The Judas Line (4 page)

My reply slithered softly past my lips. “Make me understand, Jude, please.” I felt a jittery fear I hadn’t experienced in a long time, not since the dry desert wind of Iraq stung my eyes.

“I don’t have time, Mike.” Jude’s eyes seemed to grow larger and sadder, as if a great weight was crushing his soul. “Burke’s death threw them off track for a little bit, but if I stick around, they’ll sniff me out soon enough.”

“They want to
kill
you? Why?”

“Because I stole something from … my father, something he’ll do anything to retrieve. I have to destroy it before they find me again.”

How come talking to Jude made me feel like I’d taken a big hit of some sweet pot? Always a rush, but accompanied by a sense of unreality. “What is it, what did you steal? Why do you have to destroy it?”

“If I can destroy it, this thing I’ve stolen, it will change humanity’s fate forever, man.”

Surprisingly enough, that clinched it for me because Jude did not lie. Sure, he’d withheld his story, had kept himself apart, but he’d never uttered a falsehood that I could detect and I consider myself pretty proficient at spotting fabrication. “What do you need?”

The relief that blossomed on his face soothed any lingering doubts I might have had. “I need about a gallon of holy water, Mike; then I’m leaving town. If the police come to question you, just tell the truth.”

“What about the ten gallons I had couriered to your place?”

“I don’t have a place anymore.”

With an almost audible
click
, the tumblers of my mind ratcheted to a sticking place as I came to a decision, one that would change me and my view of the world forever. “Okay, Jude, I’ll get you the holy water.” For as long as I’ve known him he’d requested holy water, but wouldn’t tell me why. To my shame, the donations he’d made to the parish had kept me from asking more than once. Things, however, were about to change. “But in return, I’m coming with you.”

His brows furrowed. “Mike—” he began, but seeing the determination on my face stopped him cold. Shaking his head, he laid on a tired grin. “Really, Mike?”

“Try and stop me.”

For the first time in … I don’t know how long, he indulged in a good belly laugh, looking younger than his thirty-six years.

Chapter Four

Jude

Mike’s Corolla chugged south like an asthmatic jogger, a rusty shitbox on steel-belted radials. During the frigid Omaha winters, the city used salt instead of mag chloride to de-ice the roads—much more effective but infinitely harder on the automobiles. You don’t see a car over five years old that doesn’t have rust somewhere. Keeps the local dealers in business, though.

When Mike announced with such a serious face that he would be coming with me, I was surprised to hear myself say ‘yes.’ Just try saying ‘no’ to a priest with a full steam of stubborn going. See where it gets you.

By nightfall we reached a little motel on the outskirts of Florence, Kansas, the kind of place where you paid your forty bucks and received a room that actually had clean sheets. No liberated fluids to be found, thank goodness. It also had a shower with plenty of hot water and generic shampoo. No cable. No TV for that matter, but I didn’t mind. What passed for entertainment in America made me wish for the good old days of gladiatorial combat. Or public executions. Now that’s reality TV that would garner serious ratings.

After soaking in the shower for about a thousand years, I exited the tiny bathroom satisfyingly clean and pruny, toweling myself vigorously. “Your turn, big man,” I told Mike, who eyed my Billy Idol-like wet hair with much amusement. By the time he finished his shower (while abusing my ears with “Puff the Magic Dragon” at the top of his lungs), I was dry and dressed in black boxer briefs and a loosely fitting Police concert t-shirt.

“Hey, Jude,” he chuckled as he donned his own boxers. “What’s up? Ready to talk?”

Always with the Beatles reference … that’s what I get for choosing that name. “No, Mike. I’m ready to play show and tell, man.” With that I opened the door, letting in the cool night air. Outside was the motel’s cracked asphalt parking lot where Mike’s sad little Corolla sat all alone with no automobile companionship. The halogen light that should have made the lot bright as day was burned out. The conditions looked optimal for my purposes and the zillion stars in the moonless sky lent a bit of extra magic to the still air. The January cold bit at my bare feet and ankles, but I didn’t care.

“Show me what?” Mike inquired, pulling on a black t-shirt with the words HOLY ROLLER on the back.

Giving him an enigmatic smile, I began to whistle, much like when I dismissed the sprites that had taken the old man’s hat, but instead of a breeze through aspens, the whistle emerged like the haunting moan of wind wending around an old, decrepit house. Once again the sweet smell of lemongrass soothed me.

Mike’s mouth opened and I held up a hand to forestall any questions, keeping the eerie melody threading through my lips. One minute … two … my lips started to become numb and my mouth began to dry out. Just when I was about to call it quits and grab the stash of cypress leaves to help with summoning, I felt the smallest of air sprites wind around my legs.

“What is needed, Magus?”
it asked in its whispery windy voice.

In the Language of Air, which was a trilling whistle, I said, “
I ask that you reveal yourself to this human, O marvelous free one.”
Fickle, mercurial air sprites, of all the elementals, were the most susceptible to flattery.

“And why should I do this, Magus?”

“It would fill him with awe and terror at your majesty,” I replied, laying it on thick as library paste.

I could almost feel the tiny sprite’s ego swell. It slinked its way over to a fair amount of rubbish (beer bottles, caps, gum and candy wrapper, etc.) and began to spin them round, swirling, cavorting in a fit of garbage glee. Motes of dust and dirt joined the two-foot tall tornado as it frolicked and danced toward Mike, whose eyelids had disappeared behind their orbs.

“J-Jude … what … what …?” he gabbled, pointing at the whirling garbage.

Usually I could shave with Mike’s wit, so you can imagine how pleased I felt watching his remarkable intellect say sayonara. As for the sprite, it was having the time of its life.

Then it said something that ripped the smile off my face.
“This one smells of the Creator.”

“
What do you mean, O wise one?
” I whistled back in surprise.

Its laughter was the rustle of a zephyr across long grass. “Those who dedicate themselves to the service of the Creator always smell different … pure.”

Pure? The smell of God? Or was it the smell of God’s magic?

“Tell him I will touch him now.”
Its tone was perfunctory, commanding.

Smiling, I said, “Mike, hold out your hands. Slowly, please.”

Gulping, he did as he was told. The dirt, dust and rubbish fell to the asphalt in a heap. Leaping on the hapless priest, it swirled around his arms, moving faster and faster until his hands shook as if palsied.

“Jude, what’s going on?”

“He’s shaking your hands, man.”

“What is this? What is it? It’s not going to do anything … drastic, is it?”

“It’s an air sprite and it’s checking you out. It’s curious, I don’t think it’s ever been this close to a priest before.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to keep his trembling hands under control. “How does it know I’m a priest?”

“Smell.”

“It smells my priestliness?” His voice took on a ragged edge as he strove to maintain his composure.

The sprite disengaged, whirled around my legs a couple more times and flittered off, whistling its breezy laughter.

“Mike, to a person sensitive to magic, a magus, Elemental magic, all magic, has a … well …
smell
I guess is the correct word. Every magus experiences those smells differently. When I do a Healing, I smell cinnamon, but another magus might smell antiseptic or chocolate-chip cookies. Elementals have the same kind of sense, but for them it’s much more keen. When it ‘smelled’ you, it said you smelled ‘of the Creator.’ God.”

He stared at me for perhaps five seconds before turning around and walking inside. I hurried to catch up. “What’s wrong?”

Large muscles bunched and unbunched as he threw his arms up in frustration. “What’s wrong? You just whistled up what you told me is an air sprite and that you and it can
smell
my priestliness! Also, you did magic.
Magic
.
Magic
!”

“Saying the word more than once doesn’t make it any less real, man.”

He responded to my sarcasm with a dyspeptic glare. “
Magic
, Jude. Not what our lot really believes in or encounters on a day-to-day basis.”

I raised my hands, trying to placate the big man. “
Elemental
magic, Mike. Neither good nor evil, it merely
is
… like the weather. Elementals know of God, they call him the Creator and respect him. It’s
man
they really don’t care for.”

“Oh, this is heavy,” he muttered, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Elemental magic … creatures outside my ken.” He looked up, face drawn. “Traveling with you sure is interesting.” After a moment, he narrowed his eyes. “How can you see those things?”

Sitting next to him, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs. “Magi can see what you normal people can’t. It’s part and parcel of the whole magus bit. And don’t worry, man, it’ll get stranger than this because there’s a lot more to this world than you can possibly imagine. Some good, some evil, but most of it neither.”

“I don’t know if I can accept it. Oh, I believe it, but accepting it is another thing entirely. I was taught that magic is the exclusive realm of diabolical forces.”

It took heroic self-control on my part not to point out that I looked upon exorcism as a Catholic rite of magic, but I didn’t want to open that can of worms while he still reeled from the night’s revelations. How would you take it?

Sighing, I chose my words carefully. “Mike, God created the world and all the spirits and sprites within. The magic in the plants, the elementals … all created by God in His infinite wisdom. As for the Words, that I don’t know.”

“Words?”

“There are Words that do things … magical things, like healing and such,” I sighed. “There are twelve Words of Great Power that a Magus can use. Most only master three or four, but they can do much with those. An Adept can master up to nine and with those he can achieve wonders you wouldn’t believe.

“But Mike, the real, evil magic—the magic that can corrupt a soul and shatter the world—is in the Thirty Words.” I held up a clenched fist. “Thirty Words of such virulence and destruction that their origin can only be infernal.”

Moments passed as the priest considered what I had said. “What are they?”

I shook my head. “No one knows, unless they have the Silver. The Silver holds the Words and conveys them to the Magus, but not all of them. One, two, maybe three Words are all a Magus can handle because they are too much … too alien for his or her mind to hold on to. As soon as the Magus releases the Silver, the Words leave.” Memories I had long tried to forget surfaced. “It takes a very special kind of Magus to hold more than three out of the Thirty Words, and God help the world if that happens.”

“The Silver?”

Lord I was tired! So much had happened today and a rush of fatigue washed hard over me, giving me a good case of the dizzies. I rose to my feet to get my blood pumping while addressing my best, and only, friend. “Listen, everything you need to know is in that envelope I gave you, the whole damn story. Just read it, please man.” Normally I’d be happy shooting the crap with Mike for the rest of the night, but his look of dismay, his crumbling sense of certainty was painful to watch. Plus, I was more than a little afraid of how he would react to what he would learn. “I’m going outside for a second, just wait for me, please.”

Cold air nearly robbed the breath from my lungs as I stepped outside, the door narrowly missing my butt as it slammed. The small sprite had gone, no doubt bored with hanging around a motel parking lot. Everything seemed peaceful, but we needed protection—an early warning system—and I knew the perfect one.

Diamond stars sparkled above my head and long grass filled with cockleburs and goatheads lay beneath my feet, pricking the tough calluses of my soles. I knelt and dug my fingers into the grassy ground, reaching, searching for fertile earth. Deep, deep, deep I dug, nails scrabbling, until the skin of my fingers found cool topsoil. Perfect.

The Language of Earth rumbled forth bringing the aroma of fresh-cut summertime grass, a scent I’ve always loved.

On and on the rumble issued from my aching throat, floating in the air like leaves on a pond. Despite the pain, the strain on my vocal cords, Earth Speech had always been my favorite; the slow rolling cadences, the patient tumble of vowels and consonants, the utter tranquility of the enduring soil.