"I thirst."

Jesus spoke these words upon the cross. Some have said that the Romans gave him a sponge soaked in vinegar. Those who spread this tale have done so to discredit the Romans. In fact, this is not what happened.

When Jesus spoke, it was during that early darkness which fell on the day of his death. Because of the darkness, no one saw the man who offered the sponge to our Lord; certainly, no one saw that it dripped red with blood.

This blood did not quench our Lord's thirst; far from it. I watched--unable to help; unable at first, even, to move--as he shuddered, pulling his right hand free from the nail that held it to the cross. He then tried to wrench his feet away from the wood. His right foot pulled loose from its nail almost immediately; he freed the left foot by doubling his right leg under himself and pushing away. I heard a bone snap with the force of his thrust, and his left arm bent near the place where the nail fixed his wrist to the wood. Still he fought, as if by will alone he could wrench his way free. But after some minutes he gave up his struggle, and hung limp from that single nail. Blood and sweat dripped from his body, and the ground steamed as his life soaked into the dry soil.

Another draught of that blood, and Jesus might have walked away from the cross. During his struggle I pushed close enough to see his benefactor filling the sponge again with blood from his own wrist. But for reasons of their own, the Romans did not allow Jesus to receive it. Because of this, Jesus languished without the nourishment to free himself, or to begin his journey into the afterlife.

I believed then that death was upon him, as I heard him whisper, "It is finished." He too believed these words, he told me later; the strength from that small sip of blood had failed him. As he dangled from the cross by his ruined hand, all of us, the Twelve and his other followers, assumed that he was dead. The Romans, also thinking him dead, took him down, threw his body on a cart, and hauled him away.

That cart held a heavy burden indeed; even more than the body of my Lord, it carried away his promise of eternal life. Each seemed as dead as the other.

I caught up with the man whose blood Jesus had sipped. He was standing, his back to me, watching Jesus' body as it disappeared into the night. He still held his sponge, and blood dripped from his arm. I meant to ask him: On whose authority do you offer blood to our Lord, when all that he asked was a sip of water? In whose service do you offer him blood, when he has sacrificed his blood to save us all?

I got as far as grasping his shoulder, and he turned to look at me. His flesh was cold and hard, and my hand slipped away as if I had no strength to hold him. My hand was numb, and I was uncertain, weak as any beggar at the door of the Temple. I looked back into his face, the withered face of a patriarch, and was lost. It was as if his sockets were empty, and great flames raged inside his head. At the same time, his eyes, sad and wet with red tears, stared back at me through his fire.

I had seen eyes such as that many times before. The man was possessed by an unholy spirit, though I had never seen one so strong. Even so, were Jesus here, or perhaps another of the Twelve, this man could walk away in peace, his burden lifted. All that I needed, as Jesus told us so many times, was faith the size of a mustard seed. But on that day of all days, standing beneath the cross with my Lord so recently dead, I could do nothing. So the man turned away and, still in the possession of his demon, he walked after the cart. Like Jesus, he too disappeared into the darkness.

What was there to do? I walked back to Jerusalem, alone, without my Lord or my friends or my faith.

I walked through most of the night, keeping my distance from the Temple, but otherwise not caring where I went. Jesus, the son of God and the son of Man, the Messiah sent to deliver the Israelites, was dead, even as he had foretold. But who among us had believed him? Others might have believed his words, but not I, for he had also told us that he would live forever. Crucified, dead, and thrown on the back of a cart as if he were rubbish to be cast out--but who could believe that he was truly dead? Some, perhaps, but not I, for he seemed so full of life, so full of the immortality that he had promised.

And his prophecy that on the third day, he would rise from the dead? Some, perhaps, believed that, but not I--for on the cross, he had rebelled against death, for all the good that it did him. At that moment I believed only that which I knew, and I knew nothing at all.

After I had been walking for perhaps two hours, a gnarled head pushed itself out through a window, and a voice hissed at me, "Remember the Sabbath! Go, and worship with your family!" Moonlight gleamed on his white hair and beard, making a ghostly halo around his face. I kept on walking, neither answering nor heeding his admonition. Either I had doubted my Lord, or else I had put my faith in a false Messiah; I knew not which. Beside those sins, what cost to my soul that I profaned the Sabbath?

The moon had set, and that first lessening of the darkness had announced the coming of dawn, when a hand reached out of shadow and seized me. Through my robe, I felt the icy coldness of it. Its fingers seemed thin and hard as bone, yet its strength stopped me with no more effort than if I had been a leaf floating in the breeze.

"I know you." His voice was a whisper in my ear. "You are one of his followers, the one called Thomas."

"I am," I said, and I remembered then that Peter had denied him, not once but three times. Of this one thing, then, I am not guilty; I have never denied that I knew him.

"Then I will spare you," the voice said. I turned and stared into the fires of a burning soul, the eyes of the man whose blood Jesus had tasted. "He will rise as he foretold; go, and tell the others. Joseph of Arimathaea has taken his body and buried it, but he will rise."

"Who are you, that you should know such things?" I had never seen this man before tonight, and by seeing the demon in his eyes I knew that he had never been close to Jesus. I was certain that he could not know of the prophecy.

"I am Boaz, great-grandfather of David," he said.

"Which David? There is no David among us."

"David the King." Once again I could see his eyes, damp but steadfast, holding me in his flames. "David, father of Jesus, fourteen generations removed."

Boaz, great-grandfather of King David--kinsman of Ruth? This was a name from the scriptures, from the days of the judges--the name of a man who should have been dead for a thousand years.

"I could not let him die," Boaz said. "I have watched him, and I could not let the good he has done die with him." The grip of his hand tightened, and I feared that he would crush my shoulder. "The blood was enough; I felt his life yet within him as he was buried. He will rise; go, and tell the others."

In that instant Boaz was gone, and the only coldness about me was that of the dawn. That, and the cold of the ages that had seeped into my body from his hand, and had settled in my belly. At the same time, I remembered the fire behind his eyes, and wondered what lives those eyes had seen, what memories fed those flames.

Nevertheless, I went then to Capernaum, to the home of Zebedee. There, in the light of the dawn, others of the Twelve sat, barefoot, on the ground outside the house: Simon, whom Jesus had named Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; and Matthew, also. All but Matthew had been fishermen before Jesus had chosen them, and now they were mending their nets. I removed my shoes and sat beside Matthew, to mourn with them and to see what news they had.

"It will be good to fish again," John was saying. "I have missed the quiet of Galilee, these past three years." James, across the net from him, nodded and continued sewing.

Peter dropped his raveled net into his lap. "We shall once again be fishers of men," he said.

Andrew looked at his brother. "It was only yesterday morning that you had never heard of him."

Peter looked out to the sea of Galilee. "Yes, that is what I said. That is what Jesus said I would say."

Blood trickled from a wound on John's thumb, and he put his thumb to his mouth to suck the blood away. "This fishing for men," he said, "it does not build calluses. Fishing for fish again will be hard."

"It is the Sabbath," Matthew said. "We should not be working on the day of the Lord."

"Our Lord is buried in the dung heaps of the Romans," John said, and he spat on the ground.

The words of Boaz caught in my throat. "He told us that he would return," was all I could say.

"He did say that," Peter said, still looking out over the water. "He said that, and he shall indeed return."

Matthew placed his hand on my shoulder; a warm, light touch, so different from that of Boaz. "It is not so easy to believe, Thomas, on this day of all days."

I shook my head. In the daylight, the words of Boaz seemed less than a dream. "No, Matthew," I said, "I know that I will need to see him. I will need to put my finger through the holes in his wrists and his feet. Then, perhaps, I will believe that he has come back to us--but not until then."

They were not ready to hear the words of Boaz, no more than I had been, no more than I was ready to repeat them. Of these, my friends, only Peter would believe, but he had already said that Jesus would rise. And here they still sat, on the ground, mourning for Jesus and mending their nets. I knew that Peter would never again deny anything, so the others would believe him even less than they would believe me.

I stood then and went in search of Joseph of Arimathaea, to find where Jesus was buried. After that I rested, for I had not slept in two days. If Jesus were to rise the next day, I wanted to be there, and I wanted to be ready to receive him.

It was still dark when I approached Jesus' tomb, but others had arrived ahead of me, and were standing in a garden, talking. I could see that the tomb was open, whereas it had been shut when I had come before in daylight. Before I could join the group standing near the tomb, the claw-like hand of Boaz seized me once again and pulled me into the bushes.

"It is true, you see," he said, and the flames in his eyes seemed more fierce than before. "But where are the others? Where are the Twelve?"

"They are not ready to hear, Boaz. They mourn as if he were dead, except for Peter, and they will not listen to him, either."

"Then come and see for yourself. Once you have seen, you will be able to convince them." With that, Boaz led me out of the bushes and down to the group before the tomb. The group included Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary, mother of James, all women who had followed Jesus.

"Your Lord is alive," Boaz said to them. "Why should you find him here, in his tomb? Where are your minds, that you do not remember? Before his death, he told you these things: that he would be taken by the sinners and destroyed, but that even the grave could not hold him; that on the third day of his death, he would return to you."

I do not know if these women saw me at all, for Boaz had commanded their attention. On hearing his words, they turned and fled from the sight of him.

"Then, Thomas, you must see for yourself," Boaz said, and in that moment Jesus stood beside us. He seemed pale and thin, though not so gaunt as Boaz. His wounds were healed, although the nail-holes remained in his wrists and his feet. He let me examine his hands, and I put my finger through the holes; by that, and by the sight of his face, I knew then that he had risen from the dead. His hands were cold, but I attributed that to the cool of the night.

Jesus said, "You see me, you feel my hands, and now you think that you believe. Belief is knowing that which you cannot see. If it is happiness that you seek, Thomas, you must first learn to believe." With that, he and Boaz vanished.

I was alone in the garden outside his tomb, and I was not happy. Though I deserved his words, it was Jesus' eyes that frightened me. In Jesus' eyes, I had seen the same raging flames as those in the eyes of Boaz. They were the eyes of a man possessed.

I returned to Capernaum and the house of Zebedee, but when I arrived in the early morning, I could not see if any of the Twelve were there. Instead I found a mob, shouting and chanting for Jesus. Some recognized me as one of his followers, but I ran from them, not stopping until I had passed the gates into Jerusalem. I ran all the way to the Temple, where I would be able to hide my face and not be seen by the crowds, which seemed to gather on every corner and talk of Jesus.

"There he is," one group would say, "one of the Twelve, spreading rumors. They cannot let Jesus die, so they give him no rest, even in his grave."

"There he is," another group would say, pointing at me, "one of the Twelve. Let us follow him, and like Jesus we shall never die."

"There he is," said still another, "one of the Twelve. Blasphemers before, and still spreading lies and false hope. When the true Messiah comes, he will cast the Romans into the sea. By this shall we know him."

I ignored them all, and continued to run. Any of those groups might have held another such as Judas, and I--or any of the Twelve--might have been next upon the cross.

As I entered the Temple, Matthew pulled me aside and led me to a room in the back of the custom-house, run by a man named Levi who had also followed our Lord. James and John were already there, and we locked ourselves in while friends searched for others, both members of the Twelve and anyone else known to have been close to him.

By evening all of the Twelve were gathered, save only Judas Iscariot, whom none of us ever saw again. All had heard the news, but of the Twelve, only I had seen him.

"Thomas," Peter said, "it is like you that you must see him in order to believe. Of all of us, only I never lost faith, from the moment of his death to his return."

"Of course, Peter," Andrew said. "You'd never let him catch you denying him again, would you?"

With that we fell to arguing. Our anger seemed real, then, but I wonder now whether it was our fear of the crowds, or fear of the high priest Caiaphas, who had sought for Jesus' death, or fear of what Jesus might ask of us now that he had returned from the dead.

Though no one had opened the doors, Jesus was suddenly among us.

"Be at peace with yourselves and the world," he said, and those of the Twelve who had not yet seen him gathered close to touch him, to feel his hands. But Jesus told us to sit. "It is time for me to complete the work of my Father. Soon you shall receive the Holy Spirit, and I shall give you the vision to see penitence, the power to lift the burden of sin from men's shoulders." But I saw the flames still burning in his eyes, and again I doubted. If others noticed, they gave no sign.

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and all of us who had followed Jesus started to rise, but Jesus walked to the door and opened it, saying, "It is one who believes; what can harm me?"

A woman entered carrying her infant daughter, who hung limp in her arms. "Master," the woman said, "my baby has been ill since before the Sabbath; she will not eat or drink."

Jesus said, "By your faith, she will live." The child began then to cry, but it was the cry of a healthy child, a cry of hunger. The woman left, giving thanks.

Another woman entered, leading her son by the hand. The boy could not walk without help, and he flailed at his chest with his free hand, wailing in tongues. His eyes glowed like faint and sullen embers. "A foul spirit has taken my son," the woman said. "Please, Lord, restore my son and I will give thanks in the Temple."

Jesus looked at her son, who had fallen to the floor and was thrashing about. He paused long before answering the boy's mother, and when he spoke, it was a whisper. "If you believe, woman, then he shall be free of foul spirits." Immediately the boy became calm, and rose to stand by his mother. Leading them to the door, Jesus said, "Go and give thanks, but tell no one what has happened here."

With this I felt my doubt fall away, for surely no one but the son of God could cast out such a spirit. Matthew turned to me and said, "Have you seen his eyes? They are full of the fire of the Lord; all will believe him now, even Caiaphas himself." Matthew's eyes were more alive than I had ever seen them, alive with the Holy Spirit, but they did not burn. Truly, in Matthew's eyes was the Holy Spirit which we all sought.

Jesus then asked us to leave, saying that we would be safe for this night. But I held back, and fell to my knees before him.

"Lord, I have seen in your eyes the same fire that I saw in the eyes of Boaz, and I was deeply worried. If Boaz is indeed who he says he is, he could only be sent by the devil himself. Yet I have now seen you cast out a demon. Forgive me, Lord, for I had so little faith."

But Jesus said, "It was his mother's faith that saved him. I only showed her the way."

How stupid I was not to understand! "No, Lord," I said, "she could not have done this by herself."

"Rise, Thomas," he said, and I stood and looked into his burning eyes. As I looked, I felt in him an emptiness that I had never known in anyone other than myself. Then he turned and stared out into the night, saying, "Satan cannot cast out his own."

I watched him for what seemed like hours, torn between what I had seen and what I wanted to believe. During that time Jesus did not move, though he did speak. He cursed Caiaphas and the Pharisees, and condemned them. He cursed Boaz as well, but instead of condemning him, Jesus prayed for his soul.

It was at that moment that I understood. Jesus had indeed gained eternal life, but he had received it from Boaz, rather than from the blessings of his true Father. I understood that Jesus had been a gift to us all, and that Boaz, without knowing, had destroyed this gift.

I knew one other thing in that moment: that eternal life was still within reach, even for me.

"Lord," I said, "I am no more than a man, and my belief does not extend beyond that which I know. I know that you have returned from the grave, and if it is not the gift of Boaz that brought you back, then I know not how it was done. Give me this gift, Lord, that I might live forever."

Jesus turned from the window and stood in front of me, shaking his head and saying, "Thomas, Thomas." He grasped me by the shoulders and held me face to face, so that the fires of his eyes held me and lapped at my soul. "It is as I said before. If you wish to follow me, then your life must be mine; each day, you must do my work without rest and without question, though I ask you to move mountains. This is the way. If you wish your own life then you are lost to me, but if you give me your life, then you shall be saved."

"Lord, tell me: if I ask for the gift of Boaz, will I be losing my life, or saving it?"

How long he held me, how long he stared into my eyes, his flames raging inside of him, I do not remember. "It is as with all things, Thomas," he said at last. "You shall have that gift, and you shall know its price. The price is your life, to save in my service, or to forfeit for eternity."

Jesus took me in his arms, crushing me with strength far beyond that of the carpenter from Nazareth. I felt, if only for a moment, the deep and chilling cold of his body, the cold of the living dead. He flared back his lips, revealing teeth that had become like the teeth of a wolf, and I had only a second to recognize this before his teeth set upon my throat.

It was as if a door had opened between us, a door that perhaps had not existed before Jesus drank from that sponge, but nevertheless it was the first breach in a wall that had always separated me from him. Through that door my life flowed into his, and I felt the heat of my blood as it fed the fires of his soul. My back arched, as if every part of my body wanted to press against him, for now his coldness had become fire, and on this fire I was ready to be consumed. I clasped him in my arms, but it was the grip of a newborn babe clinging to its mother, for my strength was now his strength; my life fed his life.

I do not know for how long he drank from me, but at last my life ebbed, and my heart slowed, and my breathing stopped. Death is not so terrible, I thought, if one can die like this in the arms of the son of God, feeling one's life continue in his. But I did not die then, and I fear that should death ever come to me again, it will not be so kind.

Jesus lifted his lips from my neck and turned me, so that he held me with my back to him. He put his own wrist to his mouth and tore it open with those dreadful teeth; then he put his wrist to my lips, saying, "This is my blood, Thomas, the blood of the covenant, shed for many. Drink."

Though his words were full of hope, and his voice full of bitterness, the thing that filled me was neither of these. For an instant there was only the taste of the salt of his blood. Then our spirits became as one, and although that which entered me was not the Holy Spirit, I do not know how that spirit could be greater than that which I did receive. I seemed to be the heat of the sun, to have the power to scorch the earth and to make the rivers run dry. I seemed to be the sea, ready to rise up and swallow the land. I seemed to be the infinite sky, able to hold all things within me while hungering still for more. I was all these things, but at the same time I knew that I was not so great as him whose blood fed my own fires.

At length these feelings ebbed, and Jesus took his wrist from my lips, and the link between us was severed. Jesus said, "As Judas Iscariot did my work in betraying me, it is now your task for all eternity to know the truth of these days. Thomas, know that Boaz erred in giving me his blood, and that my Father would have raised me up from the dead, even as I foretold. It is now for me to set my Father's plan to rights, so that my work shall be completed, and that no living man shall know how my resurrection came to pass. You, Thomas, now have a role in this plan; it is your task to wait for my return."

He set my feet back upon the floor and released me. "But your work shall not begin until tomorrow night; first, I must teach you how to survive."

That he did, teaching me how to avoid the sun which would destroy me, and how to feed without killing others. What Jesus did not have to teach me was the truth of his words, that no living man should ever know that his resurrection was the act of a demon, and not of his Father. Only the dead may know this, for they are already judged. But among the dead that I have met over the years since, I have told none.

At the end of that night we returned to his tomb, and there we were received into the ground. There we died the little death, so that we could rise again upon the birth of a new darkness. Great was my fear that it was all a dream, and that I would not wake on the return of night.

That night, we gathered again with the Twelve. Jesus taught the others, saying, "As you know, my cousin John baptized with water, but soon my Father will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Wait, and be patient; this baptism shall not be long in coming."

The others gathered around him, but I hung back, for the smell of their blood was in my nostrils, and I wanted nothing more than to take each of them in turn and to feed upon their souls. To feed without killing, this is no small feat. While I believe that Jesus did not ever kill to slake his thirst for blood, I have not been so strong. And that night, new to this hunger, I would have killed them all. So I left, even as Jesus continued to teach. Of my closest friends, the Twelve, only Matthew did I ever see again, and only on the following night.

Because Jesus had not returned to his tomb that morning, I knew that he had carried out his desire to return to his father. Matthew confirmed this, saying that at dawn, Jesus had led them out into the desert. As the sun broke upon the horizon, and as its first rays touched our Lord, he was consumed in fire. This fire burned and destroyed him completely, so that his spirit rose upon his own flames to sit at the right hand of God. Of the son of Man on earth, he left no trace, and no record except in the minds of men and the blood of my veins.

I could not tell Matthew what had happened to me, for then I would have had to kill him. I wanted so much to have him as my companion, but I could not, for although Jesus did not ask me to create no others of our kind, of the Twelve and my friends, I could not ask this sacrifice.

Instead of giving me his life, Matthew took away one of the greatest lies of all. He had seen my eyes, even as he saw the eyes of Jesus. Seeing that they were the same, being held in that all-consuming fire, he believed that alone among the Twelve, I had received the full measure of the Holy Spirit. He believed that my faith was greatest of all.

Thus I learned that the loneliness I felt as I walked away from the cross was only the beginning of the loneliness I have felt ever since.

Even Boaz has left me. The night after Jesus burned, he refused to go into the ground with me at dawn, saying, "He has chosen. Where he goes, we must follow." That evening, I found that his ashes slept at the foot of my grave.

Yet I have remained. My curse has always been that I could follow him no further than my eyes could see. I believe he relied on this when he gave me his blood.

So I wait for his return. I shall keep his blood for the day he sits in judgment, for I am the vessel of the blood of the Covenant, which was shed for many, though not for me.