F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (30 page)

 
          
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.

 
          
"What's
wrong?" Zev asked.

 
          
"Still
tastes like sour barbarone . . . with a hint of Pepsi."

 
          
"Doesn't
matter what it tastes like," Carl said. "As far as those bloodsuckers
are concerned, it's the real thing."

 
          
"No,"
said the priest with a small smile. "If I remember correctly, that was
Coke."

 
          
And
then they started laughing. Zev only vaguely remembered the old commercials,
but found himself roaring along with the other three. It was more a release of
tension than anything else. His sides hurt. He had to lean against the altar to
support himself.

 
          
"It
wasn't that funny," Joe said.

 
          
Lacey
smiled. "No argument there."

 
          
"C'mon,"
Carl said, heading for the sanctuary. "Let's see if we can get this
crucifix back together."

 
          
Zev
helped Lacey slip her arm back into her jacket.

 
          
"You
rest that arm," he told her.

 
          
She
winced again and cradled it with her left. "I don't think I have much
choice."

 
          
Zev
jumped at the sound of the church doors banging open. He turned and saw the
Vichy
charging back in, two of them carrying a
heavy fire blanket.

 
          
This
time Father Joe did not stand by passively as they invaded his church. Zev
watched as he stepped around the altar and met them head on.

 
          
He
was great and terrible as he confronted them. His giant stature and raised
fists cowed them for a few heartbeats. But then they must have remembered that
they outnumbered him twelve to one and charged. He swung a massive fist and
caught the lead
Vichy
square on the jaw. The blow lifted him off his feet and he landed
against another. Both went down.

 
          
Zev
dropped to one knee and reached for the shotgun. He would use it this time, he
would shoot these vermin, he swore it!

 
          
But
then someone landed on his back and drove him to the floor. As he tried to get
up he saw Carl pulling Lacey away toward the side door, and he saw Father Joe,
surrounded, swinging his fists, laying the
Vichy
out every time he connected. But there were
too many. As the priest went down under the press of them, a heavy boot thudded
against the side of Zev's head. He sank into darkness.

 
          
JOE
. . .

 
          
...
a throbbing in his head, stinging pain in his cheek, and a voice, sibilant yet
harsh . . .

 
          
"...
now, Joseph. Come on. Wake up. I don't want you to miss this!"

 
          
Palmeri's
sallow features swam into view, hovering over him, grinning like a skull. Joe
tried to move but found his wrists and arms tied. His right hand throbbed, felt
twice its normal size; he must have broken it on a
Vichy
jaw. He lifted his head and saw that he was
tied spread-eagle on the altar, and that the altar had been covered with the
fire blanket.

 
          
"Melodramatic,
I admit," Palmeri said, "but fitting, don't you think? I mean, you
and I used to sacrifice our god symbolically here every weekday and multiple
times on Sundays, so why shouldn't this serve as your sacrificial altar?"

 
          
Joe
shut his eyes against a wave of nausea. This couldn't be happening.

 
          
"Thought
you'd won, didn't you?"

 
          
Joe
refused to answer him, but that didn't shut him up.

 
          
"And
even if you'd chased me out of here for good, what would you have accomplished?
Most of the world is already ours, Joseph, and the rest soon will be. Feeders
and cattle—that is the hierarchy. We are the feeders. And tonight you'll join
us. But he won't. Voila'!"

 
          
Palmeri
stepped aside and made a flourish toward the balcony.

 
          
Joe
searched the dim, candlelit space of the nave, not sure what he was supposed to
see. Then he picked out Zev's form and groaned. The old man's feet were lashed
to the balcony rail; he hung upside down, his reddened face and frightened eyes
turned his way. Joe fell back and strained at the ropes but they wouldn't
budge.

 
          
"Let
him go!"

 
          
"What?
And let all that good rich Jewish blood go to waste? Why, these people are the
Chosen of God! They're a delicacy!"

 
          
"Bastard!"

 
          
If
he could just get his hands on Palmeri, just for a minute.

 
          
"Tut-tut,
Joseph. Not in the house of the Lord. The Jew should have been smart and run
away like Carl and your girlfriend."

 
          
Carl
got away? With Lacey? Thank God.

 
          
We're
even, Carl.

 
          
"But
don't worry about your rabbi. None of us will lay a fang on him. He hasn't
earned the right to join us. We'll use the razor to bleed him. And when he's
dead, he'll be dead for keeps. But not you, Joseph. Oh no, not you." His
smile broadened. "You're mine."

 
          
Joe
wanted to spit in Palmeri's face—not so much as an act of defiance as to hide
the waves of terror surging through him—but there was no saliva to be had in
his parched mouth. The thought of being undead made him weak. To spend eternity
like... he looked at the rapt faces of Palmeri's fellow undead as they clustered
under Zev's suspended form . . . like them.

 
          
He
wouldn't be like them! He wouldn't allow it!

 
          
But
what if there was no choice? What if becoming undead toppled a lifetime's worth
of moral constraints, cut all the tethers on his human hungers, negated all his
mortal concepts of how a life should be lived? Honor, justice, integrity,
truth, decency, fairness, love—what if they became meaningless words instead of
the footings for his life?

 
          
A
thought struck him.

 
          
"A
deal, Alberto," he said.

 
          
"You're
hardly in a bargaining position."

 
          
"I'm
not? Answer me this: Do the undead ever kill each other? I mean, has one of
them ever driven a stake through another's heart?"

 
          
"No.
Of course not."

 
          
"Are
you sure? You'd better be sure before you go through with your plans tonight.
Because if I'm forced to become one of you, I'll be crossing over with just one
thought in mind: to find you. And when I do I won't stake your heart, I'll
stake your arms and legs to the pilings of the
Point Pleasant
boardwalk where you can watch the sun rise
and feel it slowly crisp your skin to charcoal."

 
          
Palmeri's
smile wavered. "Impossible. You'll be different. You'll want to thank me.
You'll wonder why you ever resisted."

 
          
"Better
be sure of that, Alberto ... for your sake. Because I'll have all eternity to
track you down. And I'll find you, Alberto. I swear it on my own grave. Think
on that."

 
          
"Do
you think an empty threat is going to cow me?"

 
          
"We'll
find out how empty it is, won't we? But here's the deal: let Zev go and I'll
let you be."

 
          
"You
care that much for an old Jew?"

 
          
"He's
something you never knew in life, and never will know: he's a friend."

 
          
And
he gave me back my soul.

 
          
Palmeri
leaned closer. His foul, nauseating breath wafted against Joe's face.

 
          
"A
friend? How can you be friends with a dead man?" With that he straightened
and turned toward the balcony. "Do him! Now!"

 
          
As
Joe shouted out frantic pleas and protests, one of the undead climbed up the
rubble toward Zev. Zev did not struggle. Joe saw him close his eyes, waiting.
As the vampire reached out with the straight razor, Joe bit back a sob of grief
and rage and helplessness. He was about to squeeze his own eyes shut when he
saw a flame arc through the air from one of the windows. It struck the floor with
a crash of glass and a wooomp! of exploding flame.

 
          
Joe
had only heard of such things, but he immediately realized that he had just
seen his first Molotov cocktail in action. The splattering gasoline splashed a
nearby vampire who began running in circles, screaming as it beat at its
flaming clothes. But its cries were drowned by the roar of other voices, a
hundred or more. Joe looked around and saw people—men, women, teenagers—
climbing in the windows, charging through the front doors. The women held crosses
on high while the men wielded long wooden pikes—broom, rake, and shovel handles
whittled to sharp points. Joe recognized most of the faces from the Sunday
Masses he had said here for years.