Virgin

  And then the screen showed the newswoman at a desk with the face of a young nun superimposed over her shoulder. Arthur leaned forward, straining his ears because what she was saying could not be true. The young nun had been murdered during the theft of the object.

  Murdered!

  Arthur swiveled in his seat and tried to rise to his feet but his legs wouldn’t support him.

  “Emilio?” he gasped. “You didn’t … you couldn’t have …” But the look in Emilio’s eyes told him more than any words could say. “Dear God, Emilio! Dear God!”

  Manhattan

  As Dan watched, a pale, dark-haired young woman in a long white coat stepped inside the rectory side door.

  Dan dropped his drink. His knees buckled and he clutched the back of a chair to keep from falling. He opened his mouth to speak but his voice wasn’t there.

  Carrie!

  “I have to go to California, Dan,” she said evenly as she entered the front room.

  He stumbled forward and threw his arms around her.

  “Carrie!” he croaked. “You’re alive! Thank God, you’re—”

  She stood stiff and unresponsive in his embrace; her skin was cold against his cheek. Her chill transmitted to him. Spicules of ice formed in his blood as she spoke again.

  “No, Dan. I’m not.”

  Dan released her and backed away. She was staring at him with her bright blue eyes, but they were her only lively feature; the rest of her face was slack, and her voice … hollow. Not movie-zombie dead and robotic. It had timbre and tone, but something was missing. Emotion. She was like some of the guests at Loaves and Fishes who came in stoned on downers.

  An inane question popped out of his reeling mind: “How did you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  He noticed Kesev had risen and was standing beside him.

  “Carrie …” Dan’s mind whirled, refusing to accept what he was seeing. “I … you … the doctors said you were dead.”

  She reached forward and took his hand—her touch was so cold. She freed his index finger from the others and pulled the front of her lab coat open. She pressed the tip of Dan’s finger into the small round hole along the inner border of her left breast.

  “He killed me, Dan.”

  Dan cried out in anguish and revulsion as he tore his hand free. The room dipped and veered to the left, then the right. The Scotch, the concussion, seeing Carrie murdered, getting her back but not getting her back because she wasn’t really back … it was all too much. Unable to stand any longer, he sank to his knees before her.

  “Oh, God, Carrie! What is this? What does it mean?”

  “I have to go to California, Dan. Please help me get there.”

  “Calif—?”

  Kesev stepped forward. “Why California? Is that where the Mother is?”

  Carrie turned and stared at Kesev as if seeing him for the first time. She took a step backward and something twitched in her expression. Dan tried to decipher it: Surprise? Wonder? Fear?

  “You … I know who you are now.”

  “The Mother?” Kesev said quickly. “She’s in California now?”

  “Yes. I have to be with her.”

  “Can you take us to her?”

  “I need help. We have to hurry. We have to fly.”

  “Yes, yes!” Kesev said excitedly. “We will leave immediately!”

  Dan struggled back to his feet. “Now just a damn minute! We’re not going anywhere until I know—”

  “The Mother is there!” Kesev’s eyes were bright as he leaned into Dan’s face. “The sister will lead us to her.”

  “No! This is crazy! I’ll call the police. Detective Garner—”

  As Dan turned to reach for the phone, Kesev grabbed his arm. His fingers cut into him like steel cables.

  “She came to us, Father Fitzpatrick. Was sent to us. Not to the police. Us! That means that we are meant to go with her. It is not our place to involve the police. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Dan nodded. He was beginning to understand—at least as much as someone could understand something like this. He realized Kesev had his own agenda here. He wanted the Virgin back. If what he’d said was true, he’d been guarding the Virgin for two thousand years and wasn’t about to quit now. In the presence of Carrie’s reanimated corpse, Dan found that relatively easy to accept.

  But who was Kesev?

  Carrie was the other mystery. Had she been brought back from death for a purpose, or had her desire to be with the Virgin overcome death itself?

  Dan could find little comfort in either alternative.

  But it didn’t matter. Carrie was here, asking for his help. Dan would do everything in his power to give her that help.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s call the airlines.”

  Jerusalem

  A deafening cry goes up as dawnlight strikes first the Dome of the Rock. Jew and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian rally here for a common purpose: To prevent the destruction of this place so holy to both religions. Prayer rugs among the davening Orthodox, imams among rabbis …

  And yet the light is unfazed, the process inexorable. After slowly dissolving the Dome, it moves on to the Western Wall, truly a wailing wall now as thousands of voices scream as they watch it melt into the air.

  Athens, Greece

  The pillars of the Parthenon stand unattended as they disappear at first light …

  The Vatican, Italy

  … but not so Saint Peter’s Basilica. The Catholic faithful jam every inch of the square as the Pope leads them in prayer from his window. But to no avail … the Basilica dissolves along with every other church in Rome …

  Paris, France

  … and then Notre Dame Cathedral and La Sainte-Chapelle which share Île de la Cité … gone.

  And the blade of dawn moves on …

  IN THE PACIFIC

  30o N, 122o W

  As its fringe winds begin to brush the coast of southern California, the storm veers sharply north.

  Captain Harry Densmore stares bleary eyed through the windshield and adjusts 705’s circular course along the eye wall. They should have been out of fuel long ago, but the needle on the gauge hasn’t budged since they entered the eye. So they keep on flying. They’ve got to keep on flying.

  But what are the engines running on?

  TWENTY-THREE

  HURRICANE WARNING

  THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A HURRICANE WARNING FOR SANTA CRUZ, MONTEREY AND SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTIES. HURRICANE LANDFALL IS EXPECTED BY 9:00 A.M. EVACUATION OF OCEANFRONT AND LOW-LYING AREAS SHOULD BEGIN IMMEDIATELY.

  (The Weather Channel)

  Paraiso

  Emilio fought through the horizontal sheets of rain assaulting the ambulance as he wound up the road through the woods to Paraiso. Bolts of lightning lanced the sky, clearing the way for the ground-shaking thunder, but the heavy vehicle hugged the road.

  When the storm had changed course in the early hours and it became clear that it would strike Monterey County, the Senador had sent him to find an ambulance for Charlie, to take him inland out of harm’s way.

  But there were none to be had. The city had placed every available ambulance, public and private, on standby alert. Emilio had stopped by a few services personally, contacted many more by phone. No matter how much he offered, they would not risk their licenses by hiring out for a private run during the emergency.

  Call the county Civil Defense, they said. All you’ve got to do is tell them it’s an emergency, that you need an ambulance immediately to remove an invalid from an evacuation area, and they’ll okay it. No problem.

  No problem? Not quite. Emilio could hardly get Monterey County officialdom involved in moving an AIDS patient who happened to be Senator Arthur Crenshaw’s son. The word would sp
read like the wind from this storm. He couldn’t even allow a private ambulance company to know who it was transporting. He wanted to rent a fully-equipped rig and drive it himself. The answer everywhere was the same: Nothing doing.

  Emilio had wanted to scream. He could not let the Senador down on this. He’d already suffered the withering fury of his anger after he’d learned about the nun. The Senador had been quiet at first, then he’d exploded, calling Emilio a murderous fool, a ham-handed incompetent, a dolt who had jeopardized a lifetime of effort. The Senator had turned away in disgust, telling him to see if he could do something as simple a hiring an ambulance without screwing that up.

  Hurt, humiliated, Emilio had vowed never to fail the Senador again, but events continued to conspire against him. He had to get an ambulance. To return to Paraiso without one was unthinkable.

  So Emilio stole one.

  Quite easy, actually. The whole world was in panicked turmoil over the systematic destruction of temples and mosques across the globe. California had not been spared. Dawn had left not one church or synagogue standing. This area of the state was in double disorder because of the added threat of the storm.

  Emilio had taken advantage of that. He’d parked his own car at an indoor garage, then walked two blocks to the lot of one of the ambulance services. Amid the tumult of the storm, they never heard him jump start the engine and drive away.

  A particularly violent blast of wind buffeted the ambulance as it crossed the one-car bridge over the ravine. The top-heavy vehicle lurched and for an instant—just an instant—Emilio lost control as it seemed to roll along on only two wheels. It slewed and skidded and veered toward the guardrail, but before he could panic it rocked back onto all four wheels again.

  And then a deafening pop and a sizzle as a blinding bolt of lightning wide as a man arced into the base of a huge ponderosa pine on the far side of the ravine. There was no pause between the flash and the thunder. The ambulance, the bridge, the entire ravine shook with the deafening crash.

  Emilio slowed as he blinked away the purple after-image of the flash. Through the blur he saw flames licking at the blackened trunk of the pine. The whole tree was swaying wildly in the wind … seemed to be moving his way.

  He blinked again and cried out in terror as he saw the huge pine toppling toward him. He floored the accelerator, swerving the ambulance ahead on the bridge. The right rear fender screeched against the metal side rail. Emilio bared his clenched teeth and let loose a long, low howl as he kept the pedal welded to the floor. Had to move, had to get this huge, filthy puerco going and keep it going, couldn’t go back, couldn’t even look back, straight ahead was the only way, even if it looked like he was driving into the face of certain death, his only hope was to get off this bridge and onto the solid ground straight ahead on the far side of the ravine. Because this bridge was a goner.

  Branches slashed, crashed, smashed against the roof and windshield, spiderwebbing the glass in half a dozen places. It held though, and Emilio kept accelerating. He heard the flashers and sirens tear off the roof as he slipped the ambulance under the falling trunk with only inches to spare. But he wasn’t home yet. He heard and felt the huge pine’s impact directly behind him. The ambulance lurched sideways as the planked surface of the span canted right and tilted upward ahead of him. He fought to keep control, keep moving, keep accelerating, because he knew without looking that the bridge was going down behind him. The wet tires spun and slipped on the rapidly increasing incline and Emilio filled the cabin with an open-throated scream of mortal fear and defiant rage.

  Emilio Sanchez refused to die here, smashed on the rocks a hundred feet below. His destiny was not to meet his end as a storm victim, a mere statistic.

  The tires caught again, the ambulance lunged forward, its big V-8 Cadillac engine roaring, pushing the vehicle up the tilting incline and onto the glistening asphalt and solid ground.

  He slammed on the brakes and sagged against the steering wheel, panting. When he’d caught his breath, he held his hands before his face and watched them shake like a palsied old man’s. Then he stepped out into the wind and rain and looked back.

  The bridge was down. The giant pine had broken its back, crashing through the center of its span and dragging the rest of it to the floor of the ravine.

  Emilio began to laugh. He’d stolen an ambulance and now he couldn’t use it. No one could use it. And no one would be leaving Paraiso, not Emilio, not the Senador, and certainly not Charlie.

  Prisoners in Paradise.

  His laughter died away as he remembered the fourth occupant of Paraiso. That ancient body. He’d have to do something about that. It was evidence against him. He had to find a way to dispose of it. Permanently.

  “Turn here.”

  Dan sat behind the wheel of their rented Taurus and stared at the electric security gate that stood open before them. Through the wind-whipped downpour he made out identical red-and-white signs on the each of the stone gateposts:

  PRIVATE PROPERTY

  NO TRESPASSING

  VIOLATORS WILL BE

  PROSECUTED

  “Are you sure?” Dan said. “This is a private road.”

  “Turn here,” the voice from the rear repeated.

  Dan glanced at Kesev in the front passenger seat.

  The bearded man nodded agreement that they should proceed through the gate.

  “Yes. The feeling is strong. The Mother is near.”

  Dan then turned to look at Carrie where she sat in the back seat, staring up the private road.

  She wore one of Dan’s faded plaid flannel shirts over his oldest pair of jeans, and a pair of dirty white sneakers they’d found in the housekeeper’s closet. She looked like a refugee from a grunge band.

  Once again Brad’s AmEx card had come in handy for the tickets and the rental car agency. They’d driven south from San Francisco, following Carrie’s directions as she took them deeper and deeper into increasingly severe weather. Now they were on the coast of Monterey County.

  Dan faced front and did as he was told.

  He was on autopilot now. His head throbbed continually, but it had been aching so long now he barely noticed. The post-concussion dizziness and nausea were what plagued him physically. Emotionally and intellectually … he was numb.

  With no sleep for thirty-six hours, with the woman he loved murdered but sitting in the back seat giving him directions toward the corporal remains of the Virgin Mary, what else was there to do but shut down his emotions, turn off his rational faculties, and become some sort of servomechanism?

  Go through the motions, follow instructions to get to where you’re going, do, do, do, but don’t think, don’t question, and for God’s sake, don’t feel.

  Because mixed with the guilty joy of having Carrie back was the horrific realization that she wasn’t really back … not really back at all. And Dan knew if he unlocked his emotions he’d go mad, leap from the car, and run screaming through the trees.

  So he kept everything under lock and key, turned the car onto the narrow asphalt path, and kept his eyes on the road.

  Water sluiced down the incline toward the Taurus but the front-wheel drive kept them moving steadily. Pine needles, pine cones, leaves, and fallen branches littered the roadway. Dan drove over them, letting them snap and thud against the underbelly of the car. He didn’t care. Didn’t care if they punctured the oil pan or the gas tank. All he wanted was to get where he was going. Somewhere ahead was the Virgin, and with her maybe the man who shot Carrie.

  And then what will I do?

  Whatever he did or didn’t do, Dan sensed that he was on his way toward a rendezvous with destiny … or something very much like it. Whatever it was that lay ahead, he wanted to confront it and have done with it. Things had to change. Something had to give.

  Because he couldn’t go on like this much longer.

 
The trees thinned as they came to the top of a rise. It looked open ahead. And then Dan saw why: A deep ravine lay before them.

  “Keep going?”

  “Straight ahead,” Carrie said.

  Kesev pointed. “I see a bridge.”

  Dan gunned the engine. The car accelerated.

  “And so, Senador,” Emilio said, spreading his hands expressively, “I’m afraid we are stuck here.”

  Arthur Crenshaw nodded slowly, amazed at his own serenity. Here he was, trapped in a house that was little more than a giant bay window set in a cliff overhanging the ocean, looking down the barrel at the most powerful Pacific storm on record. He’d watched the front steamroll in, the lightning-slashed clouds sweep past, blotting out the rest of the world as the storm launched its assault on the coast—his coast. And every time he’d thought he’d seen the peak of the storm, it grew worse. The ocean below churned and frothed like an enormous Jacuzzi; thirty-foot waves lashed at the rocks, hurling foam a hundred feet in the air; wind and rain battered the huge windows, warping and rattling the glass. And yet he was not afraid.

  Something—who else could it be but Satan—had destroyed every place of worship in the world. Saint Patrick’s in New York, every synagogue in Brooklyn, the National Cathedral in DC, all the small-town Baptist churches in the rural South, the Mormon Cathedrals in Bethesda and throughout Utah. And yet he was not afraid.

  That amazed him.

  Perhaps he was too drained to be afraid. Or perhaps all his fear was centered on Charlie.

  His son was worse.

  Arthur didn’t need a CD-4 count to know that. Instead of falling, Charlie’s fever had risen through the night. He was now in a coma.

  His son was dying.

  Arthur moved to Charlie’s side, passing the so-called miraculous relic as he did. He was tempted to boot the piece of junk off the table, even drew his foot back to do so, but for some reason changed his mind at the last moment. Why bother? Just another in a long line of fakes. And to think a young woman had been killed in order to bring it here.

  And then it occurred to Arthur that perhaps that was why Charlie had not been healed. An innocent life had been snuffed out in order to save Charlie’s, and so Charlie could not be saved. Because a life had been taken on one end of the country, another life would be allowed to burn out on the other. A balancing of the scales.