Unholy Night

I

Herod reclined with his eyes closed, enjoying the gentle swaying motion of his traveling chair. A baby being rocked to sleep. He was on his way to his summer palace, a favorite retreat on the shores of the Mediterranean, where the onshore breezes carried the cooling mist of crashing waves, and the songs of seabirds calmed any nerves that might have been frayed in the lion’s den of Jerusalem. And though he couldn’t hear the waves beating against coastal rocks just yet, Herod knew they were getting close, for he could already smell the salt in the air. He breathed deeply of it. Savored it. It was, perhaps, the sweetest thing he’d ever smelled.

All was right with the world.

Somewhere, on the other side of his chair’s wine-colored curtains, the prisoner was being dragged across the desert, naked. Humiliated and bloodied. He was being urinated on by Roman soldiers as his body scraped over grains of sand and patches of dry grass. He was being pelted with rocks and insults alike. Soon, he would be submitted to the most unimaginable suffering the empire could conjure, before being exiled to the wasteland of death. The “Antioch Ghost” would be just that. And this was good. Without their protector, the remaining fugitives would soon be captured. And this was also good. But it wasn’t nearly as good as what was going on inside Herod’s traveling chair. Inside, something extraordinary was happening.

A miracle. That’s the only way to describe it.

For the first time in years, Herod the Great was getting… better. He could feel it happening by the minute, mile by mile. The oozing lesions of his skin — those old familiar bloody scabs and pus-filled nodules — were receding with unnatural speed, and his skin had begun to trade its sickly pallor for a healthy olive hue. His hearing was clearer, his muscles stronger, his hair already a shade darker, his teeth a shade whiter, and his mind a notch sharper. His eyes, clouded over for so long, were suddenly as clear and wet as the day he’d taken the throne.

I was blind, but now I see.

It was a miracle. But not a miracle of any god. This was the magic of man, freeing him from the false imprisonment of nature. It was more than a miracle; it was a confirmation of everything Herod believed. Confirmation that the time of the old myths and old gods was at an end. That the New World was a place where miracles would be performed by men.

A world in which there was no more need for gods.

Back in the Roman camp, Herod had approached the magus with a simple proposition. One that had popped into his head, as if in a dream.

His decision to involve Rome in his domestic troubles had turned disastrous. But there was an opportunity in every crisis, and once again, Herod’s mind had revealed the silver lining in the clouds around him. He’d been careful to make this proposition away from the eager ears of Pontius Pilate — for Herod knew that the faithful Roman imperator wouldn’t like what he had to say.

Unaccompanied by his usual cadre of courtesans and guards, Herod had let himself into the magus’s large, lush tent. There, he’d found the dark priest alone in his sleeping gown, sitting with his back facing the tent flap, lit by the glow of oil lamps and engaged in the rather unmagical act of stuffing his face with cooked lamb.

“Augustus doesn’t appreciate you,” Herod began.

The magus stopped in midbite. He dabbed his mouth and turned toward Herod, slowly. Yes… be sure and turn slowly, for I’ve caught you being human, and you need to reassert that mystique.

“Don’t take it personally,” said Herod when the magus had completed his slow, mystical turn. “He doesn’t appreciate me, either.”

He stepped all the way inside and let the flap close behind him.

“I’m not saying I blame him. Let’s be clear about that. It’s not an easy thing for a powerful man to put his faith in others. Even I can be too self-reliant at times, too stubborn. It’s part of being a leader of men. But the Romans… the Romans have a particular gift for believing themselves superior to all men. Look at their myths. Even their gods can’t help falling in love and bedding down with them. It’s obnoxious.”

He stepped closer, hoping to better gauge the magus’s expression through his cloudy eyes. But there was no expression to gauge. The magus remained statuesque and cautious.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Herod.

The magus gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.

“Then you know how much I have to lose by saying what I’m saying.”

The magus studied him a moment or two, and then gave another, even smaller nod. Herod smiled and helped himself to a seat, taking extra care to steady himself this time. No signs of weakness… not now.

He knew how to speak to these mystics. On the outside, they wore their piety like a crown, eschewed the trivial pleasures of earthly life and cultivated an air of mystery around themselves. Take the magus. He didn’t speak — not for some ailment or want of a tongue, but for the aura it created around him. Yes, there was all that nonsense about ancient vows of silence and keeping one’s voice pure for spells and so on. But really, being a mystic was no different than being a king: The more powerful people believed you were, the more powerful you were. And this little gimmick worked, because most men were weak-minded. Most men were sheep.

But not Herod.

Yes, the magus knew a few tricks. Yes, it seemed that he could bend the rules of nature to his will. And there was value in that. But in the end, he was a man — and men were men. They had the same weaknesses and desires, whether they wore the robes of kings, peasants, or priests.

“You and I,” said Herod. “We’re men the world no longer needs.”

He waited for a reaction. A raised eyebrow, a squint of puzzlement. Anything. But the magus gave him nothing.

“The world doesn’t care about magic anymore,” he continued. “It doesn’t care about priests or withered old kings and their little kingdoms. All it cares about is Rome and its emperor. The world exists to serve him. We exist to serve him. And so long as we do, whatever power we have belongs to him.”

There was no going back now. This was treasonous territory.

“Alone,” Herod continued, “the two of us, we’re… nothing. Me, a king who’s lived through two Caesars, who’s ruled my little kingdom with Rome’s permission. You, a conjurer who’s been kept locked away like a suit of armor. Trotted out only when Augustus needs protection from his enemies. But neither of us were ever allowed to test the limits of our powers, and certainly never allowed to use them for our own benefit. No, such a thing would be a threat to the emperor’s own power. Alone, a king and a conjurer are nothing compared to Rome. But together… ”

Here it comes… make him see it. Make him understand how glorious it could be.

“My kingdom? Your talents? Together, we could build something glorious. A force that could challenge Rome. Perhaps even become the new empire of the East. An empire ruled by two kings — you and I, side by side. Augustus might not appreciate you, but I do. He fears your power; I welcome it.”

He went on, flattering the magus’s mastery of the elements, promising him the things that all men wanted: power, wealth, sex. And above all, recognition. A chance to step out from the emperor’s shadow, from behind the veils of secrecy and piety. When he sensed the magus was thoroughly enticed — which was only a guess, really, for he gave no outward sign of enticement — Herod went for the close:

“Everything I have is yours, if you’ll take it. My crown, my army, my fortune, my palaces, and all the treasure and women in them.

“Rule with me. Rule with me, and we can both free ourselves from servitude. We can build something that will echo through the ages.”

The magus took this all in for what seemed an age. Then, his mind made up, he turned back to his dinner without so much as a shake of his head. For a moment, Herod felt it all slip away.

I’ve overreached…

Now, not only would Herod be denied what he’d come for, but he would also be branded a traitor to the emperor and exiled to the wasteland of death. Thankfully, it wasn’t cold lamb that the magus had turned back for — it was parchment. Herod watched anxiously as he scribbled something down, turned back, and passed the sheet to him.

And for you?

“All I desire is your partnership,” said Herod.

The magus pointed to each of the three words again, emphasizing each one with a tap of his finger on the parchment.

And. For. You?

Herod smiled. He liked this little priest. No bullshit; no games. Herod took a moment before he gave his real answer. He almost couldn’t bring himself to say it. They were only two little words, but there was so much attached to them. So much… hope. The wine of the weak. What if the magus was unable to do what he asked? What if he simply said no? Then the last of Herod’s options would be exhausted, and his vision would have failed him.

“My health,” he said at last. “In return, I ask for my health — that is, if you’re powerful enough to give it back to me.”

Now it was the magus’s turn to smile, for he’d known, of course. He’d known since the minute the puppet king of Judea had begun his pitch. He rose to his modest height, fixed his gown, closed his eyes, and muttered an incantation under his breath. A chain of indecipherable words in some long-dead language.

A moment later, Herod was hit with strange, invisible energy, a rush of warm air from a nearby fire that wasn’t there. It moved through him, circulating through his body along with the diseased blood that coursed in his veins. When the warmth reached his head, he was overcome by dizziness. A brief bit of nausea.

When it passed, he was born again.

Herod examined the backs of his hands, and though he couldn’t see any immediate change to their twisted shape or scabbed surfaces, something told him he would. Something told him he’d been cured. He felt his eyes well up with tears. It was all too much, too quickly. And despite whatever duplicitous schemes he’d brought into the magus’s tent, he couldn’t help but be truly touched at a moment like this.

“There are no accidents in this life,” he said as a tear escaped bondage and streaked down his wretched face. “The Fates have brought us together, you and I. And great things will come of it.”

The magus offered Herod the slightest hint of a smile in return.…

Herod was feeling much better indeed. Something like his old self. And so long as he had the magus by his side, he would only get better. Stronger. Who could say? Perhaps he needn’t hand over power to his son as soon as he’d thought. Perhaps he never needed to hand over power at all. If he kept getting better — if this warm, strange feeling continued to trickle through his veins — then who was to say how long he would live? How much more he could build?

One thing was certain: He wasn’t Caesar’s puppet anymore. Augustus would have to deal with him now. Respect him. Perhaps even fear him. And while the Judean Army was no match for Caesar’s, the Romans wouldn’t dare invade. Not as long as Herod had the magus by his side. And not as long as he played his Jewish subjects right.

They hate Augustus as much as I do. I’ll whip them into a frenzy of independence. I’ll call it “a revolt against Rome,” and they’ll eat it up.

These visions twirled around him, dancing and spinning beautifully. It was funny how so many years of misery and doubt could be completely washed away in the blink of an eye. Herod had resigned himself to wretchedness. Secretly, he’d hoped, of course. But hope was the wine of the weak, and he’d been ashamed to drink even the occasional sip. Yet here was his health — returned more spectacularly than he could have dreamed. He looked down at his hands. Felt his cheeks. The only thing Herod craved more than the sight of his own reflected face was the sight of this “Balthazar” dying in the most terrible way imaginable: his fingernails torn away one by one, his genitals cut off and burned in front of him, every one of his appendages shattered at the end of a club, and his skin cut into strips and peeled away from the muscle beneath it.

A new sound greeted Herod’s ears as the smell of the salt air grew stronger. It wasn’t the crashing of ocean waves — not yet. But it was wet. It’s beginning to rain outside. He peeled back the curtains of his traveling chair for confirmation and saw the first fat droplets falling from the gray sky to collide with the desert’s dusty floor. It was a rare but welcome sight in the south of Judea.

The world was alive again. Rain was a blessing. And another sign that God was powerless to stop him.

II

The words “summer palace” conjured quaint visions of a little villa by the shore. But all told, Herod’s seaside compound was nearly twice the size of his twin palace in Jerusalem, though this one was contained under one roof, not two. It was one of Herod’s newer projects, built with all the amenities the modern world could offer: chamber pots, glass windows, heated baths. It also contained a large silver mirror in the king’s bedchamber. Of all the amenities, this was the one Herod was most looking forward to using.

The palace rose from the rocky shores of the Mediterranean, a towering mass of beige bricks, with some walls reaching a height of 200 feet. Architecturally, it was a simple affair — an enormous central cube made of limestone, surrounded by a handful of smaller brick outbuildings. “A big, boring block on the beach” as Herod called it. There were no walls around its perimeter. No guard towers. The sea provided a natural barrier on one side and the flat, endless desert on the other three. There were virtually no locals to keep out. Just the Egyptians to the south, the sea to the west, and a few wandering Bedouins to the north and east. The sentries posted atop the palace’s roof would see any man, let alone an army or navy, coming miles off.

A marble terrace ran along the base of the cube’s seaside wall, where, in his healthier days, Herod had taken to sunning himself with select members of his harem. A wide marble staircase descended gracefully from this terrace all the way to the sea, where it met with a long wooden dock. Its planks were the first things to greet Herod and his guests when they arrived by boat from the north. Today, however, they were crowded with Roman warships, bobbing on the sizable waves that had been kicked up by the growing storm.

The Roman Navy had sailed south down Judea’s coast to join up with its army. The fleet was led by a legendary admiral named Lucius Arruntius, who’d been instrumental in helping his friend Augustus win sole dominion over the empire. The emperor had dispatched his most trusted admiral to keep watch over his prized magus and his promising, but untested, young officer, Pontius Pilate.

As Balthazar was pulled toward the distant palace, his wrists bound with rope, he could make out the tops of several ships bobbing up and down, their naked masts swaying like reeds in the breeze. The rain was coming harder now — each droplet providing welcome relief from the scrapes and barbs that marked his flesh. On reaching the palace grounds, he was dragged unceremoniously away from the main procession and through a small side entrance. And what had been a gray, rainy sky was suddenly an inky black passage whose darkness was permeated only by the flickering light of torches on the wall. He was in a dungeon. Never to see the sky again.

He was brought to the center of a large, dark cell, rainwater seeping through tiny cracks in the ceiling and falling to the stone floor in drops that echoed against the smooth walls of the dungeon. A rope was tied around each of his wrists and both ropes tied to a large wooden beam that ran from wall to wall above his head. When these ropes were pulled taut, Balthazar was forced to hang by his wrists, his toes dangling less than an inch above the floor. His ankles were bound together and a cloth tied around his waist — the sole concession to his modesty.

Or more likely, theirs.

In contrast to the cool droplets falling from the sky outside, the dungeon was hot. Unbearably hot. A fire raged in a brick oven that was built into one of the cell’s walls. Various metal instruments had already been lined up in its flames, each on its way to glowing red-hot. Balthazar supposed they were metal pokers, brands and the like, though he couldn’t tell, as only the wooden handles were visible from where he hung.

Whatever they are, I’m not going to like them at all. Not one bit.

Nor would he like any of the sharp instruments that had been neatly laid out on a small table against the wall, not far from the glow of the oven. He couldn’t see exactly what these were, either, but the setting reminded him of a physician’s table — with scalpels and clamps and scissors all lying neatly in a row, meticulously sharpened and ready for action. A bowl of water and a cloth had been placed beside them.

“What is it the fishermen say?” asked a familiar, gravelly voice.

The cell door swung open, and the guards made way as Herod entered.

“‘The harder the fight, the sweeter the catch’?”

Herod was followed closely by a strange little man in black robes. Balthazar hated the little man at once, mostly because he suspected that he was about to use those sharp instruments to do terrible things to him. But also — and there was no way to be sure of this — because he suspected that the little man had played a role in making those corpses rise from their tombs and attack him.

The magus dipped his hands in the bowl and washed them before taking stock of the various instruments on the table before him. He made sure Balthazar had a clear view of it all, fully aware that anticipation was the most painful part of any torture. He examined the small knives and other instruments, so sharp that you could almost hear them sing. A chair was brought in for Herod, who took his seat a few feet away from the condemned. A small table was hurriedly placed beside this chair, and an assortment of orange slices and dates arranged on it. He was close enough to see every drop of blood but far enough away to avoid getting any on him. The old king reminded Balthazar of a spectator at a chariot race.

“Whatever you do to me,” said Balthazar, “it won’t get you any closer to them.”

“And what would I hope to get from you?” asked Herod. “The knowledge that your friends are headed to Egypt? Of course they are. They’re running for their lives as we speak, because they believe they’ll be safe once they cross the border. But they’re mistaken, you see. Egypt may be the end of my domain, but our Roman friends have dominion over the world.”

Balthazar could only glare back at him, fantasizing about getting his hands around that decaying little windpipe.

“I’m not interested in what you know,” said Herod. “I’m interested in watching you scream.”

“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”

“We’ll see,” said Herod with a smile. He could see the beads of sweat running down Balthazar’s face. The trembling in his fingers. Maybe it was exhaustion, but Herod thought it more likely that the mighty Antioch Ghost was quietly terrified.

“You look frightened already,” said Herod.

“And you look like a diseased dog, with Rome’s leash around its neck.”

Over by the door, Pilate struggled to suppress a laugh. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Herod glared back at Balthazar for a moment, then laughed. If he’d heard such a thing yesterday, he might’ve let it anger him. Even wound him. But that was before everything had changed. Before his body and his future had been pulled out of the ashes. Today, he saw Balthazar’s words for what they were: the desperate swings of a dying man.

The magus chose his instrument — a scalpel — and came forward. Balthazar prepared himself for what was coming. There was a place inside. A place to which he could retreat. A place where Abdi was waiting for him. Where his mother and sisters were waiting to welcome him. And Sela. She was there, all golden and forever. Wildly welcoming and naked beneath the surface of the Orontes.

Pilate remained close to the door. He wasn’t much for torture and wanted to be near the exit in case he began to feel sick. In his experience, the practice only succeeded in extracting lies. It was for the pleasure of the torturer more than pain of the tortured.

“Take your time,” said Herod as the magus stepped close to Balthazar, his blade glistening in the torchlight.

There was no need to be hasty. The public already thought the Antioch Ghost was dead. With no risk of provoking sympathy for their prisoner, they were free to be as cruel and as meticulous as they pleased.

The magus began his work, taking the knife to Balthazar’s side. He’d decided to start by stripping away the victim’s flesh, a little at a time. Later, they would move on to other, less surgical methods of inflicting pain. He liked to begin with the flanks — the strips of flesh that ran from the bottom of the armpits to the waist. They were rich with nerves. Excruciating when sliced open and peeled away. But removing them wasn’t fatal. Others preferred to start with the face and work their way down. And while removing the face was painful and shocking, it was too often deadly.

Prolonging death was akin to prolonging an orgasm. The closer you could bring the victim to the finish line without crossing it, the better it was. The trick was to take it slow. To give the victim time to recover from the shock, to keep him conscious and keep enough blood in his body to keep it alive for days on end. That was the trick. That was good torture.

Balthazar closed his eyes and pictured the boats slowly floating by. He sat with Abdi on his lap beneath their favorite tree. The one with the scar down its side. Just like your brother’s about to ha —

Stop.

That wasn’t helping. Think of something else, Balthazar. Think of something else, quick. Get your mind out of this room. Get it away from the pain. He flipped through a series of images, of words, of memories, of anything, looking for the one that was strong enough to wrap his arms around. Strong enough to keep him safely anchored when the pain came calling, trying to pull him back into the now. Trying to make him scream.

Balthazar looked up, past the rope that bound his wrists, past the wooden beam that held his body aloft. He looked up past the droplets of rainwater growing fat on the ceiling above and past the ceiling itself. Balthazar looked past the top of the palace and the top of the sky and the heavens alike, and he saw the thing he could cling to. The thing that was strong enough to keep him in its arms.

The Man With Wings.

He looked down again as the magus held the blade close to his skin, teasing him with the anticipation of pain. Staring at him with those black eyes. Balthazar stared right back. He was determined to remain perfectly silent. Determined not to squirm, no matter what happened. The magus pressed the scalpel to the skin just beneath Balthazar’s left armpit. With barely any pressure at all, the razor-sharp blade sank in, and then he began to drag it in a slow, straight line toward Balthazar’s hip. The incision was so fine that at first it didn’t bleed. Like a paper cut, it just hung there, breathing a moment, before the blood formed in beautiful dark beads that trickled down his body. And as they began to fall, Balthazar held firm, his arms wrapped tightly around the Man With Wings.

He remained silent and still even as the magus’s blade returned to the top of its path and made a second incision parallel to the first, then connected the two sides with small cuts across the top and bottom. Balthazar didn’t utter so much as a grunt, though his teeth were grinding themselves into powder inside his sealed mouth. He didn’t squirm. And as he opened his eyes, Balthazar was rewarded for his steadfastness with Herod’s scowl. Clearly, the king was disappointed with his prisoner’s performance so far. The Man With Wings — Abdi — had Balthazar firmly in his grasp.

And then the magus pinched the top of the long rectangle of flesh and began to peel it downward, away from Balthazar’s body. And Balthazar was peeled from Abdi’s arms with it.

He screamed.

He screamed as the flank was torn away, starting under his armpit and down toward his hip. He screamed as nerves and capillaries were severed, as skin and fat were uprooted, leaving only bare and bloody muscle beneath. It was quite enough for Pilate, who quietly excused himself from the chamber and into the hall. He couldn’t help but feel something for the poor wretch.

III

Ripped away, she thought.

Sela hid on a cliff just north of the palace, the waves of the Mediterranean crashing only feet from where she crouched behind the jagged rocks. Behind her, Joseph and Mary huddled close together, combining their robes to make an impromptu tent over the baby, though it wasn’t enough to keep all of the rainwater off of him. Despite the intermittent droplets falling on his head, the baby slept, soothed by the sound of rain and waves.

They’d watched from hiding as Balthazar had been overwhelmed and beaten unconscious. Against their better judgment, they’d followed from a distance as the army journeyed to Herod’s summer palace — dragging Balthazar with it. They’d crouched in the driving rain, watching as he was led inside. And here they stayed, huddled in a rainstorm, a few hundred yards from where half the Roman Navy was parked.

Ripped away…

“What can we do?” asked Mary. “Two women and a carpenter are no match for the Roman Army.”

Sela knew she was right. There was nothing they could do for him, except get themselves killed and ensure that Balthazar’s imminent death would be in vain. She’d promised him she would get them to Egypt, and that’s exactly what she would do. But she owed him a moment first. A moment longer, here in the storm. Lamenting what could have been between them. Mourning what was.

Funny to get so close… only to have him ripped away again.

Sela paid her last respects to the wretched love of her wretched life, lost in her thoughts and the steady noise of rain and sea. Noise that masked the footfalls of the three men sneaking up on them from behind.

IV

Herod strode into his bedchamber, which was far smaller than the cavernous one in his “pleasure palace” in Jerusalem but still a respectable thirty feet square. Soft, cloud-filtered light streamed in through a pair of glass windows on the seaward wall, casting a sleepy glow on the carpets that encircled his oversized bed and its silk pillows and making his long, freestanding silver mirror beckon.

After cutting two strips of flesh off of the Antioch Ghost, the magus had suggested they take a short break from the torture. It was important to give the victim time to recuperate after the first big shock to the system. It was equally, if not more important to give him a false sense of hope. Hope that the worst might be behind him, when in fact, the worst hadn’t even begun. Herod had been happy to oblige, especially since the break had given him a chance to visit his bedchamber and its silver wonder.

Herod wasn’t taking any chances with his prisoner. The Antioch Ghost had proven too smart and slippery for his Judean guards. Even though he was tied up and weak, he couldn’t be trusted. Before adjourning, Herod had ordered two Roman soldiers to remain in the cell with him at all times. No, he wasn’t risking anything. Not when the Hebrew God was meddling with them. Not when everything was coming together so beautifully.

Herod stood in front of the mirror and removed his robes. He wanted to look at every part of himself, wanted to admire the speed with which he was healing. His lesions were all but gone; the sickly flesh that had been stretched over his skeletal rib cage was now hearty and healthy. Even his teeth, those blackened, crooked little vultures, had grown whiter. A miracle.

It was a little strange that none of his courtesans had complimented his appearance yet. They’re probably afraid to be too hasty. Or perhaps they’re afraid to make any mention of my appearance at all. He smiled at the thought. I can’t blame them. It’s been a sensitive subject for years. But the women… I can tell that the women are already eyeing me differently. I can tell that they’re quietly overjoyed… as am I.

The magus was quietly overjoyed too. He reclined on a couch in Herod’s throne room — our throne room — enjoying a cup of wine. A harmless little luxury. One of several he was considering taking up in his new role as ruler of Judea.

Pride was a dangerous thing. The Jews had a saying, didn’t they? About pride being prelude to destruction? So be it. The magus was allowing himself a little pride today, for he’d finally succeeded in doing the impossible. With a little patience and a lot of distant persuasion, he’d manipulated two of the world’s most powerful men into giving him exactly what he wanted: a chance to rebuild. A chance to pull a lost religion out of the ashes.

His fellow magi — my brothers, requiéscant in pace — had spent centuries locked away, studying the dark power of a bygone age. Back when miracles had been commonplace. A time of burning bushes, of plagues and floods. For centuries, they’d kept the world out, mastering this darkness. Sharing their secrets with no one. But the world had changed. Empires had grown out of the desert. Man had conjured his own magic: controlling the flow of rivers with dams, curing sickness with medicine, building towers that touched the heavens. The miracles had ceased, and try as the magi might to remain separate and pure, the world had forced its way in.

Their temples had been burned. His brothers had been hunted down, accused of heresy and put to death, until the once-thriving magi had been all but erased from the earth. Until all that remained was one lone disciple. One man with mastery over ancient darkness. And that, quite frankly, was a lonely existence.

Herod had been right about one thing: The world had no use for men like him anymore. But the king was weak. And his greatest weakness was that he thought himself wise. All it had taken was a little enchantment. A little trickery. As ancient spells went, it was relatively simple, and it worked only on those desperate enough to believe its effects. Fortunately, the king was such a man.

In reality, Herod’s illness was irreversible. Whatever curse had coiled itself around his innards was far stronger than anything the magus could conjure. But while he couldn’t actually make the puppet king healthy again, he could make the king think he was healthy. In Herod’s bewitched eyes, his lesions and sores were fading away, and his health was roaring back. In the eyes of the rest of the world, he was the same repulsive creature.

Yes, his courtesans and whores might think it strange that their king was suddenly so ebullient and spending so much time admiring himself in the mirror. Yes, they might think it strange when he skipped about with renewed vigor or remarked on his renewed appearance. But the beauty of it was, no one would dare tell him differently. And even if they did, Herod would simply think them mad.

Judea’s puppet king had become the magus’s personal puppet. And he would remain so, even as the disease he could no longer see or feel ate him to death.

And it will. Soon. Unless Augustus kills him first. Kills him for stealing his prized magus away.

And when Herod was gone? The magus would be there to take full ownership of the throne. A kingdom all to himself. An army, guided by ancient darkness, to challenge Rome. And a chance to rebuild an ancient brotherhood that had been all but lost to history.

A strange silence permeated the dungeon, broken only by the sound of rainwater seeping through the ceiling and falling to the stone floor, the crackling of the clay oven and its suffocating heat. Balthazar hung limply from the wooden beam above, trying to take his mind off the agony that radiated from the two strips of raw, exposed muscle on his sides. Even the slightest movement of air caused a severe pain that tensed his body and took his breath away.

He looked up through strands of wet hair and saw that the room was empty, save for two Roman guards posted on either side of the door. His torturers had excused themselves. Apparently, watching a man suffer is hard work. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, seeping through the cracked mortar between the bricks, where it clung in defiance of gravity until each individual droplet grew fat enough to fall. Some of those droplets ran down the rope that held him aloft by his wrists. Some fell onto Balthazar, running down his body, mixing with the blood on his skin and aiding it on its way to the floor, where puddles had begun to form.

Balthazar was having trouble focusing his eyes through the mixture of seeping raindrops and the involuntary tears that came when the waves of pain crashed ashore. He heard the cell door creak open and saw the ghostly white outline of a large man enter.

“So, here he is,” said the man, taking off his cape and handing it to one of the guards. “Here’s the great ‘Antioch Ghost’ in the flesh. I had to come and see for myself.”

He was older. Grayed, though still upright and muscular. He was an officer of some kind, a general maybe. A career soldier in the twilight of his fighting years.

“I was stationed in Antioch some time ago,” he said, moving forward. “I found it to be a filthy place, truth be told. And, please, I mean no offense.”

Soon would come the slight hunch, the withering of muscles. Next, the weight would fall off of his bones with alarming speed, dark spots would appear on the tops of his hands, and he would use a cane to carry himself a few last wintry steps to the grave. But not yet. There was still power left in this man. Balthazar could tell, just by the way he carried himself.

“The river, the Colonnaded Street… the forum. Antioch had its charms.”

There was something flittering and gold under his chin. Something that caught the torchlight and threw it back in all directions.

“It’s just that… as beautiful as it was, I could never get over the people. They reminded me of… rats. Thieving little rats.”

Balthazar felt whatever strength he had left retreat. He felt his breath leave his chest and his body go numb.

It was a pendant.

Abdi’s pendant.

V

Sela didn’t know whose knife it was. She only knew it was pressed dangerously, painfully against her throat.

“To your feet, slowly,” said the voice. “You so much as twitch, and I’ll cut your throat.”

She rose, damning herself for being caught unaware. Damning herself for staying long enough to get caught in the first place. They’d held freedom in their hands, but they were all dead now. Ripped away. And for what? A moment of stupid sentimentality. She never should have led them here. She should have done what she promised Balthazar and hurried them to Egypt. “Don’t look back!” he’d told her.

She was standing up tall now, still unable to see the man who had a knife to her throat. In the corner of her right eye, she could see Joseph and Mary being forced to stand in the same fashion, with knives to their throats — Joseph with his hands held high over his head, Mary holding the baby beneath her robes and muttering, “No, no, no” again and again.

No, thought Sela. Not like this. They’d gotten Balthazar. They’d gotten Abdi. They could have Joseph and Mary for all she cared. And they could have her. But they didn’t get to have the baby.

Not a chance.

She exploded, grabbing the wrist of whoever held the knife and forcing it away from her neck. In the same motion, she spun around so that she was facing her attacker, a Roman sentry — no surprise there — and brought her right knee firmly up into his testicles, so hard that she was sure she’d rendered them forever useless. The soldier couldn’t help himself. He dropped the knife and brought both hands instinctively to his groin. And as he doubled over in the customary fashion and vomited, Sela brought her knee up again, this time to his face, where it jarred several of his front teeth loose and turned his nose into a mere suggestion of its former shape. He fell, unconscious, and Sela quickly picked up the knife he’d dropped.

This, of course, had drawn the attention of the other two sentries, who left Joseph and Mary and rushed at Sela, their blades out front. But while two of them rushed her, only one made it more than a step — for Joseph jumped on the back of the second and put him in a headlock, choking him from behind. Sela moved out of the other sentry’s path just in time, his knife grazing her face. He tried to regain his footing and come back for another attack, but he slipped on the wet rock and had to put one hand on the ground to keep from falling over.

In that vulnerable moment, Sela thrust her knife into his kidney. She was surprised how easily it went in and how quickly the sentry went down, screaming out and clutching at the wound. She looked down at the two soldiers she’d just sent to the ground, then spun around and saw the third, red-faced and about to pass out for lack of oxygen. Joseph remained on the sentry’s back, choking him with all his might, even as he thrashed and pulled at the carpenter’s hair.

“Run, Mary!” he said. “RUN!”

Sela froze, not knowing whether she should help Joseph or speed Mary and the baby away. She looked down at the bloody knife in her hand and thought about charging at the sentry Joseph was choking. But if I missed? And why is Mary just standing there, looking at me and pointing?

“Sela!” cried Mary. “Behind y — ”

Sela’s eyes crossed, and the sound of rain and waves grew suddenly distant. She stood perfectly upright as the whole world tilted on its axis, bringing her face to the ground with a thud. She’d been struck on the head. She knew this somehow, even though the pain had yet to register, and her hair had yet to become matted with the blood that poured from her skull. A pair of sandals came into view, jumping over her and half running, half limping toward Joseph. Though Sela couldn’t see his face, the limp told her that the sandals belonged to the first soldier. The one she’d rendered childless.

Despite his injury, it seemed he’d summoned the strength to rise, clobber the back of her skull, and rush to the aid of his fellow Roman. She watched as he tackled Joseph, bringing all three men to the ground. She watched as he pummeled the carpenter with a series of punches. And as Sela watched these sideways events transpire, helpless to affect their outcome, another pair of sandals came into view — droplets of blood and rainwater running down their owner’s legs and ankles.

Stabbed Kidney… it’s the one with the stabbed kidney.

Sela also saw the bottom of a wooden club. It disappeared from her field of view as the sentry raised it high. A moment later, everything went dark.

VI

Adbi’s pendant hung from a weathered neck. The red, leathery neck of a man who’d spent many a carefree day in the sun. A man who’d been permitted to grow old. The hairs on his chest were white, as was his beard. Both stood in stark contrast to the burned pigment of the skin beneath. The admiral — the centurion — had changed drastically in the past nine years. But the eyes were the same. The ones that’d been seared into Balthazar’s mind that day in the forum. The ones that had kept him company under the dark desert skies for all those years as he’d searched the empire for the man in front of him and for the pendant, still hanging there, as it had around Abdi’s neck.

Give me this, O Lord… give me this. Let me see my enemy’s face again. Let me strike him down for what he’s done. Let me do this before my life on this earth is ended. Let me do this, whatever awaits me across the gulf of death. No matter the consequences of time or punishment.

God had delivered him to Balthazar, as Mary said he might. Only he hadn’t delivered him to kill. God had delivered the centurion to taunt Balthazar. To further punish him for all the terrible things he’d done in his life. All the futures and fortunes he’d stolen.

And I deserve to be taunted.

The admiral, however, had no idea who the dirty, bloody beast hanging before him was. He looked Syrian. Like one of the little street rats in Antioch. The thieving little pieces of garbage I had to suffer. Whose stench I can still smell. He didn’t like the way this particular rat was looking at him. Like he knows something I don’t. Like he’s going to kill me. And why do his eyes go to my pendant so often?

This likely would’ve remained a mystery to the admiral had Balthazar’s anger not driven him to bite down on his lip. Bite down so hard that a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. And as it did, the admiral saw it. The little scar on Balthazar’s right cheek. That distinctive little scar in the shape of an “X.”

The scar I gave him…

“GLORY!” cried Herod, the magus at his side.

It wasn’t the perfect word by any means, but it was the first one that jumped off his tongue. He looked down at the baby lying on the table, naked and crying out for his mother in the center of a crowded throne room. The fugitives had been captured sneaking around outside in the rain. It was too good to be true. Herod had expected to endure one final push in this great chase. One last obstacle from the meddling Hebrew God. Instead, the Hebrew God’s little messenger — this so-called Messiah — had walked right to his back door and offered himself up.

“Glory to the people of Judea! Glory to Rome and her emperor!”

Pilate watched the wretched old king celebrate, the infant’s mother and father in chains, in tears — held by Roman guards near the throne room’s entrance. There was another woman with them, also in chains. Probably the same one who harbored them in Beersheba. From the looks of it, she’d been beaten to within an inch of her life. His sentries had done well, and they were being treated by the king’s personal physicians. He was told two would live, though one — the one who’d been stabbed — would likely die of infection. At least he’ll die a hero.

Herod reached down and slid his fingers under the infant’s back. My fingers… no longer blistered. No longer twisted and aching. He picked the child up and held him aloft for all to see. Held him as a temple priest holds an offering to heaven.

And I’ll burn him as an offering, he thought. I’ll burn a god… hear his screams. I’ll watch his flesh melt away and his bones blacken.

He wanted the Hebrew God to get a good look at this. If this baby was destined to topple the kingdoms of the world — if it was truly, as the Jews said, the “son of God” — then what did that make the king who held him in his hands? He walked around the room, displaying the child for the assembled courtesans and officers.

Yes, a man could be bigger than a god. Here was proof. Here was a king holding a god in his hands. My hands… which move without pain for the first time in years. He handed the child to a Roman guard.

“Take him to the dungeon and wait for us… I want to put him in the oven myself.”

These words brought screams of anguished protest from Mary and Joseph, which did nothing to dissuade Herod but did remind him: “Kill the male,” he said before walking toward the door. Then, almost an afterthought, he turned back and gave a nod to the guards.

“Do with the women what you will.”

The admiral could’ve laughed at the wonder of it. If the man before him was the Antioch Ghost, and the Antioch Ghost was the little rat he’d cut in the forum all those years ago, then —

Then I made him… I made the Antioch Ghost.

“He was your… brother,” said the admiral. “The boy in the forum… ”

There was no condescension in the way the admiral said this. On the contrary, there seemed to be genuine sympathy behind the words. A sadness. The admiral was, in fact, touched by what was happening before him. He was overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions, sadness among them. He marveled at the fates. Of all the dungeons in the world, he’d been sent to this one. Sent to face a monster that he created.

“I’m going to kill you,” said Balthazar.

“I know.”

“I swear it… ”

“I know… I know you do,” he said with that same sadness. “My God, what you must think I am… ”

The admiral came closer still. Close enough so Balthazar could see the burst capillaries on the tip of his nose. The scars of a wine-soaked life. After taking in Balthazar’s face, he stepped away and helped himself to a seat in Herod’s chair. A sigh escaped him.

“I have sons, you know,” he said. “Four of them. They’re grown now, of course, but I remember feeling that fear. That fear that they would be taken from me. And if anyone had ever harmed them when they were young, well… ”

“He was a boy… ” Just saying the words brought fresh tears to Balthazar’s eyes.

“He was a thief,” said the admiral. “And I was an officer, in a city where a Roman couldn’t walk from one side of the street to the other without having his pocket picked.”

“HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND!”

And that’s what hurts the most, when you get right down to it. That look on his face. The one I see over and over in my mind. That fear, that confusion. Why, Bal-faza? What did I do? Why is this man hurting me, Bal-faza? I looked up to you. I loved you and imitated you, Bal-faza, and this wouldn’t have happened to me if you weren’t so bad, Bal-faza. IT’S YOUR FAULT, BAL-FAZA. IT’S YOUR —

Balthazar gritted his teeth, trying to banish the tears. But they came.

“He didn’t understand,” said Balthazar. “He was good. He would’ve had a good life. A beautiful life. And you took it. You took everything he would ever have. We… we would ever have.”

“Maybe,” said the admiral. “Maybe he would’ve had a good life. Maybe he would’ve had a tragic life. But you… ” He rose from Herod’s chair and came forward again. “Look at you. You’ve devoted your whole life to this. To killing me. And now it ends. Useless. Unfulfilled. You’re a cunning man, a strong man. You could’ve done anything. You could have grieved for him and moved on. You could’ve found love and fortune, had children of your own. But you’ve wasted it.”

Balthazar heard a voice whispering in his ears: How does killing honor his memory? How does it bring you any closer to having Abdi in your arms again? Isn’t it better to walk away? Doesn’t that make you the more powerful man? Besides, this admiral was right. He’d wrapped up an entire existence in revenge. His entire being was devoted to a single, murderous purpose. But now that he was so close, a new, terrifying question presented itself: And then what? What does your life mean after that? What comes next?

“It’s haunted you,” said Balthazar. “His face… I know it has… ”

The admiral looked at him with real pity. “The truth?” he asked. “Look at me. Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

Balthazar looked up. Glared at him.

“I’ve hardly thought about him.”

He’s lying. He wants me to believe that. But no man is that callous.

“I didn’t like my father all that much,” said the admiral. “But before he died, he gave me a piece of advice. The only one that ever really made a difference in my life. ‘Hug your children,’ he said. ‘Kiss your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters. Tell them how much you love them, every day. Because every day is the last day. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.’”

The admiral turned away and helped himself to one of the orange slices on the platter. He sucked on it, enjoying the taste and the moisture until there was nothing left. As he did this, Balthazar made a decision.

I’m going to find out what comes next.

Blood trickled down Balthazar’s wrists as he pulled down on the rope with all his strength, pulled down on the wooden beam that it was tied to. The beam began to groan under the stress, and the admiral turned. He looked up at the beam — sturdy as any beam had any right to be. He looked down at Balthazar, pulling with what limited strength he had left in his body. The math didn’t hold up. There was no way a man could free himself under these circumstance. Satisfied, he turned his thoughts back to the orange slice in his mouth.

The magus grabbed his head and bolted upright from his couch in the throne room, knocking over his cup in the process. Something was terribly wrong.

“What is it?” asked Herod, standing up from his throne. By the time Herod got the words out, the magus was on his feet, shoving courtesans and advisors aside, looking for something. Anything. When Herod realized what he was doing, he shouted, “Bring him something to write with, at once!”

A piece of parchment was hurried into the magus’s hands as advisors tried to make themselves look busy. Herod crossed the throne room and stood over the little priest’s shoulder, reading along with every letter:

Prisoner is free. Ghost fr —

“Impossible!” cried Herod. “He’s under guard!”

The magus hurriedly scribbled again, then shoved the paper so close to Herod’s face that he nearly broke the king’s nose.

Guards dead. Everyone dead.

Balthazar is born again. He’s Samson slaying an entire army with a jawbone. He’s Hercules killing the Nemean lion. David killing Goliath. He pulls his arms until they shake, pulls on the ropes that bind each of his wrists to the wooden beam above. And witness now the sound of cracking wood.

The admiral’s eyes nearly leap out of his head, because he doesn’t believe what he sees. The math doesn’t hold up. A man can’t be that powerful, especially one whose body has been so battered. Yet the beam splinters, then splits in two and falls to the stone floor with a crash, freeing Balthazar’s hands.

The guards draw their swords and come at him. Balthazar charges too. He goes for the table against the wall — the one filled with an assortment of scalpels and clamps and scissors. He grabs the first one his fingers touch, unaware that it’s the very scalpel that was used to cut away the missing flesh beneath both of his arms. With long ropes still attached to both wrists, Balthazar turns and swings the blade in front of his body just in time.

And as weak and battered as he is, he swings with more strength than he’s ever known. His blade cuts through the droplets of rainwater that fall from the stone ceiling, splitting the ones it touches as it strikes the side of the first guard’s face — flaying it open like his own flesh had been flayed. He pierces the other beneath the armpit, driving the blade deeper — deeper past his ribs and into his lungs. He withdraws it and the man falls to the wet floor, where he’ll either drown in his own blood in seconds or die from infection in weeks. It doesn’t matter, as long as he leaves the earth in pain.

But no time for these thoughts. Not yet. For the admiral has just realized that he’s next and begins his hasty retreat toward the closed cell door. Balthazar has to cover twice the distance to beat him there. It’s impossible. But not today. The world has bowed before him. Time has wrapped him in its arms. Balthazar moves with wings on his feet, sees with eyes in the back of his head. He takes a sword from one of the guards and moves across the wet floor with impossible speed, blocking the admiral’s escape. And the admiral is afraid. He backs away, for he can see the truth written on Balthazar’s face. He can see that this man will not fail, no matter what he aims to do. He’s afraid because he knows that these are his last moments on this earth and that they’re going to be terrible moments.

And he’s right.

Balthazar pushes his sword into the admiral’s belly. And the admiral cries out as his tender flesh gives way but doesn’t break. So Balthazar pushes harder, and the flesh tears — letting the blade in. Letting it through his belly and out the back. And it hurts, and he’s so afraid. Suddenly lying on the wet floor, where his blood mixes with rainwater. Pouring out of him, around the sides of the blade.

Every day is the last day, he thinks. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.

But the admiral sees a light. A light coming for him. His breathing is labored, blood running from the corners of his mouth. He watches this warm, soothing orange light as it grows closer, dancing from side to side. And he knows it’s a merciful light, though he doesn’t know how he knows this.

But there’s a man with the light — carrying it with him. It’s the Ghost. And now the admiral is afraid again, because he knows. He knows what the light really is. The Ghost has gone and taken something out of the oven. Something metal. Hot enough to glow.

And the Ghost is above him now. He brings a bare foot down on the admiral’s hair and presses it hard against the wet stone floor. So hard that the admiral can’t move his head. And before he can scream, the light is forced into the admiral’s mouth, shattering his front teeth — and his scream disappears behind the sizzle and smoke. He can smell his lips burning away. Feel his saliva turning to steam and his tongue cooking as the poker moves past his mouth and down into his throat — the red-hot iron blackening his tonsils and vocal cords. He writhes with what little strength he has left as the Ghost pulls the light back out of his throat and pushes it up into the roof of his mouth, searing his palate before breaking through it and entering his nasal cavity. And the Ghost can see that glowing light beneath the skin of the admiral’s face now, and it’s a strange, almost beautiful sight — that warm orange light making a man’s face light up from the inside. But he keeps pushing, until the iron tip breaks through the bone at the top of his nasal cavity and sinks into his —

The admiral woke with a scream. Panicked at first, he examined his body, looking for blood, bruises, anything — but to his relief and amazement, he was unharmed. It had all been a strange, vivid dream. Something brought on by an illness, perhaps. The stress of being away from home for too long.

He stood on the bank of a river. It was a hot, clear day. The fishermen were out in droves, the boats drifting gently by. He could see a boy and a toddler resting in the shade of a scarred palm tree on the opposite bank.

The Orontes… Antioch.

He was back in Antioch, and for all its crime and rats, he’d never been happier to be anywhere in his life. The admiral turned, expecting to see the familiar desert behind him, the long, narrow mounds marking the shallow graves where the Romans tossed their dead trash. But the desert was gone. The graves were empty. And in their place was a wall of the dead — their eyes long since turned to dust but looking at him all the same.

They’d been waiting for him… waiting to welcome him into the wasteland they’d called home for so many years. A place where there were no years. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder — a semicircle that bent around him until it touched the river on both sides. Trapped, by all the unjustly dead of Antioch. And there, at the center of this mob of twisted, bloodless bodies, was a man unlike any of the others. A man unlike any the admiral had ever seen.

A Man With Wings.

He was good and beautiful. And the admiral began to sob, for he knew — somehow he knew exactly who this man was and what he’d come to do. He sobbed and shook, for he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. And worst of all, he knew that he deserved it.

The Man With Wings walked forward and took the admiral gently in his arms, and off they went. Off into a sea of time and space — the whole of the universe reflected in its shimmering surface. Off to the place where the dead burned forever…

And Mary and Joseph instinctively press their backs to the wall of their pitch-black cell and shield the baby with their bodies as they hear the latch opening. Sela rises, determined to die fighting whatever comes through that door. Every inch of her is broken and bloodied; her hands are shackled. But they aren’t getting that baby without a fight. Not a chance. And the creak of the cell door opening, and the lone, impossible silhouette it reveals. And the joy and amazement of impossible reunion and the hurried tossing off of chains.

The reunited fellowship hurried down the corridor that twisted its way through the dungeon, trying to go as quietly as they could despite the two inches of rainwater on the floor. Trying to find a sliver of daylight to show them the way and running from the growing shouts in the dark behind them. A call of alarm had gone out, and every way in or out of the palace would soon be sealed off. They needed another miracle, and for a moment, Balthazar thought they’d gotten it: daylight. Up ahead, around the next corner.

He led the others quickly and quietly around the corner. But on rounding it, Balthazar froze. There was a Roman soldier blocking their path, his sword drawn. The promise of daylight behind him. The dungeon’s torchlight flickering off his meticulously polished helmet, breastplate, and sword. He’d been waiting for them.

Pontius Pilate.

Balthazar stood with his sword clutched tightly in his right hand, his left arm extended, shielding Mary and the baby behind him. The two men glared at each other. Both of them dark, driven men. Both of them killers. Their fingers shifted on the handles of their swords, each man waiting for the slightest twitch of the other. Waiting for attack. But none came.

Satisfied that Balthazar didn’t mean to cut him down on the spot, Pilate’s eyes shifted to the other fugitives: the baby’s parents. Terrified. The woman who harbored them. Who risked her life to save them and fought off at least two of my men by herself. And then there was the Antioch Ghost. Who risks his life to protect them even now, when he could have just as easily escaped on his own.

Pilate stood there a moment — his eyes fixed on Balthazar. On everything he’d ever wanted.

“Fifty paces,” he said. “And then I start yelling.”

With that, he lowered his sword, passed by them, and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.

Until his dying breath, Pilate would never fully understand why he’d done it. All he’d had to do was call for help, and he would’ve been a hero. Had it been the sight of Balthazar being tortured? Was it the desire to see the puppet king of Judea humiliated? Or was it just that he didn’t like the idea of putting newborn babies to death?

Whatever the reason, he’d held the glory he sought right there, in his hands — and he’d let it slip away. Just like that. It was a decision that would shape his life in ways he couldn’t possibly understand, and it wouldn’t be the last time he faced it. Some three decades later, Pontius Pilate would encounter the infant again, in Jerusalem. Once again, he would feel a strange compulsion to spare his life. But the second time, he would fail.

The fellowship of five ran out of the palace’s seaward entrance and into the stormy gray of its terrace, where raindrops collided with marble, producing a ceaseless, almost soothing noise. With the rain falling and the alarm being raised inside, the terrace was momentarily free of guards. Balthazar had a decision to make, and it had to be made in the next few seconds, in spite of his exhaustion and the breathtaking pain radiating from the exposed muscle on his sides.

They could flee through the desert on foot, but if they were spotted, they’d be no match for the Romans and their horses. They could look for somewhere to hide near the palace and hope that the Romans would be fooled into chasing an assumption through the desert — but what if they weren’t? It was here, in this moment of bleeding indecision, that a vision of waving reeds caught the fellowship’s attention, and their eyes descended the wet marble steps to the sea, where the masts of Roman warships bobbed up and down in the swell. All of them firmly moored against the dock…

… all of them left untended.

VII

A young girl came running out of Herod’s throne room, sobbing and soaked in blood. Some of it was hers. Most of it wasn’t. She pushed her way past the Roman and Judean soldiers who packed the hallways.

“The king!” she cried. “The king has gone mad!”

The soldiers had come running only moments before, summoned by the sounds of a melee. They’d expected to find the Antioch Ghost battling it out with their comrades, trying to get his hands on Herod. But on arriving, they’d been shocked to see that it was Herod himself wielding a blade, using it to dispose of his courtesans and advisors, his wise men and women. The soldiers could only stand and watch as he hacked them to pieces, screaming all the while. None of them dared defy the will of a king, madman or not.

It was something out of a nightmare. A grisly scene that forced even the most cast-iron of soldiers to look away, lest they be sick. The throne room was littered with headless and limbless victims. Shards of smashed pottery and splinters of broken furniture. And in the middle of it all, Herod himself, kneeling over one of the bodies, a sword by his side… his face almost completely obscured by blood.

Minutes before this madness began, Herod sat impatiently on his throne, awaiting an update on the escape. The magus sat next to him, meditating silently. Searching for the fugitives, Herod hoped. Hunting them with his mind.

Minutes after the first shouts of alarm echoed through the palace, Pontius Pilate appeared with his lieutenants, ready to give the king his report. It would be nearly an hour before the Romans discovered one of the smaller ships in their fleet was missing.

“It seems,” said Pilate, “that the Ghost and the other fugitives were able to slip out of the palace, Your Highness.”

Herod involuntarily balled his fists. The Hebrew God…

“At present,” Pilate continued, “we have no clue as to where they went, but I have some of my men searching the grounds in case they’ve hidden close by.”

“SOME of your men? Send ALL of them, you idiot! Send them all into the desert! Into the mountains! Send them up and down the coast!”

Pilate hesitated, sharing a look with some of his officers. “Your Highness,” he said, “in light of the admiral’s death, I’ve… decided to recall my men to Rome.”

It took Herod a moment to register this.

“What did you say?”

“The emperor has already sacrificed enough of his men for this folly. I won’t risk losing any more or endangering his magus. Not until I’m able to make a full report.”

Herod lifted his body off the throne, his anger rising to its full height.

“‘His’ magus?” He walked slowly down the steps, a smile spreading across his lips. “You can tell Augustus that his magus won’t be coming back to Rome.”

Pilate glared back at him. What is this?

“You can tell him,” Herod continued, “that his power belongs to Judea now. As you can see, he’s already used some of it to restore my health. Or did you think I’d miraculously healed on my own?”

Now it was the magus who rose, emerging from his trance and taking in what had just become a very tricky situation.

Pilate was confused. So were Herod’s courtesans and advisors, his wise men and women. All of them exchanged looks behind Herod’s back.

Is this some kind of joke?

“Tell Augustus,” Herod continued, “that I’m not his puppet any longer.”

“Are you mad?” asked Pilate. “Augustus is the master of the world! What are you but a sickly little joke of a king?”

“INSOLENCE! I should have you cut down where you stand!”

The mere suggestion made Pilate’s lieutenants draw their swords, which made Herod’s Judean guards draw theirs. Pilate raised a hand in the air — easy…

“Do you have any idea what he’ll do to you?” asked Pilate.

“Let him try!” said Herod with a laugh. “The magus has sworn his loyalty to me! His powers are my powers!”

Pilate looked past Herod and locked onto the magus’s black eyes. He wanted to know if any of this was true.

The magus, for his part, knew he had a decision to make.

Yes, Augustus didn’t appreciate him. Yes, the magus wanted to strike out on his own, use his powers to rebuild a lost faith. But he was also the last of his kind. And this made self-preservation all the more important. Herod had seemed like the perfect catalyst for his transformation — a powerful man who could be controlled, used up, and thrown away. But he was clearly coming unhinged. Declaring war on the empire in the blink of an eye. That wasn’t someone you wanted in your corner. One didn’t need to read the tea leaves to see how it would end. He would live to fight another day.

The magus indicated something to Pilate with a nod of his head. When Pilate saw what it was, he understood.

“Go ahead,” said Pilate to Herod, indicating the full-length mirror. “Look for yourself. Look at what the magus has done to you.”

Herod laughed and turned back to see if the magus was just as amused as he was. But instead of the slight smirk he’d hoped for, he found the magus stone-faced, and felt a sliver of dread scrape against the inside of his stomach.

“Very well,” said Herod, turning back to Pilate.

And so Herod approached the mirror, ready to admire the full cheeks and smooth skin that had greeted him these two glorious days. But when he looked this time…

“No… ,” he whispered.

The illusion was gone. His sickly pallor and yellowed eyes had returned. His sunken cheeks and lesions oozing their foul milk.

“NO! It can’t be!”

“You’re not a king,” said Pilate, looking over Herod’s shoulder. “You’re not even a man. You’re nothing.”

Looking back on it, the survivors would agree that this was the moment when Herod’s mind left him for good. The moment he realized that everything he believed was a lie. That his vision had finally and completely failed him. He’d gone mad before, but the clouds had always parted at the end of the storm. There would be no going back from this madness.

Herod screamed and grabbed a sword from the hand of one of his guards. Pilate’s men yanked their imperator back, convinced that Herod meant to strike at him. But Herod wasn’t interested in Pilate. He ran clear across the throne room, defying the weakness that was the reality of his body, raising the sword high in the air, screaming all the while, “TRAITOR!”

Herod ran up the steps to his throne and in one swing chopped off the magus’s head. It tumbled to the stone floor, followed by the magus’s body. Blood poured out of his neck and onto the stone floor in buckets — and with it, the last of man’s mastery over an ancient darkness.

Screams filled the throne room as Herod kept swinging his sword at anyone in his path, crying out, “DEATH! Death to all of you!”

Pilate looked at the headless magus a moment longer, then turned and exited, followed by his lieutenants. There was nothing more to do here. He would’ve killed Herod himself if he’d had the authority. The only thing to do was speed back to Rome and tell his emperor what had happened. To beg his forgiveness and let the wrath of a living god come down on Judea’s puppet king.

“DEATH!” cried Herod as he swung away at courtesans and advisors alike. “Death!” he cried as he hacked off the heads and limbs of the wise men and women who dared not fight back.

“Death to all of you!”

And so it continued, until the last of his subjects had either fallen or fled, and Herod collapsed in a heap near the magus’s headless body — his chest rising and falling rapidly, his tired lungs and feeble muscles burning from the effort.

The Hebrew God had made a fool of him. Herod turned his eyes toward the ceiling and shouted at the top of his gravelly voice, “Is this my reward for defending your Jews? For building them great cities? Is this how you repay me?”

The magus was gone. And with him the promise of eternal life, the chance to build an empire. And hope. Worst of all, hope — the wine of the weak.

It was all gone. And in the space of a few brief minutes, it was all over.

Here was Herod the Great, kneeling on the stone floor beside the magus’s headless body… holding his cupped hands beneath the blood that still trickled from his neck… collecting it and drinking it in mouthfuls.

Maybe… maybe if he could just drink enough of it… maybe he could be whole again.

Maybe he could live forever.

Joseph stood on the bow of a thirty-foot Roman trireme, holding the sleeping baby while Mary searched the ship’s depleted stores for food. He looked down at the tiny creature sleeping peacefully in his arms — full and loved and safe. Not yet two weeks old and already the survivor of more peril than most men would ever know in their lives.

The storm had blown itself out, leaving a flat, calm sea and a sky of broken, brilliant red clouds in its wake. The sun had dipped its toes in the western waters and was slowly sliding its way into Neptune’s kingdom for the night. It was glorious, and peaceful, and unbearably sad. For as Joseph looked down at the sleeping child, he knew he would leave him one day.

And sooner than your heart will be able to bear, Joseph.

He would leave and go off into the world, because the world is who he belonged to. His beautiful, sleeping boy.

It’s okay if I call him my son, isn’t it? Surely God will forgive me for that, for I cannot bear to think of him as anything else.

Joseph hoped he would be able to teach the child something about being a man. Teach him the Torah and how to take a piece of wood and craft it into something useful with his mind and his hands. But all that in good time. Right now there was nothing but blessed peace. The sea hadn’t parted for them as it had their ancestors, but it had delivered them all the same.

He wasn’t alone in admiring the evening sky. Balthazar stood at the helm, one hand on the rudder, the other hand clasped in Sela’s. She rested her head softly against his shoulder, both of them in quiet reverence of nature’s power and beauty. In reverence of the moment and the miracles it had taken to get them to it.

Balthazar’s mind was only just beginning to sort through everything that had happened in recent days. Flipping through the unfiltered images of blood and betrayal, of walking corpses and dying kings. But he stopped when he remembered one moment in particular: something the old man in his dream had said when he’d asked how long he had to stay with the infant:

“Until you let him go.”

It was funny — at the time, Balthazar had assumed that the old man was talking about Joseph and Mary’s baby. But now he knew… he’d been talking about Abdi. And when the full weight of that realization hit him, the tears returned to Balthazar’s eyes, prompting Sela to ask, “Balthazar? Are you all right?”

He turned to her and smiled, admiring her beauty, which neither dirt nor dried blood had succeeded in diminishing, and answered honestly, “Yes.”

There was nothing ahead but the flat, calm sea, the whole of the heavens reflected in its shimmering surface. Balthazar didn’t know when they would see land or if that land would be Egypt, or Judea, or even Rome itself. Nothing could surprise him anymore, nor could anything discourage his faith that no matter what storms there were ahead, God, or whatever you wanted to call it, would deliver them.