Judas stood at his desk, forty-five in his paw
aiming for where Satan’s heart would’ve
been if the ******* had one.
“It’s gonna be like old times when your demons
go up against the Sadducees, see?
You know those hypocrites’ souls
are just waiting to be collected.
We’re just gonna speed ‘em up a bit.”
“You mean you’re gonna go over to the Temple and—?”
Satan spouted and not knowing what else to say,
slugged back the end of his drink.
“Send those ******* straight to Hell?
Yeh. That’s what I’m gonna do. And your boys
are gonna back up my boys, see—
seein’ as how they’re comin’ straight to you.”
Satan liked the idea in spite of himself.
He went to the decanter and poured himself
another drink,   a stiff one and swallowed
it in one gulp. His whole body turned red.
“Just let me make a phone call.”
“Sure,” Judas said without a thought,
checking his automatic’s clip and taking
two more from the desk drawer
and shoving them in his pocket.
Satan got on the horn and called Beelzebub,
telling him to gather a unholy host
of the vilest demons he could get his hands on
and to meet him at the Temple.  
He nodded to Judas and hanging up the line,
puffed himself up inside his snakeskin suit
and said, “Let’s have at it, Priest. I’ve been
itching to have a go at those overconfident Sadducees.”
“Let’s have at it indeed,” Judas agreed,
having saved his own neck, for the time being.
“Let’s have at it—and remember you’re doing
it in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Satan nearly balked when he heard that,
but he’d already committed his dark legions to the plan.
“James, you and Andrew come with me.
Matthew, you and Thaddeus go around back
and make sure no one gets out that way or comes in.
The rest of you will go in through the exits
on either side.  We’ll meet at the Altar
and go out the same ways we came in,
that way when the centurions finally show
they won’t corner us all together. Got that?”  
They got it and were sick of waiting.  
“How many do you think are inside?” Simon asked as we started out.
“Not as many as there would be in broad daylight,
but who knows. It’s dark and the halls will be lit
with torches. Set fire to everything you can.
That’ll cover our getaway.”
The boys split up in the darkness surrounding
the big boxy maze of a building. The Temple
was supposed to be sacred but had been so polluted
by greed that it was now a shell of its former stateliness.
There weren’t that many Sadducees on guard
and no worshipers at all.  The place was to all
effect empty and soulless.
     Peter had grown hungry from his *****
activity and ordered the girl to bring him
more food and wine, her pointed ears    
     perking up at the sound of gunfire.
“What’s that?” she gasped, lifting her head.
He sat up, and for the first time
saw that her face was skeletal and riddled
with warts. He realized her body was not
that of a young woman     but a hunkering dwarf.
Fear made his blood go cold and he found
that he couldn’t move, could only shake
and rattle the heavy chains that held him.  
The demon’s piercing eyes widened,
the candles illuminating only the red hollows.
“Jesus is here to take back his territory!”
came the shouts from various directions
and she leapt upon his neck, jagged poison teeth
ready to take a bite out of him.
“In the name of the Lord!” he cried out,
the sound of the words making her wince
in searing pain.                 She hissed like a cobra
and then turned into one, slithering towards him
exposing venomous fangs.
“In the name of the Lord!” he cried again,
gunfire rising and echoing off the walls.
“Peter!” I called out, hearing his cries.
  “In here, Lord! A demon has me prisoner!”
I followed his voice making my way
around corners and down a flight of stone stairs
to the torch lit chamber where he was being held.
           There were no bars keeping him,
only the flaring hood of the giant cobra.
I fired into the monster as the fisherman
hit the deck, the spray of lead tearing
into the walls around him. The animal
turned and lunged at me but another round
of machine-gun fire cut its head off completely
and the body fell limp and motionless,
the hellish creature’s head resuming the shape
of the girl’s entire body rent with bullets.
There was more shooting above us,
more echoes of shooting, and I knew more
Sadducees had arrived and soon the centurions
would be alerted and surround the place.
I lifted Peter’s chains and discovered
that they slipped off easily. He rubbed his discolored,
sore wrists and collected his senses.
“Forgive me, Lord. I was a fool,” he said.
“Forget it,” I said, handing him a rod
to defend himself.
I heard Andrew cry out, “Jesus has come
to take back his territory,” and then a loud burst
of firepower as the Sadducees must have been
shooting in the dark, unable to tell where
his voice was coming from amid the thundering echoes.  
I snatched a torch from the wall and letting Peter run,
tossing it into the disheveled bedding in the cell,
which immediately grew into a bright hot blaze.
As we made our way up the stone steps,
I did the same with every torch along the way,
tossing them here and there until the tapestries
and partitions were up in flames behind us.
The heat grew along with it; drafty stonewall
corridors filling with choking smoke
and the stifling fumes of the disintegrating censers.
Centurions were amassing outside,
laying in wait  for whomever made it out  alive.