F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Page 16

  "Yes, my children. What sort of victim do you have for us tonight?"

  "No victim, father—trouble!"

  The edges of Palmeri's vision darkened with rage as he heard of the young priest and the Jew and the others who had dared to try to turn St. Anthony's into a holy place again. When he heard the name of the priest, he nearly exploded.

  "Cahill? Joseph Cahill is back in my church?"

  "He was cleaning the altar!" one of the servants said.

  Palmeri strode toward the church with the serfs trailing behind. He knew that neither Cahill nor the Pope himself could clean that altar. Palmeri had desecrated it himself; he had learned how to do that when he became leader of Gregor's local get. But what else had the young pup dared to do?

  Whatever it was, it would be undone. Now!

  Palmeri strode up the steps and pulled the right door open—

  —and screamed in agony.

  The light! The light! The LIGHT! White agony lanced through Palmeri's eyes and seared his brain like two hot pokers. He retched and threw his arms across his face as he staggered back into the cool, comforting darkness.

  It took a few minutes for the pain to drain off, for the nausea to pass, for vision to return.

  He'd never understand it. He'd spent his entire life in the presence of crosses and crucifixes, surrounded by them. And yet as soon as he'd become undead he was unable to bear the sight of one. In fact, since he'd become undead he'd never even seen one. A cross was no longer an object. It was a light, a light so excruciatingly bright, so blazingly white that looking at it was sheer agony. As a child in Naples he'd been told by his mother not to look at the sun, but when there'd been talk of an eclipse, he'd stared directly into its eye. The pain of looking at a cross was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than that. And the bigger the cross or crucifix, the worse the pain.

  He'd experienced monumental pain upon looking into St. Anthony's tonight. That could only mean that Joseph, that young bastard, had refurbished the giant crucifix. It was the only possible explanation.

  He swung on his servants.

  "Get in there! Get that crucifix down!"

  "They've got guns!"

  "Then get help. But get it down!"

  "We'll get guns too! We can—"

  "No! I want him! I want that priest alive! I want him for myself! Anyone who kills him will suffer a very painful, very long and lingering true death! Is that clear? "

  It was clear. They scurried away without answering. Palmeri went to gather the other members of the nest.

  JOE . . .

  Dressed in a cassock and a surplice, Joe came out of the sacristy and approached the altar. He noticed Zev keeping watch at one of the windows. He didn't tell him how ridiculous he looked carrying the shotgun Carl had brought back. He held it so gingerly, as if it was full of nitroglycerin and would explode if he jiggled it.

  Zev turned and smiled when he saw him.

  "Now you look like the old Father Joe we all used to know,"

  Joe gave him a little bow and proceeded toward the altar. Lacey waved with her revolver from the other side of the nave where she stood guard by the side door. She'd put on her black leather jacket and looked ready for anything.

  All right: He had everything he needed. He had the Missal they'd found in among the pew debris earlier today. He had the wine—Carl had brought back about four ounces of sour red babarone. He'd found the smudged surplice and dusty cassock on the floor of one of the closets in the sacristy, and he wore them now. No hosts, though. A crust of bread left over from breakfast would have to do. No chalice, either. If he'd known he was going to be saying Mass he'd have come prepared. As a last resort he'd used the can opener in the rectory to remove the top of one of the Pepsi cans from lunch. Quite a stretch from the gold chalice he'd used since his ordination, but probably more in line with what Jesus had used at that first Mass—the Last Supper.

  He was uncomfortable with the idea of weapons in St. Anthony's but saw no alternative. He and Zev knew nothing about guns, and Carl knew little more; they'd probably do more damage to themselves than to the Vichy if they tried to use them. Only Lacey seemed at ease with her pistol. Joe hoped that just the sight of the weaponry might make the Vichy hesitate, slow them down. All he needed was a little time here, enough to get to the consecration.

  This is going to be the most unusual Mass in history, he thought.

  But he was going to get through it if it killed him. And that was a real possibility. This might well be his last Mass. But he wasn't afraid. He was too excited to be afraid. He'd had a slug of the Scotch—just enough to ward off the shakes—but it had done nothing to quell the buzz of the adrenaline humming along every nerve in his body.

  He spread everything out on the white tablecloth he'd taken from the rectory and used to cover the filthy altar. He looked at Carl.

  "Ready?"

  Carl nodded and stuck the automatic pistol he'd been examining into his belt.

  "Been awhile, Fadda. We did it in Latin when I was a kid, but I think I can swing it."

  "Just do your best and don't worry about any mistakes."

  Some Mass. A defiled altar, a crust for a host, a Pepsi can for a chalice, a sixty-year-old, pistol-packing altar boy, and a congregation consisting of a lesbian atheist and a rabbi.

  Joe looked heavenward.

  You do understand, don't you, Lord, that all this was arranged on short notice?

  Time to begin.

  He read the Gospel but dispensed with the homily. He tried to remember the Mass as it used to be said, to fit in better with Carl's outdated responses.

  As he was starting the Offertory the front doors flew open and a group of men entered—ten of them, all with crescent moons dangling from their ears. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zev move away from the window toward the altar, pointing his shotgun at them.

  As soon as they entered the nave and got past the broken pews, the Vichy fanned out toward the sides. They began pulling down the Stations of the Cross, ripping Carl's makeshift crosses from the walls and tearing them apart.

  Carl looked up at Joe from where he knelt, his eyes questioning, his hand reaching for the pistol in his belt. Lacey didn't look at him at all. She acted on her own.

  "Stop right there!"

  She held her pistol straight out before her, arms rigid. Joe saw the barrel wobble. She might be tough, he thought, but she's only twenty-five. And she's only got two rounds.

  But the Vichy didn't know that. They stopped their forward progress and tried to stare her down.

  "You can't get all of us," one said.

  Zev worked the pump on the shotgun. The sound echoed through the church. "That's right. She can't."

  He sounded a lot tougher than Joe knew he was. He hoped the Vichy were fooled.

  Maybe they were. They looked at each other but didn't back off. A stand-off was good enough for now. Joe nodded and kept up with the Offertory.

  Then he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the Vichy had ducked through the side door behind Lacey. He carried a raised two-by-four.

  "Lacey!" Zev cried. "Behind—!"

  She whirled, ducking, pistol raised, but the Vichy had the jump on her. The two-by-four glanced off the side of her head and slammed into her forearm. She dropped the gun and went down. But not before landing a vicious kick on the inside of his knee. He staggered back, howling with pain while Lacey, cradling her injured arm, jumped up and scrambled toward the altar.

  The Vichy cheered and went on with their work. They split—one group continuing to pull down Carl's crosses, the other swarming around and behind the altar.

  Joe chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and saw them begin their attack on the newly repaired crucifix.

  "Zev!" Carl said in a low voice, cocking his head toward the Vichy. "Stop em!"

  "I'm warning you," Zev said and pointed the shotgun.

  Joe heard the activity behind him come to a sudden halt. He braced hi
mself for the blast. . .

  But it never came.

  He looked at Zev. The old man met his gaze and sadly shook his head. He couldn't do it. To the accompaniment of the sound of renewed activity and derisive laughter behind him, Joe gave Zev a tiny nod of reassurance and understanding, then hurried the Mass toward the Consecration.

  As he held the crust of bread aloft, he started at the sound of the life-size crucifix crashing to the floor, cringed as he heard the freshly buttressed arms and crosspiece being torn away again.

  As he held the wine aloft in the Pepsi can, the swaggering, grinning Vichy surrounded the altar and brazenly tore the cross from around his neck. Zev, Lacey, and Carl put up struggles to keep theirs but were overpowered. The Vichy wound up with Carl's gun too.

  And then Joe's skin began to crawl as a new group entered the nave. They numbered about twenty, all undead. He faced them from behind the altar as they approached. His gut roiled at the familiar faces he spotted among the throng.

  But the one who caught and held his attention was the one leading them.

  Alberto Palmeri.

  PALMERI . . .

  Palmeri hid his hesitancy as he approached the altar. The crucifix and its intolerable whiteness were gone, yet something was not right. Something repellent here, something that urged him to flee. What?

  Perhaps it was just the residual effect of the crucifix and all the crosses they had used to line the walls. That had to be it. The unsettling aftertaste would fade as the night wore on. Oh, yes. His nightbrothers and sisters from the nest would see to that.

  He focused his attention on the man behind the altar and laughed when he realized what he held in his hands.

  "Pepsi, Joseph? You're trying to consecrate Pepsi?" He turned to his nest siblings. "Do you see this, my brothers and sisters? Is this the man we are to fear? And look who he has with him! An old Jew, a young woman, and a parish hanger-on!"

  He reveled in their hissing laughter as they fanned out around him, sweeping toward the altar in a wide phalanx. The young woman, the Jew, and Carl—he recognized Carl and wondered how he'd avoided capture for so long—retreated to the other side of the altar where they flanked Joseph. And Joseph . .. Joseph's handsome Irish face so pale and drawn, his mouth stretched into such a tight, grim line. He looked scared to death. As well he should be.

  Palmeri put down his rage at Joseph's audacity. He was glad he had returned. He'd always hated the young priest for his easy manner with people, for the way the parishioners had flocked to him with their problems despite the fact that he had nowhere near the experience of their older and wiser pastor. But that was over now. That world was gone, replaced by a nightworld—Palmeri's world. And no one would be flocking to Father Joe for anything when Palmeri was through with him.

  Father Joe . . . how he'd hated it when the parishioners had started calling him that. Well, their Father Joe would provide superior entertainment tonight. This was going to be fun.

  "Joseph, Joseph, Joseph," he said as he stopped and smiled at the young priest across the altar. "This futile gesture is so typical of your arrogance."

  But Joseph only stared back at him, his expression a mixture of defiance and repugnance. And that only fueled Palmeri's rage.

  "Do I repel you, Joseph? Does my new form offend your precious shanty-Irish sensibilities? Does my undeath disgust you?"

  "You managed to do all that while you were still alive, Alberto."

  Palmeri allowed himself to smile. Joseph probably thought he was putting on a brave front, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.

  "Always good with the quick retort, weren't you, Joseph. Always thinking you were better than me, always putting yourself above me."

  "Not much of a climb where a child molester is concerned."

  Palmeri's anger mounted.

  "So superior. So self-righteous. What about your appetites, Joseph? The secret ones? What are they? Do you always hold them in check?" He pointed to the girl in the leather jacket. "Is she your weakness, Joseph? Young, attractive in a hard sort of way. Is that your style? Do you like it rough? Are you fucking her, Joseph?"

  "Leave her out of this. She just showed up today."

  "Well, if not her, then who? Are you so far above the rest of us that you've never given in to an improper impulse, never assuaged a secret hunger? You'll have a new hunger soon, Joseph. By dawn you'll be drained—we'll each take a turn at you—and before the sun rises we'll hide your corpse from its light. You'll stay dead all day, but when the night comes you'll be one of us."

  He stepped closer, almost touching the altar.

  "And then all the rules will be off. The night will be yours. You'll be free to do anything and everything you've ever wanted. But blood will be your prime hunger, and you'll do anything to get it. You won't be sipping your god's thin, cold blood, as you've done so often, but hot human blood. You'll thirst for it, Joseph. And I want to be there when you take your first drink. I want to be there to laugh in your self-righteous face as you suck up the crimson nectar, and keep on laughing every night as the red hunger carries you into infinity."

  And it would happen. Palmeri knew it as sure as he felt his own thirst. He hungered for the moment when he could rub dear Joseph's face in the reality of his own bloodlust.

  "I was just saying Mass," Joseph said coolly. "Do you mind if I finish?"

  Palmeri couldn't help laughing this time.

  "Did you really think this charade would work? Did you really think you could celebrate Mass on this?"

  He reached out and snatched the tablecloth from the altar, sending the Missal and the piece of bread to the floor and exposing the fouled surface of the marble.

  "Did you really think you could effect a transubstantiation here? Do you really believe any of that garbage? That the bread and wine actually take on the substance of"—he tried to say the name but it wouldn't form—"the Son's body and blood?"

  One of his nest sisters, Eva, a former councilwoman, stepped forward and leaned over the altar, smiling.

  "Transubstantiation?" she said in her most unctuous voice, pulling the Pepsi can from Joseph's hands. "I was never a Catholic, so tell me ... does that mean that this is the blood of the Son?"

  A whisper of warning slithered through Palmeri's mind. Something about the can, something about the way he found it difficult to bring its outline into focus...

  "Eva, perhaps you should—"

  Eva's grin broadened. "I've always wanted to sup on the blood of a deity."

  The nest members hissed their laughter as Eva raised the can and drank.

  Palmeri watched, unaccountably fearful as the liquid poured into her mouth. And then—

  LIGHT!

  An explosion of intolerable brightness burst from Eva's mouth and drove him back, jolted, cringing.

  The inside of her skull glowed beneath her scalp and shafts of pure white light shot from her ears, nose, eyes—every orifice in her head. The glow spread as it flowed down through her throat and chest and into her abdominal cavity, silhouetting her ribs before melting through her skin. Eva was liquefying where she stood, her flesh steaming, softening, running like glowing molten lava.

  No! This couldn't be happening! Not now when he had Joseph in his grasp!

  Then the can fell from Eva's dissolving fingers and landed on the altar top. Its contents splashed across the fouled surface, releasing another detonation of brilliance, this one more devastating than the first. The glare spread rapidly, extending over the upper surface and running down the sides, moving like a living thing, engulfing the entire altar, making it glow like a corpuscle of fire torn from the heart of the sun itself.

  And with the light came blast-furnace heat that drove Palmeri back, back, back until he had to turn and follow the rest of his nest in a mad, headlong rush from St. Anthony's into the cool, welcoming safety of the outer darkness.

  ZEV . . .

  As the undead fled into the night, their Vichy toadies behind them, Zev stared in horr
id fascination at the puddle of putrescence that was all that remained of the undead woman Palmeri had called Eva. He glanced at Carl and Lacey and caught the look of dazed wonderment on their faces. Zev touched the top of the altar—clean, shiny, every whorl of the marble surface clearly visible.

  He'd witnessed fearsome power here. Incalculable power. But instead of elating him, the realization only depressed him. How long had this been going on? Did it happen at every Mass? Why had he spent his entire life ignorant of this?

  He turned to Joe. "What happened?"

  "I—I don't know."

  "A miracle!" Carl said, running his palm over the altar top.

  "A miracle and a meltdown," Lacey added from behind Zev. He felt her hand on her shoulder. "Rabbi, are you feeling what I'm feeling?"

  He turned to her. "Feeling how?"

  She lowered her voice. "That this shouldn't be happening? That there's got to be another explanation?"

  Zev wondered if the lost look in her eyes mirrored his own.

  "Explanations I'm running short on."

  "Me too. I'm getting pushed into a place where I'm going to have to revise . . . everything. A place where I'm going to have to accept the unacceptable and believe in the unbelievable. I don't want to go there but..."

  Lacey winced as she moved her right arm. She eased it out of her jacket and looked at it.

  "Good thing I was wearing leather."

  Zev inspected the large purple swelling below her shoulder. "Do you think it's broken?"

  She shook her head. "I don't think so. My hand and forearm are all tingly and kind of numb, but I'll be okay."

  "You're sure?" Joe said.

  She grimaced. "Of my arm? Yeah. But I think that's about the only thing I'm sure of anymore." She nodded to the Pepsi can lying on its side atop the altar. "What was in there?"

  Joe picked up the empty can and looked into it. "You know, you go through the seminary, through your ordination, through countless Masses believing in the Transubtantiation. But after all these years... to actually know ..."

  Zev saw him rub his finger along the inside of the can and taste it. He grimaced.