Sloughing Off the Rot (32 page)

Lovethorn turned to the crowd, “Can we abide this behavior?”

“No, Father,” shouted the congregation as one, all starry-eyed and intoxicated on the Man in Black’s vain and profane ramblings.

Reverend Android Lovethorn stomped about the stage and shouted back, “Does this man hold any power in our house?”

“No, Father,” responded the congregation.

“Then what should we do with this pathetic scurve who shows his face before us as if we are to bow down to him and gape in wonder at his splendor?”

And the clamor of the congregation boiled over in the pews. “Slice him,” some shouted. “Beat him,” screamed others. “Toss him in a cell and throw away the key,” one man shouted.

And then a piercing soprano scream piped out of one of the castrati, cut through the din, and rose above the uproar. “Let us drink his blood.”

And the others agreed. “Drink his blood,” they all chanted.

“Drink his blood it is, then,” agreed Lovethorn, and he held the golden cup above his head, slopping blood on the floor of the stage. And the red bricks drank of the blood and wore its rusty stain. “Come before me, aisle by aisle, man by man, and drink from
Copa de Oro
. Drink the blood most precious. Drink from the cup full of his abominations and filthiness.”

The parade of horribles, the deformed and decrepit worshippers, flowed from the pews and appeared one by one before Lovethorn. And they genuflected before Reverend Android Lovethorn and placed their sore-crusted lips on the golden cup. And as they drank, some fell to the floor and twitched and seized and rolled off of the stage. Others shook and lurched all over the church floor. Some screamed out in strange tongues and pressed hands to their faces as if restraining some great power. Others dropped to the floor and gave up the ghost.

As each of Lovethorn’s worshippers drank of the blood, John felt his spirit draining from his head and his heart. His head flopped to the side and the soldier behind him righted it and held it there so that the ropes did not completely cut of John’s air. And as John drifted toward oblivion, Lovethorn’s body throbbed with raw energy and the potency given over by John’s apparent surrender.

Lovethorn once again approached John and stood inches away without touching him. And he saw that John had no fight left in him. The Man in Black felt the energy pulsing through his every fiber and every cell. Gripped in the mania of his followers, dizzy with his new power, and drunkenly brazen from his complete and unexpected control of John, Lovethorn lifted the bloodstained linen and ogled the wound in John’s side as if it were the quivering slit of a fresh blumpkin.

Lovethorn blew his fetid breath in John’s face and they locked eyes. Just as John had pushed through the wall of heat and noise to enter the hall of worship, Lovethorn pushed through the almost overpowering fear he felt of John. He touched John’s side and no bolt of lightning struck him down, no jolt of electricity threw him to the ground, no pillar of fire fell on him. He smiled his pointy-toothed grin and held his hand to John’s side. Working first one finger, then two and three into the cut, Lovethorn tore the flesh on John’s side, jamming the fingers in knuckle-deep.

The pained grimace on John’s face aroused Android Lovethorn further. And the Man in Black squished his fingers in and out of the open wound as if he were popping a ripe blumpkin. And his rod filled with blood and strained against the leather pants that held it down. So he rubbed at his loins with his free hand and probed at John’s side with the other. And in his fervor, Lovethorn’s eyes turned down toward John’s wound. He did not see John throw his head back from the jolt of energy that shot through him. He did not see the fire reappear in John’s eyes. He did not realize that John now held his head up without the assistance of the soldier. Lovethorn did not realize his fatal error in touching John until it was too late.

And when Android Lovethorn felt the burning on his hand, like the sting of one thousand scorpions, he pulled his fingers from John’s side and looked down in horror. His hand began to shrivel from a creeping, black, defiling mold. And the necrosis of his flesh rapidly spread, wasting the limb all the way to the shoulder. And the arm crumbled and fell from him, turning to dust as it landed on the red bricks. The weariness that had appeared in John’s eyes now fell hard on Lovethorn and he collapsed on the floor of his own altar. And he realized that John’s touch sapped him of his energy, it drained him of his sickness and blackness. It bled Lovethorn of the very things that gave him his power. And the blight that consumed his arm spread to all parts of his body, graying his skin and withering his substance. The red in his eyes turned yellow and his slick hair fell over his forehead, obscuring his gaze. At the same time, John fed on the sickness and took back all of the energy that Lovethorn’s followers robbed him of when they drank his blood. John took on the sickness, just as he had with others, and it charged him with staggering strength.

The ropes that bound John to the cross snapped and frayed at the mere flex of his arms and legs. He dropped the ropes to the bricks and slowly stepped down from the stake. Lovethorn cowered on the ground before John and struggled to drag himself away. He pointed his dagger at John. The Man in Black hissed and spat, but lacked the energy to do anything else. Android Lovethorn’s emaciated body trembled at John’s approach.

John stepped toward Lovethorn and stood over him – looking down at the beast that was, and is and yet is not – feeling no fear of the shuddering husk of a man at his feet. The congregation cringed in their pews and recoiled when John looked out at them. None of Lovethorn’s followers rushed in his direction. Even the soldiers who tied John to the cross had disappeared from the altar. And a voice rang out in John’s head, “Now is the time. You can make him send you back. He will do as you order him. Make him send you back home. Go back to yourself.”

“I don’t want to go back,” John shouted at the voice in his head. “There is nothing there for me. I don’t remember who I was and I don’t care. I like who I am now and see that only good will come of my sloughing off the rot. I belong here. And Lovethorn deserves to die.”

The voice in his head trumpeted, “Do not kill him! If you kill him, you will die here, you will die there, and all that you have done and become will be for naught.” And the power of the voice stabbed at John’s head like a dagger, momentarily staggering him.

John stood stunned on the stage, hovering over Lovethorn and arguing with the voice in his head. Taking advantage of John’s distraction, Lovethorn drew on his remaining energy and lunged forward with the dagger, just missing John’s injured side by inches. And Lovethorn’s final effort brought John back to the present. And he realized that he was at the end of the red brick road, standing over the man that he sought. John leaned down and took the dagger from Lovethorn’s hand without a fight. And he drew the dagger back and thrust it into Lovethorn’s chest, driving it into his black heart and twisting it deeper.

And just before he expired, Lovethorn loosed a furious roar like the sounds of one thousand dying men. And the deafening roar took the physical form of a black cloud pouring from his mouth and hovering above the congregation. And the black cloud exploded above their heads. Dark, writhing ribbons of smoke shot out in all directions from the explosion, many of them falling on the congregation, and others falling on the rest of the inhabitants of Abaddon outside of the temple. The black tendrils filled the mouths and nostrils of Lovethorn’s followers. They breathed in the snakes of smoke. They swallowed the black tendrils. And all whom the ribbons of blackness infested, they echoed their master’s scream and took on his madness.

On the altar, John stood back and watched Lovethorn’s body crumble into a small mound of ashes. And the men before John frothed at the mouths and rushed the stage, seeking to avenge the death of Lovethorn. They clawed at each other in an effort to be the first to reach John. But those possessed by Lovethorn’s demons were no match for John.

Powerful words, channeled from above, flowed through John’s mouth and he chastised his foes, saying, “And as the storm passes through, the wicked will be washed away and the righteous will remain. Now be gone. Be gone from your nests, you pests.” And, he called to the sky, bringing down bolts of lightning and pillars of fire on the den of thieves. He overturned the tables and chairs in their temple and vented his furious wrath on those who attacked him. And those who were not laid low by John’s fury fled the temple and ran to the far corners of Abaddon for safety.

John did not pursue his enemies as they cut out of the temple. He stood and threw Android Lovethorn’s ashes into the air. He splashed the blood of the fallen on the red bricks of the altar under his feet. And the bricks soaked up the blood like sponges. And though John did not pursue his foes when they fled the temple, none of Lovethorn’s men found refuge in Abaddon that day.

Alerted by the fire and lightning that John dropped from the sky, Joad led an army out of the valley of poppies and up La Montaña Sagrada. The army consisted of the blumpkin lovechildren of Joad and Santiago and John, as well as the entire, heavily armed, population of the Chelloveck mesa. Alf the Sacred Burro and a pack of his offspring hefted much of the army’s weaponry and supplies up the narrow mountain road. Staying behind at the field of poppies, Two-Dogs-Fucking complained of ennui and listlessness and bunions. He said that when he mustered the motivation, he would join the army at the top of the mountain. Waiting halfway up La Montaña Sagrada, armed with quivers full of arrows, Three Tooth and his crew joined the army.

And at the front door of Abaddon, the doorkeeper shouted out at Joad, “Not nobody gets in. Not nobody. Not no how.”

Possessed with the strength of an army all by himself, Joad gripped the unwieldy front door of Abaddon and tore it from the stone wall. He heaved the door, and it flew far down the side of the mountain before reacquainting itself with the ground. And when the front door flew back, there followed a day of tumult and trampling and terror. The multitudes of John’s army stormed the grounds of Abaddon and put the city to the sword. And the army gave no quarter to any living thing in Abaddon stained by the touch of Lovethorn. Even Lovethorn’s beasts and bulls, and his moo-cows and niksiks were put to the sword. All the men of Abaddon – the soldiers, the guards, the cripples and crazies, the townspeople and seers and priests – fell under the crush of the attackers. And the army smote Lovethorn’s men with the side of the sword and trampled them underfoot. Some stood gape-jawed, hands hanging limp at their sides and urine wetting their knees as the attackers struck them down with swords and stones. Others bemoaned the siege bitterly, screaming anguished cries at their own destruction. And there was much weeping and gnashing of the teeth.

And La Montaña Sagrada seized and trembled. The smoke from the forest fires choked the air. Lightning fell from the sky. And still John’s men smote the city of Abaddon, seeking out every one of Lovethorn’s men and putting them down like diseased livestock. The sons of Santiago attacked, barehanded, and bit and tore down their foes one at a time. Joad and his sons dispatched many enemies with each swipe of their mighty swords. And the sons of John engaged in combat, swinging slings and bags filled with stones, and crushing skulls. Swinging his ear trumpet in wild looping arcs, Old Man Chelloveck cleared a path through the melee and knocked his enemies to the ground. Alf and the donkeys kicked out at men as they tried to flee. Even One-Eye joined the fray, leaping on the men afflicted with Lovethorn’s taint and gouging out their eyes.

Some of the Abaddonites fled the city. They scaled the walls and crawled away through tunnels. At the tops of the fortress walls, Three Tooth and his men rained down arrows on the absconders, stopping most of them. But some of the escaped Abaddonites scrambled for the caves in the rock faces. And some hid under moldy, mossy crags. Still, John’s men hunted each and every one of the Abaddonites down and put them to the sword. And the blood of Lovethorn’s men flowed, knee-deep, like a river through the grounds of Abbadon and down the mountain. Blood on the streets. Blood on the rocks. Blood in the gutters. And the bloody red sun shone down on the dead.

When the screams stopped and the swords swung no more, when no more arrows fell from the sky and the red brick road drank the river of blood dry, only then did the lightning cease. Only then did La Montaña Sagrada settle. So it came to be that John’s men wiped the memory of the Reverend Android Lovethorn from the pages of the annals of the history of Abaddon. And, though all Abaddonites fell, others also gave up the ghost in the battle of Abaddon. John’s blumpkin-sons fought fiercely to eradicate the Abaddonites, yet all perished in the battle. And so it was, too, with the son’s of Joad. One-Eye drew his final breath while skewered at the end of a spear, his guts pouring out, and yet still managing to pluck the eye from his killer. The carnage halved the ranks of Chellovecks, and Old Man Chelloveck wept and spat on the walls of Abaddon. And though they all sported injuries of varying degrees, the sons of Santiago suffered no casualties in the course of the carnage.