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  “And through my suffering and death is forgiveness and Life everlasting.”

  Salome watched the two as they hung and spoke to each other in tongues that she had never heard before. She asked Tacitus what they were saying and he had also never heard the language before. Regardless, she’d had enough.

  “Kill the vampire,” she stated flatly, “First.”

  Ovid nodded and started for the wall on which they hung and spoke in new tongues to one another.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” Pilate finally asked out loud. His head dropped then, the will to live long gone. “Is it even possible?” he wondered, heart-broken and Hell bound.

  Ovid trampled over Herod’s spent net, clanging as he came.

  “Verily, verily, I say unto thee,” she told Pilate as he despaired, “Before today is done, we shall be together in Paradise.”

  Ovid drew nigh. Pilate raised his head to him, offering his neck. The machete was slung back, high behind Ovid’s ear. The blade reached its peak and hung, for the tiniest of moments, suspended.

  “I am forgiven,” Pontius Pilate said.

  Ovid swung the machete and the blade flashed.

  “My beloved child,” Immanuel said, “time for you to come Home.”

  Ovid’s swing was true. The blade sliced through Pilate’s exposed neck; the eyes of the Roman locked with his Christ. The head of Pilate fell to the plastic sheeting, great gouts of blood an explosive torrent from his rent neck. It smothered Ovid and he had to wipe it stinging from his eyes. He tugged on the blade until it was loosed from the thick wood. Ovid turned and regarded Salome and her necklace of Herod’s teeth.

  “Her next,” Salome ordered. Ovid looked up. “Yes, her next,” Salome reiterated, “Now.”

  Immanuel gazed up at the ceiling. Above her she saw all those in Heaven that awaited her. They all loved her so, she knew, and always hated this part. But God so loved the world…

  Michael the Archangel stood nearby, also dreading the next. He waited for her, too. He waited for it to end. She did what she came to do and he waited impatiently to collect her Spirit.

  Ovid stepped up to the tiny Christ. Salome and Tacitus watched. Immanuel considered the three of them. She raised her head toward the Heavens.

  “Forgive them,” she told those who waited for her, “for they know not what they do.”

  Ovid pulled the machete back again, his wide face expressionless. Michael snorted with fury, unseen by the humans. Oh, what he could do to these filthy, conniving little monkeys. He grabbed the hilt of his sword. He could lay such waste to these wretches. The angel could turn them all to nothing but dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He could conjure up a howling wind and blow all the ashes and dust away. But it had already been written.

  The machete swung forward, blade singing. “It is finished!” Immanuel cried.

  Michael released the grip on the handle of his mighty sword as Ovid’s machete struck home. The blade buried itself in the wood of Immanuel’s cross. Her decapitated head dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Ovid scooped up both severed heads.

  “The Brood,” Tacitus asked as Salome was presented with the heads of Pontius Pilate and Immanuel Christ.

  Salome sneered at them and shook her head in the negative. She would not touch them.

  “No,” she said, “take those down,” she ordered, scowling at the two crosses, headless bodies sideby-bloody-side. It was an abomination and shall not stand, “And have them burned,” she decided, “the ashes scattered. There is to be nothing left.”

  CHAPTER 44

  T he hard rush faded to a nice hum and Pedro came to. He sat up in the strange bed and looked around. He was in a room he didn’t recognize and next to a woman he didn’t know. He looked at her and wondered briefly if they copu

  lated. And then he realized he didn’t care. As long as he stayed high on Plata, Pedro didn’t care what he did. Nor what others did to him.

  It was a slow suicide: a few more months, maybe. There were more expedient ways to kill one’s self, to be sure, but Pedro was too weak to put a bullet in his own brain. He wanted to die very much, but he didn’t want to see it coming. Perhaps someone will take mercy on him and do it for him. Fucking with a drug like Plata in a hellhole like The Harbor, couldn’t give you a better hand if dying is what you wanted. Eventually, Pedro was sure someone would indulge him and end his suffering.

  Pedro moved quietly, sat up on the edge of the bed. There was another motherfucker curled up on the threadbare carpet in the corner of the room. The dude looked stiff. Pedro sniffed at the air and wished he hadn’t. No doubt about it, the nigga’s dead.

  Pedro got off the bed and went over to the dead man. He rolled him over. Nigga’s for sure dead, he thought. Pedro rifled through the pockets and found two hundred dollars in cash and a barely touched 8ball. An eighth of an ounce it was, almost two motherfucking teeners.

  Pedro stuffed the bounty in his pocket and decided to see what the bitch had. He spotted her purse on a sagging dresser and went to it.

  “Don’t do that,” he heard from the bed.

  Pedro, startled, snapped his head to the left and saw her sitting there. She was just sitting there, staring at him.

  Pedro sat down hard on a beanbag chair, fell really, and foam pellets erupted from a ruptured seam. The foam pellets shot high in the air.

  “That’s quite enough of that, Pedro,” she told him. The foam pellets floated down onto an astonished Pedro like tiny bits of a broken halo. “Doest thou require proof?” she asked him. Pedro said nothing. He just sat there and began to shake.

  She raised her hands and the cuffs of her robe dropped to her elbows. And there they were. Just under the big bone at the bottom of the hands were scarred ragged holes. She showed him the underside of her wrists and then she rotated them. The holes were clearly visible there. Pedro could see through them. He clearly saw where the nails had gone.

  “I-It’s true then?” Pedro asked, “Herod and Pilate and Judas? It’s all true?”

  She stood and came to him. She sat crosslegged before him. She held out her wrists so he could probe them with his own fingers. So there would be no doubt that She had died and had come back.

  “You have risen,” he stated, not daring to touch Her. “You are the Christ. You are Immanuel.”

  “As I have said, my child,” She told him and reached. She grabbed hold and held his shaking hands. Pedro was paling and his shock was deepening. He looked to Her.

  “You have come then to punish me?” Pedro asked.

  Immanuel smiled at him. “Have you not punished yourself enough, Pedro?” She asked him. He did not respond. Instead, he shook and shook. “Pedro,” She told him, “you are still the Rock upon which my new Church shall stand.”

  She let his big hands go and placed Her tiny, glorified hands on his face. Immanuel pressed them against his cheeks and the heat punctured him. His head went back and his eyes rolled up.

  “I have blessed the other Ten with my Blood. They will live long and shall be there to assist you,” She told the enraptured Pedro, quaking before Her, “but ye shall be the one to lead.”

  As She held his face fast with Her hands, tan/yellow waxy strings pushed out of dozens of new puncture marks on the inside of his elbow. They were like over ripe blackheads being squeezed out of bottomless pores. The strings wound around each other, once they got long enough. Then the strings twisted on itself, balled up to a waxy lump. The ball dropped from being tugged like a puppet’s strings to the forearm. And, finally, rolling sticky to the floor where it burned into the stained carpet. The ball of waxy Plata filth sizzled, dissolved and was gone.

  The enraptured Pedro came to, his eyes cast downward. He was most ashamed and downtrodden.

  “You are healed of this affliction now,” She told him. “You will become physically well, again. In time, ye shall become my Rock.”

  “I’m no Rock,” he replied.

  “Yes, Pedro, you are,” she told him. Immanuel put
her wrist before him. “Behold,” she instructed and the wound began to trickle, to bleed. “This is the Blood of Life. This is the Earth Mother. This is the Lion’s Strength.” She grabbed up his chin with her free hand and made him see. “The Lamb has been sacrificed to the Snake. The sins of our people have been paid in full, as was written long ago.” Pedro nodded to Her. Her countenance was bright and glowing. Her power a bubble that locked them into this protected moment of time and space. She brought Her wound to Pedro’s lips. “Taste ye but a drop of this,” She stated, “and ye shall be whole once more.”

  Immanuel put it to his lips. The brightest red of a dot clung to Pedro’s lip. He stuck out the very tip of his shaking tongue and got it. Pedro pulled the crimson drop into his mouth. He worked up some saliva and swallowed down the Blood of Christ.

  Pedro became hot and dizzy. His eyes twitched uncontrollably. The big man was overwhelmed by the Holiest of fluids and passed the fuck out. He fell forward into Immanuel’s lap, trembling and spent.

  She smoothed his brow and blew gently to cool Pedro’s troubled face.

  Michael the Archangel appeared and stood nearby. He spoke: “Is this truly him?” the angel asked Immanuel.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  Silent moment.

  “He does not look like much,” the angel offered.

  “I know he doesn’t look like much, but he will be,” She assured Michael.

  The angel nodded and went silent. Pedro the Rock was being held as a mother would a sick child. He was being held and gently rocked while She sang to him a lullaby ancient and eternal. It went well with the gold cross and chain that had belonged to the mother of Christ, which found its way home, gracing Pedro’s neck anew.

  It was then that Michael finally saw what all Her fuss was about and he smiled. No one but a perfectly flawed human like Pedro could be Her Rock. The Rock upon which Her new Church shall stand. He will lead and many shall be saved.

  Pedro continued being ministered unto by the Risen Christ.

  CHAPTER 45

  T he Pharisees’ silent butler was purring and content. They were together and comfortable on the plush couch. The legs of the couch immediately broke and the springs popped. The butler really hadn’t noticed.

  At the moment, the two of them were alone in the Pharisees’ nicely appointed sitting room, high atop the Lake Shore hi-rise. A crust of ice snuggled the butler’s smile.

  Cold puffs of curious evil fingered its way throughout the penthouse apartment. The cold climbed up the walls and explored hallways. It found rooms left long unused and cracks no human can locate. It was sentient, this cold, and it quickly covered all forty-one hundred square feet. It sealed off the penthouse from the outside world, thereby making the interior a tight, no leak bubble.

  The butler pressed himself against the Mighty One’s chest. He massaged the head of Lucifer’s penis. It was thickening; responding to his touch. The butler-pet could see and feel the barbs as they sprang up all along the devil’s grossly elongated shaft. The barbs were inwardly curving scorpion tail stingers and were sharp at the hollow tips. Poison oozed slow and fetid out of the hypodermic points of the barbs. The long veins of his cock throbbed and pulsed with intricate rhythms at times, other times, nothing at all. The rhythm did not require a heartbeat to drum.

  The Diabolous was a void inside. The human image was merely window dressing for his flock. With this image the chest cavity was an empty drum. The lungs were not needed and a heart would only get in the way.

  The devil was gently running his icy fingers through the butler’s thinning black hair. He used his lightest touch to pet and caress and love on his most favorite little imp. The butler’s countenance was smooth to the touch and undisturbed. The butler was not, nor had he ever been human. Therefore he was immune to the devil’s infectious fluids. The butler’s human visage was merely a shell, like his master’s. The butler was really a small demon who has been with Satan since before planet Earth did cool. This demon truly liked the butler costume. The Pharisees knew what he was; a gift from the Most Hated. They allowed the demon to use his powers which he did to keep the penthouse always clean and quiet and very comfortable.

  Hell, on the other hand, was not as pleasant. The hidden door slid open. Both Pharisees

  stepped out and saw the devil waiting for them. They instantly made themselves prone before god. They had been summoned by the Mighty One and he insisted upon the purity of nakedness. They lay side by side upon the floor. Short rips of air entering and exiting their lungs were expelling a fog of cold vapor. It went forth from the decay and rot of what remained of their mouths. The odor of their breath was nearly visible. The stench; a chicken left out all weekend and erupts of stink upon your return. The Pharisees knew this not. The cold power gave them reign over the diseases the Diabolous had bestowed. They felt, in fact, fabulous. Annas and Caiaphas Pharisee still saw themselves as beautiful.

  The Diabolous had the Pharisees arise and come over to the couch. Satan patted the butler-imp affectionately and tousled its hair. It was soon curled up in the dented spot his master vacated and it groaned with delight. Bliss for the butler-imp is to be in the presence of the Most Hated.

  The Pharisees came to the devil. They each placed a sweet, full mouth kiss on the devil’s anus. The two of them then licked the master thorough and clean.

  The Pharisees were leaned limp over the back of their destroyed couch and displayed themselves to the Diabolous. They were presenting and were to mate with the Mighty One.

  Dozens of crawly, bug filled boils and carbuncles exploded ripe and ready from their torsos like a string of putrid firecrackers. Their master positioned himself behind Annas Pharisee. The more ancient of the two will be filled and blessed by the Diabolous first.

  The Pharisees successfully brought about El Cristo’s crucifixion and sacrifice. It is time now for the full reward: The Final Rite. The Pharisees were good stewards and shall be blessed by the Morning Star. They were to be laid open and defiled by the Diabolous. Then they will be blessed with power from their lord and benefactor with a power that they, themselves, can control and use as they see fit.

  Their rancid and crumbling human shells shall no longer be required. They will be able to exist in nearly any form they wish. The Pharisees will be free to roam the Earth, unfettered by human weaknesses. They could be solid or they could be vapor. Not a true deity, they will only be in one place at any given time. They will, however, be able to project themselves to wherever at will. The Pharisees were going to have a lot of fun.

  They were still both excited and frightened of The Final Rite. They were scared of the pain; they knew it would be enormous. The devil was going to rip their shit open, but that was the price of admission to this carousel. Their souls were the remainder and the Diabolous held the Note.

  Satan shall allow the Pharisees a few hundred years of respite and enjoyment of their newly rewarded powers. Then Satan will have them delivered, like Judas, to the bowels of his Hell. The Pharisees will then spend the remainder of Time skimming the floating slick of waste in the fetid, cold sewers of filth and despair. They will learn to wail and gnash their teeth in regret and agony. In time, they will come to believe that Hell is where they have always been as the memories of life elsewhere fades away.

  The Pharisees will cease to accept the very notion of existence outside of their eternal prison. They shall shiver and heave in the thick frozen darkness, every moment cursing their fate. The one they bit into, whole and unyielding.

  Welcome home.

  The Diabolous forced the head of his penis into Annas Pharisee. The first pair of weeping scorpion stinger barbs tore through his rectum. The old man screamed. Gurgling and spewing, the pain was sharp and wet.

  Caiaphas saw his lover stiffen and contort. He knew it would be the same for him.

  “Mercy!” a panicked Caiaphas implored, begged, “Have mercy on us, oh Lord!” he cried out.

  The Diabolous merely looked across at
Caiaphas and the Pharisee turned away in fear.

  “Mercy,” the devil replied, derisively and with a scoff. He answered the request for mercy by shoving his bull of a cock to the hilt. Annas passed out, but you do not deprive the devil of his audience. The Diabolous slapped the bitch repeatedly until he revived and was full awake.

  Annas came to as blood and whole sections of his gastrointestinal tract fell wet and lumpy out of his ass like spongy confetti.

  Mercy, the Diabolous thought as Annas began screaming again. Mercy. Funny.

  Humans are so funny.

  I ’m clean, he thought as he paced restlessly backstage. Clean and sober. Sober and blessed. He was ready to play his part, the real one. It was time to go to work.

  Pedro nodded to the Ten Apostles and they smiled back at him. He saw the stage and went to it.

  He made his way across the stage and stepped up to the podium. He gazed out over the audience. It was small but growing. The new Church was filled with the Earth’s Fire and the Lion’s strength. Pedro was the conductor of this train. It was gathering steam and could not be stopped.

  This audience before him was the core of the faith. They were the Chosen Ones and he enjoyed a special status amongst them. For he was there and he knew Immanuel. He has seen the Christ with his own eyes. He hath witnessed Her miracles and good works. He has felt Her Heavenly Power. Her strength was Holy and Her intent was pure. He knew Her. He knew the Christ.

  The big man closed briefly his eyes and asked Immanuel for strength and guidance. She died for The Harbor. She allowed Herself to be humiliated and abused so that all might be saved. She died for them and placed her people in Pedro’s care.

  He opened his eyes and began, as had She: “God is good,” he told them.

  “And God is Love,” the audience replied. Pedro removed the microphone from the stand

  and stepped out from behind the podium. He smiled at La Raza. He is the Rock upon which Her Church now stands. He was given a sacred duty by his Savior. It is an arduous task where success is not assured. He had a job to do. A part to play as it was written by the Father.