CHAPTER NINE
The Disciple lay on her knees, forehead pressed to her clasped hands, those hands pressed to the ground. She wept, not begging, not asking for mercy she knew she didn’t deserve. Asking instead for strength to finish the task set out before her and brave the eternal consequences of that action.
The Lawgiver’s face flitted across her eyes, His voice spoke steadily in the back of her mind.
“God asks the greatest sacrifices of His greatest servants. The world is sick. It has been poisoned by the Accuser, and now his venom spreads throughout those entrusted with God’s divine instrument of justice.
“Oh, he is wily the Devil! He knows, knows that God’s commandments are inviolate, knows that all who transgress them will suffer eternal torment!
So, he tricks those responsible for God’s judgment, moves them to release those sinners from the punishment they’ve earned, knowing that God’s servants cannot transgress His commandments to correct that wrong. ”
His eyes flashed while she spoke this. When he came to the end, however, they brightened, as though an idea had just come to him. “But… Perhaps there is a way, a way for God to work through His servants to correct that wrong in spite of the wiles of the devil.”
The Lawgiver turned his bright, powerful eyes onto the Disciple.
“Yes. That is what God requires. A servant to stand in the place where Christ stood, to make the sacrifice Christ made.
A servant willing to stain the fabric of their soul to absolve humanity of the stain on its own soul.
Someone willing to pay the terrible price necessary to right this wrong.
The Disciple, consumed by rapture in the Lawgiver’s presence, consumed by righteous anger at the transgressors allowed to escape the judgment they were due, had immediately volunteered. She would be God’s instrument. She would right those wrongs. She would pay that terrible price.
And in the moment when she plunged her knife into the wicked heart of the evildoer, she’d felt that rapture again, that ecstasy, an almost sexual thrill as she felt the tip of her blade slide through the skin, felt the evildoer’s beating heart press against the tip of her blade, felt it burst as the knife moved through, felt the blood pour out as its final contractions spilled the life it had forfeited when it took the life of another.
“Oh!”
The moan shocked the Disciple out of her tears. She froze, realizing she’d fallen on her side and crossed her legs, moved her hands lower.
She remained there unmoving. As with this moment, that moment had culminated in a beautiful peak of ecstasy, and immediately following, clarity had asserted itself. The Disciple was now damned. She’d committed a mortal sin. No absolution would fall on her. She could never go to heaven.
She left the message. The Lawgiver hadn’t told her what to say, only that she would know what to say when the moment came.
Once more, he’d been right. She’d carved the commandment, and then the rest had flowed out of her, brought forth by the Holy Spirit.
She’d written of the travesty of miscarried judgment, lamented at the evil in the hearts of those who betrayed that judgment, betrayed those they were supposed to protect.
And finally, she’d explained her role using the Words of God. She was the scapegoat. She was taking the sins of mankind upon herself, righting the wrongs done, damning her own soul that she might save the souls of others.
And when all of those sins had been righted, she would go to Azazel and leave the world free of its filth.
She swallowed. Her throat clicked. She unfolded herself and got to her feet. Her legs shook a little, but she remained steady enough to wash her hands and prepare a meal for herself. It was important for her to keep up her strength. She needed it for a while yet.
Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, that ye may have strength to stand against the wiles of the Devil.
She prepared the meal, a simple paste of soybeans.
There was no need for the meal to taste good.
Taste was vanity. It needed only to sustain.
Daniel and his companions Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had refused the king’s meat and eaten only pulse.
After forty days, they were stronger and healthier than those who gave into decadence.
Pulse. Like the beat of a living heart. Like the spurt of blood from a sacrificial goat.
The Disciple closed her eyes and savored the memory once more.
She would find another goat. Another killer who had escaped justice thanks to the wickedness and weakness of the judges. She would find them, and she would right the wrong. She would make the sacrifice.
And when the time came for her to face her own judgment, she would accept it and go willingly into the bowels of Azazel.