Fires Rising (24 page)

Pilazzo gazed uneasily at the boy. "And if do not?"

"It won't let you out."

Pilazzo was reminded of the fires that shot out of the front doors and burned his hands.
 

His hands that were now healed.

There was an uncomfortable hesitation between them. The boy's eyebrows arched curiously. "I
saw
Larry hand them to you."

"Saw what?"

"The rosary."

Pilazzo nodded. The rosary moved about his index finger, providing reassurance, comfort, and strength. "The workers…they're outside. Are they planning to enter the church?"

For a moment the boy remained unanswering. His battered face paled, lips blue, eyes swollen with tears. He spoke in a voice distant from his own, deeper, more alert, as though some unseen force was guiding him.
Like the workers…only different.
"Good is battling evil right now. We can only assume that it is keeping them away while we search for the chalice." He set his gaze to the stained glass ceiling, as though searching for the right words to say.

"The chalice?"

"Things outside are not the same anymore, now that you're here. The beast has what he wants now, and has closed off access to the place of legion. You, Father, are God's chosen one, an adversary to the beast and his minions." He paused, then added, "The end of days has begun, and it is our mission to stop it."

Upon him uttering these words, the bloodstained Mary statue slid forward through the gore to the edge of the altar, cutting into the saturated carpet. Pilazzo yelled, "Look out!" and both he and the boy dashed off toward the left side of the altar just as the statue toppled over the first step and smashed down onto the marble floor. It shattered into a sea of porcelain shards. A sea of gore exploded out from within, bone fragments and pulverized bowels flooding the floor in a horrific display.

Horrified, Pilazzo gasped, "My God,
what is going on here?"
He gazed back at Timothy. The odd blur about his face faded, as though the unseen force guiding him had suddenly departed.

Voice back to normal, Timothy said, "I have seen more in the last three days than any man has in his lifetime. Come, please, we need to tell you what we know."

Pilazzo pinned the boy's injured eyes long enough to realize he retained knowledge about this ill-omened state of affairs. Despite the evil thriving in St Peter's Church, there still might be a chance for life, for goodness. It existed within the altar boy, and within the rosary of the Mother of God he held in his pocket.

And me.

I am the sinless one.

Father Anthony Pilazzo nodded, then on legs that barely supported his trembling weight, followed the boy into the shadows, seeking reassurance in the wooden rosary that wrapped itself around his gently caressing fingers.

"T
he flashlight. I can see it."

Jyro stood alongside Wrath, peering into the gap in the door.

"He's got someone with him," Wrath whispered.

From behind them, Dallas chimed in: "Is it the sinless one?"

"Perhaps it is." Then Jyro's mind was taken up with a rise of immediate concern. What if this
wasn't
the person they'd been waiting for? What if this was another one of the beast's workers, soon to explode with evil fury? And with this concern came a flooding of emotions: fear and discontent fused with anger and a sudden want for defense. He shuddered uncontrollably. These feelings scared him…and at the same time, he welcomed them, strangely satisfied with their presence, as if he were meant to
protect
their group from the perils they would soon encounter.

He stepped back from the door, pulling Wrath with him. The big man wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared down at Jyro with dazed eyes. "What do you think?"

Wrath looked at the others. They were grouped together by the steps, each man holding a tool or a piece of wood as a makeshift weapon. "I think we need to be very cautious."

Jyro nodded. Despite the possibility of something finally going their way, he agreed that their guard needed to be put up. "Let us then assume the worst until we know for certain we are safe."

Wrath nodded.

Jyro reached into his pocket, removed the awl Wrath had given him earlier, and moved to the door.

T
he boy led Pilazzo through the door to the left of the altar, into the rectory hallway. They followed the flashlight's beam down the dark, hot passage, footsteps crunching over debris. Countless times Pilazzo had traveled this hallway between the rectory and the church. Now he paced it again, never feeling so lost in life, following the lead of a boy who'd served on the altar perhaps a couple dozen times.

A sudden headache attacked Pilazzo. He stopped and leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and rubbed the sweat from his forehead. In this moment, his thoughts were drawn to the construction foreman and the conversation he had with him prior to arriving at the church:

"Father Pilazzo? This is Henry Miller of Pale Horse Construction. I need you to come down here right away and sign off on the list of statuary donors."

"Today?"

"
Please father, we cannot continue with the work until you approve the requests. And…I recommend that you hire outside movers for the statues. We can't move them…"

We can't move them, he'd said.

Can't...

My God.

It all seemed to make sense now: just as Pilazzo had become a chosen representative of God, the foreman had been used as a pawn by the beast, his task to convince Pilazzo to remove the statues from the church. The Old Testament told that in order for evil to gain rule over man, it would need to abolish all that was good. It seemed logical now that the presence of the statues and crucifix proved too much 'goodness' in the face of evil, and that Miller and his workers were unable to proceed with their dark task. They needed them gone. And they needed someone else to do it for them.

"Father…are you okay?"

Pilazzo nodded and motioned for Timothy to walk on, beating back the ill-fated memory, and his sudden interpretation of it. Still, more logic assaulted him, his mind now diverted upon his—the sinless one's—entry into the church. If the beast had appeared upon the altar in a struggle to debilitate him, then perhaps the presence of the statues and the crucifix had been too taxing for it to counter him? It certainly didn't appear that way at first—the beast had seemed strong in its slaughter of the battered vagrant. But it seemed that once the rosary had found its way to the sinless one, a simple prayer had forced it to abruptly abandon its place on the altar, weakened and hurt.

There is hope…

Timothy turned and stood a foot or so from the partially opened doorway. He peered through the gap, which seemed wide enough for just him to squeeze through. Not Pilazzo, though.

The boy told the priest, "When I first arrived here three days ago, the construction workers had just begun removing the pews. When I came through the church, I thought it odd that the construction workers had ignored me." He then went on to tell Pilazzo of his two days and nights trapped in the dark hallway, unable to escape because of the blue fires.

Awe and wonderment pounded through Pilazzo's body as he listened to the details of Timothy's story. Apparently he
wasn't
the only one trapped in this web of good versus evil, and he wondered how many more there were assuming roles in this otherworldly quagmire. "I was burned by the fires as well," he revealed. "But the rosary…" He looked down at his hands. "
It healed me
."

"It healed me too."

The priest shot an uneasy glance into Timothy's swollen gaze. "But…you still show wounds."

Gently, Timothy touched his swollen eye, damp with restrained tears. Outside, a sudden wind howled, rattling the stained glass windows inside the church. "These came afterwards…"

Feeling the rosary winding about his fingers, Pilazzo removed it from his pocket. Something urged him against displaying the charm, and he almost felt a pressure against his arm to keep it in his pocket, but the goodness of his heart compelled him to carry on with his want to help the boy.

The boy's good eye widened. He turned his head away.

"Let me heal your wounds," Pilazzo said, his headache suddenly gone.

Timothy shook his head vigorously. "No…put it away. Its temptation is powerful…you should use it only for its
true
purpose. Please..."

Pilazzo gazed down at it, again in awe of its mystical attraction. The beads shifted slightly in his open palm, but remained colorless, devoid of the mysterious red light. He placed it back into his pocket, keeping his fingers close to it.

"Thank you father."

Pilazzo nodded, then inquired about Timothy's injuries. "How did you get them?"

"I told you, I have seen much here in the last three days."

Timothy peered over his shoulder into the lobby, his form a silhouette before the pallid light seeping through the small space. "We need to get you through."

Pilazzo nodded, fingers deftly seeking out the comfort and strength the rosary provided, his wounded mind eager to hear more of Timothy's experience, despite the impending threat.

Timothy remained silent however, focused on the door instead. He slowly placed his left hand through the gap in the door…and nothing happened. He pulled it out.

"You can fit through there," Pilazzo said.

Timothy turned, face filled with shadows. "It's how I got out. But...I don't want to chance it again. This time…I…I don't
trust
it."

Pilazzo understood. The doors had burned the boy before, and he witnessed others getting hurt too. However…the vagrant Larry…he had been left unharmed because he was holding the rosary. Pilazzo too had been spared of painful injury with the rosary in his grasp. It stood to reason that Pilazzo—and hopefully Timothy—would avoid serious injury as long as they sought the rosary's protection upon opening the door.

Pilazzo pulled the rosary from his pocket.

"Perhaps now would be a good time to use it," Timothy said.

Pilazzo knew what needed to be done. He heard Timothy let out a wheezy breath. He stepped forward, chest heavy with panicky tightness. Timothy edged up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist, face against the priest's back.

He said, "Open the door."

Trembling, Pilazzo held the rosary out before him. The little cross tittered back and forth like a butterfly in the wind. What followed was a moment of pure silence where not even their breaths could be heard. He inched forward—Timothy keeping right behind him—and pushed upon the door with his protected hand.

A shadow of a flame shot up, only a fraction of what burned him at the front doors. Still, Pilazzo could feel the raw heat of it on his hand, a wicked shock of pain that cruised through his body and sent his brain floating. The door swung away from his arm, and he watched as a parade of white blisters marched up his raw skin, oozing from his pores. He stood there unmoving, full of dread. A silent scream dislodged itself from his throat and he howled out, watching with gross fascination as a current of undamaged skin trailed the blisters from his fingertips to his bicep, healing them in an ensuing wave. With it came an immediate liberation of pain, the absence of hair on his arm the only evidence of him being burned.

Gasping, Pilazzo could only nod repeatedly. Timothy released his grip on the priest and stepped in front of him.

Timothy asked, "Are you okay?"

Pilazzo shook his head, staring at his arm with gross fascination. "Not really." He looked at Timothy. The boy's one visible eye was dilated. Pilazzo motioned toward the dim room, feeling dizzy, hot and fevered. "It's the pain of salvation I suffer."

The boy took a deep breath, and with no hesitation, crossed the threshold.

Pilazzo looked into the dim lobby, saw nothing. "Timothy?" he called. He could feel his heart beating, quick and wet.

He returned the rosary into his pocket, and followed the boy into the rectory.

W
ith no warning, a wide-eyed vagrant rushed out and seized Pilazzo by the shoulders. The filthy, bearded man shoved him against the wall alongside the door and held a pointed awl against his neck. A pinpoint of pain shot through Pilazzo, cold and icy.

"Is he the one?" the vagrant asked of the boy, breath hot and stinking in Pilazzo's face. "
Is he
?"

Timothy nodded and backed away, his open eye glimmering with uncertainty and confusion. "Jyro…what are you doing?"

"What is this about?" Pilazzo cried. Two additional vagrants appeared from the shadowy reception area, one a large black man holding a hacksaw; the other a thin, dreadlocked hippie with a screwdriver in his hand. Both men looked and smelled as if they'd been on the streets for years.

"What's your name?" the lead vagrant demanded, saliva running out over his lips. The man, despite his abhorrent condition, had a sharp, authoritative manner to him. And given the fresh wounds and filth on his face, had apparently encountered some of the same misfortunes as Timothy.