The Awakening (The Judas Curse Book 1)

by Angella Graff

  Ben hung up, and without even realizing he was doing it, grabbed the uneaten half sandwich on his plate, and walked over to his car. He was stressed and even in the silence of his car, he felt everything was chaotic and out of control.

  The drive to Sacred Heart was short, but seemed to take an eternity. He assumed the other two detectives hadn't arrived yet, and he didn't notice any typical detective cars sitting in the parking lot other than his.

  Checking his watch, Ben saw Abby's last class would have ended, though she was probably still in her classroom finishing things up. Students were milling around, and Ben felt rather awkward and out of place surrounded by young students, uniformed yet still desperate to exert some form of individuality.

  He tried to ignore the stares of the students, probably all wondering about the suited stranger with a gun on his hip, roaming their halls. He eventually found Abby in her classroom at the far end of the east building. Abby was at her desk, bent over a massive stack of papers, and she looked startled when Ben pushed the door open with a rather obnoxious squeak to the hinges.

  “Hey!” she said with a grin as he stepped inside the classroom.

  Ben smiled at her, though it was tense and he knew it showed on his face. “We need to talk,” he said, jumping right in. “We have a problem in that John Doe case.”

  “The Judas case?” Abby asked, standing up. She grabbed her sweater from the back of her chair and beckoned Ben to follow her.

  Ben followed, and kept his voice low as they started down the hallway. “Please don't go there with this Judas crap, okay? I'm not in the mood, it's been a terrible day so far, and I don't think I can listen to that hokey bullshit right now.”

  “Fine, whatever,” she snapped. The pair fell silent until they reached Abby's office. She locked the door behind Ben and plopped down at her computer desk. “What's going on with John Doe then?” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm and irritation, but Ben ignored her mood.

  “He's missing, and the detectives assigned to the case seem to think that Mark had something to do with it,” Ben deadpanned.

  “What?” Abby asked with a gasp. “No. No way, he would have told me if he had gotten him out. He's been trying for weeks to get them to release Ju- er John Doe- into his care. He keeps getting denied on the grounds that he can't prove identity.”

  “Obviously,” Ben said dryly, “hospitals aren't going to release an unidentified man into the care of some blind priest.” Ben let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So you're sure Mark didn't have anything to do with this?”

  “Positive,” she said with a firm nod.

  “And he's been here? Overseeing all of his classes? Nothing's changed?”

  “Not a thing,” she said. “In fact, I was meeting him for coffee later this afternoon and we were going to discuss possibly going to court to get a temporary power of attorney through the church. As a sort of charity act, you know.”

  “Right,” Ben sighed. “Well I don't think I need to tell you what a stupid idea that would be, John Doe is missing and no one seems to know where he is.”

  “Have you talked to Mark about this?”

  Ben shook his head and sat down in a chair, kicking his foot up on one of her lower bookshelves. “No, and I don't intend to. It's bad enough I'm here talking to you. The detectives, unfortunately, think Mark had something to do with it, and not only that, but they are implying that you may have known and possibly taken part of the disappearance.”

  “Ben,” she gasped, her eyes wide and scared, “I swear I don’t have any idea what happened!”

  “I know that,” Ben insisted. “I told them as much, but either way, they're going to be here shortly to talk to you and Mark about what's going on. I'll talk to Mark once they leave, but if he has had anything to do with this, he might be in bigger trouble than you realize.”

  “What are you talking about?” Abby asked, hearing the warning in her brother's tone.

  Ben hesitated, not sure whether or not he should reveal to Abby any of the details involving the case he was working on. Ben had always shared details with Abby, even when he wasn't technically supposed to. The only problem now was that Ben was afraid Abby’s feelings for Mark might cloud her judgment and she might warn Mark that he was a potential suspect. If Mark ran, Ben would have only himself to blame.

  “The disappearance of John Doe fits in line with another homicide case I'm working on,” Ben eventually said. “If Mark had anything to do with our John Doe, I won't be able to stop an investigation.” He paused a moment, and then added, “Abby, I realize you're into this guy, but I need to trust that you're not going to say anything to him.”

  Abby stared at her brother, her face drawn and troubled. Her foot was bouncing against the side of the desk, telling Ben that she was nervous and anxious about something. Finally she took a breath and said, “I won't say anything, and I'm not into him. I mean, I was, I liked him, but after everything he told me, I just can't let myself fall for this guy. He's immortal and eventually I'm going to get old and die and he's going to just move on.”

  “Abby, please tell me you're not buying this guy's story!” Ben snapped at her angrily. “I know you love all that mystical religious stuff, but the guy is just some crazy man who probably enjoys making vulnerable women like you think he's got some sort of magic powers.”

  Abby glowered at her brother, her arms crossed tightly against her chest. “How do you explain your tumor then, Benjamin? It just got up and walked out of your skull? Gnomes removed it? Elves? There's no explanation for what happened to you other than you were healed!”

  “Maybe the first MRI they took was wrong,” Ben said. “Maybe it was an image of someone else and some poor fool is walking around with a time bomb ticking away inside his brain while he thinks everything is fine.”

  “You know that's not true, Ben.”

  The words stung mostly because they were true. Ben had been sick when he'd gotten the MRI. Doctors could be completely incompetent morons, but the likelihood of them switching an MRI image with another patient was slim to none.

  To be honest, Ben also could not explain why he suddenly didn't need his glasses anymore, but that was something he could not bring himself to really think about; not for long, anyway.

  “The point is, I don't think you should really trust this guy. You have no evidence of anything about him other than he lied about being blind, and he's interested in taking possession of a man who will eventually be charged with assault for attacking a parishioner in a church. Whatever these guys are about, they're not safe and I don't want you involved.”

  “Eventually you're going to have to stop protecting me from the big bad world, Ben, and accept that I'm capable of protecting myself,” she snapped at him.

  Ben shook his head, irritated and weighed down by the feeling that this conversation wasn't going to get him anywhere. “I'm not trying to protect you from the world, but you've spent your entire life gallivanting off to religious miracle after religious miracle that always turned out to be nothing, and you didn't bother to pay attention to the way the world was growing up around you. You look at Mark and you see some kind, delicate blind man, even when you know perfectly well he's not anything he says he is. He's a con-artist, he's a liar, and yet you still try and protect him under the guise of believing some ridiculous story that's he's an immortal who wrote the bible.”

  Abby stared at him, her eyes hurt, watery, though she didn't cry. Her crossed arms were trembling slightly, and Ben knew that he had crossed a line with her. “I've stood by while you followed me around, insulting the core of my beliefs my entire life, Ben, and I never said anything. What does it hurt that I believe this man is immortal? What does it hurt that I believe someone might have Christ-like powers and they were able to heal you and keep you from dying? You act like you're this big, bad, protector of the universe, but you're not. You're hiding from the big bad world far more than I ever have, so don't treat me like I'm a child.”


  “Abby-” he breathed, but she wouldn't hear it.

  “Get out. Just go find Mark and interrogate him or something, but leave me out of it. I'll talk to the detectives when they get here, but I don't want to see you right now.”

  Ben knew that his best bet was to leave and let his sister calm down. He shut the door with a soft click, and as he started down the hall towards the Sacred Heart apartment building, he felt a wash of guilt. He had spent his life trying to shield her from the world, and he was a hypocrite for criticizing her because not only had it been partly his fault, but also because he had done the same to himself.

  He didn't enjoy hurting his sister like that, and as soon as she'd listen to him again, he planned on apologizing. He would never believe the ludicrous story that Mark was an immortal man, and he had been healed by Judas Iscariot, but he resolved to try and be a little more willing to give Mark the benefit of the doubt.

  Ben only vaguely remembered where Mark's apartment was, but it didn't take him long to find it. He paused at the door, knuckles poised to knock when he heard the voices inside. The detectives were there, and Ben hesitated before making his presence known.

  It took Mark a few minutes to answer the door, and when he did, his white milky eyes signaled that he was still keeping up the blind ruse. “Yes?”

  “Uh hi Mark, it's me, Ben,” Ben said awkwardly.

  Mark's stoic face softened a little and he stepped aside. “Your friends are paying me a little visit regarding that patient in the hospital we went to see.”

  Ben gave a nod to Ross and Burgess who were standing in the middle of the living room, trying to look intimidating, though from what Ben remembered, with those contacts, Mark was as good as blind anyway.

  “Detectives,” Ben said as he greeted them. “Sorry I'm late.”

  “We were expecting you later,” Burgess said, his eyes narrow in suspicion.

  “I intended on stopping for a quick meal, but the cafe I always frequent was packed and I decided to head over and meet you here early,” Ben lied smoothly.

  The pair shared a look of suspicion before Burgess turned his attention back to Mark. “We were just explaining the dire situation to Father Roman, here, and asking him of his whereabouts on the night of October thirteenth.”

  “Do you mind if I check my calendar?” Mark asked. He didn't wait for a response, and Ben watched nervously as he shuffled through his desk for something.

  As suspicious as Ben was, he didn't quite want to believe that Mark was a bad guy, even if he wasn't the most upfront. However, he was lying about his blindness, and the other two detectives didn't know that. If Mark pulled a gun on them, he could have the upper hand in taking the pair by surprise.

  Trying to be as subtle as possible, Ben put his hand on his hip, close to his pistol, and tried not to look as tense as he felt. An eternity seemed to pass before Mark produced a rather thick sheeted, note-book binder and set it down on the table.

  Ben leaned over and saw that the thick sheets were covered in what looked like plastic printed labels with raised dots. Mark dragged his fingers across the page until he came to a stop somewhere around the middle.

  “Ah yes, October thirteenth, were our parent-teacher conferences,” Mark said. He lifted his head and gave a small smile in the direction of Burgess and Ross.

  “And how long were you in these conferences?” Burgess asked, unimpressed by the information.

  “Oh late into the evening,” Mark said with a wave of his hand. “I'm afraid they only give us two short days to try and impress upon these students' parents just how well... or poor... their child is doing. I think I was probably finished sometime around nine.”

  “And after that?” Ross asked, speaking for the first time since Ben had entered the room.

  “Lesson plans, mainly. My teacher assistant came by to pick up midterm reports for grading. I'm not as technologically advanced as some teachers, and traditional grading, as I'm sure you can see, is not possible for me.”

  “Do you have anyone who can verify your whereabouts around the time of two-fifteen in the morning?”

  Mark frowned. “Of course not. I was in my bed sleeping, alone, at such an hour.”

  “The cameras will verify that story,” Ross said to Burgess in a low voice. “The security office is forwarding me the files right now, but they're huge so they're going to take a while to upload. It will confirm whether or not anyone entered or exited the building.”

  Ben studied Mark's face, and couldn't find a hint of worry or anxiety. For all Ben could tell, Mark really had no idea that the John Doe was gone, and it didn't seem like Mark had anything to do with it at all.

  Eventually the detectives had to bring the interview to a close. “We'll be in touch, Father Roman, and if you can think of anything you may have seen- er heard, or noticed that was in any way suspicious while you were visiting the John Doe, please let us know.”

  “Absolutely,” Mark said with a nod. He showed the men out, but Ben stayed back.

  “I'm working on another case which may be related to this one,” Ben explained when Burgess looked back at him sharply. “I'll be happy to forward you any details. I take it you're interviewing my sister next?”

  The two men didn't reply, but marched down the hall and around the corner. When their footsteps faded, Mark shut the door and reached up to pull the contacts from his eyes. When he looked at Ben, he looked absolutely terrified.

  “Is he truly gone?”

  “You really don't know anything about it?” Ben asked, his tone accusatory.

  “Of course not!” Mark exclaimed, wringing his hands. “Had I known, do you honestly think I would still be here?”

  “Your motivations behind most of what you do don't make sense to me,” Ben said.

  “I realize you don’t believe anything I've told you,” Mark said, “but I will tell you that if Yehuda has awakened and left of his own accord without getting well first, he's going to be very dangerous.”

  “What do you mean, very dangerous?” Ben asked in a low voice.

  “It's nearly impossible to explain to someone who doesn't have a fragment of belief in our story,” Mark said, sounding stressed and tired. “To be honest with you, Detective, I don't believe Yehuda has left of his own free will. It's more likely someone has discovered what he's capable of and has taken him, and that is what I fear the most.”

  “So you think he was kidnapped?” Ben asked, crossing his arms and staring at Mark with narrow eyes. “Who would kidnap some crazy, comatose patient?”

  “Someone who figured out that Yehuda can do to many what he did to you.”

  eighteen

  Mark knew what buttons he was pressing with Ben, bringing up Yehuda, knowing perfectly well that Ben was not only a non-believer, but the entire subject made him uncomfortable. What was clear to Mark was that he needed to get as much information as he possibly could, and then he needed to get Ben out of there.

  “Do you have any leads on him?” Mark asked Ben, watching the detective fidget.

  “Not so far. The two detectives assigned to the case are not entirely forthcoming with information since my sister and her friend are persons of interest.”

  “Your sister?” Mark asked, his brown eyes wide and concerned. The last thing he wanted was for Abby to be implicated or involved at all in what was happening.

  “No thanks to you,” Ben snapped at him.

  Mark stared at Ben, who was red in the face and very obviously agitated. It was probably the best time to press him for information and get him on his way. “You said you're questioning me on another case. Has something else happened?”

  Ben hesitated in answering the question. He walked near the door, clearly listening for any eavesdroppers, and then he turned back to Mark. “I've been assigned a homicide case where patients, comatose patients, have suddenly disappeared from their beds. There isn't any record of how they left, no means of transportation have been found, and aside from one case, the only thing lin
king the cases is that the security systems in the hospitals of each patient mysteriously went down just before the patients were found missing.”

  Mark frowned. “And you think I had something to do with this?”

  “I'm not entirely sure what you might be involved in, honestly,” Ben said. “It's eerily similar to your little John Doe friend, except that these people were all found dead two weeks later. Evidence shows that the patients had been conscious, if not coherent. They were all found in street clothes, and by the state of their shoes, had been walking for some time. I'm still waiting on most of the coroner's reports on the patients, cause of death has yet to be determined so far, except in one case, but that particular incident occurred years before this.”

  Mark frowned and shook his head. “He couldn't have healed those people, he's been in the hospital for far too long, and even if he had, they wouldn't have ended up dead.”

  “I'm not looking to find the person responsible for waking them, I'm trying to find their cause of death, and find out why your little friend is now missing in a manner extremely similar to theirs.” Ben walked to the door, apparently done with the conversation. Before he opened it, however, he turned to Mark. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, or you know the person who is responsible for any of this, I will take you down without mercy.”

  Mark gave Ben a sad smile and spread his hands in surrender. “I know this, Ben. It's one of the only reasons I find myself able to trust you with my secret.”

  With a frustrated growl, Ben walked out of Mark's apartment and slammed the door. Mark rushed over and clicked the lock into place, and wasted no time putting his plan into action. Yehuda was missing, he was weak and dangerous and extremely vulnerable, and that was a very bad position for both Mark and Yehuda to be in.

  Pulling his emergency suitcase out from his closet, Mark rummaged through his drawers and found his passport, traveling documents, several envelopes full of American dollars and the keys to a car he hadn't touched since he'd set foot in the states.