The Judas Line

“Crap,” he muttered, sweat beading his forehead. Hurriedly he emptied the contents of the little black bag into the Grail, which was nestled in the palm of my hand.

Cha-chink. Tiny, innocuous coins, gleaming bright, flooded the bowl. Roughly circular, they had a shining brilliance that drew the eye and their weight was a steady pressure in my hand. It was one of the most beautiful-and most terrible-sights I’d ever seen.

The Silver made me sick to my stomach; a burning bile collected at the back of my throat and my skin crawled. Maybe the Lord had graced me with prescience, I didn’t know, but I knew that if I touched those glittering, malevolent coins, something bad would happen, something biblical.

Rotors cleaved the air outside the Church. The copter would be overhead any second now, I realized.

“Mike, all you have to do is exorcize the coins,” Morgan breathed. “That’s all you have to do, man.” He gently placed his hands on either side of my face. “You can do it, Mike.”

A Ritual of Exorcism on the fly, just like that? “I don’t know the words to exorcize an … an artifact.” Thwap, thwap, thwap … much closer.

Morgan’s breath, slightly sweet, caressed my cheek, his lips only inches away. “My friend, it’s not about words, it’s about faith. Now, duck!” The Beretta appeared in his hand as if by magic, while his other pushed me down behind the altar.

Thwap, thwap, thwap … then deafening reports as Morgan fired several times. A scream of pain. More reports and splinters of altar rained down upon me.

Faith, it’s about faith, I thought, staring at the beige-rimmed bowl with its terrible contents. Faith. Faith. Faith in myself, faith in Morgan, and more importantly, faith in the Lord. But what word could contain such faith? Faith that when our backs are up against it, the Lord will be there lending us strength as we falter, courage when we have none, and peace when our time has come. What words could convey all that? I’d fought demons, seen/felt elementals and trusted in a man who, had things been different, would have been my greatest enemy instead of a man I’d come to think of, not as a lost soul, but as a brother. What choice did I have?

As slivers of wood rained down and bullets tore gaping holes in the cross hanging on the wall above my head, the words came to me-timeless in their simplicity and love. Not an exorcism, but a simple prayer:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name sake.

Another scream of pain split the air along with the sound of hundreds of rounds tearing the pews into matchsticks. There came an agonized groan and I knew Morgan was hurt. I heard someone, a woman, yell, “Give it up, Olivier!”

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

It filled me, the Lord’s grace, a peaceful feeling that transcended everything, and I was filled with the knowledge of what must occur next. As if guided by a will not my own, my free hand hovered over the cup of Christ and settled delicately on the rim.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

The flesh of my palm grew warm, then hot, but there was no pain, just a sense of rightness and distantly, as if from a half-remembered dream, I heard a low-pitched, agonized scream that echoed through the foundations of reality. Light came from the Grail, blazing through my hand as if the tissue was transparent, light that shot up to, and through, the roof, a beam of pure silver that speared the sky.

With the abruptness of a summer squall, it vanished. I removed my hand from the Grail to reveal … dust. Grayish, grainy dust that puffed up at the slightest breath. Silence gripped the church, broken only Morgan’s triumphant shout, “You did it, Mike!”

I would’ve smiled, but at that moment a man dressed in a desert camo, covered in body armor, wearing a black helmet and mask, burst through the door that led to the back of the church, to the baptismal font. A wicked- looking MP-5 SMG, all matte black and deadly as a spider, was clutched in his hands. As if in slow motion he aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger.

Bullets streaked their way toward me, my death assured.

Then a power and fury filled my eyes with glory.

Chapter Nineteen

Morgan

Through the front door I saw zip lines descend to the parking lot, SS commandos dropping like arachnids on silken threads. My feet thudded on the dark green carpet of the nave as I ran toward the door, Beretta raised. My first shot went high, I’m pretty sure over the shoulder of the first commando, but my second shot took him in the throat, tearing out chunks of spine through the back of his neck in a red mist, dropping him like a rag doll.

I flung myself to the left, landing between pews just as bullets stitched the air I had occupied. Close, but all I had to do was stay alive long enough to keep those idiots off Mike’s back so he could do his job. After that I really didn’t give a damn, not anymore, I was just so tired of it all. At least I could make that SS team regret their arrogance and give the Patron a big shitburger to eat.

Bullets took large pieces out of the top of the pews as I rose to my knees, keeping my head down. A silenced SMG, I’d bet. From a crouch I lunged back into the aisle, the Beretta spitting lead though the shattered doorway, miraculously catching another heavily armored commando in the shoulder. A good hit; there are a lot of functioning bits in the shoulder and a bullet will really screw up your century. I completed the roll, landing between more pews directly opposite of where I had been.

“Good shooting, Olivier,” came a soft, female voice from outside, one I knew oh so well.

Shit. Annabeth. Just what I didn’t need. Julian and the Patron knew exactly how to get under my skin. Zero to irritating in two seconds flat.

I knew better than to answer. She wanted me focused on the front door, so I spun, catching sight of a man coming through one of the side doors. Two shots in the groin had him on the ground shrieking and spewing blood.

The first bullet hit my spine, the second my kidney. Two more flung me around to catch the fifth right above the heart. I caught Annabeth’s incredulous look as the flattened, crushed lead nuggets fell to the floor around me. The Beretta spoke again, two rounds into her armored chest. Tit for tat, I suppose.

She should’ve paid more attention to Botanical Magic, although very few do. It doesn’t promise immediate rewards, but it packs a hell of a wallop. The potion I’d drunk earlier not only provided me some much needed strength, but it was the magical equivalent of Kevlar.

Staggering, backing toward the altar, I emptied the Beretta out the door and slammed home a new clip, the pain from the rounds I’d taken a furious spike to my tender flesh. I was sure I would pee blood for a week.

Two more rounds, stomach and chest, each harder as the efficacy of the potion began to wear thin. Snarling, I fell to my knees, sure I was a dead man kneeling.

“Give it up, Olivier!” Annabeth shouted above the roar of the helicopter, keeping herself inconveniently out of sight.

My reply was as inventive as it was profane. “Sorry, God,” I mumbled as I remembered whose house I was in.

Stained glass shattered, coating two bodies as they flew into opposite ends of the church. Soon, I knew, it