Souls - XLI

“So, I imagine we all agree on option one? Yes? Good.”

Jesus stands, holding out his hand for Emily who immediately takes it. 

“Do you want to do one last sermon before you give me that soul? For old time’s sake?”

I can’t move, my left arm tingles. I can’t tell if it’s from the glass shards or if I’m having a heart attack. 

My daughter can't die. 

Everything in me wants to pull out the soul and throw it hard at Jesus. Let him end it all. Mary must know what I’m thinking because she grabs my right wrist as my arm reaches for my pocket.

“Don’t. Give it to me. Now.” 

Something in her voice coerces me to comply, she sounds sincere, she sounds determined, she sounds scary.

I hand her the soul. Jesus’s smile disappears. 

“That’s a very bad fucking idea.”

Mary holds it up, looking through the tube, watching the translucent soul scurry about inside. Jesus stands, pulling the rifle from his shoulder and pointing it Mary.

“Don’t fucking do it.”

She pulls the cylindrical tool from my back pocket, I’m not even sure I knew that was in there. She loads the soul in it.

“Last chance, give me the soul.”

She looks to Jesus and smiles deviously, “You can’t kill me.”

Jesus lowers the rifle.

“You’re right.”

His patented smile reappears as he hands the gun to Emily.

“But she can.”

Emily takes the gun and smiles, holding it at Mary.

Mary nods. Silence takes over the bus.

With no warning, she takes the tool, filled with soul, and slams it into her right eye. Her screams and the screams of Jesus seems to harmonize. One scream is of agony and the other is of pain. Light begins to fill the bus, a light that gives off heat. The hairs on my arms raise as they respond to this heat, it almost feels like the Sun, the Sun we’d all forgotten about.

“Shoot her!”

Emily aims and pulls the trigger, the rifle kicks back hard. Emily flies back onto her back.

She aimed well, the bullet head straights for Mary. Only one hiccup:

Mary isn’t there. She’s gone. Again.

“Fuck!” Jesus kicks at the strewn items at his feet.

“Fuckin’ humanity and their fuckin’ hero complex.” He turns to me.

“Well, now what do I do with you?”

A knock at the bus’s door interrupts his consideration. A familiar voice wafts in.

“Well, I have to say this is all very unpredictable.” Lucifer has shown up.

Jesus turns to the door, “Oh now you fuckin’ show up?”

Lucifer enters the bus, he looks different. Mary had done some damage to him. His skin looks new and slimy, like a lizard trying hard to regrow it’s lost limb. His hair looks synthetic, his eyes covered by sunglasses.

“Apologies, I have been a bit predisposed with trying to make myself more presentable.”

“Also, why the fuck you pretending to be the Devil?”

Lucifer smiles, “If you speak of the devil, he will appear. There was a plethora of speaking so someone had to appear. No one else was doing it.”

“Well, you showed up seconds after the girl stole my fuckin’ soul, so great timing on that.”

“Please, watch the language. Children are present.”

Emily is in awe of Lucifer, looking up to him like someone seeing their first sunrise. He pats her head. Then he looks to me.

“I have to say, you have entertained. That is for sure. I saw many outcomes to this, but this one, well, it was a long shot. Especially when you began to act so predictably human.”

Trying my damnedest to keep my tears in check, I ask the only thing I care about,

“Where is she?”

“If she was paying attention and is bright as she seems, and I think she is, it’s not where she is, it is what she is. You should be proud, she is a wonderful girl.”

“Where is she?”