XVIII.

Holden Cross hit his thousandth crunch, toweled off, showered, then dressed himself in his Low Priest attire. As always, he admired his reflection before heading out of the bathroom.

                

His living room was a mess. One of his Cadre, Lord Baal, lay on the couch, drugged. Another, Gracia Gratis, slept drunk, sprawled on the easy chair, bare legs hanging over the armrests. Littering the floor was all the paraphernalia left over from their activities: bottles (of alcohol and of pills), empty chip bags, jars, bowls, and burning wicks of incense. The Low Priest, though he never partook in their parties (he did not like losing control of his faculties), was pleased with the sight. The disorder in the room, the disorder in his Cadre’s lives, was the antithesis to everything God stood for. He nodded his approval and moved on.

                

He was on his way to the kitchen to prepare himself his usual breakfast of egg whites, avocadoes, blueberries, and kale. The room adjacent was the dining room. In there, one of the others was messing around with the weaponry, loading clips or cleaning or some such thing. Swine Flesh was the name he went by and that was his thing. He was the most eager for their next act of terror, something which the Low Priest appreciated, but had to temper. He knew the Leper would have advised patience, to let the city breath between one event and another. This way, each tragedy would garner maximum effect instead of allow for eventual complacency. “Learned helplessness,” this complacency was called. It was, he learned from the Leper, when a person or group recognized that their torturous circumstances were completely outside their control, and thus, gave up on all hope of rescue. That hope of rescue was necessary, for a person with hope is a person who feels.

                

After his breakfast, he went to the window, sipping some tea, and watched another of the Cadre playing outside with the dogs. The Fool, the group had christened this one. He was a young man of about twenty, of very low intelligence but massive in size. 6’7, thereabouts, and thick as a linebacker. Giggling, he chased the animals from one end of the yard to the other, paying no mind whatsoever to the dirt or feces he trampled on while he ran. Later, the Low Priest knew, the Fool would come in shamefaced, only then realizing how filthy he was, and ask pitifully if he could be allowed to bathe.

                

“First you’ve got to sing us a song,” the Low Priest would say.

                

To which the Fool would reply, “But, but…I hate to!”

                

Which the Low Priest knew. And that’s why he would insist. Torturing an innocent soul, subjugating it to the will of malevolence, this displeased the Maker, and to that cause, the Low Priest had given his life.

                

Two thin, pale arms, decorated with dangling hoop bracelets all along the wrists and various-style rings up and down most of the fingers, suddenly crawled up the Low Priest’s chest, and gripped him tight. At his back, a forehead was laid against him. This was Endor’s Witch, the final member of the Cadre. She wasn’t usually up this early. It was only 7:00 AM. Unless, she hadn’t yet gone to bed.

                

“Can I help you?” asked the Low Priest.

                

“I’m bored…” said Endor’s Witch.

                

“Have you slept?”

                

“No.”

                

“Why don’t you sleep?”

                

“I downed like two Dexies around 3:00 in the morning,” she said, giggling to herself.

                

“Why would you do that?”

                

“I was reading my books.”

                

“Well,” said the Low Priest, peeling her hands from off of him, “I’m not in the mood to entertain you.”

                

She harrumphed. “You haven’t been in the mood for much of anything since the Leper left us.”

                

“She meant a lot to me.”

                

“Don’t I?”

                

“You all do. But she was my first.”

                

He turned around to look directly at her. She wore her usual tight black t-shirt, with the pentagram emblem, her frilly, faded tutu, her long, black stockings and gothcore boots. Immediately, when he faced her, her eyes darted downward to her boots, her stare rooting itself there. This was how most of the Cadre reacted to him. They couldn’t bare the glory of his glare.

                

The Low Priest wouldn’t allow it. Gripping her by the chin, he forced her face up, forced her to gaze deep into the blacks of his eyes. Then, in an even tone, he said to her, “When John the Baptist was beheaded at the request of the queen’s daughter, Jesus went off by himself to mourn. I ask you: if Jesus, the Maker made Man, was allowed to mourn, shouldn’t I be allowed as well?”

                

“Yeah…” Endor’s Witch said, stammering, “Yeah…of course.”

                

“Of course,” agreed the Low Priest. “Now, if you’re bored, go find something to amuse you. This home is full of pleasures. I’m sure one or another will satisfy you.”

                

She nodded compliantly and left him. Wistfully, the Low Priest recalled when he’d acquired the girl. All alone at a bus stop. She’d been released from police care after another episode with her father. The Leper was informed of this through one of her contacts at the station. The Low Priest and the Leper, just like a parental couple, had packed into a station wagon and gone to find her. It’d been raining. They offered her a ride, then faked shock when she told them her story. They offered her a home to stay in and she accepted. Now, here she was, a year later, wholly corrupt.

                

If torturing the innocent displeased the Maker, corrupting them, well, that drove Him up the wall.

                

The Low Priest finished his tea and smacked his lips, satisfied. He took the cup to the sink to wash it. This he did thoroughly, passing his thumb along the cup’s interior, scraping it across every inch. He raised the cup to eyelevel and inspected it to make sure it was spotless. Then, he smashed the cup against the wall, just because he could. His dad’s money, given to him by the believers at his church, was a long way from being spent. The Low Priest could afford many more cups.

                 

He went outside, then, through the front door. He liked taking this time in the morning to walk the block and think. His neighbor, a pretty mother of four, greeted him as he passed her front yard. He smiled back and waved as he did every day. It was important to be polite, after all. His father had taught him this while young, and led the way by example. Even now, the Low Priest could recall his dad, smiling at strangers, shaking hands, saying his pleases and his thank yous and his “God bless you, madams.” In return, everyone loved his father. Held him in the highest esteem. Revered him even.

Especially his father’s son.

It’s why the man’s death had come as such a blow to Holden. He’d been only eleven at the time. Years before, his father contracted tongue cancer, ironic considering his profession. Confident God would rescue him from it, he’d tell Holden every day, just before their bedtime prayers, that he had to have faith. Holden did. Anything his father said, he believed. And if his father said God would cure him, then, in Holden’s young mind, that’s what was destined to pass. Only, it didn’t. In the end, his father, by then a thinned out husk of the man he once was, died suffering in a hospital bed.

Forever ingrained in Holden’s brain was the anger he felt on that day. He went running out of the hospital, his mother calling behind him. On the street, he found himself huffing, searing, seeing everything around him with hate. An adult, meaning to pass by him, stumbled and bumped into him. Holden attacked the man, leaping at him the way a ferocious dog would. He clawed at the man, bit into him, screamed at him all the curses Holden’s father never allowed in their home. His mother, who’d followed behind him but arrived too late to prevent all this, had to struggle to pull her young son off the man. Like a cat with its claws caught in cloth, Holden refused to be ripped away. She managed, eventually, but not before Holden left the man with some noticeable wounds.

“I’m so sorry! His father just passed,” his mother said to the man, trying to keep Holden in her grip.

The man, wiping blood from his face and neck, nodded understanding and graciously forgave. Thanking the man, Holden’s mother led her son away, the expression on her face a picture of what their relationship was to be like from then on. One of exasperation tinged with fear.

Her and Holden had never really gotten along. She’d been brought up in a family of high standing, German theologians, and, though she possessed a temper that matched that of her son’s, she was taught as a child, via intense shaming, to restrain it. As Holden grew and manifested his temper, she thought it right to employ like measures. It didn’t work quite as well as on her. Holden’s temper manifested itself with more physicality than hers had and often resulted in the two of them tussling. Fortunately for the two of them, Holden’s father, who was temperamentally gifted with infinite patience, served as the perfect buffer between them. Intervening, he’d act as a sort of advocate for Holden, seeing things from the boy’s perspective, offering the boy some lenience. Due to her religious commitment, Holden’s mother would always submit to her husband’s will on these occasions, and, shortly thereafter, the house would return to a state of calm.

But after the father’s passing, things between them became impossible. Even at the funeral, the two made a scene.

It was in the midst of the eulogy delivered by the first elder from their church.

“...The Minister, as we well know, was a towering figure. A man of upstanding character, of compassion, of kindness, of love. Like our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he admired so deeply, he was no respecter of persons. The poor, the rich, the homeless, and the ruling class alike, all received equal affection from the Minister. Every man and woman here can attest, if you knew him, your life was better for it. His passing leaves us with gap, a hole in our hearts unlikely to be filled.

“Many of us have dared to wonder: why? Why did our great and gracious Father deem it time to take him? Did not this servant deserve more years, did not this Earth deserve more moments basking in his light?

“In answer to this I turn to the Scriptures. I retell the tale of the Israelite king, Hezekiah, whose premature death was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. Begging, he requested of God that more years be added unto his life. In His mercy, because Hezekiah was a good man and a good ruler, God granted the king’s request. Upon hearing the news, Hezekiah praised the Lord! So joyous was he that he penned a psalm to his Creator expressing his thanks! But then, brothers and sisters, I ask of you, what did he do with his borrowed time? Caved into his ego, is what he did. When envoys from the great empire of Babylon came to inspect his kingdom, he did not hesitate to peacock all his riches, all his treasures. Riches and treasures gifted to him by God, just as his extra years had been. And as a result, a curse fell on the land. Once more, the prophet Isaiah came to see the king. ‘What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?’ asked the prophet. ‘They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon,’ replied the king. ‘What have they seen in your house?’ asked the prophet. ‘They have seen all that is in my house,’ replied the king. To which the prophet said, ‘Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: behold the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers stored up till this day, shall be carried off to Babylon.’

“It was God’s foreknowledge that caused Him to strike Hezekiah with the initial disease. He knew of Hezekiah’s weakness, knew that, should he live on, he would perform this wickedness. And yet, God’s sympathy got the better of Him. And all Israel paid for His sympathy. Gracious then is He today in taking our great Minister when He did, before the Minister, in like fashion, could fall into some temptation of his own.”

Whispered “yes’s” came from the crowd. Heads nodded in agreement. All were grateful to God for His foresight. The First Elder took in a breath, intending to go on. Only, before he could, an interruption came.

Holden, who’d, more than any, been asking the “why?” question, stood, his finger extended accusingly at the speaker, and said, “No!”

Murmurs swept through the crowd like a contagion. At his side, Holden’s mother gripped him by the wrist, tried to sit him down. He shook her off.

“No!” he repeated. “No! No! No!”

“What are you doing?” his mother asked him, her face stern.

“That explanation is nothing but crap!”

An audible hush fell on the church. From the stage, the First Elder, wiping his brow, said, “Little Holden, I understand your anguish. The Lord understands your anguish. But even so, we do not use words like that in here. This is sacred ground.”

“If this ground is sacred, then why are you standing there so comfortably telling lies?”

Holden’s mother now stood beside him. “Young man, you take that back!”

“I will not take it back! Nothing he said made a damned bit of sense. If God knew Hezekiah would sin, then why give in and grant him more years? And if He didn’t, then why promise to take his life in the first place, when He had the power to keep him alive all the time?”

“Those are matters for theologians to discuss, son,” said the First Elder.

“Yes. Now sit down and have respect!” said Holden’s mother.

“Respect? Respect for what?” Holden shouted. “This stupid speech? These empty answers? A God who goes missing when good men like father need Him and who goes silent when we ask Him why?”

“That is enough, Holden!” his mother said, her voice raising, louder now than her son’s.

Matching her tone, he shouted, “No! It’s me that’s had enough! Enough of God’s lies and cruelties! I won’t sit here another second listening, while my father lies up there dead, to all of you praising his Murderer!”

An open palm struck Holden across his face. Looking to its source, he saw what could only be described as the glaring eyes of a demon witch. His mother’s face had gone completely red. Veins had crawled up the whites of her eyes, chaotic as a primordial storm. Something in her neck, thick and blue, pulsed hideously, like the beating of the telltale heart. Her lips, which she’d pursed so tight they’d gone almost white, came open only barely as she said, “You are Belial, the Devil himself.”

For a moment, he held his cheek, more stunned than hurt. Never had his father hit him. Nor had his father allowed his mother to hit him. Holden had no frame of reference, no past experience to call upon, to help him process what had just happened to him. So, he reacted viscerally, the way an animal would.

He hit his mother back. Fist balled, he rammed his hand into her belly. The placement of his blow was intentional. “Belial,” she’d called him, “the Devil himself.” Well, if he was Belial, if he was the devil, evil was the womb that spawned him. It deserved wraith and wraith was what it received.

Those sitting to Holden’s side immediately jumped up to grab Holden by the arms, restraining him. Holden fought to hit his mother again.

She, meanwhile, went to her knees, gasping for air. He’d gotten in a good shot.

“Are you OK?” a friend of hers to her side asked.

Shaking her head, mascara tears blackening her cheeks, she shook her head and said, “No.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the friend.

“Get that devil child away from me!” she said between breaths.

They did. Holden was dragged away from his father’s funeral and deposited outside. There, older men from his father’s congregation tried to calm him. They couldn’t. Thrashing like some creature in the throes of death, Holden refused. It was only after he’d worn himself out that he finally, after nearly thirty minutes, went limp in their arms.

His temper persisted like this for several years afterward. It was not helped by his mother’s insistence on referring to him from then on as Belial. Not always, of course. Only when she felt the need to shame him for having done something she perceived as ‘the devil’s work.’ It never failed to set him off. Soon enough, the two of them would be at each other’s throats, sometimes literally.

But time brought with it maturity. Eventually, Holden learned to keep himself calm. And her pet name for him? He adopted it. What was once a source of fury became to him a badge of pride. He’d be caught reading some perverse material, or with some girl in his room, or any other number of shameful things, and just as she’d go to open her mouth, he’d ask her with a sparkling smile, “What more could you expect of your little Belial?”

This turn of events had a disastrous effect on his mother’s psyche. Up to then, she’d had some form of power over him, even if it was a rather meager power, that of upsetting him. Now, she had nothing. He was, in all ways, free from her control. She grew scared. What was she to do with him? How was she to manage him? Guilt and shame had no effect. He was, by then, eight inches taller than her and eighty pounds heavier. He could, quite easily, do something terrible to her and there’d be no way she could stop him.

She took to cowering in her own home, hiding from her son. He exalted in this. At times, he’d go looking for her while doing something wrong, hoping she would say something. At first, she couldn’t help herself. That temper still lived and breathed in her. But then he’d stare at her, his eyes cold and intense, daring her to do something. Most of the time, she wouldn’t. She’d shut her door and tell him to do his dirty business away from her. Every now and then, though, she’d scream at him and slap him, just as she had at his father’s funeral. He’d smile at her when she did. Smile wide to let her know that he, Belial, was the one now in command.

She bought a gun. It was not something she would have ever imagined herself doing. She was a Christian woman, after all. But she didn’t know what else to do. She needed to defend herself from her son. One day, she even drew it on him.

He came to her door that day, knocking.

“What is it?” she said sitting up in her bed. It was late, and she’d been sleeping.

From beyond the door he said, “I want to do something with you, mother.”

“Do something with me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Nothing good, I imagine!” She pressed the sheets to her chest as though she were clutching pearls.

“No, mother, nothing good. After all, I’m your little Belial.”

“Go away!” she screamed.

“I won’t, mother.”

She released her sheets, remembering the gun. It was beneath her pillow where she could reach it in a moment’s notice. Slipping her hand there, she gripped the butt.

“At school, they’ve had us reading Hamlet. Turns out, mother, Shakespeare was a sick man like me. There are sins spoken of in that script that even the pagans turn their noses up at. One of those sins, and it is a horrible sin, I wish to commit. But…I can only commit it…with you.”

Holden said this, then kicked open her door.

The woman screamed, startled at the sudden noise, at the explosion of wood sent raining into her room, at the sight of her son standing in his briefs at her doorway, lewdly smiling.

“You know which sin I speak of, don’t you, mother?”

At this, the mother branded the gun. It quaked in her hand. But quaking or not, it was pointed straight at Holden.

His reaction gave her a satisfaction she hadn’t felt in years. His eyes went wide and scared and not a moment later, he went running off to his room and slammed closed the door.

From then on, she carried the gun with her everywhere she went. It was her only means of getting him to leave her be and commit his sins away from her. Holden, of course, did not appreciate this new state of affairs between them. When she wasn’t home, he’d go searching for the gun, trying to rid her of it. He never found it away from her. Eventually, he started feeling that old temper of his threatening to consume him again. He did not like this at all. He thought that was in his past, that he’d grown past it. Not at all. Rather, it had gone dormant while he had power. A power he had no longer.

Obviously, things between mother and son were destined to come to a head.

But, the Low Priest didn’t like thinking about that. He was beyond his mother now. Their power struggle was nothing more than an unpleasant part of his past. He had more important matters to consider and, while sitting down on a park bench, he turned his attention to them.

The time for the Cadre’s next attack was approaching. There was no doubt about it. People in the city, Holden could see, were recovering. That palpable sense of tension was starting to fade. Men, women, children, they were all returning to their interests. The churches, for weeks, had been full. Now, their numbers were dwindling back down to normal. The telltale sign of a society passed a tragedy.

But what should be the target?

The Leper had accused him of being incapable of imagination. He didn’t think it a fair accusation. After all, he’d spent his teen years dreaming up ways to torment his mother. He’d come up with his identity as the Low Priest as well as the new identities of his Cadre. There was nothing at all wrong with his imagination. Just because she’d been right about the library as a target didn’t mean she was right about that.

To prove it to himself, he applied his imagination to the problem. Cycling through his former choices, the courthouse, the mayor’s home, he rejected them quickly. Making a disappointed face, he said to himself: these are no good, just as the Leper said. But then, after only a few more moments’ thought, it came to him. The idea that it hadn’t come sooner was almost offensive to him, it was so obvious. Why, he’d only just, minutes ago, been thinking of such places. It was the perfect symbol, the perfect amalgamation of all his ends.

He’d let loose Swine Flesh on a church.