A Lower Deep

his fate before the soldiers dragged him off to be executed. Do you think he kneeled there?' Jebediah pointed in one direction, then another. 'Staring toward that hill? Or that promontory? Can you guess what happened in that spot centuries before Jesus stepped foot here?'

I could guess. Holy sites were usually built upon the unholy. He couldn't help feeding off the errant majiks of the land, and motes of black energy bubbled from his eyes. I didn't need to suck the marrow of massacre to know this had once been a place of child sacrifices.

I said, 'Do you think a history of barbarism gives you the right to forfeit others?'

'Everyone is free to leave whenever they wish. Even you.'

'If only that were true.'

'It is, and always has been. We're all here of our own accord. I'm not to blame for the fate of others.'

'Is that what you tell yourself when you think of Aaron?' I asked.

It stopped him cold, and the funnels of eddying power dissipated. I was glad that he cared enough to show some grief. He dropped his chin and stared thoughtfully at the ground for a minute. 'I had nothing to do with that.'

'Uriel's here and stands with you.'

'He is my brother, after all.'

'Yes, and also the murderer of your brother. You've done a hell of a job looking out for them.'

That got to him. He whirled on me, the web of veins in his neck bulging. It was good to see that he could still feel so strongly about matters of family. He closed in. 'They made their own choice to enter that damnable monastery. Uriel suffers for his sins, and his guilt has driven him into near-catalepsy. They each did what they believed had to be done, no different from me! Who are you to judge?'

His scars were nearly pressed against my own face as he shouted. I'd had enough of his rationalization and grabbed him by the collar. My grin was nearly as ugly as his.

The black energy encircled my eyes too, and the air burned with the stink of ozone. Sparks skittered along my new fingernails, and a hideous bark of laughter escaped me. 'I watched you cut Bridgett's throat.'

'She was nothing to you!'

'You refused to let my father find peace in death and turned him into a caricature just to mock me.' The rage kept surging, and a voice said, That's it, that's it, release it all, let it go, this will be wonderful. It wasn't Self provoking me-the voice was my own. 'You set the Fetch on me and forced me to play along in your plans. You dangled my love for my lady and let the temptation drive me half mad into your trap. All of your followers lie cold in the ground, even that rag tag bunch of bitter teenagers back there. They're already dead, Jebediah, or don't you know that?'

'They do what they will!'

'Your egomania has brought you against the design of heaven, in a belief that you might raise the messiah for your own ends. You damn fool, you aren't innocent, Jebediah.'

I raised my glowing fist and thought that all my pain would end now if I murdered him here without a regret.

'But you are?' he asked. And as he said it he grasped me by the back of the neck, drew me to him, and kissed me.

Perhaps all the DeLancres, even the witch killers, were equally audacious, and called to them others who were just as impudent and reckless. He shrugged, let me loose with a small and pleased laugh, and started walking off. If I'd had my athame with me I might have stuck it in his back right then, or perhaps I'd have only heard my rage, nagging me on. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him to face me again.

'Don't make me kill you, Jebediah. For Christ's sake-'

'Yes,' he nodded. 'For the sake of Christ, of course. And the world. Can't you feel the culmination of God's will approaching?'

'That's your problem. You separate large incidents from the small. Find God in the whisper.'

'Like you have? You rail against him even now in your heart, for stealing your precious love. You hate and seethe with an intensity I've never seen before, and you do it under the auspices of serenity. It's sad, really.'

We had walked to the limestone ridge and stared down at the narrow KidronValley.

'Why did you send Griffin against me?' I said.

'I didn't. He forgave you for murdering him, as I recall. I don't have the finesse to manipulate a soul as insane as that.'

I believed him. 'Give up this notion of resurrecting Christ.'

'Can you give up your heart's desire?'

'No, not even when you turn it against me, but you're not-'

'So be it.'

There was no wind.

Chapter Sixteen

Violence had flared in the OldCity again. On the West Bank two Israeli soldiers had been shot, and in response several Palestinians were wounded at the Haram during a protest. There was a good deal of rock throwing and the Israelis claimed to have used rubber-coated steel pellets to disperse the crowd, but now four Palestinians were dead. Delicate peace talks had begun to break down in the wake of the latest bloodshed.

Nip sat waiting atop the Wailing Wall.

He moaned while the Jews prayed forty feet below him, writing out pleas and placing them in the cracks of the stone. Here, at least, they were all believers, though some men cursed God as they always would. I was surprised by the amount of noise and activity in the square, a vast rumble of voices and music and shouting.

Nip gave another great heaving sigh that blew knots of gray fur before his quivering nose and sent slips of paper whipping across the tiled plaza. His meaty pink paws clamped on his knees as he turned to stare down at me. I kept hoping that the spirit of Abbot John would join us. I thought I could raise him if I needed to, just so I could ask him about those dreams concerning the archangel Michael.

But I was a little afraid that after leaving the mountAbbot John's sanity had also left him, returning him to the days when he twisted the heads off dogs and raped old women in their nursing home beds. Somewhere along the line my dad's own finite rationality had been given up to him, and I dreaded what might happen if I brought it back into the world.

I gestured for Nip to come down off the wall, but he merely gazed at me. He kept lamenting and held both hands out like a child wanting to be picked up.

What's he doing?

Might be nothing. Whining is his whole gig.

Get up there and find out.

Self shot me a glare and said, What the hell am I? A capuchin monkey? I'll fall off and break my ass!

I took him by the neck and lifted him to the stone where the essence of God supposedly still resided. I held him to the rifts in the stone like the Jews holding their written prayers. Self hissed at me. You've got to learn how to handle these aggressive tendencies. I shoved and he started to scale the wall.

His claws left fresh holes in the ancient rock, as if he were purposefully scratching at the face of God. The noise escalated in the square. Everyone could feel the blasphemy occurring even if they couldn't see it, and they talked louder and read faster and sang with a note of hysteria. Rabbis glowered at me, the outsider standing alone before the Wailing Wall, neither kneeling nor weeping nor taking photos. Dust and pebbles scattered down around my feet as Self continued to climb.

When he got to the top he sat beside Nip and put his arm around the masterless familiar. Nip slumped into wild sobbing as Self patted his back. He might mourn Uriel's treachery forever. Without his other half, Nip must have felt as empty and disconcerted as Jebediah felt without Peck in the Crown. Self pressed his face close to Nip's, and I couldn't be sure if they were speaking at all.

A hand reached out of the crowd and touched my shoulder. I spun to my left, ready for an assault from one of