Authors: Angella Graff
Ben glanced over at Mark with a frown. “What are you saying?”
“I'm saying, if you take the Bible in terms of lessons, fables if you will, you'll find it more applicable to your life as a whole because they are open for interpretation and they are changeable. However, that doesn't mean the Bible is entirely historically inaccurate. The bible had authors, ancient authors, and those authors based what they said on some measure of truth.”
“So you're saying Jesus did raise the dead?” Ben asked. “You're saying that he was crucified, rose from the dead himself, and then ascended to Heaven?”
“No,” Mark said. “Not specifically. I'm saying that in Jesus's time, particular healing instances, miracles or however you want to call them, did occur, but the idea that Jesus was the Son of God, a half-divine being, isn't necessarily the reason for those miracles.”
Ben scratched the back of his head in confusion. “I'm lost.”
“I realize this,” Mark said. “I wish I could explain more, in greater detail, but I can’t. Not yet, anyway, and there's a danger to having too much information on this subject.”
“This sounds like a load of hokey bullshit to me, frankly,” Ben said. “Who are we going to see, exactly?”
“Someone who has capabilities much like Jesus, not attributed to a God, but an outside force beyond our understanding,” Mark said.
“Right, okay,” Ben said with a sigh. This trip was turning into a nightmare for Ben. He didn't believe in any of it, and whatever happened to him, whatever cured his cancer, it wasn't some spiritual crap.
Mark fell silent for a time, and then said, “How much do you know about Judas Iscariot?”
“Biblical bad guy,” Ben said.
“He was the man who betrayed Jesus,” Abby chimed in, giving her brother a little smack for being rude. “He offered the location and identification of Jesus for forty pieces of silver. Once Jesus was taken, Judas killed himself. According to the Church, he was damned.”
Mark got a funny sort of look on his face and his smile seemed quite sad. “Damned. Yes. It's a good word for it. The Bible paints Judas as the bad guy, and I've been struggling with that one most of my years walking this Earth to understand why.”
“Wasn't there a recent Gnostic gospel that surfaced about Judas?” Abby asked. “Something along the lines of Judas being the only one who truly understood the message of Christ?”
Mark smiled. “There was. While highly inaccurate, it’s still something to be considered.”
Ben let out a sigh and asked, “Why are we talking about this?”
“I’m trying to give you knowledge that may come in handy in the near future,” Mark replied. “I realize you don’t agree with what I’m saying, but just trust me when I tell you this knowledge may be helpful to you some day.”
“Right,” Ben said. “Whatever you say. Can we just have some quiet until we get to the hospital, please?”
“Ben, don’t be an ass!” Abby cried out in Mark’s defense.
Mark held up a hand and spoke over Abby’s protest. “Silence is fine. I don’t want to cross any lines and I’ve said everything I need to.”
Chapter
Twelve
Mark could feel his hands start to tremble as the car pulled to a stop in front of the hospital. He barely heard Ben explaining to Mark that Abby would take him inside while he parked the car. He grabbed the door handle and stepped onto the pavement. Abby was at his side almost instantly, and he felt a little more grounded as his hand settled on her arm.
“This guy, this Stigmata guy, I know you're not telling us a lot, but he's... he's someone you care about, isn't he?” Abby asked quietly as the sound of the car sped off.
His desire to keep everything secret was pressing, but it was about to come out, and he couldn't stop it. Yehuda had done this to himself, done it by leaving Mark nearly a hundred years ago, knowing what would become of him once they were separated. History was repeating itself and Mark was feeling the first flutters of absolute terror in his gut.
“You're shaking,” Abby added, closing her warm hand over his fingers. “You're all pale, and I've never seen you nervous before. Ever.”
Mark forced a smile, feeling a bubble of hysterical laughter threaten to escape. Clearing his throat, he squinted, trying to see what he could of Abby through the thick white contacts marring his eyes. “Things are complicated, Abby, and I'm afraid after today nothing is going to be the same.”
Abby was silent for a little while as they walked to the front of the hospital, coming to rest on a low, shaded concrete wall. “Something special happened to Ben, didn't it? I know he's... well he's Ben so he's not going to listen to anything, but he was healed, wasn't he?”
“He was,” Mark confirmed for the first time since the siblings had started pressing him for answers. “This man inside the building, he's not Jesus. He's not divine, but he has a gift, and because of that gift he's here. I've known him far too many years, and he always ends up somewhere like this, driven mad, alone, terrified.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Mark turned to face Abby, reaching out to touch her shoulder gently with the tips of his fingers. “I'm going to get him out, but first, I want your brother to understand what happened to him. Your brother is... he's a special person Abby. Someone with the ability to understand what a lot of people cannot. Things that you already understand, even if they're not clear to you right now.”
Abby gave a little groan. “I'm so confused.”
“I know, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what's going to happen, and for how things won't ever go back to being the same. I'm begging your forgiveness now, because you're going to be angry with me soon.”
Before Abby could answer, the heavy footsteps of Ben signaled his approach, and Mark was on his feet. He reached for Ben's arm instead of Abby's, choosing to keep his distance from the woman he knew was about to have her heart broken when she found out who he really was and why he could not let himself get any closer to her.
Ben seemed a little hesitant about playing the guide, but Mark pressed on, his cane swishing back and forth across the tiled floors as they walked in to the hospital and to the desk. Ben detached himself from Mark's arm and said in a very stern voice, “I'm Detective Stanford from San Francisco PD. I'm here on a case involving a John Doe in room 245. Please phone the floor and let them know we are on our way up.”
The receptionist clicked repeatedly on her little keyboard, and then picked up the phone. “I have a Detective Stanford here for John Doe in 245.” Her voice was nasal, annoyed, likely irritated at Ben's authoritative tone with her and commanding request. “They're expecting you. Please have your identification ready.”
Ben offered his arm again to Mark and they headed for the elevators. The dinging and swooshing always made Mark uneasy. Along with a dislike of cars, Mark wasn't overly fond of being inside small spaces, and elevators were rather unnerving.
“Ground floor,” said a pleasing electronic voice. Ben pushed the number two button and the elevator doors slammed shut and swooshed upwards in an unapologetic manner. “Floor two,” said the elevator and the doors opened.
Mark was met with bright lights and a rush of chilled air in his face. He felt a little off kilter from the elevators and had to steady himself before they continued on to the nurse's station where someone was waiting for them.
“You must be Detective Stanford,” came a voice, male, low and rumbling baritone. “My name is Dr. Asclepius. I spoke to your chief yesterday, who informed me you might have a positive identification for our John Doe.”
“Uh yes,” Ben said. “This is Father Mark Roman, from Sacred Heart in San Francisco. He believes he might know the patient.”
“Forgive my rudeness, but Father Roman, how do you intend on identifying the patient? He's quite unresponsive so I don't believe an auditory identification will be possible.”
“I have other ways of identifying the world around me.” It was a phrase Mark used often, and it was a lie for him, because he had no intention of doing anything other than removing his contacts and setting his eyes on Yehuda for the first time in a hundred years.
“Forgive me,” the doctor said again.
“Room two-four-five is it?” Ben asked.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Uh yes. If you need anything else, have me paged. Before you leave I'd like to have a word, should you positively ID him, just a brief medical history. We've received some questionable blood work and his chart is incomplete.”
Mark felt his blood run cold. Blood work. He wasn't sure that Yehuda had ever gone through blood work before, and he could only imagine what modern day science might discover should they get their hands on any significant amount of his DNA.
Mark was pulled from his thoughts by Ben's swift steps, and they walked down the carpeted hallway until Ben came to a stop in front of the room. Absently, Mark reached out and found the number plaque on the wall, his fingers mapping out the Braille tag reading the numbers two-four-five. This was it.
Mark didn't need the Braille, nor did he need to set eyes on the man in the bed, because just standing outside of the door, Mark could feel him, feel the connection between them, the immortal soul lying there, trapped in his body, in his madness.
Not waiting for Ben, Mark pushed the door open and walked inside. Turning his head from side to side, he could hear the room was mostly empty, save for a few machines. The window let quite a lot of light filter in, and somewhere above his head a television was playing at an extremely low volume.
The subtle beeping told Mark that Yehuda was strapped to monitors, keeping an eye on his vital signs. He did not say aloud that the monitors would expire long before Yehuda's heartbeat ever would. He stuck his cane out, walking forward until it collided with something large and metal. The hospital bed.
Ben and Abby had stayed back near the door as Mark moved forward, hands outstretched as he found the bed, his hand coming to rest on the unconscious man's ankle. At contact, the man in the bed shifted, just slightly, but it was the first time he had moved of his own accord since being taken into the hospital.
Mark knew this, because this had happened now more times than his mind cared to remember, and his eyes welled with tears. He swiped at them with the back of his hand, clearing his throat. “This may take me a moment,” he said, his voice thick and rough.
“I'm uh... I'm going to go get coffee,” Abby said. “Ben, want to come?”
“I can't,” Ben said, sounding pained. “I want to but I can't leave Mark alone here with the John Doe.”
“Right,” Abby said.
“It's fine,” Mark said, his back still to the pair. Mark waited for a moment, until he knew that it was just him and Ben in the room, and he reached up, giving a pinch near his eyes and pulling the contacts out.
He blinked a few times, clearing the blur from his vision and letting his eyes adjust to full vision and light. By Ben's silence, Mark knew Ben hadn't noticed the contacts yet, which bought Mark a little time to examine Yehuda and the state he was in.
Mark trailed his hand up from Yehuda's leg to his arm, and looked down at the face of the man he hadn't seen in a century. He was unchanged, his friend, save for the black circles under his eyes. He was thin, sallow but his olive skin was clean shaven and his nails trimmed.
It was when Mark realized that Yehuda's hair was freshly washed that he became nervous. He reached out, touching the side of Yehuda's face, and the man lying in the bed moved again, just slightly, in the direction of Mark's hand.
“Yehuda,” Mark whispered. “Why must I find you like this every time?” His fingers against Yehuda's skin were trembling, just slightly, humming with connection, with power. He could feel it passing between himself and Yehuda and he became frightened again. “When is this going to end?”