50

A VIOLENT HOWL OF wind and rain came before the silence.

Emptiness pushed open the doors of Eliam’s church. The church doors enveloped a tormented, vengeful detective in search of hope. Jude found the priest praying at the altar and walked toward him with haste.

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Can’t holy men see things? Can’t you feel when darkness is coming? I know you see things. Why couldn’t you see this?”

“What are you talking about?”

“My brother. Kevin. He’s dead.” With his right hand, Jude lifted Eliam from the ground and brought him to eye level so he could stare into him. “But don’t you already know that?”

“Sometimes…I see in part, kiddo. I am not a psychic or a mind reader. I am…just a man.”

A tear fell to the ground and made a loud splash against the red carpet. Jude shouldn’t have heard it crash like a wave, but Azrael’s powers had made it so that he acutely picked up every sound.

“Damn you, Father. Damn me…to hell,” Jude said, panting, as he released Eliam from his grip.

The priest held out his hand to receive Jude as he watched him stumble closer, prattling on in strange tongues.

“I know how you must feel, Jude.”

“No, you don’t.”

“We’ve all lost something, dear boy. In this life, there is gain, but there is also loss and great sorrow. Take heart, for our Savior has overcome our sorrows.”

“How much longer are you gonna feed me that garbage, old man?”

“Old man?” Eliam questioned. “Is that all I am to you?”

Jude grunted and hunched his shoulders, feeling the footsteps of a creature walking on top of his spine.

“All this time, and still you do not believe? Still you cannot see? You are part of something. We all are.”

“A part of what?”

“That is for you and God to decide. He can direct you, but you must walk in his way.”

“His way is death,” Jude said. “His way leads to more pain. More heartache. I have tried to be that other man you spoke of, Father. I wanted to be him. But I’m not. I was born to suffer in darkness, like my brother.”

“Don’t say that, you blasted fool!” Father Eliam said with a smack. “How can you condemn your own soul in God’s house?”

“Where is he now? Does he even know my name?”

“Jude, it is appointed to every man to die. Life is a gift, a mystery, as is death. Do not become bitter by the choices some men make. You’re angry. I understand pain, believe me, I do, but there is something inside you now, isn’t there? That I have felt. Something that is not supposed to be there. It is convincing you of this foolishness. I command it to shut its filthy mouth in the name of heaven.”

Jude stepped closer to the priest. Eliam stepped back slowly.

“There is another lurking within you, whispering inside. Why did you let it in?”

A hateful scream exploded from Jude’s lungs, and he swung his hand into Eliam’s chest, flinging him onto the altar steps.

“Jude, wake up. I can see your enemy inside you. It’s changing you, even now. Fight it! You must fight it!” Eliam gasped, dragging his back against the carpeted steps. “Your eyes swell with blood and lust. Is it murder inside you? Is that the demon or you glaring at me now?”

Jude seethed, moving ever closer. His feet were heavy to pull, a part of him seeking escape from this very moment. The angels and statues were once more quiet. How he longed for them to take their place beside him and end this torment. But he was alone. He knew that now.

“He can see me,” Eliam struggled. “That red-eyed demon. That menace! He can see everything through your eyes.”

“Shut up, old fool! Cursed be the liars and the saints and the seraphim! Blindly, they sit at the feet of their Maker, waiting for orders but doing nothing in this very hour. Doing nothing to sway my hand. My will.” The voice of Azrael fought its way through Jude’s voice. “Where are they, priest? Why aren’t they here to offer you salvation? Will they silently watch you die at the hands of your beloved Jude Foster?”

“Enough of your lies! You will not mock heaven in this place! Fly back to your prison, you wretched beast!”

“How much longer do you think I’ll let sonny here live, priest? He’s been behaving for most of the show, but there’s this piece of him I can’t have. A piece he won’t give me. I don’t like having instruments I can’t play with.”

Eliam struggled to his feet again. A burning in his side left him cowering over his ribs with desperate, weak sighs. “Jude, wake up from this dream before it is too late.”

“I am awake,” Jude spoke.

“He is awake,” Azrael repeated slowly.

“I see the world through these eyes now.” With a clenched fist, Jude slugged Eliam in the ribs. He then lunged back and took a second swing, his power and fury absorbing the frail life from the priest’s body.

“It is impossible to see the kingdom of heaven with mortal eyes.” Eliam’s gut sustained another blow, and he fell. “This demon will never let you free. He will rob from you. He will turn your heart black and take everything you love. I love you like a son, Jude. Listen to me. You will die.”

“Everything dies, Father.” Seizing the priest by the throat, Jude drew him upward, seething

at the mouth, droplets of blood smearing the white collar.

“Look at what you have become. Look at what the dark has made you. Your brother’s death was not your fault. You cannot change what is or has been, but you can…change what…will be. What could be.”

The red tears flowed more freely.

“What have you done?” Eliam asked, his subconscious now polluted with events in Jude’s past, in Jude’s mind. “No. Dear God, no. Those children, those poor souls in Haiti. I can feel them.”

“Yes, we feel them too,” Azrael hissed. “They are now with us. They make us stronger, you decrepit, old witch.”

“You reaped the innocent and the helpless? And the reporter? You murdered him too. Listen to me, you insatiable disease. I love this vessel. Release Jude Foster from your grip in the name of the Father…”

“Ah-ah-ah. I didn’t invite him into this, now, did I?” Azrael said, squeezing Eliam’s throat ever tighter.

“Jude, listen to me. Hear…my voice. Fight the darkness. Destroy the wicked man in your blood. It isn’t you. You…must destroy…it.”

“Where is my brother?”

Trying to form words with his mouth, the priest managed only to release a tear, a hopeless and fragile wish for the way things could have been.

“Do it, Jude…if that is…what your…heart tells you. If my death will bring Kevin back home to you…then…take my…life.”

He squeezed tighter. His fingernails were blades cutting Eliam’s neck. Some of the stretched, weathered skin flapped back and forth. At long length, Jude dropped the priest to the ground and fell to his knees.

“Father, what…am I?”

No, sonny. Stay with us.

Jude shrieked in reply, but he wasn’t sure if it came from his soul or the others’.

Eliam lay on his back, gasping for air. As he fought to move, his ribs made a crunching sound, and his fingers were revealed as bent, bleeding things.

“Where is my brother, Father?” he asked again. “Where is Kevin? Will he make it…to heaven?”

“I…don’t know, kiddo,” Eliam said, coughing up red phlegm.

He crept closer to the priest to find solace.

“Your brother had…a choice, like the killer you’ve been…hunting. Like you have a choice.” Eliam barely flinched as he spoke. The wrinkles in his face looked more like memories, spreading out and coming alive. But it was impossible to say if there was any joy trapped inside them. “You’ve always had a choice.”

Jude’s eyes found the statue of Christ hanging from the wall directly in front of him, with all the hate and malice and sorrow that lay buried under his chest. Then, with a quake in his wrist, he turned his sights to Father Eliam. The priest, stretched out and broken on his back, seemed like he was waiting for the release death could offer.

“This is the end of the road.” Jude finally came out. “I never thought it would come to this, you and I. But I guess I never believed as much as you did. I think that’s how it works, Father. Some make it. Some don’t.”

“Shhh,” Eliam tried, wiping Jude’s eyes of the blood. “It’s not over ’til the last breath. You…can change, Jude.”

“I can’t fight it any longer. I don’t know how to,” Jude let his eyes wander at all the haunting statues, images, and carvings surrounding him. “Will they forsake me too?”

“You are not forsaken. Not yet. The eyes are…the doorway…to…soul. Don’t…let it…see.”