During my formative years—a young boy living with Father Osgood in Granger’s Outlook—I dutifully cleaned the church building. I listened to bible stories since some were entertaining enough. I went through the motions when it came time for prayers. But I never truly believed anyone was listening.

  However, I’d be a fool to say I didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell. After all, I had a damned angel in my pocket. I just wasn’t certain of anyone’s true intentions. My confidence in the White Throne’s power didn’t extend to my understanding of what they truly wanted.

  Was it to abolish evil as I’d been led to believe? Or was it simply extinguishing any threat to their seat of ultimate dominion?

  None of it truly mattered. The harsh truth was I have been beholden to the One who brought me back to life and will be until the day the other side finally manages to put me down, or I outlive my usefulness. And right now, I was supposed to kill the one before me. The Vampire King. The Betrayer. And so much more than I expected.

  The man who called himself Judas Iscariot was still talking, but I didn’t hear a goddamned word. I was too fixated on the fact that this man was claiming to be one of the original disciples of Christ. If that were true, every question humanity had about the truth of the gospel could be answered in one interview.

  Except, I figured he was just insane. Driven mad by being alive so long. And even if he told the truth, from my recollections, Judas hung himself before the supposed resurrection, which meant he couldn’t know the answer to the most crucial question of all. So, to me, he was just another…

  “Dead man walking,” I said, not missing the whole pot calling the kettle black thing.

  “After all this time, you still don’t understand the gravity of the life you lead,” he replied.

  “Guess I can be a little dense. What do you want from me?”

  “What makes you think I want a thing?” Judas asked.

  “If you didn’t, I’d be dead. Tourmaline made that clear enough. Unless I’m reading the room wrong, kill me or tell me why I’m here.”

  Judas walked over to the pews and motioned for his men to follow with me in tow. “Have a seat, Mr. Crowley.”

  “I’d rather stand.”

  Judas gave his men a look, and they forced me into the pew.

  “That’s better, no?” Judas asked. “Your whole life, you’ve been nothing more than a dog on someone else’s chain, yes?”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know myself,” Judas said. “And I know the White Throne.”

  “I’m my own man,” I said.

  “Of course you are. Let us see if I can paint a picture, shall we? You grew up in a home filled with turmoil.”

  “Congratulations, you’ve lived in the West.”

  He ignored me. “Your mother had no time for you. Your father was a drunk.”

  “Yet again—”

  “You were forced to devote hours to a man of faith—a reverend? Priest… Yes, a Catholic. That much is clear.”

  It was possible the vampire was clairvoyant—one this old might have extra gifts. I let him continue. Didn’t have many choices in the matter.

  He placed a hand on my thigh, patting it a couple of times. “You do not believe. Never did. You found your own way. Something your mother never would have approved of. You went from being the lap dog of a drunk to the trained hound of a new man. When you died, probably by the hand that fed you, you were given a new lot in life by Heaven. However, the only thing that has changed is who holds the leash.”

  In a matter of minutes, this man had read my mail. He’d just encapsulated my whole life in a way I’m not sure I’d have been able to do had he put a gun to my head. One thing was certain, he was something else.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, Betrayer, but I know for sure you ain’t Judas Iscariot.”

  That proclamation brought something like anger flashing to his pitch-black eyes.

  He sneered. “I walked with your Christ. Shared the bowl with him. Broke bread. I, too, suffered at the hands of both Gods. I tasted the fruits of Heaven and Hell, and I can tell you, both sour the tongue. I alone can offer you true freedom.”

  “From one master to another, yet again.” I glanced over my shoulder at one of the men holding me.

  “These you see around you are not my slaves,” Judas said. “They follow because they believe as I do. That we are all caught between the whims of two almighty beings who care nothing about us.”

  “I’ve wiped out my share of Luciferian cults,” I said. “Follower is just another word for slave.”

  “Do you not listen? Satan. God. Me, my blood-children, we exist beyond their desires. No matter what your handler tells you. We are our own.”

  “Funny. I know an angel who calls everyone a child.”

  Judas leaned in. If he was breathing, I couldn’t tell. Then again, I don’t breathe either, and I suppose being as old as I am, without having aged a day, should make me at least that much less skeptical of his claims. But Judas Iscariot? Really?

  “So, what,” I said, “You’re a Hand of God?”

  “Was,” Judas corrected.

  “Was,” I repeated with a fair share of scorn. “From what I’ve heard, that’d either put you in Hell or nowhere.”

  Judas gestured to the room. “Does this look like Hell?”

  “Gotta admit, it’s more colorful than I’d imagined.”

  “You think this a joke, Hamsa?”

  “You know what, Judas…” I spat the word to make it extra clear I still wasn’t buying what he was selling. “I’m not sure what I think about all this. Hard to develop much of a thought while I’m being strong-armed.”

  Judas flicked his wrist, and my captors let me go. Each grabbed hold of a shaft and pulled it free. Almost immediately, my wounds began to close.

  I shrugged, shook out my arms, and straightened my sleeves.

  “Is that better?” he asked.

  I cracked my neck. “What’s stopping me from standing up right now and leaving? Better yet…” I pulled my other pistol. The men around me moved to stop me, but Judas waved them off. “What’s stopping me from blowing your vampiric brains out all over this pew?”

  He stepped closer. Whereas Roo was just acting tough when I placed him under the aim of silver, this guy wasn’t spooked. Not at all. Vampires are fast, and I think he knew that even if I pulled the trigger from only inches away, he’d evade it with ease. And if he couldn’t, the look in his dark eyes made me believe it.

  “I was once just like you,” he said calmly. “Bound to a throne whose king was so far removed, I wouldn’t have believed him real had I not walked with him.”

  “You’re saying Jesus Himself is on the White Throne?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Judas admitted. “I was just as confused as you are now—more so even. Imagine a man you called ‘friend’ not living up to your expectations!”

  That wasn’t something I had to try very hard to imagine. I’d known plenty of disappointments over the years. One that comes first to mind is Ace Ryker. We had a great thing going; him, me, and the Scuttlers. All until he took our little crew and turned us into cold-blooded killers over a few greenbacks.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “There are men and women like you all over the world,” Judas said. “Some of which have never heard the name of the Christ. Yet still, they fight for Heaven with the same fervor. The Almighty wears many masks.”

  I groaned. “You’re no different than Shar with all your riddles and skittles.”

  “Shar?” Judas laughed. “As in Shargrafein?”

  My stomach turned at his use of my angelic handler’s proper name.

  “You know her?”

  “Perhaps,” Judas said. “The monikers by which angels are known are not so much names as they are titles. Assuming she’s not yet been killed and replaced, yes, I know her well. Very well, indeed. I take it she sent you here with little more than a command?”

  “Sounds like you do know her.” I turned my attention to my darkened shaving mirror, still open on the altar. Wouldn’t she hear all this?

  “We’ve had our history. You saw what happened to her when I entered, yes?”

  “Completely vanished,” I said.

  “How would you like such obscurity from her glare? This… this is what I offer you. As long as I am near, she cannot see us. She is as blind to us as any other seeking to view our reflection. We are entirely hidden from the White Throne and aim to keep it that way.”

  I was about to answer, but then something popped into my head. “Wait, what do you mean by we?”

  The slightest smirk crossed his features. “Ahh, so you do pay attention. My kind. Vampires, as the world has come to know us. Many think our true gift is eternal life, but no, it is anonymity. Born of both Heaven and Hell through me, we are hidden from their gaze. So, you see, Shargrafein wasn’t playing games this time. She couldn’t direct you because, to her, we are shadows. Darkness itself. Ever fleeting.”

  That got me rethinking a few things. Back when I first got to Crescent City, I was talking to Shar a block away from a vampire sucking a poor man dry. She wasn’t surprised when I found him, but would she really speak so calmly with such a powerful enemy so near? Was this “Judas” telling the truth?

  “Alright, let’s say I bite,” I said. “What are you asking me to do in exchange for this freedom?”

  “Only what you already wanted to do before our mutual friend spoke her piece.”

  I thought about it for a moment, then said, “Kill Tourmaline.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But why? I thought she was your child.”

  Judas sighed. “There are times when a child becomes so petulant, the only recourse is swift punishment.”

  “Sure, a lashing. But you’re asking me to exterminate her?”

  “A lashing is meant to teach a lesson,” he said. “What happens when the lesson is never learned? She’s received centuries of rebukes. I thought she’d learned, but it seems her desire to flee the shadows will never abate. Butchering a politician is one thing. I have done the same when it suits us. But gathering Nephilim and the scions of Hell, allowing her young brood to graze openly on the streets with no discipline and fight like brawlers…” His fists were in balls, and his tone vibrated with fury. “Our youngest are savage until groomed. If we are not purified, then we are the monsters your Shar makes us out to be.”

  “Look, killing a child is sick even by my standards, even if child is a loose definition in this case. But I’ve got one more objection.”

  Judas gestured for me to continue.

  “Why not kill her yourself? Don’t wanna get those ancient hands dirty?”

  “Nothing so practical. The truth is, she has a piece of my heart.”

  “Shit. You’re in love with her?”

  Judas shook his head. “I’m not speaking metaphorically.”

  I stared at him like he had a horn growing from his skull.

  “See, like us, Tourmaline once served the White Throne. Like me, she longed for escape. Bent the rules. Such as letting an innocent native boy go regardless of the devastation and destruction he’d caused.”

  I stayed quiet. How long had he been watching me to know about what happened in Revelation Springs?

  “And so, when the time was right for the angels to try and send her to her doom against me or finally defeat me, I approached her. The only way to become whole once more, James Enoch Crowley, is to take for yourself a power you do not possess on your own. You must bond a piece of her heart to yours as she did mine and as I did Azrael’s after slaying him for the White Throne.”

  “Azrael—the Azrael?” I said. “Angel of Death, Azrael?”

  “The one and only,” he confirmed. “You see, I said the names of angels are more akin to titles, but not Azrael. He was singular, for he was the one responsible for Lucifer’s fall. He was the first betrayer, and I knew if I could harness his power, I alone would defeat death and my ties to Heaven.”

  Can’t say I knew much about angelic pecking orders, other than the Arch Angels ruling the roost, but Azrael was a name familiar to me from my time spent with Father Osgood. The Angel of Death, the protector of the Garden of Eden, and the one who took the firstborn children during the time of Moses.

  “Long before man, the angels dwelled in peace and harmony—or so we are told,” Judas went on. “But Lucifer had designs of his own. He’d gained a following, built an army right under the Almighty’s nose, and when the time was right, he and his second-in-command, Azrael, would strike and claim the White Throne for themselves.”

  “But that’s not what happened,” I said.

  Judas shook his head. “As soon as Lucifer declared war, Azrael’s true colors showed. At first, there was no saying whether it was a loss of nerve or his plan all along, but he drove his flaming sword through Lucifer’s black heart. This absolved him of the sin of insurgency and granted him a place of honor amongst the White Court.”

  “Like Caesar and Brutus,” I commented.

  “There’s a long history of betrayers. Most do it with a blade for power. I did it with a kiss for a mere thirty silver coins.”

  “Silver…” I said, beginning to put the pieces together.

  “Indeed. I told you I could smell it. The very sight of it makes me sick. Part of any Nephilim’s curse—as greed is a tool of Hell—and thus, yours as well.”

  “And wooden stakes? That got something to do with the cross?” I turned my attention to the crucifix.

  “A wooden stake to anyone’s heart would end them,” he said. “I’m afraid that’s just the nature of hearts.”

  That made a certain kind of sense.

  “But Azrael too fell from grace. Despite his position, he wanted more. When word of his scheme reached the ears of the Throne, it was I who was dispatched to end the threat.”

  “To kill Azrael,” I said.

  “And I did.”

  “How does Tourmaline fit into all this?”

  “It has been written ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ She was my first child, and now, like Azrael, she must be stopped,” he said. “She threatens our concealment. She’s upset the balance, drawn too many eyes. My firstborn children and I have lived without conflict for many ages. They were all like you, Hands of God. Powerful enough by the grace of the White Throne to receive a piece of Azrael’s heart from me directly and survive it. They may then dole out parts of their own to create a weaker brood or retain all their strength—that is their choice.”

  “Then why not make another kid to take her down?”

  “I have no more left of me to give,” he said, a hint of regret in his voice. “It is both darkness and light that binds me. Too much of one, and I will fade. Not enough of the other, and I will cease to be. And I’m not ready to forsake the ones I freed.”

  And there it was. The answer to everything about this Judas. He could talk about how generous and protective he was all he wanted, but the truth was, he didn’t want to die. Wasn’t ready to, even after thousands of years. And if he killed Tourmaline, my bet was that his other firstborn, bearing their slivers of his angel-infused heart, might think it’s time to erase their maker.

  Could I blame him, not wanting to let go? I couldn’t. Every time I complained about Shar and the White Throne, I could easily just stop and accept the fate I deserved. But I persevered. Nobody wants to leave the game when they’ve got a hot hand. An immortal, demi-god-like vampire king, equal parts Heaven and Hell—Judas had been dealt a royal flush.

  “Would they really miss you?” I asked, making no effort to mask my snideness.

  “Her actions jeopardize our peace. Our only way out: take her life. Return her heart to me, and you, too, will find true salvation.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  Judas rose. “We are not enemies, James Crowley. Perhaps we can even be friends.”

  He started off toward the front entrance.

  “That’s it?” I asked, confused.

  “I offer you true freedom. No more servitude to a throne which lacks the respect to even inform you of my true name. Should you decide to travel that path, all you must do is look for me, and you will find me.”

  “Seek, and I will find, huh?” I asked.

  “You’re beginning to understand. The heavens are at war, Hamsa. Just be sure you’re standing out of the way, or you may as well be cannon fodder.”

  With that, he left, along with all his men. I sat there alone in a room that had once been beautiful, now shattered and broken.

  Moonlight returned, and my mirror swirled to life, along with that itch of Shar wanting my attention.

  “Crowley?” her voice intoned.

  I strolled over, confused, mind in a knot.

  “Crowley, where were you?”

  Should I tell her? Really get on her good side?

  “Sorry. It was, uh… another vamp attack,” I said. Not yet. I needed time to think. “Got away again.”

  “Of course it did. One day, I truly hope you cease to disappoint me.”

  No scolding. No calling me a liar. Did that mean this Judas was telling me the truth, and being in his presence truly did hide me from Heaven’s gaze? Or maybe he was playing me too.

  “You and me both, sweetheart,” I said. “But I need you to trust me on this one. Tourmaline is the key to getting the Betrayer. I feel it in my bones. And if I’m wrong, maybe losing a child will bring him to me one day. At worst, that murderess bitch is gone for good.”

  The truth, as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t sure what I wanted yet. Judas reminded me of Ace in a way, using his generosity as a mask for selfishness. He could have been playing me, so I didn’t come after him. Could’ve been fabricating the whole tale. Vampires, the result of him killing Azrael and merging with angel power? If that’s not the very definition of a fallen angel… News to me. And I couldn’t ask Shar because she’d want to know where I learned it or spin some riddle.

  “Then do what must be done, Crowley,” Shar said. “Prove me wrong, or don’t. At least the question of your usefulness shall be answered.”

  This time, she wisped away on her own, and it felt like a weight coming off me. Took everything not to ask if the Betrayer was Judas and try and glean the truth from her response.

  I took a step back, turned, and there was Chapelwaite, dressed like a marshal again, leaning on a pew.

  “What do you want?” I questioned.

  “I’m a United States Marshal,” he said, feigning shock. “If what you’ve told me about this Tourmaline is true, then she must be brought to justice for the death of Senator Cartwright. We can help each other.”

  He winked.

  Help.

  More like Judas keeping an eye on me with a follower who’d somehow embedded himself into the highest echelon of US law enforcement. Couldn’t say I was surprised.

  Nothing to complain about, though. Tourmaline would be ready for me now, and more guns couldn’t hurt. Help is a rare thing in this world. I take it where I can get it. Plus, Shar’s eyes were always on me anyway. What was another set?

  “You know what we’re up against?” I asked, playing coy.

  “I have my suspicions.”

  “Hope you’ve got your affairs in order.” I patted him on the shoulder and walked by, back straight, acting all confident—the way you do when you walk into a bank set to rob it, even though your insides are fluttering like fall leaves.

  True freedom or loyalty to my benefactors. All I had to do for the former was kill someone I already itched to. Well, that and claim a demon heart. And then spend eternity having to feed on other humans to survive.

  Nothing’s ever simple for a Black Badge.