MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (37 page)

The Mudman looked away, not wanting to meet Steve’s eye, then shrugged. “Suppose that’s true, Pastor. I’m … Well, let’s just say there’s a lot you don’t know about me—things I’m not entirely comfortable talking about. I’ve done a lot of things I’m awfully ashamed of. I’m a liar. I’ve hurt people—lots of people. I’ve been battling severe addiction my whole life, and I’ve lost that battle more often than I’ve won. I feel like … like God must hate me. Like there’s nothing good in me worth saving. I thought I had a handle on it, then this fella shows up. He’s kind of like a father to me, I suppose.

“But he’s a bad man and he’s done me a lot of wrong. And he’s brought everything back to the surface, dredged up all this stuff that I thought I’d buried. I guess I’m angry. Got vengeance on my mind and I’m afraid if I can’t move past it, then that’s all I’ll ever be. I feel like I’m at a crossroads, and if I choose the wrong road then addiction, vengeance, and hate is all I’ll ever own. And it’s driving me, pushing at me, and I just don’t know what to do with it. It’s killin’ me, Pastor. Unmaking me.”

Steve was quiet for a time, one foot bobbing while he thought. Levi picked up his coffee and took a long pull. He didn’t
need
to eat or drink—had no stomach, in fact—but he
could
eat or drink if the need arose. His ichor would simply convert the foul tasting brew into something useful.

“Levi,” he said eventually, “the Gospel is good news precisely because it’s
not
about who you are or what you’ve done, and it’s all about who He is and what He’s done for you. Grace isn’t dependent on you—it doesn’t care about your past or your addiction. No one merits grace, Levi, but that’s okay because grace isn’t about merit. Grace isn’t about getting what you
deserve
, that’s justice, it’s about getting what you don’t deserve. Mercy. I’m sure you’ve done bad things, but your badness isn’t bigger than God’s goodness.

“It’s kind of like buying a house,” he continued. “When I first saw my house, I knew it was the one I wanted. Knew that was where I wanted to live with my wife, knew it was where I wanted to raise my kids. With that said, I didn’t necessarily want the ugly green carpet in the basement or the tacky wood paneling. But I still wanted the house. I bought it knowing it had issues, and over time I made it my own. God does the same with us. He meets us where we’re at—faulty foundation, ugly carpet, busted down walls and all—and renovates. Maybe you’re a bit more of a fixer-upper than someone else, but God’s never met a challenge he couldn’t overcome.

“As to hate and vengeance. I’d like to tell you a story. Are you familiar with the story of Dirk Willems?”

Levi wagged his head,
no.

“It’s worth hearing, I think. Stories are amazing things, Levi. In today’s age we only seem to care about facts—bullet points we can write down, statistics we can quote, numbers we can memorize. I think many modern Christians secretly wish God had just filled the Bible with lists and rules. Easier that way. But that’s not what He did. He could’ve revealed himself in a multitude of ways, but instead of a textbook, God gave us a storybook—one filled with characters from the pages of history. A few good people, most bad, almost all of them deeply flawed. God revealed himself in their lives. And that story is still playing out in our lives.

“Dirk’s story might teach you a thing or two about vengeance and hate.”

“You’ve got my ear,” Levi grunted, then sipped at his joe.

“Dirk was an Anabaptist in the Netherlands during the late fifteen hundreds, lived under the rule of the Duke of Alva. In those days the Netherlands were under Spanish rule, and the Spanish, who remained Catholic during the Reformation, were unfavorable toward those they deemed heretics to the Church. If you know your history, you’ll recall the late fifteen hundreds was smackdab in the heyday of the Inquisition. So when I say they were ‘unfavorable’ toward heretics, what I mean is they tortured them in an effort to force repentance. Dirk was captured, judged of heresy, and locked away in a castle-turned-prison while he awaited execution.

“He was a wily fellow, though. He loved God something fierce, but he was in no hurry to be a martyr—a smart man if you ask me. So, not wanting to die a horrendous death, he fashioned a rope with old rags, climbed from his window and onto the ice of the moat surrounding the castle, then made a break for freedom. This was like something you might see in a movie today, but this was the real deal. Poor Dirk was horribly malnourished, which actually aided in his escape, since the ice held his weight. A nearby prison guard witnessed the escape and pursued Dirk onto the ice. Unfortunately for the well-fed and heavily armored guard, the ice wasn’t strong enough to hold him.

“The ice gave out, and the guard plunged into the water. Dirk was home free, but, hearing the cries for mercy from the guard, he stopped. Dirk had no reason to love the Spanish. The Spaniards had tortured and murdered countless Anabaptists—these were his friends and family. But, he stopped and turned back, knowing he might be recaptured, and chose to save the guard from certain death. In return for Dirk’s kindness, the guard did, in fact, recapture him, and returned Dirk to the prison. He was shortly executed after that. Burned at the stake for heresy and subversion to the state.” He fell silent, a sad smile painted across his face.

“Wait, that’s it?” Levi asked. “That’s the worst story I’ve ever heard. He should’ve let the guard drown, no question.”

“I’m sure many people would agree with you, Levi. Dirk didn’t even have to kill the man, he could’ve kept on going and nature would’ve done the job for him. He had every reason to hate that guard. Every reason to hate the Catholics and the Spanish for their persecution. He had every reason to want vengeance. And, from the world’s perspective, vengeance would’ve been totally justifiable.

“But I believe Dirk realized something tremendously important in that moment. Had he left that man to die, he would’ve lived, but he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself. His decision was counterintuitive to our natural way of thinking, but Jesus and the Gospel message are counterintuitive as well. It’s like what Jesus told his disciples,
“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
Losing your life to save it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what Jesus calls us to do. Counterintuitive.”

Levi took another sip of coffee. Sometimes, like the coffee, the truth could be bitter in the mouth. Silence stretched between them for a time, a comfortable quiet that spoke of deep thought and contemplation.

“Anger and vengeance are like a fire, Levi,” Steve said eventually, “and like fire, they burn indiscriminately. You might get your vengeance on your old man, only to find yourself consumed and destroyed in the process. At the end of the day, you, like Dirk, need to make the choice you can live with—and sometimes the choice you can live with isn’t the one that makes any sense at all from a worldly perspective.”

Levi drained the rest of his cup and set it back on the table with a
clink
and stood. “Sorry to run, but I have some business to be about tonight. You’ve given me a lot to think on, though, and I appreciate it.”

Steve stood, the sad smile returning as if he could see whatever terrible future lay in store. “Anytime, Levi. I’ll hope you get what you need. I’ll be praying for you.”

“Thank you for that,” Levi replied. With a final nod, he left the church, started the van, and pulled back onto the street, bound for his own icy moat.

TWENTY-EIGHT:

Reinforcements

Levi waited in a pool of inky shadow, shoulder blades pressed against the side of a dimly-lit two-story warehouse situated in an industrial park over in Spring Valley, just outside of Las Vegas proper. He flipped the doctor’s business card over and over again in his fingers, stopping every few seconds to check and double-check the address: 6446 Arville Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. Then he would glance up and scan the building across the way, which bore the same address. Nothing extraordinary about it, nor the type of place you’d expect an ancient, pre-Babylonian god to be resurrected.

Apparently, Doctor Hogg wasn’t one to advertise his whereabouts.

Read. Flip. Double-check. Repeat.

6446 Arville Street
.

The building was a simple two-story structure of gray stucco, nearly twin to the one he leaned against now, with windows running along the upper level and a glass-fronted door with a company name embossed in frosted lettering:
Atlantic Biotech Solutions
. A fitting name. Large boulders and splashes of green shrubbery edged the building’s walkway and framed the entryway, giving the place a friendly air. Of course Levi and his personal army—wherever they happened to be—wouldn’t enter that way.

If Levi had to guess, he would assume the offices in the front of the building would be quite ordinary: rolling chairs and work desks, telephones and copy machines, coffee pots and company brochures. A ruse. The kind of stuff that would fool any bumbling Rube who came in asking questions about Atlantic Biotech Solutions. Hogg’s real operation would either be in the warehouse at the rear or situated on the second floor. The back of the building sported a large rolling door, with more boulders and shrubbery marching off to either side: a loading dock, hidden from the main thoroughfare, and perfect for Levi’s purposes.

Read. Flip. Double-check. Repeat.

This time Levi glanced at the deserted stretch of road running between him and Hogg’s hideout. Wasn’t a pair of headlights in sight and hadn’t been for the past half hour. Other than the industrial buildings littering the area, there wasn’t much reason to be out here, and given the hour—coming up on 1:00 AM—Levi didn’t expect much traffic. Still, his nerves were starting to get the better of him. He couldn’t wait for Chuck much longer; he was already cutting it awfully close. Maybe he’d been wrong about Chuck. Maybe the shiesty leprechaun had realized what a fool’s errand this whole operation was.

Another two minutes and then he would go in with or without backup. He ran a hand over a duffle bag hanging on his shoulder. It held the lead-lined box with his nuclear deterrent. Never be without a backup plan. He patted the bag.

Chuck arrived with reinforcements a minute and a half later. They punched through the fabric of Inworld with a rush of power and the scrape of feet on pavement—the vibration working its way up into Levi’s legs.

The Mudman let out a tremendous sigh of relief.

Chuck had come through … His relief faded as he eyeballed his army.

Chuck had come through. Sort of.

Levi watched with arms folded and a frown on his mug as Chuck led a ragtag group of miscreants toward him. A wide grin split Chuck’s face—the man looked pleased as a slick-furred street rat lounging on a pile of stolen cheese.

Levi only felt the dull edge of annoyance scraping at his nerves.
This is what he got for a million and a half?
More likely, Chuck had scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel, scrounging up an army that would work for the change you could find under a couch.

Walking to either side of Chuck were a cadre of trolls: hulking, green, wart-covered beasts with gangly arms stretching to the ground and wispy hair sprouting from lumpy heads. Normally trolls would be a fine addition to any fight—notoriously foul-tempered creatures with the strength of a pickup truck—but these already had one foot in the bone yard. Wobbly kneed, hands riddled and distorted with arthritis, and what little hair they did have was silvered with age. Ten of them, and each one could’ve come from an Outworld nursing home.

Trailing behind them were six halfies—a varied lot—but who all, uniformly, looked high as kites on one drug or another. Jittery, bloodshot eyes, most of them covered in either open sores, filthy rags, or both. Those Chuck could’ve picked up at an Outworld opium den or a downtown methadone clinic. A few of them might’ve been scrappers, but they were a far cry short of professional mercenaries.

The last group looked like the liveliest of the lot and they were quite numerous—twenty or so of the fellows milling around behind the geriatric trolls and the stoned halfies.

Unfortunately, not a one of them stood over three and a half feet or weighed in at more than ninety pounds. Wiry, narrow-shouldered men. The lot of ’em had broad, lantern-jawed faces, split down the middle by honking, bird-beak schnozzles all framed by wiry beards or goatees of coarse red hair. They stared at Levi from beady, deep-set eyes of green that were almost hidden beneath comically pronounced eyebrows, which were, in turn, parked beneath old-fashioned cabbie caps.

Leprechauns. Of course, Chuck would get leprechauns.

Admittedly though, Levi had never seen a more formidable-looking group of pipsqueaks. No smiling, chipper faces to be seen amongst their number. These were no wee merry-folk, ready for a dance or a bit of trickery. Most of them scowled, their yellowed teeth gritted in crooked snarls while they puffed at drooping pipes. Most wore stained wifebeaters or too tight T-shirts with suspenders, high-water slacks, and bulky, drab Irish cardigans.

Despite being tiny, they had the look of hard-working men about them—seasoned fishermen, maybe—and the knobby, blackthorn shillelaghs they carried certainly reinforced the image. At a glance, Levi could plainly see each of these had committed murder of the premeditated variety; their auras were riddled with swirls of black.

Levi watched them draw close with hungry eyes, the brand itching more and more with each step they took. On a different night, under different circumstances, Levi would be chasing them down, ready to mete out justice for their sins. Tonight, though, Levi felt blessed to have them along. The trolls and halfie tweakers wouldn’t do much good, but the Lep crew might hold their own. Probably couldn’t take a Thursr, but they’d be able to handle a slew of Kobocks. The Mudman shook his head at the strange thought and the stranger turn of events.