically defile his woman and baby until their necks broke and their torture ended. Pedro’s was just beginning. The sound of his daughter begging daddy to save her would forever ring in Pedro.
He mercifully went unconscious.
He awoke, hours later, to the cooled bodies of his nearest and dearest. His bruised and beaten brain cracked. The rest of the day and night breezed by, as if a series of disjointed snapshots.
The first snapshot Pedro meticulously cleaned bodies of blood, sticky filth. The second one showed him loading a big gun. The third a blind drive to the bar where he thought the intruders might now be.
The bar’s a stronghold of a rival gang. Pedro never hesitated. Figuring his life forfeit, the fourth snapshot a half-blind, banshee screaming, Pedro lurch through the door, blasting away at smudgy shapes he took for the ski masks. He couldn’t see clearly, just smudgy shapes. He took what aim he could: unloading on motherfuckers.
After stopping to reload, Pedro leveled the big gun and fired at the retreating. Someone decided to fire back.
The first bullet hit Pedro left of the navel and pulverized a kidney as it exited. It hurled him backward onto the pool table. Pedro snapped two shots at the smudges. Never knowing if these were the ones broke into his home, before catching two more slugs, himself.
Racked with more pain than he’d ever experienced, Pedro sat up. One bullet lodged in left lung, one in right bicep. The arm hung limp, he could not raise it to aim. He bled profusely. Another slug in the gut and he suddenly had this overwhelming urge to get out, into cold and snow.
The fifth snapshot had Pedro bleeding to death on frozen ground of a narrow alleyway snaked behind the bar. Blood from Pedro’s dying body melted a soot-darkened snowdrift.
The sixth snapshot showed near-dead Pedro clutching the gun with his right hand in the partially dissolved snow. At the end of his mostly useless arm, the big gun lay ready, still lethal. The reptilian fear center in his brain registered an approaching smudge, a threat. He fired directly into the smudge from a few scant feet. Blasting away until only a spasmodic clicking of hammer slamming spent shells was heard.
She knelt beside Pedro, none the worst for wear. He knew she should be beside him, sharing his fate.
“My big man,” she said, “you at the end of your rope yet?”
“I’m lookin’,” Pedro exhaled, couldn’t finish.
“I know, Pedro,” she said. He felt heat from her. It penetrated the shock and blood loss. The angel knew his name.
Immanuel laid her small hands on him. He heard the hiss of spent slugs popped out onto the snow. The wounds began to instantly knit, healing quickly. The huge lumpy scars it would leave. They were big, mean and purple. The scars were string on his finger and made for damn sure he’d never forget.
Pedro’s hyperventilation eased and pain subsided to a dull roar. He opened his eyes and a clear image of a young Latina smiled benignly at him.
“Angel?” he asked.
“Nah, nigga,” she replied, “no employee good enough for you, Pedro. You are going to be fisher of La Raza,” she said. She wiped gently falling snowflakes from his face. “You shall be the Rock on which my new Church will stand.”
“I ain’t shit,” he stated bluntly. “I killed my baby and her mother. They never did nothin’ to nobody and I killed them.”
“You did, Pedro. The fault lies squarely with you, its right you suffer. I will not ease the pain of this, but I promise it won’t destroy you.”
“What do I do?” he asked, crying like a baby. Pedro never cried before. It sounded strange to his ears.
“You owe a great debt,” she told him, “you best start paying it back.”
“How?” wondered Pedro.
She regarded him a moment. “I need you.” She stood and offered a tiny hand. “Will you help me, Pedro?”
He let go the gun and dwarfed her hand in his big mitt. She lifted him from the ground as if a small child. Together they walked away.
“I’m broken, Teacher.”
“I know, sweetheart,” she agreed. “There are many broken and tortured souls here. That’s why my Father sent me.”
Immanuel removed a gold chain and cross from her pale, slender neck. She placed it around the purply, chewed up scars of Pedro’s neck. The jewelry had been given to her by Mother Mary before she died. Immanuel could think of no other to have it, but he.
Pedro gazed at the little cross. It was beautiful and still had her heat on it. He looked upon it as though it were holy, not merely a symbol. The cross would be the finest thing he owned. It would never, ever come off.
Pedro looked to her.
“Alright, Jefe,” he told her. “You lead, I’ll follow.”
And the final snapshot, her bare feet. They left not one footprint in the snow. As if she were not of this Earth, only visiting.
Judas joined Immanuel’s semi-circle with the eleven other disciples. Night had fallen in The Harbor. She didn’t stare, but he could still feel her eyes on him. It felt creepy as hell.
Judas consulted his phone for the time. He was anxious to go. He hated these people, thought they were dangerous. He only hunted the lone small ones or a dying fiend whenever possible. The Harbor frightened Judas and shit only got worse when night fell. He couldn’t understand why Immanuel loved them so much, ready to forgive any transgression.
“Because,” she said, beholding his eyes with hers, “God so loved the world… remember, Judas?”
“Yes, Teacher,” he replied, “I remember scripture, but any of these,” he continued with a look of a man chewing manure, “believers would stick a knife in it if you show them your back.”
“Perhaps,” she acquiesced, “but I think danger, when it comes, will prove closer to home.”
Before Judas could reply, a highly revved engine and angry braking were heard.
“Pilate,” Immanuel stated. “He has a guest with him.”
Her disciples glanced from her to one another. Pedro reached for the 9mm. He looked to her for permission. She dismissed the gesture with a small shake of her head.
“He’s not here for violence,” she explained, “He needs help.”
And as heavy footsteps approached them, El Cristo and her disciples rose.
She’d been looking forward to meeting her fate.
CHAPTER 3
P ilate’s lair was an abandoned church. At the very end of a trash-strewn block of one hundred fifty year old houses. He stood in a doorway in the middle of the block and listened. It was fifteen minutes b
efore he moved any closer.
The old, empty church was one of two lairs for Pilate. He had a couple emergency shelters that were temporary, but still safe. Nobody knew the emergency shelters, not even Juan or Mary. Pilate trusted them with his business and his life, but a nigga never know. Everyone has something they’re trying to hide.
Pilate’s been pursuing the drug trade for five years now. Up until a few months ago, money flowed like a river to him. Dope fiends used to line up around the block to get his goods. Now the little niggas that clocked for Pilate had down time. Instead of shorties vending Plata, they played godamn video games and downloaded music. It was like he was running a motherfucking summer camp. It was all Immanuel’s fault. Her dynamic ministry was stifling commerce and slowing the flow of drugs.
People called her El Cristo. They truly believed she was the Child of God. They were beginning to think themselves chosen. The young Latina won many hearts and souls in The Harbor. She healed hundreds of the drug Pilate owed both his station and clout to. Such was the missed quotas of recent.
The Pharisees, with enforcement via Herod and his cops, controlled all Plata peddled in The Harbor. Pilate agreed to one hundred grams of uncut Plata from the Pharisees, through Herod, every month. Whether or not it sold, Pilate was committed to the monthly quota.
Normally this arrangement proved extremely lucrative. Pilate bought Plata from Herod for $800 a gram. He would meet one of Herod’s flunky cops, do the exchange. But he hated dealing with them. Soon he will turn the responsibility over to Juan de Bautista. Pilate’s Second would exchange $80,000 every month for product.
Pilate would take the Plata and have Mary give it a big whack of powdered cut, maybe some ephedra or some garage speed, break it down. His shorties flipped this stepped-on shit for $200 a teener and Pilate almost doubled his investment every month.
After five years, Pilate and his companions squirreled away three million in cash. He could make the quota by dipping, but there be principles at stake. After all the money they made for Herod and the Pharisees, Pilate believed he should be given latitude. A few grams here or there shouldn’t really matter.
Herod was the motherfucker Pilate worried about. All other dealers were members of the Mayor’s police force. Herod was a vampire and he controlled the human cops completely. The only nigga he could not control was Pilate. That, he thought, is the real reason he was targeted. The missed quota merely was Herod’s excuse to do the deed.
Pilate had to find a way to unravel the Mayor’s control and do it quick.
Juan de Bautista, Pilate’s Second, collected and controlled vast sums of sweaty, crumpled cash. Obviously, he could not process it legally. Instead, he funneled it through local conduits, changing them often. Juan’s latest favorite, a string of local storefront churches. For a huge percentage, the churches accepted the donations, swapping them for larger, newer currency. Their nest egg stashed throughout The Harbor.
Pilate had $100,000 ready at a moment’s notice. This info he kept to himself, an insurance policy. The locations of the rest were kept in a small book. The contents were coded. The book kept in an unobtrusive wall-safe in the old church Pilate waited to enter.
Something was wrong. Pilate could feel it. He moved cautiously forward. No one on the street, but the feeling persisted.
Pilate made it, keeping to dark spaces. He went alley side and vaulted the solid perimeter wall. He smelled and failed to locate Mary or Juan and alarms sounded in his head. Pilate went to the basement door at the foot of a short downward staircase. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the door splintered and cracked. He opened a lopsided shutter and noted that the security system was never set. Which was more than strange, he thought. Pilate could never recall Mary and Juan making those kinds of mistakes.
Pilate entered, yellow eyes scanning darkened room. His heart pounded blood in his ears as he crossed the floor and up another small staircase to a landing. The door opened to Pilate. He slipped inside and closed it. A bathroom was to the left, a spare room to the right. The hallway directly in front led to the kitchen.
Pilate checked the room. All windows were boarded up on the outside. Security shutters inside were bolted and padlocked on all them save one. Pilate went to the largest room and looked out the open shutter. There was nothing to see.
Pilate turned and glanced around the large room. Fifty or sixty years ago, thick congregations shouted and stamped enthusiastic praises here. All quiet now. Even the echoes forgot.
All tables, trays, scales and workbenches were overturned. Most of the work area was destroyed beyond repair. He went to a tall, two-door cabinet and saw the lock open and hanging, drugs gone. Fifty grams worth of ready packaged product and it was gone.
Pilate didn’t call for his companions. Their remaining scent a sliver left by the lingering energy of their departure. There was violence done here. Pilate went back to the basement.
He moved crates to reveal a hidden door to an old bomb shelter. He opened the well-oiled door to find a dense metal bank vault.
Pilate spun the wheel, unlocked the vault, and opened it wide. Muted blue forty-watt bulbs came on. He entered and surveyed the room. The bed in the corner where he slept was blocked from view by a four-paneled screen. Small loveseat and a couple old recliners grouped around a nicked coffee table. Television set, stereo and movie player sat on a table in the sitting area. Music, movies and other goodies heaped in haphazard groupings.
Nearest Pilate, to the right of the door, was a big desk. He faced it. The desk was as neat and organized as always. But the picture frame on the wall behind it, ever so slightly ajar.
He knew for sure. Realization made his stomach tighten. He skirted the desk and tugged open the picture revealing a wall safe. The door to the safe was open. Pilate confirmed the worst. The little book holding coded locations of their loot was gone. In place of the book, there was a camera.
Pilate scooped it up, thumbing through various heart-wrenching images. Camera showed Pilate all. Herod and his dirty fucking cops have Juan. Judging from images of the extensive damage inflicted, Pilate knew the location codes had been compromised.
Five years and it ended in a heartbeat. His money, drugs, his friends were all gone.
Pilate came to the last image, a picture of Mary Magdalene. Pilate dropped the camera and raced to the corner. He tossed the screen out of the way. Mary was splayed out on his bed. She was very dead. A big syringe stuck motionless out of her split, weeping eyeball. Three empty dope sacks beside her bruised, violated body.
“No, not Mary,” Pilate groaned.
He went to her.
Juan’s cousin had a growing reputation for healing the sick, rumors of raising the dead. Pilate could think of no where else to turn. Hospitals could not save dead people.
Pilate carried Mary to the car he rarely used. He removed the cover, placed Mary in the passenger seat. Pilate backed out of the yard through double gates.
Pilate phoned while driving Harbor streets. He called his shorties, one by one, until he gleaned where Juan’s cousin was. Shorty only one not supposed to be slingin dope that night.
He got the address, made short work of the drive and screeched to a halt. The wedding reception was full on. With engine idling, Pilate plucked Mary from the car. He followed the nauseating smell of cooked flesh. He saw her.
Immanuel waited, surrounded as she was by nine men and three women. They were not happy to see Pilate. Her disciples bunched closer, protecting her. They didn’t like Pilate being there. Not while he was shellacked with sticky blood and staring with creepy eyes. Pedro kept a hand behind his back, close to the 9mm. Just in case his Lord was wrong.
“Trust in the sword, Pedro,” she said in a small, still voice, “and ye shall die by it.” She glared at him, not kidding. “Release the shooter, drop your hand, and do it right now,” she scolded.
Pedro instantly obeyed.
Pilate approached. Just being near her made nerve endings tingle. She pos
sessed so much restrained power. She kept her focus played on his eyes. While her disciples stared in abject horror at his clothes, drenched in blood, Juan’s cousin looked only at Pilate’s eyes.
He gently placed Mary at the bare feet of El Cristo, telling what he knew. She knelt beside the supine body and listened for heartbeat. There was none. Immanuel placed her hand over Mary’s destroyed eye. It began to quiver. The people nearby felt tremendous heat rolling off El Cristo.
At first the yellow waxy substance pushed out of Mary’s eye, thin as a surgeon’s thread. It pushed out of pulpy mess and attached itself to Immanuel’s quivering hand. Another waxy string oozed slowly out of the eye, thicker and darker, vile smelling.
Six waxy strings vibrated between Immanuel’s hand and Mary’s eye. She grabbed them with her empty hand. She tugged ever thickening tendrils all the way out. Immanuel released the gooey substance to the grass. It hissed and burned. It sank into the earth and was gone.
Immanuel had a disciple fetch bandages for Mary’s eye. It would never see again. She put her mouth on Mary’s lips and blew air into empty, motionless lungs.
Mary’s chest stayed inflated and began to vibrate. Immanuel sat beside Mary and watched her quietly. The partygoers were silent as well. She still seemed dead as shit to Pilate, but he also watched.
Pedro’s sister and fellow disciple, Andrea, brought out a first-aid kit. She bandaged the eye while Mary quivered. Then Pilate noticed Mary’s color deepening. She took great, violently shaking breaths. He could smell oxygen returning.
Immanuel held Mary’s hand and massaged it gently. “Talitha cum,” she commanded, “little girl, get up.”
Without preamble, Mary sat straight, looking all around. She sniffed and told those staring she was hungry. They took her inside and cared for her.
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