The Barbershop Seven (179 page)

Ping Phat glanced at Jacobs, let his eyes rest upon the man, let the malaise that existed at his heart sink in, let the new order sink in. Jacobs was no longer number two in the organisation, just as Ephesian was no longer number one.

Ping Phat's eyes drifted away, his face expressionless. Jacobs clenched his fists and looked at Ephesian. Ephesian stared at the Bible.

The other members looked down at the table before them, or at the bizarre assemblage that was Azarael Corinthian, and nervously awaited Jacobs' reaction. Jacobs looked at each of them in turn, deciding whether to pick one of them up and forcibly move them, having already made the judgement call that he couldn't do it to Ping Phat.

At last his eyes settled on Igor, a man with whom he was already unimpressed. Not at all happy that Igor had stood up for Ruth Harrison and Garrett Carmichael. Yet Igor was next to last at the bottom of the table and hardly worth the effort.

Barney watched Jacobs for a few seconds, smiled at what he imagined was running through his head and then took the seat next to Igor. The two men nodded at one another, then Barney opened up the small polythene bag he'd been carrying and, doing his best not to actually touch the item in question, pushed the frozen left foot along the table top into position.

Barney's movement had broken the moment and now Jacobs decided to assert some sort of authority over proceedings. He laid the three bags he had brought down the stairs with him on the table and looked around the room. From the first bag he produced the small wooden cup which he and Barney had retrieved from Lawton's kitchen. He held it aloft for all to see, his face beaming with pride that it was he who had brought the Grail.

'Behold!' he said magnificently, 'the Cup of Christ! Brothers, I bring you the Grail!'

It was a moment and a proclamation that demanded a fanfare, a John Williams-esque melodic cinematic theme or at least a round of applause and a bit of cheering. However, none of the assembled company had ever been in an actual seeing-the-Holy-Grail-for-the-first-time situation, so they were a bit vague on the etiquette. Instead they looked on in awed silence.

Jacobs waited for the reaction, decided that he had received the right blend of fear and wonderment, then slowly took out the small vial of red liquid.

'The blood,' he said, 'with which the king shall be reborn.'

A little less awe this time but still his audience were hooked. They waited nervously for the final package to be opened, the one which Jacobs had retrieved before coming down the stairs.

He looked around his audience, all of whom stared back, anxious and excited. Except Ephesian. And Ping Phat, who was being superior. And Barney, who was slightly bemused by it all. And Igor, who was still angry with Jacobs and with himself for being part of an organisation that would have harmed Garrett Carmichael.

Slowly Jacobs unwrapped the heavy parcel, tiny fragments of ice pinging from it onto the table as he did so. And then, with one final sweeping flourish, the frozen head of Azarael Corinthian was revealed, and Jacobs dramatically held it aloft in his hands, the head high above his own.

'I bring you the King!' he exclaimed, and the pallid frosty blue features of Corinthian looked grotesquely down on the company of men.

Barney shivered and looked away.

Jacobs was breathing heavily, exhilarated by his moment of grandstanding.

'The King!' he said again with vigour, and then he lowered the head and walked slowly round, looking each of the men in the eye as he went. And when he reached the head of the table, he glowered at Ping Phat in triumph, as if this moment actually meant something. Ping Phat ignored him. The glower turned to contempt. And then Jacobs leant across the table and placed Corinthian's head triumphantly at the top of the torso.

'Behold the King!' he said this time, as a variation.

'It is time,' said Ping Phat suddenly, once again dropping the Yoda business. 'Mr Ephesian, let the ceremony commence.'

Jacobs had once again been usurped.

'Yes,' said Ephesian, not taking his eyes off the frozen face of Corinthian.

Jacobs gritted his teeth, slowly straightened up and minced grudgingly back down the length of the table and sat down opposite Barney. He glowered across at him and then turned and looked up the length of the table towards Ephesian.

Ephesian took a deep breath, composing himself. At last the moment had arrived and his nerves were gone.

'Behold!' he began, 'he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord!'

Without instruction the men around the table began to join hands, the new initiates going with the flow; Ping Phat reaching across to Ephesian, Barney reaching across to Jacobs.

'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life!' exclaimed Ephesian.

And then it happened. Suddenly, with no warning, the doors to the small cabinet at the top of the room, little more than four feet from where Ping Phat was viewing the beginning of his next great marketing opportunity, burst dramatically open, and out sprang Luigi Linguini, filled with all the hubris and devotion of the Catholic Church, intent on destroying the most unholy and un-Christian of ceremonies which was about to take place.

'Not so fast, you stinkin' Pagan scum!' he cried.

––––––––

T
he Catholic Church is a pretty big organisation. One pope, one hundred and fifty-eight cardinals, four hundred and seventeen archbishops, over thirty-seven billion dollars in the bank, over seventy-three thousand chapels and cathedrals and other religious buildings, owning over five million, nine hundred thousand acres of land, with nearly two billion practicing members. And yet, here they were, the entire future of their faith at stake and they were completely dependant on one little guy, who'd been sat scrunched up in a tiny cupboard for the previous seven and a half hours. He was tired, sore, hungry and desperate to go to the bathroom. All that, and it felt like his legs had been asleep forever. Which didn't fit well with suddenly leaping out of the cupboard and trying to sprint across the floor to disrupt the ceremony in whatever way he saw fit.

First big movement onto the floor, the
pagan scum
remark having just left his mouth, and whack, his legs gave way. Couldn't feel a thing. Right leg first, tried the left but there was nothing there either and suddenly he was pitching forward, arms and legs flaying dramatically.

Smacked his head on the end of the one hundred and fifty year-old wooden table. Tried to stop himself, right enough, but he had little feeling in his arms either. Forehead to wood, a loud crack, and he collapsed onto the floor, the blood immediately oozing from the small cut.

Somebody said, 'What the...?' and let the question drift off.

'Just like the bloody Catholics to screw up,' muttered Jacobs, who still had the humph.

Ping Phat bent down to shift Luigi's head away from his feet. Felt for a pulse and under his nose for a breath.

'Still alive, but unconscious. We can proceed.'

Ephesian nodded. He and Ping Phat once more joined hands, and again there was nothing to stand in the way of the return of the King. That was that for the Catholic Church. If only they had chosen to deploy a thermo-nuclear device to obliterate the entire island, as some of the cardinals had argued.

'Dear Lord!' proclaimed Ephesian, although he didn't quite have the TV evangelist's voice that Jacobs had down pat, 'we gather here today, not to bring back your son, but to restore the line of Jesus, who was king, and who served you as prophet and teacher. Behold, we stand at the door and knock! With the blood of the sacred feminine, we revive the line that was lost. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death!'

He looked up the table and, for the second time in two days, magically managed to look Jacobs straight in the eye. There passed a look of knowledge and understanding between them, a bond that would not be shaken by the presence of the usurper.

'The blood,' said Ephesian softly.

Jacobs nodded, then lifted the vial of Garrett Carmichael's blood. He removed the top and slowly poured the contents into the Grail, letting the last few drops drip mesmerically. The audience was spellbound. Only Igor found this a little distasteful. Some of the others assumed that someone must have died for this blood, but thought it a reasonable price to pay in order to give life to the man who lay disjointedly before them.

'Full circle,' said Ephesian. 'We must each drink the blood.'

You're kidding me!
thought Barney.

That's part of my bird!
thought Igor.

Are you sure?
thought Petersen.

Nothing none of us haven't done before
, thought Luciens.

Just like the Ardennes in '45
, thought Rusty Brown.

Didn't even have to do that in the Ardennes in '45
, thought Ginger Rogers.

Three billion dollars by the end of the week
, thought Ping Phat.

I'd prefer a nice cup of tea
, thought PC Gainsborough.

Knew I should have sent Chardonnay instead
, thought McGhee.

Not again!
thought the Reverend Dreyfus.

However, they were all silent with their thoughts. Jacobs took the first sip, a tiny amount, his tongue flicking out to remove the excess from his lips and then he passed the cup to his left, to Thomas Petersen. And as the cup was passed around, Ephesian recited slowly from Revelations, pausing only to take a sip of blood when the cup was passed to him by Ping Phat.

'His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.'

Barney Thomson tasted another person's blood for the first time and then laid the cup, still half-full, down on the table. He swallowed quickly, did his best to rinse the taste out of his mouth with saliva. Tried not to think about what he was part of. Suddenly felt a bit nervous about the freakishness of it all, of this absurd chopped up body lying frozen before them.

'Pass the cup to the head of the table,' said Jacobs quietly, and Barney wondered how long he'd been lost in morose contemplation.

He passed the cup onto Igor and then through Romeo McGhee, Ginger Rogers and Luciens, it reached Ephesian.

'By the pouring of the blood onto the lips of our King, and by the laying of our hands upon him, the line of Christ will be reborn!' cried Ephesian, who was just about beginning to get the hang of the Jimmy Swaggert routine. 'We must stand!'

As one the brotherhood rose. Every heart was thumping at the thrill of the moment, even the hearts of the new initiates who had come along curious rather than faithful. Ping Phat saw investment and marketing and money; Romeo McGhee saw newspapers and marketing and money; Barney Thomson saw none of that, but still his heart raced at this bizarre and grotesque ceremonial creation of life.

'And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS!'

And Ephesian lifted the Holy Grail, the ancient wooden cup of Christ, and poured the remainder of the blood slowly into the frozen mouth of Azarael Corinthian. The first small amount entered the mouth and then quickly it filled the frozen space and began to spill over the sides and run down his cheeks and to collect in two pools on either side of the table.

When he was finished pouring, he placed the Grail on the table and laid both his hands on Corinthian's head.

'Join me, Brothers!' he said, his voice breaking with the strain.

They were almost there, their king was about to be reborn. He closed his eyes and allowed himself a sudden image, a dream of the next few minutes and of the next day, when the glory of God's kingdom on earth would once more be reinforced to a needy and desperate world.

Ping Phat also placed his hands on Corinthian's head and then, in turn, down the table the brothers of the
Prieure de Millport
pressed their hands against the frozen flesh of the naked heir to the throne of Israel and of Europe. Barney Thomson lightly touched the left foot, noticing that no one was bold enough to lay their hands on the royal genitals.

The fire flickered with some draught down the long flue, there was not a man amongst them who was not shivering with nerves, or wracked by anxiety, every sinew strained, every muscle rigid.

'And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb!' declared Ephesian.

'Return to us, oh Lord!' cried Jacobs.

'Return to us!' cried Ephesian.

And then the cry was taken up by six more, 'Return to us!' and then ten of the brothers of the
Prieure de Millport
began to exalt in unison, 'Return to us! Return to us! Return to us!' Barney raised an eyebrow and wasn't chanting anything.

'Arf!' chanted Igor.

'Be reborn, my King!' ejaculated Ephesian, breaking ranks. '
De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine; Domine, exaudi vocem meam
!'

They all felt it; they felt the power and the majesty of the Lord coursing through their veins. They pressed their hands more firmly against the cold body, they each closed their eyes and lifted their heads to heaven, waiting to be touched by God, waiting to feel the warmth return to the frozen body of Azarael Corinthian.

Ephesian felt a shiver pulse down his spine, his fingers itched and twitched, but the spasms in his head were gone forever. His moment had arrived and not just the heir to the king of kings was about to be reborn.