Nightside 02 - Agents of Light and Darkness

half the Nightside trying to get their hands on it. How can you keep it from them?”
    “By making it worthless to them,” Jude said simply. “May I have the cup, please?”
    I hesitated, but only for a moment. Bottom line, he was the client. I never betray a client. And he had paid me a hell of a lot to find the Unholy Grail for him. I handed him the airline bag, and he reached in and took out the copper bowl. He dropped the bag on the floor and studied his prize, turning it back and forth. It was hard to read the expression on his face, but I thought it might be a kind of tired amusement.
    “It’s smaller than I remembered. But then, it’s a long time since I last held it,” he said quietly. “Almost two thousand years.” He looked up and smiled at us all. “My name, in those long-ago days, was Judas Iscariot.”
    I think we all gasped. None of us doubted him. Alex and the Coltranes retreated to the far end of the pentacle. Suzie turned her shotgun on the client. I stood my ground, but I could feel a terrible chill creeping through my bones. Jude. Judas. Of course I should have made the connection … but you don’t expect to encounter two Biblical myths in one day, not even in the Nightside.
    “Taylor,” Suzie said tightly, “I think there is a distinct possibility that we have screwed up royally.”
    “Relax,” said Jude. “Things aren’t as bad as the may appear. Yes, I am that Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Christ to the Romans, and afterwards hanged myself in shame. But the Christ forgave me.”
    “He forgave you ?” I said.
    “Of course. That’s what he does.” Jude smiled down at the cup in his hands, remembering. “He was my friend, as well as my teacher. He found me and cut me down, brought me back from the dead and told me I was forgiven. I knelt at His feet, and said, You must go, but I will stay, until you return . And I’ve been here, doing penance, ever since. Not because He required it, but because I do. Because I do not forgive me.”
    “The Wandering Jew,” I said softly.
    “I’ve been with the Vatican for years,” said Jude. “Under one name or another. Working quietly in the background, doing my best to keep them honest. And now, at long last, I have a chance to purge the last remaining vestige of my ancient sin. Bartender, some wine, if you please.”
    Outside, the voices in the dark rose in protest. Voices from the light answered them, then the two angelic armies slammed together again, two unimaginable forces continuing a conflict almost as old as Time itself. The whole bar shook, as though in the grip of an earthquake. Jagged cracks opened in the walls, and the dark pulsed at the windows while the light flared in the foyer above. Angelic voices rose, singing battle songs, as they trampled the world beneath their uncaring feet. Jude ignored it all, standing patiently by the bar with his old cup in his hands. Alex looked at me.
    “He’s your client; you go and get him some wine. I’m not leaving this pentacle.”
    “It’s your bar,” I said. “You serve him. I don’t think the angels will bother with you now. They sound distinctly preoccupied.”
    Alex stepped gingerly over the salt lines, and when nothing immediately awful happened to him, he made a run for the bar. He dug at a bottle of house red, pulled the cork, and presented the bottle to Jude with only slightly shaking hands. Jude nodded and held out his cup. Alex poured a measure of wine into it, and Jude made the sign of the cross over it.
    “And this… is His blood, shed for us all, for the remission of sins.”
    He raised the cup to his mouth, and drank. And in that moment, the war between the angels stopped. Everything grew still. The darkness slowly withdrew from the shattered windows, and the light faded away from the top of the stairs. Somewhere, a choir of perfect voices was singing something almost unbearably beautiful in perfect harmony. Jude drank the last of the wine and lowered the cup with a satisfied sigh. The song reached a ringing climax, and faded away. There was the sound of great wings beating, departing, fading away into an unimaginable distance.
    “They’ve gone…” said Suzie, finally lowering her shotgun.
    “They have no business here any more,” said Jude. “It’s only a cup now. Made pure again, in His name. Blessed, like me.”
    “So,” I said, just a little breathlessly. “What happens now?”
    Jude picked up the airline bag and stuffed the cup into it. “I