A Lower Deep

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 Jebediah's new coven members. I backed away and whispered a Mesopotamian spell, the syllables coming so easily in this land of ruthless and relentless warriors. My ears rang as Nip continued his keening moans. Hassidim pressed around, their bearded faces and muttering voices boxing me in. None of Jebediah's mad children were here, and so far as I could tell, none of the dead had come to attack. My fists began to throb with the need to kill.

At the last moment I saw the cloudy dark eyes and lengthy black hair held back in a shawl. I had to bite down hard to keep from saying the slaying curse already poised on my tongue.

It was the woman from the Chapel of the Nailed. She too had been crying. I could see that the sudden and terribly heightened sensitivity had affected her as well as everyone else in the square. A gold cross around her neck flickered in the sunlight. Hassidim scowled. She grimaced as the din increased, and though she didn't want to get too near me she was forced to so we could hear each other.

My chest tightened. This wasn't an accidental encounter. Coincidence didn't exist anymore.

Even as a Christian she'd undoubtedly visited the TempleMount before, but it was clear she didn't enjoy being in the square, so close to the Western Wall. This was not the place for her to pray. In a city that still had quarters and remained ghettoized, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher belonged to the Christians and the TempleMount to the Jews and the Haram to the Muslims. People died for crossing lines in the sand. It was one of the reasons why these people would never have peace.

She struggled with her decision to speak to me. Slips of paper floated down and brushed her cheek. She kept looking from side to side as if she might break into a run. I felt the same way.

She didn't want to be here, and when she peered up at me from beneath the shawl I knew she was thinking the same thing I was-that our meeting in the chapel hadn't been a fluke. Finally she said, as if still not quite believing, "My father. He told me he knows you."

"I don't know anyone in Israel."

Frustration skewered her features, and I thought she might burst into tears or give me a roundhouse to the jaw. Either was understandable, considering the situation. She looked up, wondering why the papers were falling around us.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

She frowned, thinking about it. "He told me you would be here."

In that moment she was so beautiful that I almost felt happy in a way I hadn't for ten years. I couldn't control myself and watched as I took her shawl in my hand and pulled it from her head. Her rich black hair loosened and slipped over her shoulders. Her eyes widened and so did mine. I couldn't believe I'd done that.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's all right." She took my arm again, squeezed once, and let go, just as she had done in the church. "My father wishes to talk to you. Please come to see him. He needs you."

"Who is your father?"

"His name is Joseph Shiya. I am Bethany. He's-"

I nodded. "Dying."

Her father was on his deathbed, and the summons of the dying held great authority and command. Her entreaty had a potency with repercussions, just as my oath on MountArmon had.

"Yes," she said. "He is."

Again she swept aside her hair in that same gesture that made me think of Danielle. It struck such a resonant chord in me that I felt a painful heat rear in my gut. She stared at me with a puzzled expression.

I looked up and saw that Self and Nip were gone. I scanned the plaza and the Hassidim had turned back to their prayers, the near-frenzy broken.

"It's all right," I told her. "I'll come with you."

"I'm not sure that I want you to."

"I don't blame you."

"He will not even see a priest. I don't know who you are, or why he needs you so desperately."

"I'm not certain either, but your father is dying and he has something to say."

"That's true." Her gaze filled with a swarm of confusion. They were the eyes of my mother. "Please, follow. This way."

We walked through the city, down along David Street to the Christian quarter. A couple of times I spotted Self following at a distance, weaving into alleys and shop doorways. He wasn't quite hiding but he refused to come any closer. Nip was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if this was a new game or ploy of some kind, and I didn't know what to make of it.

Bethany Shiya lived near the Jaffa Gate. The sun was setting by the time we arrived, and my raw skin had started to cool. Shadows lengthened across the wall, scrambling along the stone. I looked at the road heading toward Jaffa, leading on to the Mediterranean, and I thought of the entire world beyond. Bethany took my hand and led me on.

She ushered me up a series of steps and into her home, and I knew who her father was even before I walked into the bedroom to see him sprawled shivering beneath several blankets.

I wasn't alarmed by the pattern these circumstances had taken, but I didn't find any comfort in them either. I had told Jebediah that you could not separate large events from the small, but I found myself trying to tug at this tapestry of misfortune and miracles and hold the detached threads.

On the bed lay the man who had led me from the fire.

The ragged plowed lines of Joseph Shiya's face had deepened and darkened even more. His ashen skin looked like clay that had been pounded by an insane child. He gasped horribly for air, the wet sucking sounds filling his chest.

And yet his resolve, force of will, and beatific nature came through, even now at the hour of his death. Such sanctity made him imposing and dignified even as he dwindled to nothing. Perhaps he truly was the reincarnate of John of Patmos, who kept the Christian faith alive during its harshest years of persecution.

"It's you," he wheezed. "I'd hoped to be dead before my daughter returned with you."

So it was going to be like that.

I took a breath and swallowed down my rising irritation. "She said you asked to see me."

"And so I did."

I sat in a chair beside the bed and waited. Bethany brought me a glass of ice water. I finished it quickly and she took it from me and returned with a glass of wine. She asked if I was hungry and I thanked her but waved her off, listening to the old man's labored breathing. She closed the bedroom door and left me with him.

Death spun its gray mask over Joseph Shiya's features. His fear was palpable but I knew he wasn't scared of dying or afraid of me. This all had something to do with Bethany, and the terror enveloped him like a shroud. His shallow breath clogged in his throat with a heinous rattle.

"It's a miracle you survived the flames."

"Yes," I said.

"There were many who died."

"Yes."

"And not a mark on you."

I'd have thought that a man who wouldn't live through the night might get to the point immediately, but he felt more comfortable avoiding his dread.

"How is it you were there?" I asked. "God is not finished with me yet."

"He never finishes with any of us."

"This is true," Joseph Shiya told me, with some steel entering his voice.

"You sound angry about it."

"Some men's destinies are larger than others," he said. "Their sacrifices greater and much uglier."

"I'm getting a little tired of all you guys telling me about my fate."

He attempted to sit up in bed but couldn't make it. I moved my chair closer and tried to help but he felt so brittle in my arms I thought he'd snap in half. His hand crept out from beneath the blankets and dropped to my leg. "Not only yours. All of us who do our duty. Men like Barrabas, Judas, and Pontius Pilate. Their lives were no less entwined than ours. Tell me, where would Christ's path have led him without these men?"

"To some place with less pain," I said. "And what would the fate of the world have been then?"

I let loose with a weary sigh and let it just keep rolling and rolling out of me. "Did you ever consider that we all would have been a lot happier?"

"No, God surely would have destroyed us by now, but … but-"

Men of duty, woven into the greater scheme of God like so many thin colorful strands. Even a retarded child could play cat's cradle with a piece of yarn. There, I thought, rested the destiny of the planet.

"What did you call me here for?" I asked.

Even before the words were out of my mouth the sickness abruptly skewered through me again. I grunted and nearly fell headlong out of my seat, shaking in spasms. The wineglass tipped over and shattered. There was no lamplight in the room, and now shaggy rips of darkness appeared and widened.

The door opened and Bethany stood waiting there, staring, surprised it had been me who cried out. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

Self appeared behind her, slipping past her whirling skirts as she turned away. He looked feverish, as if he too were fighting the pain. Joseph Shiya seemed to sense my second self's presence and glanced about the room, searching for the approach of death. Self closed in with a buoyant step, but the old man tilted his head, listening.

"'The day of calamity is upon the land,'" Joseph quoted from the book of Revelation. "The sons of light battle the company of darkness amid the clamor of gods and men.

It never ceased to amaze me that the Bible itself, taken as literal truth, makes so many references to there being more than one god.

Pretty catchy lyrics, Self said. Put it together with a backbeat.

Joseph Shiya perked up from his pillows. "Azreal . . . the angel Azreal comes."

"Not yet," I told him. "Why did you call me here?"

"There is evil here, now, with us."

Blow it out your ass, dude.

"It's all right, Joseph."

The old man grew more uneasy and excited until he clutched at my sleeve. "Only you can save her," he hissed at me. "I was wrong, I should not have obeyed my God. It is inhuman, what he asks. My daughter, you must save her."

"From what?" I asked.

"From you."

Sensible guy, I like the way he thinks.

"Joseph, listen to me. I swear I won't hurt her."

Self sat on the edge of the bed, sweating, holding his belly the same way I was. We both rocked a little, swaying, licking our lips. The heat was unbearable and there was no air. Streams of sweat slid down my chest. Self dug his claws into the sheets to hold himself steady, and he slowly ripped them to tatters.

"You must protect her from the evil that comes," Joseph Shiya cried, with tears flowing into the channels of his cross-thatched face. "From my sins. From my fears." He looked me in the eye, and I realized the terror he had was only for God. "I am a poor servant of the Lord."

Better than me! Self said, grinning through his discomfort.

"I have failed the trial of Job, the test of Abraham."

I grabbed hold of the front of the man's bedclothes and shouted, "What did you do?"

"Save her, I beg you. God forgive my unworthy soul. She rides the Dragon!"

A door had been opened in heaven.

Self leaped onto my chest and nuzzled my neck, suddenly yelping and moaning and trying to turn away, but there was nowhere to hide from this. I heard distant trumpets and a vision unfolded of locusts with men's faces carrying out their hideous duties at the apocalypse. I whispered a word but did not know it. I said it again and still, for this moment, it had no shape or meaning. I stumbled out of the room, panting heavily, the agony inside me becoming something else.

And I knew what Joseph Shiya had done. Duty calls for dedication, loss, and forfeit. What the Lord God wills must be carried out by his servants, faithfully and without question. Such devotion had cost Lot his wife, Samson his eyes, Jacob his brother, John the Baptist his head-and Christ his life.

Joseph Shiya once possessed the raw fanaticism of men like Isaac, John of Patmos, and Jebediah DeLancre. He had not failed the tests and trials set before him. Angels would praise his name, and he would be blessed in the Book of Judgment. He'd given all that he had to give, as the Lord commanded.

When his God had asked him to sacrifice his daughter, Joseph turned his back too late.

Bethany was there on her bed, naked and giggling, slithery with the sheen of her own craving and desire.

Damn, she's fine, Self whispered, dropping from my shoulder. His lusts or mine carried him forward. Ribbons of saliva dripped over his fangs.

My mouth had gone dry and I could barely ask, "Who are you?"

"All that you want," she said.

"What is your name?"

"I have none."

The vertigo struck again and I toppled toward the bed, even as Self fell beside me, grimacing and whimpering and chortling. She peeled my clothes from me as my second self rolled at the foot of the bed. Her lips went to my chest and something broke deep inside me and I tried to yell, but all that came out was a groan of pleasure. It had been so long. I held my hands around her throat but I couldn't tighten them. There are dreams you never awaken from. They are as much a part of you now as ever, alive beneath your civilized skin and pretenses at humanity. I laughed, loud and revolting, drawing Bethany to me. Self licked her neck and she purred.

My love and loyalty to Danielle had remained my one pure accomplishment, and now, as I sank into this mad bliss, even that was gone.

Of red bellies and ripped knees, the taste of pale-

I couldn't do anything but exactly what Bethany wanted, except that she was no longer any Bethany. The great whore whom we've all fornicated with consumed her and consumed me. Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and abominations.

The word I had spoken was whore.

Joseph Shiya continued to rant in the other room, muttering and crying. His voice was already full of gravel from the bottom of his own grave. "I can hear them! The seven angels blowing the seven trumpets! He comes, the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. The spirit of God has released the pale horse."

"Shut up!" I shouted.

"There shall be a hail of fire and blood, stars will go out and fall! The locusts shall be set free to torment the faithless, wearing breastplates, with tails like scorpions and faces of men." His death rattle went on and on. "And there, finally, Azreal is hovering in the corner. I die, I die! Forgive me my weaknesses, oh Lord, I beg you, do not forsake me at this hour-"

I fell onto Bethany again and her teeth sank into my shoulder. Self left long bloody welts along her thighs and back and she moaned for more. My new flesh sizzled worse than when I'd roasted in the fire. I could feel the thrust of her laughter against my throat. Self slipped between us, weaving, there and not there as his own desires moved him. I didn't know who was touching her anymore, him or me. He wagged his trembling ass, bursting with need and joy. She struck me and I dropped onto her with my fists and tongue.

Her hair draped across my belly and didn't stop. It continued falling across me and my entire life: drenched, womanly, warm, and soft. The blackness was the very depth of my fears and wants, as she brushed me again. She tossed her hair in that practiced manner reminiscent of my lost love. It was I who had failed the test and willingly entered the tender ambush.

Bethany encompassed us both. "See the smoke of my burning," she said. "Wail for me.

I did.

Lord, I did, as we were all devoured by the endlessly heaving, sweet oblivion.

When I woke in the morning I was already weeping.

It was the day before Easter. Bethany lay on the bed. Her belly was red and her knees had been torn. She was unlike the woman who had bedded me last night because she did not rouse or smile or chew.

Self sat in her viscera and screeched, Don't look at me!

I tried not to.

Instead, I stared at what was left of Bethany, lying unwrapped on the sheets and splayed across the floor.

My name had been carved into her chest, and I was covered in blood.