Virgin

  The stuff of miracles.

  She decided to make a pilgrimage to the hospital.

  Carrie stood outside the door to CCU and trembled like one of her homeless guests in the throes of withdrawal.

  How bad could this be?

  She didn’t know. And that was what terrified her. Fourteen years since she’d last seen that man. Half her life. Sixteen years since he’d started sneaking into her bedroom at night …

  And Brad … how much had her older brother known?

  He’d never said. They’d never discussed it, never laid it out on the table between them and stared at it. He always referred to it as “the trouble” between her and that man. Brad could have been discussing wrecking the family car or getting sick drunk. “The trouble …”

  Some trouble.

  At first, as a pre-teen, Carrie had been afraid Brad would hate her if he found out, hate her as much as she hated herself. And then she’d thought, he has to know. How can he not know?

  And if he knew, why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he help her? Why didn’t he do something to stop that man?

  Carrie was pretty sure Brad had spent the years since she ran away asking himself those same questions. She wondered what answers he came up with. She wondered if he’d ever really faced what that man he called Dad had done to his little sister. Probably hadn’t. Probably had it hidden in some dark corner of his mind, buried under a pile of other childhood and teenage memories where he couldn’t see it.

  But he could smell it. Carrie knew the stink of those two hideous years had affected the rest of Brad’s life. Incessant work … a life so filled with deadlines and meetings and shuttling between coasts that that it left no room for old memories to surface … a life alone, without a wife or even a steady live-in, because a lasting relationship might lead to children and God knows what he might do if he ever fathered a little girl …

  Carrie half turned away from the CCU door, ready to leave, then turned back as Brad’s final words echoed through her brain.

  You’re better than he is, Carrie! Act like it!

  She set her jaw, numbed her feelings, and forced herself to push through into the CCU.

  White … white walls, white curtains between the white-sheeted beds, white-clad nurses gliding from bed to bed, bright white sunlight streaming through the southern windows … flashing monitors, hissing respirators, murmuring voices …

  Carrie turned to flee. She couldn’t do this.

  “Can I help you, Sister?” said a young nurse with a clipboard.

  Carrie mechanically handed her the visitor pass. “W—Walter Ferris?”

  A smile. “Bed Two.” She pointed to the far end of the unit. “He’s stable now, but please limit your visit to no more than ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes? Might as well say ten eternities.

  The air become gelatinous and Carrie had to force her way through it toward Bed Two. She couldn’t breathe, her knees wobbled, her hands shook, her intestines knotted, she had to go to the bathroom, but she kept pushing forward. Finally she was standing at the foot of the bed. She compelled her eyes to look down at it occupant.

  The room spun about her as she stared at a pale, grizzled, wizened old man with thin white hair and sunken features. His hospital gown seemed to lay flat against the mattress. Wires and tubes ran under that gown, a clear tube ran into his right nostril, a ribbed plastic hose protruded from his mouth and was connected to a respirator that pumped and hissed as it filled and emptied his lungs. His eyes were closed.

  He looked dead.

  She moved to the side of the bed, opposite of where a nurse was swabbing the inside of his mouth with some sort of giant Q-tip.

  “What are you doing?” Carrie asked.

  The nurse looked up, another young one, blonde. They all seemed young in here.

  “Just running a lemon swab over his oral membranes. Keeps them moist. Makes him more comfortable. You must be his daughter. Your brother’s mentioned you a lot but he said you couldn’t come.”

  Carrie could only nod.

  The nurse dropped the swab into a cup of water on the bedside table. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Carrie fought the urge to grab her and hold her here.

  No! Please don’t leave me alone with him!

  But the nurse hurried off. Carrie thanked God he was asleep. She’d do what she came here to do and then leave.

  “I forgive you,” she said softly.

  Who knew what torment he’d been going through during Mom’s illness? Perhaps something had snapped within him … temporary insanity. There was a good chance he’d never done anything like that before or since. One sick period in an entire life … true, that period had scarred both his children for the rest of their lives, but now, at the end of his days, it was time for forgiveness. These were words Carrie had thought she’d never say, but her time with the Virgin had brought a change within her, a softening.

  Humans are frail, and there is no sin that cannot be forgiven.

  “I forgive you,” she repeated.

  And his eyes opened. Watery blue, struggling to focus, they narrowed, then widened. He saw her, he knew her. A trembling hand lifted, grasped her fingers where they clung to the side rail.

  Touch … he was touching her again!

  It took everything Carrie had not to snatch her hand away and run screaming from the CCU. She hung on, quelling the urge to vomit as he squeezed her fingers in his arthritic grasp.

  And then he loosened his grip and his fingers began to caress the back of her hand. She felt her intestines writhe with revulsion but she kept her hand where it was.

  He’s half out of his mind, she told herself. Disoriented … doesn’t know what he’s doing.

  But then she saw the smile twisting his lips, and the look in his eyes. No repentance there, no guilt … more like fond memories.

  Carrie pulled her hand away. She wanted to run but she stood firm. Maybe she was projecting. Wasn’t that what they called it when you saw what you expected to see? Maybe he was just glad to see her and she was misinterpreting his responses. After all, she hadn’t laid eyes on him in fourteen years …

  .but a day hadn’t passed that his memory didn’t haunt her.She couldn’t run now. Not after she’d made it this far. Besides, she’d come here on a mission.

  To give him a chance.

  She glanced around. All the nurses were busy. She pulled out the Zip-loc baggie filled with the filed nails from the Virgin and dipped a finger into the powder. Originally she’d planned to mix it with a few drops of water and let him drink it, but with all these tubes running in and out of him, she didn’t see how that would be possible. But that citrus swab looked perfect.

  She pulled it from the plastic cup, transferred the powder from her finger to the swab, and then leaned over the bed.

  He was still looking at her with that … that expression in his eyes. She shuddered and concentrated on his mouth, slipping the swab through his open lips and running it across his dry tongue and up and down the insides of his cheeks.

  His smile broadened. His hand reached up to grab her wrist but she pulled back in time to avoid him.

  “There,” she said softly. “I’ve done my part. The rest is between you and God.”

  He continued to stare at her, grinning lasciviously. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She’d done her duty. No use in torturing herself any longer.

  “I’m going to go now. I never—”

  Suddenly his smile vanished and he began to writhe in the bed. Carrie heard the beeps of his cardiac monitor increase their tempo. She glanced up and saw the blips chasing each other across the screen. She smelled something burning, and when she looked down, black, oily smoke was seeping out around the edges of his hospital gown. The skin of his arms began to darken and smoke.

  “Nurse!”
Carrie cried, not knowing what else to do. “Nurse, what’s happening?”

  By the time the blonde nurse reached the bedside his writhing had progressed to agonized thrashing. Smoke streamed from his now blackened skin and collected in a dark, roiling cloud above the bed as he tore the respirator tube from his throat and belched a stream of black smoke with a hoarse, breathy scream.

  The nurse gasped. “Oh, my God!”

  At that instant he burst into flame.

  The nurse screamed and Carrie reeled away, raising her arm to shield her face from the heat.

  He was burning! Dear sweet Jesus, the whole bed was engulfed in a mass of flame!

  No … not the bed. Carrie saw now that the bed wasn’t burning. Neither was his hospital gown. Nor the sheets.

  Just him.

  The CCU dissolved into chaos. Screams, shouts, white-clad bodies darting here and there, shouting into phones, brandishing fire extinguishers, dousing the bed with foam, with white jets of carbon dioxide, but the flames burned on unabated, crisping his skin, boiling his eyes in their sockets, peeling the blackened flesh from his bones, and still he moved and writhed and kicked and thrashed, still alive within the consuming flames.

  Still alive … still burning …

  And then when it seemed that there was nothing left of him but his skeleton and a crisp blackened membrane stretched across his bones, he stiffened and arched his body until only his heels and the back of his head touched the mattress. He remained like that for what seemed an eternity, exhaling his last smoky breath in a prolonged, quavering ululation, then he collapsed.

  And with his collapse, the flames snuffed out.

  All was quiet except for the long high-pitched squeal of his flat-lined cardiac monitor. The nurses and orderlies crowded around the bed, covering their mouths and noses as they gaped at the blackened, immolated thing that had once been Walter Ferris, lying stiff and twisted in his unmarred, unscorched hospital gown.

  Sick with the horror of it, Carrie staggered back, fighting to maintain her grip on consciousness. She turned and stumbled toward the swinging doors, the voices of the CCU staff echoing above the howl of the monitor …

  “Christ, what happened?” … “An oxygen fire?” … “Naw, look at the bed—not even scorched!” … “What happened to the smoke alarms? How come they never went off?” … “Damnedest thing I ever seen!” …

  Out in the hall Carrie stepped aside to let the hospital’s emergency crew pass. She leaned against the wall and retched.

  She’d come here to forgive him … she had forgiven him.

  Apparently someone else had not.

  Archdiocese to Close St. Joe’s

  The Cardinal has announced that the Archdiocese of New York will temporarily close St. Joseph’s Church until the Diocese and Vatican officials have had time to evaluate the phenomena surrounding the relic displayed on the altar of the Lower Manhattan church.

  “Let’s just call it a cooling-off period,” the Cardinal declared at a news conference yesterday. “In the present climate of crowds, hysteria, and conflicting claims of right of ownership, clear, reasoned, dispassionate judgment is quite nearly impossible.”

  St. Joseph’s parishioners will be instructed to attend services at St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery until their own church is reopened.

  The city has announced it will clear the area around St. Joseph’s in order to allow Church investigative teams to do their work without interference.

  (The New York Post)

  Emilio stood back and watched the police herd the Mary-hunters from the street in front of St. Joseph’s. The hordes of the faithful were reluctant to go and protested vociferously. Some protested with more than their voices, crying that they had driven thousands of miles to be healed and weren’t about to be turned away now.

  But they were indeed turned away. And some of those who would not leave voluntarily were either dragged away or driven away in the backs of paddy wagons.

  By whatever means necessary, the entire block was cleared by nightfall. The church doors were locked and a police cordon was set up across each end of the street.

  Emilio shook his head in admiration. He didn’t know how he had done it, but he saw the Senador’s hand in all this. There were still roadblocks before him, but the Senador had cleared the major obstacle between Emilio and the relic.

  The rest was up to him.

  Already he had a plan.

  IN THE PACIFIC

  20o N, 128o W

  The storm continues to gain in size and strength as it races along its northeasterly course. It now stretches one hundred and fifty miles across as its cumulonimbus crown reaches to forty thousand feet.

  The spinning core of its heart increases its speed, and the entire storm moves with it. The swirling mass of violent weather is aimed toward northern Mexico.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Manhattan

  Decker honked and yelled and edged the D’Agostino’s truck through the crowd until it nosed up against one of the light blue “Police Line” horses that blocked access to the street ahead. Beyond the barrier the pavement stretched dark and empty in front of St. Joseph’s, illuminated in patches by the streetlamps. An island of calm in a sea of frustrated Mary-hunters.

  “You know what to say?” Emilio said.

  Decker nodded. “Got it memorized.”

  He jammed some gum into his mouth and slid out from behind the wheel as one of the cops approached.

  Emilio watched from his spot in the middle of the front seat. Molinari slouched to his right, trying to look casual with his elbow protruding from the open passenger window. Emilio was keeping a decidedly low profile at this point in their little mission. Decker and Mol sported extra facial hair, glasses, and nostril dilators to distort their appearances, but Emilio had gone to the greatest length to disguise himself. He’d added a thick black beard to augment his mustache, a shaggy wig, and a Navy blue knitted watch cap pulled low over his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He was often caught in the background when the Senador was photographed leaving his office or his car, and he didn’t want the slightest risk of being identified later.

  “Street’s closed, buddy,” the cop said. “You gotta go down to—”

  “Gotta delivery here,” Decker said, chewing noisily on the gum as he fished a slip of paper from his pocket. “The rect’ry.”

  “Yeah? Nobody told me about that.”

  “We deliver alla time, man. Youse guys maya shut down da choich, but dem priests still gotta eat, know’m sayin’?”

  As the cop stared at Decker, Emilio winced and closed his eyes. He heard Mol groan softly. Decker was laying it on too thick.

  The cop pulled a flashlight from his belt. “Let’s have a look at what you’re deliverin’. You wouldn’t be the first Mary-hunters tried to sneak by us tonight.”

  Emilio nodded as Mol nudged him. They’d done this right. This was no fake D’Agostino’s truck. This was the real thing. They’d hijacked it just as it left the store. The driver was bound, gagged and unconscious in the trunk of a car Mol had stolen this afternoon. The back of the panel truck was loaded with grocery bags, all scheduled for delivery elsewhere, but Emilio had changed the addresses on half a dozen of them to read “St. Joseph’s rectory.”

  Emilio heard the rear doors open, heard the rustle of paper as a few of the bags were inspected, then heard the door slam closed.

  Seconds later, Decker was slipping back behind the wheel as the cop slid the barrier aside and waved them through.

  “‘Choich?’” Mol said, leaning forward and staring at Decker. “‘Choich?’”

  Decker shrugged, grinning. “What can I say? I’m a Method actor.”

  Mol laughed and grabbed his crotch. “Method this!”

  Emilio let them blow off a little steam. They were in—past the guard house, so to speak—but t
hey still had a long way to go.

  Decker gave a friendly wave to the cop standing on the sidewalk in front of the church as he drove past, and backed the truck into the alley on the far side of the rectory. Mol and Emilio got out, opened the rear of the trunk, grabbed some bags, and left the doors open as they approached the rectory’s side door with loaded arms.

  A middle-aged woman opened the door.

  “A gift for Father Dan from one of his parishioners,” Emilio said. “Is he in?”

  Emilio knew he was in—he’d confirmed that with a phone call.

  “Why, yes,” the woman said. She let them into the foyer, then turned and called up the stairs behind her. “Father Dan! Someone here to see you!”

  By the time she turned back again, Mol had put his grocery bags down and had a pistol pointing at her face.

  “Not a word, or we’ll shoot Father Dan. Understand?”

  Eyes wide, jaw trembling, utterly terrified, she nodded.

  “Anyone else in the house besides Father Dan?” Mol said.

  She shook her head.

  “Good.” Mol smiled. “Now, let’s find a nice little closet so we can lock you up where you won’t get hurt.

  Emilio had his own automatic—a silenced Llama compact 9mm—ready and waiting for Father Dan when he came down the stairs.

  “Hello,” the priest said. “What—”

  And then he saw the pistol.

  “Let’s go to church, shall we, Father?” Emilio said.

  The young priest looked bewildered. “But there are police all over—”

  “The tunnel, Father Dan. We’ll use the tunnel.”

  The priest shook his head. “Tunnel? I don’t know what you’re—”

  Emilio jabbed the silencer tip against his ribs. “I’ll shoot your housekeeper in the face.”

  “All right!” Father Dan said, blanching. “All right. It’s this way.”

  “That’s better.

  Mol rejoined them then, and gave Emilio a thumbs-up sign. The housekeeper was safely locked away. She’d keep quiet to protect her precious priest from being shot while the priest was leading them to the church in order to keep his housekeeper from being shot.