Centurion: Mark's Gospel as a Thriller (7 page)

The seizure starts after that.

I stare wide-eyed at the young girl who has just fallen to the mossy floor. She has collapsed into the fetal position, and her seizure has stopped. I fear she's dead. I move toward her to help, but she's enveloped into a fold of men who lunge and grope for her discarded needle. I stumble backward, tripping as I try to escape the scene. I turn and stroke my arms over people as though swimming through rough ocean waves. Each person I shove past stares at me with open eyes that do not see.

I find Maria in the thick crowd, her dark skin standing out among the ashen faces. I grab hold of her shoulder and demand an answer. "What is this place? Where are we?"

She keeps moving, her eyes focused on a destination beyond the mass of people. "We're almost there," she says quickly. "I promise. But we
must
keep moving. It's not safe...especially here. These people are cannibals. They'll eat us alive—and savor every bite."

We carry on like this for at least another two hundred yards, bobbing and weaving, pushing where we must, until the cohesive glob of humanity begins to break apart and there's finally room to draw a breath of air untainted by human waste.

I inhale deeply and catch Maria's sweet smell once more. It's enough to keep me moving.

Maria continues to walk with a confidence that suggests she knows this dungeon well. We take a decisive left out of the crowded hallway and pass through another archway that's guarded on either side by two men wearing long black robes with hoods. Neither seems to have a weapon, but my body tenses just the same, preparing for the fight I know is coming; I feel it in my bones.

The passageway is narrow, with room for only one person at a time. Maria leads the way. Neither hooded man moves as she passes, and while I can't see either face from beneath the shadows of their hoods, both men issue snakelike hisses as I brush past their shoulders. I'm narrowly beyond these men, if that's what they are, when a long hand reaches out from the robe and scrapes my arm with the sharp claw of a wolf.

I jump forward as blood flows down my arm. The passageway is pitch black, and I walk blindly, clutching to Maria for guidance. While the absence of light makes for an even more terrifying journey, here—in this tunnel that feels like a crypt—we find our first respite from the deafening roar of the techno beat. With each step we venture into the abyss, the noise settles deeper in the recesses of the awful place we've left behind. The silence, however, is a small consolation for the growing dread of walking into a black hole.

Maria whispers to me as we shuffle along, "How is your head? You took quite a fall."

My head.
I've all but forgotten the episode with the bank guard. I reach around to feel that my gun is still secure in the waistband of my pants. The adrenaline from our escape suppressed any pain I might have felt, but now it blossoms to painful life on my chin and deep within the sockets of my jaw. I pat my face with my bruised hand and feel that my jaw has begun to swell. I stick a dirty finger into the gash on my chin; it's sticky and warm with blood.

"I'm fine," I say. "It's nothing I can't clean myself."

"Nonsense," she says. "I'll bandage you after we speak with Legion."

"Who's Legion?" I say.

"You'll find out soon."

"Wait. Who are you...and why are you helping me? You saved my life."

Maria stops walking and turns her body to face mine, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. It's supremely dark, and I can't see the face I know is within inches of my own. I feel her sweet breath on my lips, and my body trembles. She presses her chest against mine and resurrects the part of me I thought was dead forever—my heart.

"I saw you," she says into my ear. "In the Office of Record, when I was crying."

"Yes," I say, anxious for her to know. "I saw you too. You were beautiful. You...are beautiful."

"I applied for a northern visa. It took two years to process." Maria pauses, and the darkness feels as if it's spreading out around us. We're like two people floating in infinite space, with only each other to hold onto. "Today it was denied."

I run my hand across her face and feel tears stream down her cheeks. "Why do you want to go north? It only makes it easier for them to enlist you in the camps."

"The West is off limits for a foreigner like me. And I'll do anything to escape the South. It's my only hope for a new life. Or at least it was." Maria's hands are now on my face, her fingers exploring my nose and lips. "But then I saw you. I can't explain it. Your eyes...they were so gentle, so...kind. You cared about my pain. I saw it in your eyes."

"My eyes told you that?" I whisper. "If you hadn't been there, just now on the street, I'd...I'd be dead. No doubt about it. You risked your life to save me. How do you thank a person for something like that?"

Maria kisses my forehead, and I can no longer feel the ground beneath my feet. We're fully suspended in the darkness of space, our bodies pressed together as one.

"Where have you been?" I say, fumbling for the words to express my ineffable heart.

"In places I pray you'll never go."

"I'm here now. Wherever you've been, Maria, whatever you've suffered, that's over now. I can take you away from this place. I'll get you out of the South."

"Tell me your name," she says.

"Deacon. And you have me now, and it's all you'll need."

Maria stiffens, and I fear she can see straight through me, understanding how preposterous my pledge is. I want it to be true, and maybe I even believe it will be true. All these feelings are so new, so unexpected. I'm speaking without thinking first.

But the truth is I haven't come home to fall in love. I've come home to fight in a war, and my destiny will take me north, if I live that long. And when I go north, I won't be traveling with a lover. I'll be marching with other warriors, men prepared to fight and die for the cause. It's foolish and unfair for me to promise Maria freedom and safety. Yet I can't bring myself to recant my promise. I want it too dearly.

"Maria?" I say. "Do you believe me?"

Before she can answer, a blast of cold air rushes toward us. The hair on my neck and arms prickles to attention. Then a voice, which can be described only as infernal, slithers out from the dark.

"Welcome home, Maria."

push Maria behind me, shielding her from whatever lurks in the abyss.

"Who's there?" I say.

My question is answered with the laugh of a madman.

"He calls himself 'Legion,'" Maria says quietly. "But his real name is Alejandro. We must talk to him. Alejandro controls access to the tunnel, the only way out of here. He's also one of the reasons the Centurion Guard won't venture too far underground."

"He's that dangerous?"

"Every bit," Maria says. "He killed three centurions last month—by himself."

"He has weapons?"

"He doesn't need them. He killed all three with nothing but his hands. But his army does have weapons—weapons not even the centurions possess."

"His army?" I say, certain I've misunderstood her.

"Yes. Alejandro controls an army of a thousand men."

I can't imagine how an unarmed man could take down a single centurion yet alone three of them. Centurions are the most well-trained soldiers on the planet. Their lethality is legendary. What's even harder to understand is how a man living hundreds of feet below ground has managed to assemble an army.

I'm suddenly eager to meet Alejandro. I say, "Well...that might be a good thing actually."

"No, it's not good. Nothing about what has become of Alejandro is good."

"But he's built an army to resist the Kingdom. How can that not be good?"

"You want nothing to do with him," Maria says flatly.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not the Kingdom that Alejandro's interested in warring against."

"But I thought you said the Kingdom was afraid of him. I've never heard of the Guard backing down from anyone. I was under the impression the Kingdom controlled every region of the South, afraid of no man."

"They do...and they aren't. This underworld is the single stronghold left in the South. The Kingdom leaves Alejandro and his men completely alone, as if they have some sort of unspoken deal."

"Just because he managed to kill a few mercenaries?"

"No," Maria whispers. "Because they share a common enemy."

Alejandro's voice rolls forth from the void. "I've been waiting for you."

A fresh chill dances up my spine.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask.

"Precisely as he says."

"What if I don't?"

"You don't want to know."

"You keep saying that."

Maria leans close to me, and I smell the lavender on her skin. She says, "You said you'd trust me."

"That was before I knew about Alejandro."

"He won't harm us."

"What...is he?" I say.

"Just a man," Maria says sadly. "Just...a sick man in need of a doctor."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Because," she says, her voice choking on the vinegar of a bitter memory, "Alejandro was my husband."

A harsh light bursts forth, momentarily blinding us. It lasts for only a second before vanishing. Then a much softer light slowly illuminates the cave we've entered. The walls are craggy, and the air is frigid, without a trace of the heavy humidity from the surface above. It's like we've journeyed down into an entirely different world.

Alejandro stands in the center of the circular space with his arms wide, as if we're lost friends returning home from a perilous journey. Like the men guarding the entryway, whom I suspect are demon possessed, Alejandro wears a dark robe. His hood is pulled over his head and casts a shadow across his face. I can't see what he looks like.

As we draw closer, I regard Alejandro's formidable size and surmise that he's nothing short of an absolute building. He's not an inch below seven feet; his shoulders are wide; and his legs look more like tree trunks than mortal limbs. If there was ever a man who could handle three centurions, it's Alejandro.

Maria and I stop walking, keeping our distance from Alejandro. We've finally arrived at our destination. It's odd, but I feel strangely safe in the presence of this dark figure.

Without warning, a guttural noise springs out of Alejandro, reminding me of a wild pig being led to slaughter. It's a nauseating cacophony of what it must sound like to hear the angel of death strangling life from a person not ready to surrender his soul. When he's finished emitting this unholy tumult, he says, "This took longer than I'd expected. But I knew you'd be back."

"I'm not back, Alejandro," Maria says curtly. "We're just passing through. We need access to the tunnel. I need you to give it to us."

I'm lifted from my feet and sent flying backward at a hundred miles an hour. My back slams violently against the sharp angles of the craggy wall, and pain explodes throughout my body. A force I can't see or fight keeps me paralyzed against the wall, suspended a good ten feet above the cave's floor. Then, slowly, a pressure builds on my chest. It feels like a boulder has been set atop me. I try to speak, but I can't; I'm being crushed to death.

Calmly Alejandro says to Maria, "You should call me 'Legion.'"

Maria runs to me and tries to pull me down from the wall, but it's useless; I'm trapped within an invisible body cast. My head pounds from the lack of oxygen. I have maybe thirty seconds, at best, before I lose consciousness.

Realizing there's nothing she can do for me, Maria turns back to Legion and says, "Let him down! He's done nothing to you! Please!"

Legion laughs, his voice turning another shade darker. "Where did you find this one, Maria? Did the Teacher send him? He's quite green."

"I won't answer a single question until you let him down. There's no reason to hurt him."

My brain begins to slide offline. Maria's voice takes on an underwater hush, making it hard to understand her garbled words.

Legion says, "Are you still following the Teacher?"

"Release him, and I'll tell you anything you want to know.
Please...Legion."

"We are many now," he says, sounding pleased Maria has addressed him by the proper name.