Martin was further up ahead, checking around the corner of the public library. He signaled to Jesus to come over. They we're just in front of the abandonned sawmill. There didn't seem to be anyone in the streets, as if the city had been evacuated somehow.
Jesus followed Martin's orders and began running towards the sawmill. He jumped over the chain linked fence and fell hard on his back. He turned on his side and saw Martin running in his direction. He was just about to jump the fence when a member of the Sicarii came around the corner and fired at Martin.
The world stopped as did Jesus' heart. Everything was silent. Martin grabbed at his chest as blood spilled from his wound. Defeat shadowed his face just as he collapsed face down on the hot pavement.
"Nooo!" Jesus struggled to get air back into his lungs. Sicarii members were swarming towards the sawmill, hundreds of them. Jesus managed to get on his knees when he felt it coming. The edges of his vision began to blur into a swirl of mauves and purples. Everything turned black and he was kneeling in front of the woman who claimed to be Madonna Riviera.
The Final Chapters
- Chapter 24 -
A Long Awaited Discussion
Jesus was washing his hands in the makeshift bassin. The sawmill was old and in pretty bad condition. Everything had been removed and gutted leaving a blank canvas the size of a commercial hangar. The Agency had been smart in leaving the main floor as is and set up their camp in the basement.
It was dark and humid below ground but there was only one way in and several feet of solid steel seperating them from the ground above. With Madonna by their side, they had little to fear. That is, until Anna shows up.
Jesus emptied the hollowed bark that was used as a wash bassin and hung it upside down to dry. He was just about to leave the room when he was surprised by Madonna.
Something about her drew him in. Her presence alone beckoned submission. She glowed like a light tower in a purple night sky. She was so youthful yet her grey eyes betrayed her age. Madonna Riviera was the essence of beauty -
"My eyes can make people do what they want. My ears can hear their thoughts. Although i'm flattered by them, I suggest you opress them at once." Madonna said, walking out of the room and gesturing at Jesus to follow her.
Jesus felt his face reddened and swell with embarassment. He lowered his head and quickly stepped out of the room and soon caught up with Madonna who kept a steady pace. They were walking down a long steel corridor and Jesus couldn't help but to think of the story Martin had told him. Anna Simeon had guided Martin down a similar tunnel, this one maybe, and his life changed forever.
"Where are we going?" Jesus asked, slightly apprehensive of following Madonna down a winding tunnel.
"Don't worry, Jesus. The Boss has requested a meeting with you." She answered.
"The Boss?"
"Will you calm your nerves a bit, I can feel them vibrating in my skull." Madonna said stopping in front of a rounded door that had no knob. As far as Jesus could see, it had no mechanism to open the door.
"Were here. Don't be afraid, you'll find he isn't that much of a stranger."
Madonna winked and pressed her right hand on the door. A purple beam of light glided over the door like a scanner and then disapeared. The door slid open and Madonna waved her hand towards the dark room.
"Destiny awaits"
"Right..." Jesus sighed and stepped inside the room.
The door closed before any lights were turned on. Jesus remained still in the dark for quite some time until several small lilac coloured globes descended from the ceiling and lit the small room that housed but a chair with one man sitting on it.
"Uncle Michael...you're The Boss?" Jesus let out, his fears washing right off.
"Hello Jesus." Michael got up from his chair and walked towards his nephew. "You look just like her. Your mother. Mary."
"So this is why you haven't been around all my life?" Jesus threw back, noticing immediately the anger in his tone. He didn't care. Martin had struggled all along and Michael was the mastermind behind everything.
"So much anger inside you, Jesus. You remind me of her. She had a temper -"
"Stop talking about my mother. She didn't hide behind a title. She didn't abandon her family."
"She didn't have to make the choices I made. Anger filled me too once. I'm sad to say you're mother passed before I changed my ways. But I haven't missed a day of your life, Jesus. I have been watching over you for some time."
Jesus rolled his eyes and turned around. He didn't feel like talking with his uncle at all. He didn't care how powerful Michael was.
"When will you understand that this," Michael said, emphasizing on the last word, "this, this place, this country, all of this is but a small fraction in a war that surpasses any concept of time your small, arrogant, ungrateful mind can even process. Snap out of it, Jesus."
At those words, images of a large country home with sheeps suddenly flew by in his mind. It was followed by another picture, this one much older, set in a valley high above a roaring river. Another of a girl with red hair. She's being stoned. One of him as a child with his mother and another as a teen, Mary standing beside him.
"Snap out of it, Jesus"
He's playing ball with Joseph at Malcom's fiftieth birthday. He's marrying Maghdalyna Saint. Over and over again. Madonna laughs and gives Jesus a hug. Everything is so different yet Jesus didn't want the images to stop. He forced his eyes shut.
"Do you see now, Jesus. What you are. What you need to do. Save us, Jesus."
Jesus eyelids shot open exposing two bright white spheres.
"I see them all. I feel them." Jesus said, turning to face his uncle. "I keep seeing the same image. A large bare valley with a river raging by below it. Where is that, Michael?"
"That is the Birthplace, Jesus. Don't forget it again."
Michael, satisfied with the outcome, walked out of the room and it took but a few seconds before Madonna hurried inside to see Jesus. She noticed his white eyes immediately.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Is that what we're fighting for?"
Madonna smiled. "That's exactly what we're fighting for, Jesus.¸"
The Final Chapters
- Chapter 25 -
Madonna's Training
"Remember what I told you yesterday?" Madonna said, writing the word ANGER on the chalkboard behind her. "You will have to get rid of this to be able to heal them."
She walked over to Jesus' wooden school desk and sat on the edge of it, peering down at Jesus over her lilac glasses. "What makes you angry, Jesus?"
Something sparkled behind her grey eyes and before Jesus knew it, he felt Madonna inside his mind. She was searching through his memories, he could see her inserted in the background. STOP IT.
Madonna fell back and brushed off her skirt. "That was good, Jesus. You felt me, and compelled me to leave. You'll have to try harder." She removed her glasses and jacket and sat across from Jesus. "I'm going to go into your mind, now, Jesus. It's the only way for me to truly test you."
"What do you -"
The room began to shake and books fell off the shelves. Picture frames smashed on the ground below and soon everything was black safe the purple trimming that seemed to line Jesus' vision. Madonna stood in front of him, much like her doppelgänger. But Jesus knew she was the real Madonna, the one he could trust.
"I want you to know I never ventured this far into your mind. The one who has lives in a parrallel universe. She is from the Birthplace, Jesus. You see, long ago there existed but one world and that was the Birthplace. Goodness triumphed and the people lived happy without sin. There was no greed, no pride. There was but joy and freedom.
"One man wanted more then that; the Fallen One. He toyed with physics and manipulated science until he was able to create a portal into other worlds, which have come to be known as the Shadowlands. He wanted to have his own world, his own reign of terror. What he didn't know was that he had opened a ticking time bomb.
"The Shadowlands ressemble the Birthplace in many ways but each realm carries it's own unique environment. People change, events unfold differently. The balance of good and evil is thin in the Shadowlands and when the balance shifts here, it does the same in the Birthplace.
"When the portal was open and the Shadowlands were created, each realm began to evolve gradually and at different pace. One thing remained the same in every place, and that is you Jesus. Every Shadowland can count on you to defend it.
"We are all shadows of ourselves in the Birthplace. They are trying hard to close the portal ever since but our energy has grown throughout the years and the only way for the portal to close is to destroy the Shadowlands by reuniting the energy.
"Prophecy states that a young man born from divinity will close each Shadowland and reunite the energy back into the Birthplace. There is a select number of people who can travel between the Shadowlands and we've made it our personal mission to make sure the prophecy happens in it's natural course.
"The Birthplace however is eager to set the balance straight again and have unleached some of their fiercest warriors to speed up the prophecy. We believe this will only make the balance shift because the young man isn't ready until he is a grown adult. It tricks the prophecy. Do you understand a bit more now Jesus?"
It couldn't be any clearer. What Madonna was telling him registered at the core of his memory as if he lived every single life in every single Shadowland. It must be this place they're in, this black void. His mind, Madonna had said. He couldn't let them destroy him now.
"Only one thing doesn't fit. Are you saying the Sicarii are warriors from the Birthplace? I thought they were fighting for the Fallen One."
"The Sicarii? They are not to be feared. Once we finish this conversation you will heal them of the hatred that eats away at their soul. No, the Sicarii are worthless sheeps that follow the Fallen One. What you must truly fear is the Adephi; People in the Shadowlands call them Angels."
"Angels?!"
"Yes, Angels. The Adephi are a male-female couple who originally populated the Birthplace. They chose to remain neutral in the war between the Fallen One and the Almighty Source until now. They feel the balance is threatened but they have no idea that their interference is making everything worst."
"And somehow I have to stop all of this?"
"Your mother was hand-picked to give birth to you, Jesus. You have direct energy from the Birthplace which makes your powers much more powerful then mine. The white eyes is just the beginning. You have to release the anger. Think of what I just told you, everything I said about the balance of good and evil. I will leave you here to think in this place. Think of everything that is at stakes and then question that anger that lives inside you. I want you out of here in five minutes."
As soon as she was done talking, Madonna vanished out of thin air and left Jesus alone in the nothingness she had created. Jesus was given a task yet he couldn't even begin to think about what he could do to heal this anger. An emotion he wasn't even sure existed in him. He didn't feel angry.
He felt many other emotions stir up inside him though. Not knowing his mother made him sad. The abuse he suffered at the hands of his father made him feel hopeless. Having loved and lost the only person that ever cared for him pained him in a way he couldn't even express. Fighting a war he had no real connection to left him confused and curious.
He never once stopped to think that all these emotions combined made him feel something different towards the world. He wanted to scream out how unfair it was that he never got to hug his mother, never got to feel love from his father, never got to say thank you to Martin, never got the chance to take a stand in the war that was meant on destroying him. That, he finally understood, made him angry.
He tried to think of ways to rid himself of this anger. However, Jesus didn't even know where to begin. He placed his palm on his chest and tried to heal himself as he did with others before. Nothing happened. He didn't feel the burden being lifted from his shoulders. Maybe he couldn't heal it so easily. All of this troubled him and he began to drift to thoughts of Joan.
He hadn't loved someone else as much as he had loved Joan. At the mere memory of her smile, Jesus' palm began to glow and then warmth began flowing through it. He placed it on his chest and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he was in the basement of the abandonned sawmill, Madonna Riviera staring blankly back at him.
"So, how do you feel?" She said, a slight nervousness seeping through her calm nature.
With bright white eyes and glowing palms, Jesus looked up at Madonna.
"I feel divine."
