Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“A good answer.” Crews held the coin by the edge. “Did the Jew give you the shekel of Tyre?”

“Now I’m the one surprised,” said Rakkim. “I didn’t know if you’d recognize it.”

“I asked you a question.”

“No…I didn’t get it from Leo. I got it from my grandfather.”

Crews smiled. “And you gave it to me. How thoughtful.” He led Rakkim deeper into the woods, up a steep, twisting trail, in the increasing darkness. Wind trickled through the trees, cold and damp. Most men would have been exhausted by the climb, but Crews wasn’t even breathing hard, seemingly exhilarated by the exertion and their solitude. “So why have you come here, pilgrim?” He flipped the coin, caught it deftly, and held it up for Rakkim to admire. “You and your silver shekel.”

“You’ve heard about the Colonel digging up Thunderhead Mountain?”

“I’ve gotten reports.” Crews scrambled up the slope, all arms and legs, leaping from boulder to boulder. “Verily, it’s written that in the last days the wicked will seek to bury themselves in the earth, to hide from the wrath of God.”

“The Colonel isn’t hiding. He’s looking for something.”

Crews stopped just below the summit of the path, fixed Rakkim with a red glare in the setting sun. “We’re all looking for something, pilgrim.”

“He’s looking for other coins just like the one in your hand.” Rakkim climbed up beside Crews. “He’s looking for the other twenty-nine pieces of silver.”

“Ah, yes, the price for betraying the Prince of Peace, the bounty on God, the blackest of black magic.” Crews lightly stroked the raw edge of the coin, watching Rakkim. “Evidently, the Colonel will believe anything.”

“The Colonel didn’t believe me at first either, even after I showed him the coin, but I guess he made some inquiries…maybe checked with some people from the old days, folks who might have heard tales of what was buried.” He flinched as Crews gripped his shoulder. “The old USA., richest, most powerful nation on earth,” he hurried, “and…and all that time no one ever asked how it happened, what was the source of that power. My grandpa was part of the unit that moved the coins out from under the Washington Monument during the last days, hid them in the mountain for safekeeping-Ahhhh!” He squirmed as Crews dug deeper into his flesh. “My grandpa…he was the ranking officer. He stole one of the coins, said if Judas himself couldn’t resist temptation, how could he?”

“How could any of us, pilgrim?” Crews relaxed his grip.

“My grandpa said the man on the shekel was a Roman emperor.”

“Your grandfather was an ignoramus,” said Crews. “That’s Melqarth on the coin, the Carthaginian god of the underworld, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that.” He smoothed Rakkim’s hair. “Are you sure it’s only the rest of Judas’s thirty pieces of silver down there? What about a sliver of the true cross?” His eyes caught the last of the sunset. “I heard Ben Franklin himself brought a piece of the cross back from France. A sliver of wood with the power to heal the sick and raise the dead, turn water to wine.”

“I don’t know anything about-”

Crews gobbed a wad of spit on Rakkim’s boot. “Pardon me, pilgrim. Must have been the taste of bullshit in my mouth.”

“That’s not-”

“I may command a host of inbreds and psychopaths, but I’m an educated man. I was a university professor once, a tenured professor.” Crews clutched the coin. “Why would you share such a treasure if it really existed? You love me, pilgrim? You have a schoolboy crush on the professor?”

“I’m one man. You’ve got an army.”

“So does the Colonel.”

“The Colonel’s going to sell the treasure,” said Rakkim. “You’d use the thirty pieces of silver the way it was meant to be used.”

“How do you know what I would do with the silver?”

Rakkim raised his right hand, showed the brand from the Church of the Mists. “Because I’d do the same, exact thing.”

Crews looked at his own hand, slowly placed it next to Rakkim’s. The brands were identical, the white scars a perfect match. He started to speak, stopped.

“Yeah,” said Rakkim. “Ain’t that something?”

The wind whipped Crews’s hair, scattered yellow flowers.

“I don’t know how it was for you, but I must have wandered in the smoke for hours, choking on the stink, about to cough up a lung,” said Rakkim, the brand throbbing in the dying light. “I thought for certain I was going to burn up…then God led me through the flames to the door.”

“The door, yes,” Crews said gently. “Were you able to enter, pilgrim?”

Rakkim hesitated, saw something in those wolf eyes. “No…no, I wasn’t.”

Crews relaxed slightly. “Me neither. I beat on that door till my hands were raw, but it wouldn’t budge.” He showed his sharp, tiny teeth. “Saved by the grace of God, but condemned to forever remain on the doorstep, never allowed inside. That’s who we are.”

Rakkim nodded.

“Don’t despair.” Crews fingered the shekel, lost himself in the feel of it. “You can sense the darkness, can’t you? Power and dominion over earthly desires…the pure temptation. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been as interested in a piece of the true cross as I am in this tainted thing. You ask me, Judas got a bad rap.” He jabbed the coin at the sky. “There’s a battle coming, pilgrim, good and evil, heaven and hell, and no mercy at all, not a bit of it. Perhaps once we drown the unrighteous in a sea of blood…perhaps then God will reconsider our exile from Paradise.”

“I don’t give a shit about Paradise.”

Crews laughed.

“The Good Book says God made man in his own image. Look around, Malcolm, and see what we’ve made of the world. Take a good look. What does that tell you about the nature of God?” Rakkim was right in Crews’s face, made him take a step back. “I didn’t bring you the coin so you could buy your way into heaven. You and I are here to tear down the whole shit-house, set it ablaze, and not look back.”

Crews stared at him in the twilight, finally nodded. “Yes…I think you and I have a lot to talk about.” He started up the path. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

Rakkim followed him until they reached the top of the hill. In the distance he saw a small barn made of rough-cut logs and branches. Light leaked through gaps in the walls and roof. A cross was daubed on the door in red paint. The wind was even stronger here, their clothes flapping. He shivered.

“The devil has a thousand names,” said Crews, voice rising, “but the name he takes the most pride in is Prince of Lies, because he is such a convincing fraud. Even God himself was fooled by Satan once, so what hope do we have to tell what’s truth and what’s false?” He ran a fingernail down Rakkim’s cheek. “Fortunately, God gave us a way to know.” He waved toward the ragged church. “Let’s go to meeting, pilgrim.”

“You look beautiful,” said the Colonel, speaking around the lump in his throat.

“Oh, you’re just saying that.” Baby pirouetted, the wedding dress swirling around her in a corona of white lace. “Doesn’t seem right for a girl to only get to wear her wedding dress that one time.”

“You…you can wear it as often as you like. You look more beautiful now than the day I married you, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

She spun faster and faster, laughing now, giddy, the dress lifting higher, exposing her long legs, faster, until she lost her balance. She would have fallen if the Colonel hadn’t caught her. “My hero.” She nuzzled his neck, kissed him, still laughing.