XV. Depart From Me
The Devil was done remembering. He was back in the garage, in the present, in
the blue glow of three monitors and a ring light, and he was well pleased.
The man was still there, still alive, still working. On the left screen, a new video
was rendering: “Five Bible Verses Your Pastor Hopes You Never Read.” It would
go up at seven the next morning, when engagement was highest.
The Devil went to the shelf on the far wall of the studio. There, wedged between
a ring of cables and a box of unsold merch, was an old Bible with a leather cover
that had once been black and was now gray at the edges. It had the man’s name
stamped on the front in gold. His parents had given it to him the day he was
baptized. Nobody had opened it in years.
The Devil, who cannot touch holy things with comfort, opened it anyway. It hurt
him. He did not care. He turned to Matthew, the seventh chapter, and found the
verse he knew too well.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye
that work iniquity.
He read it twice. And then he laughed, a real laugh this time, loud in the empty
garage, at the part about casting out devils.
“Cast out devils,” he said. “This one? This fool? This tool of mine? He could not
even cast out the weakest of my servants. I had to make it play dead for him.”
He closed the book.