“You’ll have to decide that yourself.” He felt Sarah looking at him in horror, wondering why he was baiting the guy.
“Demon or angel, you can do things the rest of us can’t. Isn’t that right?”
Zack didn’t answer.
“I mean, maybe you’ve got some heavy-duty powers. So, either you’re working for the man upstairs or the guy down below. Which is it?”
“If it’s money you want, we can go to the nearest bank.”
“You’re worth more to me than whatever you can get from a bank.”
“Meaning what?” Zack said.
“Meaning people will pay big-time for you—alive or dead.” He stepped closer. “Come on, show me your stuff.” He bent down and picked up a rock from the grave. He felt the heft of it, then tossed it at Zack’s feet. “Turn that into a loaf of bread.”
Zack looked at the rock. “Be serious.”
The man flared up and jabbed the pistol at him. “I am serious. I’ve got serious up to here. You got Jesus in you, do it!”
“I can’t.”
“No?” He then picked up a branch from the ground and tossed it at his feet. “How ’bout a serpent?”
“I don’t do magic tricks.”
“I’m not asking for magic tricks. I want the real thing. You’re supposed to have supernatural powers. I want you to show me them. I want to see a miracle.”
Zack said nothing.
“Come on!” he demanded. “Make the sky cloud over. Make the mist lift. Make something happen—a fucking pillar of fire or something. Show me what you are and why everybody is fucking hot for you—willing to pay millions.”
“I can’t…,” began Zack.
The man snapped the gun at Sarah and shot her.
She screamed and grabbed her arm. The bullet cut through her sweatshirt just above the elbow. She pulled up the sleeve to reveal a bloody stripe in her flesh.
“Come on, miracle man, heal her. You can do it. You’ve got the God brain or whatever. Do it!”
“You son of a bitch,” said Zack, and lurched at him.
But the guy stopped him at gunpoint. “You want to live? Then heal her. Do it. You channel the powers of God, so do it. Goddamn it. Show me you’re God.”
Sarah groaned in pain as blood seeped through her fingers. Without saying anything, Zack removed his jacket, bit a hole in the sleeve of his shirt, and tore it off his arm. He wadded up the cloth to stanch the blood. It was only a flesh wound, though bleeding steadily.
“Think this is a joke?” he yelled. “I want you to make her wound go away, not a fucking bandage.”
With his belt, Zack made a compress on Sarah’s arm. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“I’m telling you to fucking heal her wound.”
“I can’t.”
The man aimed the gun at the grave and fired twice into the dirt mound. “What about raising the dead, huh? Jesus did that with what’s-his-name … Lazarus. Come on, raise up your old man.” The intensity in his eyes was fierce. “Bring him back.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Crazy, am I? Yeah, maybe I am.” He looked at Sarah as if thinking about shooting her dead.
“What the hell do you want from me?”
He swung the gun at Zack. “I want you to show me you’re for real, not some fucking rumor. But that’s what I think you are—a fucking rumor.” He shot at a spot between Zack’s feet. Sarah screamed.
“A fucking lie like the rest of it. And God’s the biggest lie of all. Might as well believe in Santa Claus. Because you know what? There’s nothing else.” He raised the pistol at the sky and fired. “Not fucking up there!” he shouted, saliva spraying from his mouth. “It’s all bullshit. All fucking liars—Father fucking Infantino, the saints, the pope. All bullshit. No fucking heaven. No fucking salvation. No God, Jesus. All empty fucking frauds is all.”
He jabbed the gun at Zack and shot another hole in the dirt before him.
“This is the real hell,” he continued. “We’re living in it. There’s nothing else. And when it’s over, it’s over. A black hole in the dirt forever.”
With one hand he reached over his shoulder, gripped the black handle protruding from the backpack, and pulled out a machete. He then aimed the gun at Zack’s chest. “You’re worth more to me dead.”
“No. Don’t!” screamed Sarah.
The man held up the machete, the long shiny blade like a large sliver of light in his grip. “Who hired you?” Zack said.
“Some asshole who thinks you’re the devil. But you couldn’t light a fucking match.”
“Tell me his name.”
The guy looked at him with dead eyes. “Norman Babcock.”
“You killed Tom Pomeroy,” Sarah said.
“Yeah, and now you, you fucking fraud.” He raised the gun to Zack’s chest.
“No!” Sarah screamed.
The gunman suddenly turned toward the thick of the woods. His face was taut, his eyes shocked open. He dropped the machete and assumed a two-handed stance, taking aim at something just behind the dark wall of trees. He fanned the area, trying to fix his target, moving the gun to the left and then the right, then up into the treetops. Suddenly he froze his arms straight out and squeezed off three shots in quick succession.
Small branches and leaves blasted in all directions. But Zack could see no one—just scrub and trees and small birds flapping away. Still in a two-handed stance, the man swiveled to another position and emptied the clip, then shoved in another from his pocket.
Zack pulled Sarah to him. “What’s he shooting at?” she asked.
Zack had no idea. The guy was tracking something unseen in the trees, swinging this way and that. He fired off more rounds, emptied the clip, then slammed in another. More flashes of tree debris, and the only sound was that of startled birds. If there were hunters or even police, they’d have made themselves known or returned shots.
With the last wild volley, a shriek rose up. And out of nowhere, a large hawk shot out of the sky, wings fully extended.
In reflex, the gunman took aim and fired.
The bird flapped awkwardly out of the sky and hit the ground with a muffled thud maybe twenty feet away. One wing was spread unnaturally, the other half-folded under it, maybe broken, its head at an odd angle. Zack glimpsed a flash of red, but he couldn’t tell if it was blood or tail feathers. From the rumpled heap, an open eye stared at Zack.
Without thinking, he raised his hands toward the bird. “Avvon d-bish-maiya, nith-qaddash shim-mukh.”
“What?”
“Tih-teh mal-chootukh. Nih-weh çiw-yanukh:”
“The hell’s he saying?”
“ei-chana d’bish-maiya: ap b’ar-ah.”
“He—he’s…,” Sarah began.
“Haw lan lakh-ma d’soonqa-nan yoo-mana.”
“It’s Jesus,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s Jesus. He’s speaking through him.”
“O’shwooq lan kho-bein: ei-chana d’ap kh’nan shwiq-qan l’khaya-ween.”
“Cut the shit.”
“Oo’la te-ellan l’niss-yoona: il-la paç-çan min beesha.”
“No, for real,” she said. “Jesus is speaking through him. Those are his words. It’s Jesus.”
Zack heard the syllables trip from his mouth, not knowing where they came from or how he could pronounce the alien sounds, but he continued uttering the incantation, while the gunman stood before him, stunned in place, the pistol in his hand still aimed at Zack’s heart.
As the words continued flowing from Zack, the man gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder, as did Sarah. Perhaps to test him, the gunman raised the gun to within inches of Zack’s face and poked the air before his eyes. But Zack did not flinch, he did not cry out, but continued reciting the ancient prayer.