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  “What could you possibly think is so funny, Pedro?”

  “She’s here, Mare,” he told her. “Here,” he said with a smile and handed her the binoculars.

  Mary took them from Pedro with a scowl. She put them up to her eyes and gazed out toward the horizon. That’s when she saw the Risen Christ, walking on the surface of the raging waters, just as easy as pie.

  Immanuel was on the surface of the Lake, her tiny bare feet luminescent sloshing as she walked toward the Fitz. In Her immediate vicinity, the water was calm. As she walked, the sky encompassing the area was still in a vacuum like a protected bubble. The air and water all around was still frenzied and raw, but inside with the Christ was a calm, cool cucumber.

  She got to him and reached down, into the water, Mary could see through the ‘nocs, as She pulled Her drowning quarry from the drink.

  “She’s got him,” Mary told Pedro, “Let’s go.”

  Immanuel carried the much larger Jonah, white and icy cold, moments from death if he would have remained in the Lake. Jonah was hugged tight to Her and carried as a small, sleeping child would have been. Mary and Pedro in the boat raced toward Immanuel and Jonah. It slowed as the boat neared and Immanuel handed the rescued man gently and quickly to the over-sized Pedro. With his chin braids dancing in the big wind, he brought Jonah on board and covered him up with a tarp.

  Immanuel kissed Mary and Pedro, blessing them and bidding them both a fond adieu. She left them by simply winking out of sight, Her holy essence a crackling static adding to the electric charge of the lightning flashes all around. Pedro left the area, turning around the tiny boat and pointing for the return voyage to shore.

  The three of them reached The Harbor without incident. The rain still beat down hard and the wind still wreaked havoc, bending trees, blowing dirt and sand, obstructing the distance to only a mere few feet in all directions. They put Jonah in the back where Mary cradled his head and stared at him. Jonah was in a deep coma, she could tell and he was in need of a good dose of immediate medical attention.

  Knowing this, Pedro asked Mary: “Hospital or home?” as he turned on the car, the engine catching, thankfully, right away.

  Mary looked up from the drowned man to Pedro’s reflection in the rear view mirror.

  “Home,” she replied without hesitation.

  “Home it is,” Pedro replied and drove away from the raging seas.

  “So,” Mary observed as Pedro drove the three of them to her small, but comfortable house in Clarkston, “This is Jonah.”

  “Yes it is,” Pedro said.

  “Hmm,” uttered Mary. She bit her lip and stared down at him. “He doesn’t look like much right now, but I’ll bet you he’ll clean up,” she told Pedro, “real nice.”

  Pedro said nothing, but he did smile. The Lord works in mysterious ways, Pedro decided.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He’s in a bind, he’s way behind.

  He’s ready to make a deal:

  Job was driving and Tacitus rode shotgun as they made their way out of The Harbor and toward Big City. Ovid sat in the back on the passenger side. He had with him a carry-all containing tools to get in if needed. The main ones being a tire iron euphemistically referred to as the Judge and Ovid’s stupid might. They were going in to the Pharisees penthouse. Tacitus had it in mind to move his part of the show to Big City and crown himself Caesar. He planned on making Job the new Herod of The Harbor. Tacitus would have him and his gaggle of kids and women move into the Compound.

  Job was hoping for the same thing. He had a feeling that it was going to pan out that way when he felt a strange sensation tickling the hairs on the back of his neck.

  “Don’t turn around,” Jorgie porgies’ told Job. He didn’t turn around but he did glance over to Tacitus. He was deep in thought and noticed nothing. “The Pharisees are not waiting for him, Job,” Jorgie explained. “It was all just a dodge to get both of you there. We need you two in the same place at the same time.” The devil scooted up closer to the back of Job’s head. “We were never going to crown Tacitus anything, let alone Caesar.” Job silently asked a question in his head. He was already beginning to accept it.

  Very good, thought the devil.

  He said: “I just wanted to show you your new home. The Pharisees have a very nice place.” Job asked another, to which Jorgie stated: “Simply do what I say, without hesitation and without remorse.” And then the devil spelled it all out for Job. He was surprised. “Can you do this?” the devil asked.

  Job glanced over to Tacitus, the latest Herod, out of the corner of his eye. He then looked back at the otherwise invisible Jorgie in the rear view. The schoolboy was Job’s true father, his protector and benefactor. Could Job do it? Could he? Fuck yes, he could.

  There’s been someone sleeping in my bed, Job thought while clocking Tacitus again out of the corner of his eye. It’s been too damn long. The motherfucker is still here.

  “Maybe,” the Devil assured Jonah, “But not for long.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Honor thy Father:

  The door to the Pharisees penthouse was open when they arrived. Ovid went in first, just in case. Job and Tacitus followed close on the heels of the big, albino mongoloid henchman. The place they strolled so confidently into was fucking opulent. They noted marble floors and high ceilings in this, the main area. The place was huge, though. They knew they needed some serious and detailed discovery. Job looked up and saw a multi-tiered chandelier. It appeared to him like a cut crystal wedding cake. It would hold a body, Job wagered. It would do. He shivered just a little with delight.

  Honor thy Father, Job thought. He followed Tacitus to the center of the room.

  “Ovid,” Tacitus commanded. “Start looking around for an office or study, or something.”

  “A command center,” Job embellished.

  “Right,” agreed Tacitus. Ovid stood still. “Go on, now!”

  Ovid began walking down the hallway directly in front of him, obviously not knowing what else to do. He appeared to be thoroughly confused, the poor ‘tard. Job was glad to get the big fucker out of the way. Tacitus stood in the center of the floor, with his hands on his hips.

  “Where to begin?” he asked, rhetorically. “Maybe we should have brought more men.”

  Job agreed and opened his phone. He called the Compound back in The Harbor. Job ordered two car-loads of cops. He gave them directions. “And get here on the quick,” he added before hanging up. He had about 30 maybe 45 minutes until the armed, loyal to Tacitus motherfuckers show up in a swarm. Job better have his ducks snapped-to and in a tight fucking row by then.

  “We’ll have to search this whole place,” Tacitus said, pretty much to himself.

  “Get ye him, before they come,” Jorgie porgie whispered in Job’s mind. A long, serrated hunting knife appeared in his hand. Job closed his grip tight around it. He stared at his Herod’s back.

  “Yes, Father,” Job replied. He started walking briskly toward Tacitus.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Retire the Herod’s Command,

  With extreme prejudice:

  Tacitus, The Harbor Herod, was deep in thought, staring at some distant place when he felt himself get grabbed. The Pharisees, as invisible ghosts, held him tight. His arms were pressed firmly to his sides. Something undetectable and thick pressed down his throat. It made it hard to breathe and impossible to vocalize. Job came up from behind Tacitus. The Herod could not move, the Pharisees had him secured. Not even when Jorgie boy appeared in front of him, could Tacitus move. Jorgie’s schoolboy uniform was dirty and in disarray. Tacitus stared at the boy, struggling inside. The temperature of the room became frigid with the presence of the Living Hell there with them. Tacitus could see his own breath exhale plumes. His frightened breathing into the cold fairly crackled with the quick change in temperature.

  Job stepped up to his Herod. He stabbed an inward arcing plunge, deep into the belly of Tacitus. He gave him a Col. Kurtz a
nd informed him, “You are hereby relieved of your command.” Job pulled on the belly-buried blade. He tugged it fiercely up, retiring the Herod with extreme prejudice, until the knife got hung up on the xyphoid bone. Job confiscated the blade, feeling as it vibrated against the tough bone on its way out. Job wiped knife’s sharp cutting edge on the dying Herod’s shirt. Then he dropped it clanging to the floor. The Pharisees, well they just laughed to see such sport.

  The inners of Tacitus fell forward in a lumpy, organic ball. They were threatening to unravel and spill out, leaking all over the handsome marble floor. Blood and fecal bile splashed a Jackson Pollock in a wide radius.

  “Let me help you with that,” Jorgie replied and went to the injured man. He reached into Tacitus’ open belly and tugged free a few long links of colon. Jorgie looped a section and placed it over the wounded man’s head and his paling face.

  Tacitus, silent and shaking now with shock, saw his own colon fastened in a loose noose and tightened about his neck. The Pharisees were in a giggling free-for-all as they hefted him up from the ground. They passed him up to the chandelier. Jorgie hovered and waited for them, with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. He was humming to himself while he strung out another section of Tacitus’ bowel, wrapping this part around the chandelier proper.

  The Pharisees let go of Tacitus. He grabbed the colon that was rapidly escaping his abdomen, while crashing down en route for the floor below. Tacitus fell a couple of yards until he squeezed the colon snaking out of his torn middle and coming to a stop, suspended by his own anatomy. He began to choke as his neck took the weight of his body. Tacitus was on the verge of passing out. Jorgie glided down to where Tacitus hung suspended. The man’s muscles were straining and his face was getting all purple and shit.

  “Hell’s Bells!” he exclaimed to Tacitus, “You can’t breathe. You’re choking, friend.” Jorgie grasped one of the choking man’s fingers. “Let me help,” he said and bent it back until it broke. The pain made Tacitus mislay his grip. The colon slithered between his loosened, slippery hands. He dropped closer to the floor, while another few feet of bowel sectioned and stretched itself out.

  Tacitus tightened his grip. The bowel noose tightened with it. The chandelier popped and shook as he stopped abruptly. Hanging there, he choked himself once more.

  “My goodness,” Jorgie exclaimed, “That kind of back fired, didn’t it?” He floated down to the man’s new location. He found another one of Tacitus’ fingers. “Let’s just try that again,” Jorgie said. He twisted and popped the knuckles right out of their sockets.

  The new explosion of pain was horrific. Tacitus loosened his grip on his middle. He plunged toward the floor. His bowels slid out of him fast, like shit through a goose, before squeezing and stopping shy of crashing. He hung a meter or two above the floor. The noose around his neck was a hungry python, squeezing and choking him. Jorgie sank down to him.

  “You must be tiring of this, you poor fellow,” Jorgie sympathized. Tacitus could say nothing at all. Not even when Jorgie found another one of his fingers. “One more time,” Jorgie said. The devil pulled on the finger, real nice and slow like. It broke loud and wet.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The healing revealed:

  Pedro carried Jonah like a helpless baby into Mary’s casita. They took his comatose ass through her small living room and directly into the bathroom. Pedro stripped him free of the water-logged clothes.

  Mary left and soon returned with her wet suit and goggles on. She turned on the shower and got in. She sat on the floor, spreading her legs to let Jonah fit between them. Pedro placed him on Mary; Jonah’s back resting on her front. Pedro sat hugging his knees on the bathroom linoleum and watched.

  Mary put her arms and legs around Jonah’s limp body and squeezed. The water hit his chin, chest and lower regions. The vibration began. Heat from Mary’s magic built up and Jonah began to tremble with a vengeance from it. Still in a deep coma, he knew none of this.

  The snot began pouring out of Jonah. It came from all points. It rolled like whole oysters out of his mouth. Long gummy worms crawled thick and slow like infected, bloated eels out of his nose. Jonah’s eyes shot arcs of grey green bloody brown goop like multi-headed carbuncles being pressed between the thumb and forefinger of some deranged teen. His overplayed rectum delivered a butt puppy of lumpy mucous and foul-smelling filth. Sitting hard and thick in the center of this mess was tumors the size and shape of bleached turkey giblets.

  Jonah seized hard. His penis ejaculated disease in long ropes as the corked plugs blew free. Jonah’s pores bled fluid foul and intense. Shit even leaked out from under his finger and toe nails. Even the hair follicles on Jonah’s scalp pushed out secretion filled Plata remains.

  Jonah shook, and shook some more.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Our hapless prophet gets right

  To the heart of the matter:

  Beneath the deep darkness of Jonah’s comatose state he waited. Inside the belly of his whale he saw her. She began walking toward him from out of the mist. Jonah couldn’t see her, but he knew who she was.

  Oh, dear sweet Jesus fuck…

  Rebecca came from out of the gloom and into the light. Jonah had no sense of place. All of the edges of his periphery were grey and indistinct. She stopped in front of Jonah and she beamed at him.

  “Hi, Jonah,” she said.

  He grabbed for her hand. It was cold, but not unpleasant.

  “Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry I left you please forgive me, Becca,” Jonah said, all in a jumbled rush to get it all out. It’s something he’d never thought about until the opportunity presented itself. And then, apologizing to his dead wife was the only thing Jonah could think about. He felt so bad about running away, leaving them to die alone.

  What a piece of shit I was, thought Jonah.

  “You think you abandoned us, don’t you?” Rebecca asked. She seemed young to him. She looked just like she did when they were first dating. She was so very pretty.

  “Good God, yes,” he replied, “And I can’t ever tell you enough how sorry I am or how awful I feel. “I mean,” Jonah continued, “I should have dive-bombed that fucker!” That closing the barn door statement of mine made her laugh. Jonah is not really what anyone would call a tough guy.

  “Wow, Jonah,” she replied, still grinning. “You tortured yourself over this long enough, don’t you think?

  “I don’t know,” he replied, “Maybe.”

  Rebecca reached out with her fingertips and touched lovingly my face.

  “You were always so sweet, Jonah,” she told him. “You were a good husband and a good man,”

  “But I left you,” Jonah insisted, “You were calling my name and I ran away. I am a dog-fucking coward, baby.”

  “And I know you feel horrible about it, honey,” She told Jonah, “But it wasn’t your doing or your fault in the first place.” He shook his head in the negative, Jonah being such a shit heel and all, but Rebecca would have none of it. “What were you going to do, Jonah?” she asked. “The baby and I were pretty much dead by the time you found us, you know.”

  “But I could have at least tried to save you,” Jonah re-iterated, “and my son.”

  “How, Jonah? We were attacked and savagely killed by a vampire,” she said, “A real one. You were a Seminary student armed with a tire iron, baby,” she continued, “Now, really. What could you have done to save us? I know you wanted to, but what really could you’ve done?”

  Rebecca was right. Of course, she was right. Jonah would have been killed in an instant. That’s what truly bothered him: that he didn’t have the courage in that moment. When down came to down, Jonah was human and afraid to die. So, he ran. Jonah has been trying to make up for that ever since by slowly killing himself softly with Plata.

  “You don’t hate me then, Becca?” Jonah asked her. “Can you forgive me? I really need it. I don’t deserve it, but I need it so badly.”

  “I could
never hate you, Jonah. Not ever,” she said. “And, of course I forgive you. I waited right here in this place of emptiness. I’ve waited for three of your years so I could tell you so myself.”

  Well, that did it. Jonah cried. He fell to his knees in the haze and just let himself shout and let out all the guilt and pain. It sprayed like a diseased aerosol, his guilt did. It flew out in front of Jonah and was swallowed up forgivingly by the foggy mist.

  “You swear?” Jonah bubbled. Snot and tears dripped free, rolling unhinged from his anguished face. Rebecca came and knelt before him. She embraced Jonah and kissed his neck and ear.

  “Oh, baby, I swear,” she said. She pushed me gently back to arm’s reach. “Look at me,” she said. “I forgive you, Jonah.”

  And then Rebecca faded away. Jonah fell back and went blank.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Our hapless prophet can run,

  But he sure can’t hide:

  Moments or an eternity later, Jonah’s eyes opened. He was in the same hazed grey misty netherworld of his coma. Jonah could see two figures out there, waiting in the fog. One shadow stayed behind. A young woman emerged.

  Jonah stood as the woman came near. She was so tiny. He had never met Her or even seen a photo, but Jonah knew it was Her.

  “Immanuel,” he spoke. She nodded and smiled.

  “I Am,” She said.

  “I’m sorry I tried to escape the task you gave me,” Jonah told Her, “I was, no.. I am scared.”

  “I know that, sweetheart,” Immanuel replied, “I understand completely.” She looked Eternal. Her pale alabaster skin was bright with an inner golden glow. It contrasted marvelously with Her long, wavy-thick raven’s hair. “My prophets are rarely given easy to execute tasks,” She continued, “And most of the recipients of my mandates do not adequately appreciate the messenger.”