Pilate Read online

  “I find nothing wrong with this man,” he told them. The crowd roared their displeasure. Pilate’s hands went aloft. The mob quieted down. He spoke: “You have seen what has been done by me to him,” he said. “Is this not enough punishment for blasphemy?” he asked the mob, “Does this not satisfy you?”

  The crowd responded with more demands to crucify. The crowd was afraid of the archers, but not when Jesus was standing before them. The people came full circle. They hated him now as much as the Jewish elders and religious leaders did.

  Those same elders and leaders had threatened Pilate. They vowed to expose Pilate to Rome if he did not kill the prisoner. They insisted the man is also guilty of treason for elevating himself above Caesar. Jesus claimed to possess the authority of the Jewish God, they stated. He stirred up agitators and planted wicked seeds of rebellion.

  These men were shrewd. Their claims could never be proved, or disproved and they knew it. Proof was not mandatory. The Jewish leaders will be believed, because from Rome’s point of view, why would they lie? And even if Pilate convinced Rome the prisoner was falsely accused, so what? His single death, even if unjust, was more than worth the squashing of an uprising.

  The Prelate’s main function was to preserve the order that was slipping through his fingers. Rome would have him removed, no doubt about that. And Rome can be rough when disappointed.

  Pilate left the crowd and returned inside. The prisoner was standing. He was still surrounded by guards, but he was no longer being abused. He watched Pilate study him with no smile. Pilate stared back. Who is this man?

  Pilate could nail the innocent man to the cross to prevent an insurrection. Otherwise, a rebellion will spell the end of peace in this region and his career. This shameful business shall mark Pilate forever as a failure in the eyes of Rome.

  He could execute the prisoner and all will be placated and satisfied. Peace will be restored and Rome will look favorably upon Pilate.

  As simple as that, he thought.

  The chants from the crowd were still bitter. Rage boiled off the people, drifted up to the Romans. The guards were getting nervous. They did the calculation in their heads, Pilate could easily tell. They all knew how this would end. If the crowd somehow managed to get inside the Roman building, every one of the soldiers would die. Many from the crowd would, as well, but Pilate and all his men would perish. Pilate could not allow that to happen. And: certainly not for the life of one man.

  The pounding began. Rock hurling had resumed in earnest. Intimidation failed. Reasoning failed.

  The Romans heard them beating down the entrance to the secured building. It was fortified, but would not hold up forever. After a few moments the storm of stones and fist-sized chunks of dwelling materials poured down on the Roman seat like a sandstorm.

  “Seal the entrance,” ordered Pilate. Flavius took a small contingent of men, quickly disappeared. Pilate could hear the pounding intensify. The doors were taking a beating. “Have the archers hold their fire, but continue on full alert.” The debris kept coming. Several members of the mob below tried scaling the building’s outer wall, an archer reported. “Sight them,” Pilate ordered. A rock hit an archer and split open his cheek. “HOLD!” shouted Pilate. The archers’ knuckles were white with tension, their faces grimly set. The wall climbers made progress. The downstairs pounding was more rapid and pronounced. Pilate heard Flavius shouting. Wood creaked and cracked. He heard it splinter. The crowd seemed to shrug off their fear of Roman reprisal. One of the guards mumbled he smelled smoke. The rocks made a thick rug on the balcony. The most successful wall climber fell to the encouraging throng below and was quickly replaced by several others. The climbers behind the fallen gained fast. The archers made out facial details. There was heard more splintering and cracking of wood. Flavius called for his men to fall back and hold the line. They were in a defensive posture, awaiting encroachment.

  Screams drifted up. Pilate had enough. He went to the prisoner, straightaway. Pilate grabbed him and pointed to the crowd: “You are no simple carpenter,” Pilate shouted at him, “nor are you merely a scholar!” The noise outside became an ocean, the angry mob was the rising tide and Pilate and his men were trapped offshore. “Who are you, Rabbi?” Pontius Pilate asked. “Who are you really?”

  Heat rose from the prisoner. Pilate was doused in sweat from it. The quiet man looked his captor straight, eye to eye.

  “Know this,” he declared, “I am the Son of God.”

  Pilate paused. An archer stood the doorway. He was disciplined, but anxious. The scaling of the wall was getting dangerously close to the balcony. Pilate motioned for him to remain silent. The archer maintained his discipline with a concerted force of will, the mob getting so close to breaking in down stairs and broaching the balcony upstairs. They were surrounded by a hostile insurgency, but he waited. Pilate returned his attention to prisoner.

  “You claim to be the Son of God?” he asked.

  “I Am,” Jesus told him.

  “And I am,” Pontius Pilate replied, “almost convinced.”

  The bowl was large. It contained soothing but ordinary water. It was placed before the crowd. Pontius Pilate had hands held aloft, calling for quiet. The crowd responded with near silence.

  “Your request shall be granted,” he told them through clenched teeth. The crowd cheered. Pilate waited until they quieted down again. He said: “Even though I find no fault with this man.”

  Pontius Pilate slowly and ceremoniously dipped his hands into the water. He dried them with a bit of cloth. “However, he is yours now,” he told them in a loud, strong voice. “I have washed my hands of it.” He called for Flavius. “Release the prisoner,” Pilate ordered and the crowd cheered.

  Pilate stepped from the mob scene below. He saw the prisoner being whisked away. The Rabbi will be handed over and they can do what they will. He thought it would now be over and forgotten.

  Pontius Pilate was wrong. He remembered that day for the rest of his life.

  He had hands in the air, speaking to the crowd below. The human was conflicted, he could tell. The man should have believed Jesus, but he did not. The seed of doubt germinated, sprouted and would now bear him bitter fruit.

  Unseen by all, the Mighty One massaged Pilate’s shoulders and whispered encouragement in his ear. Pilate was releasing the prisoner and the Diabolous licked the back of his ear. Good, good boy, thought he. And the Son of Man shall come before a fall. And the Morning Star rejoiced in it.

  Pilate washed his hands of the whole sorted affair. The devil made damn sure. It sealed Pilate’s fate. Jesus was led away.

  Lucifer left Pontius Pilate. He followed Jesus Christ as he was handed over to the Temple guard and out of Roman custody. He was officially charged with heresy, treason and blasphemy.

  The High Priest and his court sentenced Jesus of Nazareth to death. The instrument of his demise was tortuous and cruel beyond measure. It was a blasphemer’s fate.

  Jesus Christ shall suffer much.

  It pleased the Devil, it’s so precious. The Son of God shall hang from a tree and be crucified. The Devil was delighted.

  The Father should have let me sit wherever I wanted to, thought Satan, Even if it was His holy throne.

  The night sky lightened. Dawn broke brilliant and colored vibrant. Jesus was pushed out and led along the streets. When he got to his cross, the soldiers placed it on his ruined back and made him carry it.

  A crowd gathered to gawk and jeer. The Diabolous laughed mightily because Jesus did nothing to stop them. He simply shouldered his burden and made his way to Golgotha. To the place of the skull: where they piled high, indeed.

  The first light of morning filtered into the great room and woke Pontius Pilate. He still was dressed from the previous day. He rose, stretched out the muscles in his back and scratched absently at his itchy ear. He yelled loudly for his servants. Pilate heard them stir.

  He went to the balcony and watched the sun as it rose over the Holy City. T
he area below him was empty and quiet. It was hard to tell a riot was in the offing less than twelve hours hence.

  Pilate folded arms across his chest and reflected. He squashed a rebellion as surely as night follows the day. If an innocent man died to prevent such an uprising, then so be it. His conscience was clear.

  Pilate stepped back from the balcony railing and tripped. The servants saw him fall and rushed to his aid. Embarrassed, Pilate waved them off. He looked down to see what he tripped over.

  Between his feet were two concave indentations right behind where he had addressed the angry mob. They were shaped like sandled feet and were big enough for Pilate’s feet to swim in.

  He stared at the indentations. His itchy ear turned red-hot. A dagger of immense pain stabbed the ear. Pilate squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, scrunched his face. As fast as he could, Pilate pawed at the offending pain. He felt something pop. Warmth flooded his fingers.

  Pilate thought the warmth was blood. It was not. He brought fingers before his eyes. One of his servants screamed.

  The fluid was yellow/green and thick. Spots of blood dotted the mess. Pilate studied it. The muddle looked horrible and it smelled even worse. He couldn’t believe it had come from his ear.

  The servant ran away from him, fearful Aramaic following her wake. Another servant gasped. Her hands flew to her face.

  A fat grub was plowing the foul, waxy field of his fingers. The grub feasted while Pontius Pilate gazed on in abject horror.

  Pilate flicked off the bug and wiped the mess from his hand. It started to hurt him bad. The pain seared hot. Pilate grabbed his wrist, squeezing and wincing and rocking back and forth from the pain. His fingers felt in flame. He hissed through clenched teeth. The servant fainted dead away.

  His flesh was melting off the bone and fingernails dissolved right before his very eyes.

  A moment later, loudly and long, Pontius Pilate did scream.

  CHAPTER 41

  H e was bound, gagged and lying in the darkness. His ears stuffed and the blindfold around his eyes was tight. His nose was free, but all other senses plugged. Intense pain came from his wrists and mouth. He couldn’t move and was beginning to panic.

  He thrashed about. Seemingly in the distance, he heard metal walls popping and warbling. It was his prison. He was trapped inside metal walls.

  The bottom dropped out from under him. He fell to a thick flooring of something hard and cold to the touch. He sniffed at the air. It triggered a very distinct, distant memory. The scent was earthy, harsh and growing. It thickened and became putrid. It began to overwhelm him. He tried to recall, to remember where that awful tang came from. He almost had it.

  Something thick and sloppy-slick touched his foot. It moved past his ankle, up the leg. That’s when he remembered what the stench was. It had been so many years since he had last smelled that foul perfume that he had nearly forgotten it. But it now was front and center and he panicked. Adrenaline was a car-bomb in his chest and he screamed.

  He screamed so hard no sound came out. The three stood beside Herod in the Throne Room. The Christ was there, Herod watching his prisoners. The finishing touches were being generously applied. He leaned forward in his throne, watching with fever in his eyes. He was tickled and smiling with delight at the fun. His men were enthusiastic with the little Christ and Herod was most pleased. The mandate of the Mighty One followed to the letter, plastic flooring getting filthy once more.

  Tacitus looked sideways at Salome. She silently mouthed for him to wait. They knew what they needed. It should not be long now.

  Herod stood. This was it. Tacitus saw Salome nod and he positioned himself behind an unwary Ovid. The gun found his hand in an instant. Salome faded back into the darkness, by the wall. It was over in the corner. She skulked to it as quickly as she dared.

  Herod stepped down from his throne and strode with purpose to the center of the room. He placed hands on hips and shouted gleeful obscenities at Immanuel. She said nothing back. Herod motioned for one of his underlings. The former cop had blood splattered all over his naked chest. He approached Herod. They huddled together while Herod pointed at Pilate.

  Salome located the lever, placing on it the both of her hands. She had to tug hard on it, using her weight, but the lever did descend. Tacitus heard it drop. He stuck the gun under Ovid’s jawline and applied pressure. He felt Ovid tense.

  “Don’t move, Ovid,” he commanded. Ovid was unarmed save a machete. Tacitus pulled it free and slung it back over his shoulder. It lodged itself between two of the sooty bricks in the wall behind them.

  Herod looked up, but saw it too late. He tried to dive free, but the net fell from the ceiling, hit him true. The underling next to Herod had his neck broken audibly by the iron chain mail net. They both collapsed beneath it. Herod was face down and stunned beneath the impossibly heavy net.

  Herod’s men all turned to look. He wasn’t moving and neither were his men. Their hesitation to react spelled their doom.

  Salome quickly and calmly strode out of the dark and toward the men. They were still staring at the fallen Mayor. The men glanced up as she materialized from the dark and engaged the light. The machine pistol in her hand bucked as she moved closer, firing at Herod’s men as she came.

  A barrage of bullets spit at them and they all fall down.

  “Stay still,” Tacitus reminded Ovid, “Hands behind your back,” he then ordered. Ovid complied. “To your knees,” and that was done. Tacitus tugged Ovid’s wrists up behind his back to the point of fearful pressure. Ovid grimaced, but didn’t move. Tacitus used liberal amounts of duct tape to secure both wrists and ankles. “There’s been a coup,” he said. He came around to Ovid’s front. “I know you’ll choose the right side,” Tacitus said, making sure Ovid understood. “Be quiet and still and I will release you soon enough.” Tacitus rose. “We’re going to need you,” he told Ovid. He glanced at the fallen vampire, Herod. “We have some heavy lifting for you to do.”

  Salome was checking the dead. She put an extra bullet in the heads of each one, just to be sure. Tacitus came to her.

  “The room isn’t soundproof,” he reminded her.

  “I know,” Salome replied, “but the door is secure and my shit is silenced,” she stated, holding up the machine pistol.

  “Still, some of the guards may have heard the net drop,” he told her, gesturing toward it. “That thing is heavy and it made a loud fucking racket when it landed on Herod.”

  “True,” she agreed after the banging on the door began. They both stared at the door and then each other. His two-way radio crackled, his name shouted over it. “Answer that,” she said. Tacitus brought the radio to his mouth with uncertainty. “Go ahead and tell them there has been a change,” she told him. “We are under new management: me. Tell them everyone who complies gets a big, fat raise, those that don’t get retired.”

  Tacitus nodded once. He spoke through the radio to the men.

  Salome knelt beside Herod with an opened straight razor and a big-ass pair of pliers. She found Herod’s beating pulse on the underside of his wrists and sliced them both open. Blood splattered everywhere, including Salome. She spit some of the vampire blood, disgusted, from her mouth. She wiped the blood from her hands and grabbed the pliers.

  “And tell those motherfuckers to stop banging on my God damned door!!”

  He was weak and could barely move. His mouth pulsated pain. He kept swallowing mouthfuls of his own blood. He could still feel the creepy pain from his veins being cut and opened. They bled him to make him weak. He hasn’t the strength to escape from the thing crawling up his leg.

  The thing squeezed tight on his leg. Then he could feel more of them, they were all over him. The tentacles swept him from head to toe and then he knew what they were doing. The Brood tasted him.

  The scream in his head was deafening. Tacitus stood next to Ovid and his changed loyalties. He watched her from the wall by the door. She had the inside light switched on. Her face wa
s pressed to the viewing port glass. The look of grim determination on her face made the joyless grin rather a sneer.

  Tacitus heard Herod torn asunder and utterly devoured by the Brood. Salome was at the window, grandmother beside her. They had their arms around each other’s waists and were watching.

  The whole clan was together. They were sharing a precious moment, a family meal.

  Togetherness is a beautiful thing.

  CHAPTER 42

  T he big man ran hard down the street and into the bulging light. He put his sunglasses on to protect his impossibly dilated eyes. His veins swam wide with Plata. His head was filled with bad ju-ju. The big man faced east and slowed to a stop. He watched the horizon give birth. He stayed

  where he was a moment, simply taking in the fiery ascent. Warmth rose with the sun. He heard it then as it came to him from afar. The sound was distinct and unmistakable. The sound was a reminder for him. It was a rubber band on his wrist. It was a note written on the palm of his hand. He heard it three times and as clear as a fucking bell.

  I told you so. Pedro was finally as high as a kite.

  The smoky half-light in his head was perfectly matched by the smoky half-light of the drug dealer’s living room. Ten or twelve addicts were nodding off in varying degrees. They had spread themselves around the room, lounging on old couches and recliners, lying on the floor. Some others simply paced back and forth while they rushed their balls off.

  Pedro was pacing. He was working his way through the first punch he’d had in three long years. It was almost more than he could bear. He knew it would fade with time and level off to the heavenly hum the couch-bound enjoyed.

  Pedro tried to take pleasure in it. He knew from experience the speed rush would cease with continued Plata use. Do enough Plata, and you can have the rapture phase still, but the pacing and tweaking would end. One has to accept the ending of the heights the rush would give you. Those who refuse, die quickly seeking the crawling out of your skin blast-off. You can only chase the dragon for so long, before it turns around and devours you.