“My daughter.” Harker’s voice broke.
She took the child in both arms, holding her close. It felt so natural. So good.
“Mama needs to clean you up, Shirley. You're all covered in blood.”
The child gripped her blouse and Harker almost swooned from joy. She had to get her back to her room in the Blue Arm without being seen. How?
“Watch her for a moment,” Harker said, handing the child back to Bub.
The girl closed her eyes and sucked her thumb.
Harker flew out of the room, through the gates, through the Octopus, into the Green Arm. Green 8 housed the two large food freezers. Harker went into the first, finding a large box filled with frozen loaves of bread. She emptied the bread onto the floor. The box seemed big enough.
She hurried back to Red 14 unseen. Shirley was sleeping in the palm of Bub's claw, curled up in a little ball. Perfect. Harker put the child into the box gently, so as not to wake her.
“Haaaaaaaave fun,” Bub said, grinning.
Harker was too nervous, too excited to answer. The box was cumbersome, but she welcomed the burden. She held it tight to her chest, careful not to jostle and redistribute the precious weight inside. More valuable than gold. More valuable than even freedom.
A box full of love, Harker thought.
The tears came freely now. Joy so sharp it was painful. Once again, after years of fruitless fantasies and desperate dreams, Julie Harker was finally complete once again.
She was a mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Father Thrist had never felt so close to Jesus Christ. He felt Him in his heart. He felt Him running though his veins. He felt Him with every breath, every step, every pore.
He hurried down the Red Arm, anxious to perform his first baptism in over twenty years. Bub, having read the bible Thrist had lent him, had decided to become Catholic.
Besides receiving the First Sacrament, Bub was anxious for others as well; the Second Sacrament, Penance, and the Third Sacrament, the Eucharist, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
The world was soon going to change, Thrist knew for sure now. Bub would usher in a new era of religious awakening. His message of Christ's Divinity would resonate to all corners of the earth. There would be no more doubters. Even the most stubborn contrary faiths would have to recant. Rabbi Shotzen's conviction that Jesus never met the criteria of the Messiah would soon be overturned. Every knee would bow. Every tongue would swear loyalty to the one true God. And when that happened, the lion would lay down with the lamb and there would be universal peace, praise be to Christ.
Thrist had dressed for the occasion. Over his green cassock and Roman collar, Thrist wore a white alb and amice, a stole, and a white floor-length chasuble. Pride was a sin, of course, but Thrist loved wearing full Christian liturgical garb. It made him feel holy.
He entered Red 14 with an uncharacteristic smile.
“Good afternoon, Bub.”
“Faaaaaaaaaather.”
The demon sat in the center of the habitat, his legs in an odd lotus position—odd because his knees bent forward rather than backward.
He looked peaceful, Thrist thought.
“Have you decided on a Christian name?” Thrist asked.
“Luuuuucifer Michaeeeeeeeeeel,” Bub answered.
Father Thrist's chest swelled.
“I am honored. Lucifer Michael it is. I was named after the arch angel Micha-el. Did you know him?”
“Nooooooooo.”
“Tell me about God again,” Thrist said.
He felt like a child who never tired of his favorite bedtime story.
“God is pure blissssssss. He’s watching us right noooooow. He loves yoooooooou.”
Thrist closed his eyes, trying to imagine being in the presence of God. Thrist had never known bliss. It sounded too wonderful to bear.
“Let us save your soul then,” the priest said, “so you may once again be with God in heaven.”
Father Thrist nodded and patted the satchel he carried. In it were two copies of the Missale Romanum—the Latin Mass. Bub would serve as the choir and read the responses. The bag also contained a vial of holy water, a goblet, an unleavened circle of bread with a cross imprinted upon it, and a small bottle of red wine.
“We shall celebrate Mass,” Thrist said. “You shall be baptized, get Penance, and finally receive the Body and Blood of Christ.”
“Through the glasssssssss?” Bub asked.
The priest shook his head. “I shall be in the habitat with you.”
The creature uncrossed his legs and stood. He approached the Plexiglas slowly.
Bub whispered, “Aren't you afraaaaaaaaid?”
“Of course not, Bub. I have no reason to be.”
Father Thrist marched over to the side hatch without fear. He opened the small door with the assurance of his faith.
Big mistake.
Bub was waiting for him when he entered. He grabbed the priest in his claw and held him up against the inner wall of the dwelling, five feet off the ground.
“What are you doing?” the priest asked, more surprised than afraid.
Bub grinned, a mouth of daggers.
“Open the dooooooooor,” the demon said.
“This is not the way to be saved,” Thrist said. “That door isn't the door you need to worry about. The door to heaven is...”
“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” Bub held a talon over Thrist's mouth. “Enough talk of heaven and God and Jesussssss. I met Jesus, priest, but not in the desssssssert. I met him in a whore hooooouse. He was fat and uuuuuugly.”
“Lies,” Thrist’s voice was barely a whisper. He couldn’t get his mind around what was happening. “Blasphemy.”
“The whoooooooores didn't want to touch him. He had to pay extraaaaaa. But at least he didn’t die a virrrrrgin... like yooooooou.”
The reality of the deceit now weighed fully on Thrist. His friend, Rabbi Shotzen, had been right all along. In his eagerness for proof, he had eschewed faith.
This time, the epiphany had come too late. He was a fool to think he could change the devil.
But he wasn't fool enough to listen to his lies.
“I... renounce you, Satan.”
“Open the doooooor.”
Bub traced an upside down cross on Thrist's left cheek, drawing blood. Thrist was terrified, but the holy man refused to flinch.
“Let meeeee give you Holy Communion, Faaaaaaather.” Bub barked a laugh. “Hoc est enim corpus meum!”
Take and eat this, for this is my body.
Bub pinched himself in the pectoral muscle and removed several ounces of his own flesh. The wound knitted itself instantly.
Thrist tried to turn his head away, but Bub forced the raw meat into his mouth. It was warm and smelled of decay, and it seemed to wiggle and squirm as if still alive.
The priest vomited, staining his vestments.
It would be the first of many stains.
“Open the doooooor.”
“Never,” Thrist spat. “I will not do the work of the devil.”
“Christ died in paaaaaaaain.” Bub said. “Your death can be woooooooorse.”
Bub moved his face closer to the priest's. Thrist could smell his fetid breath and see ragged bits of sheep still clinging to his teeth.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” Thrist said, “I shall not want.”
“Heeeeere comes the paaaaaaaain.”
Thrist felt Bub's claw sliding down his left leg. The demon grabbed it tight and slowly began to twist. There were cracking sounds, and then a loud pop when the knee gave out.