Date: 2008-02-26 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Fiction
Description: During the renovation of an old church, Father Pilazzo becomes plagued by terrifying visions, unholy images of death, and warnings of the horrors to come after workmen unwittingly unleash an ancient evil.

FIRES RISING

Michael Laimo

Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

© 2011 Michael Laimo

Copy-edited by: Darren Pulsford

Cover Design By: David Dodd

Background Images provided by:

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Atmosphere

The Demonologist

Deep in the Darkness

Sleepwalker

COLLECTIONS:

Demons, Freaks, and Other Abnormalities

Dregs of Society

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Prologue

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1892, twilight gathered.

The October sunset tossed its ruby rays across the hog farms and uncultivated lands. Small clusters of huts flanking Central Park stood firmly against the cold winds. Their occupants, too poor to afford housing in the heavily populated downtown area, shivered and prayed for better days.

Twenty blocks to the south and a little farther east, the more fortunate settled into the new brownstones built alongside older wood-and-frame buildings. Sporadic gas lamps lined the curb, tossing gloomy circles of light upon the footpaths. Horse-drawn carriages meandered crookedly along hay-covered streets, people pacing silently along, men in long suits and derby hats, women garbed in dresses and gossamer veils. The air reeked of coal smoke and horse manure.

It was here that nearly one hundred men had come down from the hovels and settled into a pocket of land, working endless days and nights building the church of their hopes and dreams.

Layer by layer, brick by brick, they constructed the wooden framework from the ground up. Outside, beyond the walls that offered them the security they'd worked so hard to institute, children carried out menial tasks in exchange for fruit and water. The women mixed oils and painted tapestries, soon to be adorned upon the walls of the church.

Three miles away at the seaport, two men who not hours earlier had toiled inside the newly built rectory, stood at the edge of an arched-brick warehouse that extended all the way to the wharf.

To the east of the pier stood the sailor's lodging houses. To the west, grog shops and marine cellars, their exterior lanterns tossing garish red lights onto the foggy streets. Many of the buildings here were of a Neo-Gothic design, adorned with stonework cornices and vaulted beams.

The ship the two men were told to locate loomed before them, not much different looking than the warehouse it had unloaded its cargo into. Behind them, the doors to the warehouse opened. A shop worker appeared whose moustache and beard were as unruly as the rats skittering about the docks.

He nodded to the two men.

The men peered at the wooden sign over the door—Pier 13 it read in painted black lettering—and followed him inside.

A pair of electric bulbs encased in metal cages illuminated the entranceway, casting a dim glow onto the wood floor. The two men followed their bearded guide down a dusty corridor lined with dingy windows that looked out into an alleyway. The corridor led into a small room, empty save for a wooden fruitwood crate that lay in the center of the room, waxed rope handles anchored into its sides.

The two men walked to the crate and examined the dark Latin phrase etched into its surface: Castigo laudible, corpus meum…

The man with the beard gave them a manifest, for which they were told to sign. Although the monsignor told them that the shipment was to have come from Italy—a gift from the Pope himself—the manifest read Jerusalem.

They questioned the accuracy of the cargo.

The bearded man told them to touch the crate.

They did so, and in seconds realized that the cargo was indeed meant for them, for their church. The men looked at each other in amazement, their hands still tingling from the warmth emanating from the polished wood. The bearded man handed one of the men a sealed document meant for the monsignor, which he stealthily pocketed. This, the monsignor had told him, would be read at their next service, prior to bestowing the gift of the crate upon the parishioners.

Each man grabbed a roped handle, and exited back out onto the pier.

They walked at an even pace, passing a multitude of shops, now closed as the sun began to set behind the river. They turned and walked north through the lower stretches of the Bowery. Their senses thrived to the sounds around them, to the clanking horseshoes, the yelling and shouting and singing of distant song, to the horses that whinnied and snorted. The air was charged with the foul stenches of barnacles and horse dung.

They walked farther uptown. Here the streets were filled with bobbing derby hats and crossing horse-buggies. Trams lurched down the center of the road like charging bulls. Street peddlers lined the narrow sidewalks, exulting their current trade to those within earshot, be it pans or apples or steamers.

Each man gripped the rope-handles tightly, the warmth from within somehow providing them with the strength and fortitude to continue unhindered by fatigue. They kept their gazes straight ahead, their minds focused solely on transporting the gift to their church.

They turned the corner. Above, the elevated train platform towered over them, dark oil and slimy ash coating the underside. The train awaited their arrival, black smoke unfurling from its stack, darkening the evening air. The men quickened their pace and climbed the steps to the platform, where they paid a two-cent fare and entered the train. The doors closed seconds later, the wheels squealed, and they were on their way uptown.

Around them, passengers chatted in clutches, undoubtedly wondering who the two ill-dressed men were, and why they were holding such a fine looking crate. Did this crate hold a valuable prize? One worth fighting for, perhaps?

At Forty-Second Street, the men disembarked and boarded a streetcar for a penny each, where they rode to Seventy-Sixth Street, three blocks from their church.

Astoundingly, the final three blocks of their journey found them with more strength and vigor than they'd experienced in all their days as adult men. Their blood rushed furiously, hearts pounding to keep the pace. A wealth of sudden happiness fell into them, and they both understood that this crate (and its contents) was indeed an empowering gift from God, one that would allow their church to stand tall and powerful for many years to come.

They entered the church and paced down the center aisle, its plywood flooring soon to be covered with a donation of marble from a local factory owner. The men approached the altar, where the monsignor stood in prayer.

He smiled. "Bring the gift into the rectory."

The man with the sealed document handed it to the monsignor, and the pair moved into the rectory with the crate.

Everyone was gathered inside; the men who'd constructed the church, the women who’d painted the walls, the children who ran errands. There were a hundred and fifty people, perhaps more, standing around a ditch that had been dug deep into the earth's foundation.

The men carried the crate to the edge of the hole. They placed it down before the waiting priests. Soon after, the monsignor entered and stood alongside the priests. He opened the sealed document and began reciting its contents, written in Latin.

A minute later, when he finished reading, he said, "We have been bestowed a gift of great importance. We will protect it and in turn it will bring our church great strength. Its contents shall never be revealed. It will remain here buried beneath our church for as long as it stands."

The monsignor walked to the men who delivered the gift from downtown. "Do you feel its strength, its power?"

Indeed, the men did. They nodded.

"And so all here today shall benefit from its holy power."

Under the watchful guidance of the monsignor, each man, woman, and child took turns touching the crate. Everyone could feel its warmth, its gift of empowerment. They walked away, staring deeply into their flexing hands, utterly aware of the strength and spirit granted to them.

When all had taken their turn, the monsignor led the congregation in prayer. Afterwards, he instructed a group of men to lower the crate into the ditch. A number of men jumped into the hole, while two others grabbed the rope handles and lifted it over the edge…

One of the men holding the crate lost his footing, and fell into the hole. The other man made every effort to hold onto the crate's handle but it slid free of his grasp. The crate tumbled over the edge and hurtled to the bottom of the hole with a loud crack. The lid broke open, and its contents fell free for all to see…

48 hours later

The boy, who'd turned twelve years old a week earlier, followed his mother through a dark corridor.

Both were crying.

They rushed into a small basement room that resembled a cell. A wooden table and lone chair sat in the center of the pale stone floor. A pair of burning candles set atop the table cast flickering lights against their frightened faces. The woman sat her son in the chair and kneeled down before him.

She swallowed hard and spoke in a frantic whisper. "Do you see what is happening? What will happen to the rest of the world should you not do what I ask of you?"

Trembling, the boy nodded.

The woman reached into the bosom of her dress and pulled out a string of large wooden beads. Segregating the beads were a variety of tiny charms shaped like stars, plus a single three-inch crucifix that dangled like a Christmas tree ornament.

The woman handed it to the boy.

"What is it?" he asked, voice a pained whisper.

She tucked it into the boy's hand and bunched his fist up over it, holding his hand as she spoke. "It is perhaps what the ancients have been seeking for thousands of years. The Holy Grail, the one true name of God. Many men have sacrificed their lives for this. This is the creation of all life. It is now up to you to see it back to its rightful place."

The boy shook his head vehemently, panic twisting his dirty face. "I…I…can't." He looked at his mother's hand and saw a ruby ring of scars on her finger, swollen and bleeding, glowing beneath the golden candlelight.

"You must!" she insisted. Eyeing him tearfully, she released his hand and touched the glistening ring of scars on her finger. "You see this, don't you?"

He nodded.

"You are His son. You are the sinless one."

He knew—the previously unseen ring on her finger exposed her marriage to Christ.

He looked at the crude rosary in his hand. Beneath the beads, in the center of his palms, ruby bruises emerged.

Soon they would start bleeding.

She stood. "You have seen what evil does to men. You must use the goodness in your hands to restrain evil and place it back to where it belongs."

He gazed up at her, disbelieving. I am the sinless one…I am the son of Christ. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Had I known it would come to this—"

The door to the room burst open, and one of the church builders appeared.

Evil had him.

He stood bare-chested in the threshold, streaks of blood defiling his body and face. His scalp was in tatters, hunks of skin hanging away to reveal white bone underneath. His eyes were rolled up into his head, revealing harsh, gleaming whites.

In his hand was a Civil-War era sword, its blade dripping with blood.

He stepped into the room.

The woman stood in front of her son, protecting him from the possessed man.

The man raised the sword, and lunged forward.

"Run! Now!" the woman shouted, shoving her son away with an arm behind her back. The boy screamed. He thrust the rosary into his pocket and stumbled around the table, past the builder. He tried not to look at his mother…but was unable to tear his eyes away from the blade of the sword as it sliced into her shoulder. Blood jetted out, dousing the builder's hands.

The builder yanked the sword out. The boy's mother collapsed to the floor in a convulsing heap. Blood spouted from her wound. The builder raised the sword again…

The boy fled the room. Behind, he could hear the heavy grunts of the builder; the sound of the sword cutting into flesh and bone; his mother's agonizing screams of death.

Crying, he charged through the dark hallways. He passed into the church, nearly completed but utterly empty—a sight he never imagined possible. Five years of work, and no one here to embrace its otherworldly pleasures. He crossed the altar and exited into the rectory hallway.

He paced the dark passage, slowly, quietly. At the entrance to the rectory, he paused, listening intently. Through the sound of his heaving breaths, his ears picked up echoes of torture coming from the meeting room—the moans and screams of evil's victims, the guttural laughs of those caught in its grasp.

He clutched the rosary in his hand. It was warm, and moved slightly, like a snake in grass. He looked down at it and could see blood in his hands now, two jagged lesions centering his palms.

Stigmata…

He shuddered and moved into the rectory, knowing for certain now that he was the only one capable of salvaging the lives of those still alive.

I am the sinless one.

He walked down the hallway toward the meeting room, listening to the screams coming from inside.

In his mind, his mother's voice came: The rosary will protect you. Heed its word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

At once he recalled the moment the crate broke at the bottom of the pit. A sound like wind gusting from out of some violent storm had emerged, and then from within the crate a black chalice floated up into the air, to a spot four feet above the edge of the pit.

Everyone present had dropped to their knees, praying to the miracle before them.

But his mother…she had seen something else fallen from the crate, and while everyone else's eyes were fixed upon the floating chalice, she climbed down into the pit and took what appeared to be a set of rosary beads. She'd gripped the beads in her hand, seeing now for the first time what she'd come to expect all her life: the ring of ruby scars around her finger. She shuddered uncontrollably, knowing she couldn't disclose this incredible discovery with anyone except her son, for he was the only one—the sinless one—meant to use it for its true intent.

The boy entered the room.

And saw the chalice.

It was floating over the center of the pit just as he'd first seen it, black and glossy, covered with blood and fire. Below it was a scene born straight out of hell: the church builders, standing at the edge of the pit, covered in the blood of those they'd just sacrificed—their wives, sons, and daughters.

In their hands were the tools they'd used to build the church—the weapons they used to slaughter their innocent families.

Piece by piece, limb by severed limb, the builders fed their victims into the pit. From an unseen point below, thin streams of blood arced up and splashed into the chalice. From within the chalice itself, fires and wind raged, torturing the boy's ears.

The builders turned and looked at him. Their eyes were upturned, their faces bloody masks.

The boy held the rosary out before him.

The men cowered and screamed like burning witches…and then from within the bowels of the pit a wretched beast rose up, composed of blood and mud and the severed body parts of those slaughtered. Its head, formed of the heads of those recently decapitated, rolled back on a twisted bundle of spinal cords with a horrible cracking noise. The mouths of the human heads screamed in unison, expressing the beast's distress.

The boy stepped to the edge of the hole. The workers fled to the corners of the room, moving in odd jerking motions. Those still not sacrificed or possessed by the beast screamed hysterically and scampered away through puddles of blood and gristle.

The beast roared—with failure, with expectation, with disorientation.

The boy stepped to the edge of the pit, just feet from the beast.

Still holding the rosary out, he reached for the chalice…

Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the end of days.

Genesis 49:1

Stigmata is a phenomenon observed in a number of Christian saints and mystics for which no satisfactory natural explanation has been offered yet. It consists of the appearance, on the body of a living person, of wounds or scars corresponding to those of the crucified Christ.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Chapter 1

In his dreams, he witnessed the past, hundreds of faithful worshippers—men, women and children—flocking to share their beliefs within the walls of the church he now slept in. They'd built the church by hand, working endless hours until they lay fatigued and bleeding and perhaps near death. Ultimately, some men did indeed perish beneath the watchful perfection they aimed to create, their bodies laid to rest in the cement foundation poured beneath the wooden floors.

And what colors! The statues, the altar, the tapestries, the pews, each erected with utter devotion for those waiting to worship beneath their ethereal lure. The columnar supports, artistically carved to portray the story of Jesus's birth; the vaulted stained-glass ceilings and arched doorways, constructed to further inspire a reflection of the heavens. Here was heaven on earth, a protective sanctuary that offered peace, solitude, and gratifying conformity to the appreciative masses.

Something is calling me. And I must follow.

But these were just dreams—dreams of the past over a hundred years gone. He'd been having them ever since forcing entry into the abandoned church nearly two weeks ago. He remembered how the grates leading in from the subway tunnel had been old and rusty, proving easy enough to remove; the ventilation ducts just wide enough to crawl through. He'd made every effort to keep his special place hidden from the others—he had to, there were beds on the second floor of the rectory! But soon word got around, and the church filled up with his street brethren in a few days, all of them marking their territories upon the damp mattresses and carpets like stray cats on a doorstep.

When Jyro was a young boy and his mother was still alive and called him Jerry, she would tell him that All good things must always come to pass. Time and time again the adage proved itself true. And here it was again: just as things were growing uncomfortably crowded in the rectory, the construction crews arrived to tear up things on the floor below.

Some of the vagrants fled back into the streets and subways, unable to cope with the round-the-clock clamor. Others found the beds good enough reason to keep their heads buried and suffer through the noise, so long as the crews remained downstairs. Jyro on the other hand was unaffected by the harsh tolling of the jackhammers and circular saws—years on the city's streets had made him immune to loud noises—and slept soundly.

And in his sleep, the dreams of the mysterious past continued, seizing him like a fly in a spider's web.

Something is calling me. And I must follow.

After six days and nights of endless toiling, the workers ceased their activity. As the sounds faded into the night, the dreams left Jyro, and sleep escaped him. He tossed and turned endlessly, the moans and snores of the others—Jyro had counted nine in all—driving him toward madness. How is it that grinding machinery lulls me to sleep, but the snores of men hit my brain like a shots from a nail gun?

He sat up and gazed at the sleeping bodies lying side by side in the shadows. One of the squatters, a man named Larry who had one ear and two teeth, kept a collection of pilfered tools alongside himself as he slept. Jyro thought it strange that the workers below never saw Larry rummaging through their things. It is also strange that the workers have yet to come up here and discover us.

Unable to sleep, Jyro decided to investigate the quiet goings-on in the church below. Carefully he reached beneath Larry's blanket and 'borrowed' a halogen flashlight. Then, while the others slept, exited the bedroom and padded down the dark hall, tailing the wide beam, looking left and right and turning around to make certain that none of the others saw him.

He descended the still-carpeted steps, each creak like a firecracker pop beneath his plodding footsteps. He reached the bottom and went into the rectory lobby.

The room was fairly large, and at one point perhaps served as a living area for the priests and deacons. Cracks twisted up the walls and across the ceiling. A sole emergency beacon in the ceiling provided a dim glimpse of light, revealing a desk, a sofa, and a number of metal folding chairs perched against the wall. Everything was coated in dust.

Jyro stepped to the center of the room, swinging the flashlight back and forth. To his left he saw a hallway, ominous as it trailed away into darkness. He held the light up, narrowing his eyes as he gazed forward, but didn't see any evidence of work being performed here.

He moved into the dark hallway.

On his right he passed a doorway that led into a small white-tiled lunchroom. A row of rusty combination lockers followed, lining the wall like soldiers. Ahead, piles of splintered wood came into view, burying the threadbare carpet like the remains of a sunken ship.

He stretched his right hand out, feeling blindly along the lockers as he went. Soon he came to a large opening in the wall, a double-doorway. He grasped the splintered jamb and crossed the threshold, facing what appeared to have been the church's recreation center: a fifteen-hundred square foot gymnasium with a small stage running the entire length of the far wall. He shined the flashlight upon a lone basketball hoop anchored into the ceiling, then swung it downward, where he immediately beheld the hideous work of the construction crew.

In the hardwood floor was a hole, so large that it swallowed up nearly half the gymnasium. It resembled a trench in some war-torn countryside, the edges jagged and splintered upwards. Jyro could see a fold-up card table dangling precariously at the far edge, like a brown leaf clutching its withered branch in the last days of fall.

He stepped forward. In the trembling beam of the flashlight, he could see a variety of tools shoved against the stage and wall, white dust coating everything like snow. Something is calling me, and I must follow. The words surged through his mind again like an undertow, grasping him and forcing him to press on. Trembling, he took another step forward, frayed boots crunching on bits of debris. A sudden flash of heat enveloped him, making it difficult to breathe. Encroaching grayness created a tunnel of vision in his sights, forcing him to focus solely upon a lone dark spot in the hole. He stretched his arms outward toward the spot. It is calling me. Something there…

The uneven edge of the opening met his feet. For a moment he remained still, frozen in place. Then the floor dropped out from under him. He pinwheeled his arms for balance, but slipped down, the flashlight falling from his hand and clunking somewhere nearby. His tattered jacket got snagged and tore down the back. He thudded on the rock-hard bottom six feet below amidst a pile of talus, his breath escaping his lungs in a painful whoosh. He rolled over and something jabbed painfully into his ribs; he cried out and rolled back.

He opened his eyes.

And saw bones—human bones—jutting from the ground.

He skittered away in a panic, grabbing the flashlight. A cloud of dust rose up around him. He aimed the flashlight around and saw in the wavering beam a long line of skeletons—complete ribcages; leg bones smattered with bits of gristle and rotted flesh; skulls with snarled clumps of hair still attached, disconnected form their backbones.

Decapitated.

I saw them being buried in my dreams. But…there are more here than what I saw. What is this?

He moved the beam away from the graveyard of bones and focused it ahead.

Here he saw a solid wall of fill, the lower strata of the church's foundation open like a wound: asphalt and cement layered over brick and soil. Here is where he workers would lay a new cement foundation. He shined the beam across the fill and saw what appeared to be a wooden crate protruding from the lower layer of soil. He shook his head, gathered his composure and struggled to his feet. Taking a deep breath, he stepped toward the crate. The aged bones in the soil crunched beneath his weight.

Using just his fingers, he began to dig away at the hard earth packed around the crate. He worked gingerly at first, but then excavated more furiously as his heart began to pound with inexplicable excitement—as his mind burned with a rampant desire to explore the crate's unknown contents.

Something is calling me, and I must follow…

He cleared more and more of the surrounding soil away. The box…it seemed to grow warm…or maybe it was just his head playing with him. Regardless, he worked and worked at it for an indeterminate amount of time until a chunk of earth below the crate broke off, allowing it to fall free from the tomb that had kept it a secret since the founders in his dream buried it there over a hundred years ago.

He gripped the edge of the crate and jerked his hands away in pain. It was hot. He scratched the gruff on his face. Then, like a child cooling soup, blew upon the surface. Dust burst up in a cloud, assaulting his nose and making him cough.

He retrieved the flashlight and angled it at the top of the crate. The wood appeared to be petrified. It was branded with foreign words on all sides. He brushed away as much of the soil as he could, but couldn't make any sense of the writing.

He whispered as he read: "Castigo laudible, corpus meum…" An odd disquiet washed over him.

Using one hand, he wedged his fingers beneath the edge of the lid, which had come loose. With a grunt, he yanked it off. That was too easy, he thought, feeling as if something ghostly had aided him.

He slid the lid off the crate, let it fall to the ground.

He aimed the flashlight's beam inside.

His heart leaped in his throat and a heavy weight bore down on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. My God… And yet there seemed no logical reason at the moment to be so frightened at what he saw inside the crate: two very ordinary-looking burlap cloths, stiff and tattered.

He reached for one of the cloths. Gently, he pinched it between two fingers.

Laden with dry-rot, it crumbled into pieces. A heady sea-salt odor rose up as a string of wooden charms slipped free of the cloth, into his hand.

He cleared bits of the rotten cloth away from the charms. Yes, he knew what this was. His mother used to carry one everywhere she went. It's a string of rosary beads. But…it's different than the one my mother had: these beads are larger, as big as marbles. The cross is almost the size of my index finger. And what are these oddly-shaped trinkets that look like stars?

He allowed the beads to cascade through his fingers. His body shuddered at their nearly tangible offer of otherworldly comfort: they were warm to the touch, human warm, appearing to glide about his groping hands like a skittering insect investigating unfamiliar environs.

Quickly, he shoved the beads into his left pocket.

He peered back inside the crate.

The other burlap bag was moving, as though a mouse or a large insect were fighting its way out from beneath it.

Jyro reached for it. It stopped its undulations and he jerked his hand away, gooseflesh bolting across his back.

He stared at it a few seconds. Then, ever so slowly, reached for it again.

A splay of red light burst out from below the shred of burlap. Now frightened, Jyro flinched back against the hard wall of the ditch. He coughed, holding an arm up, wincing as something heavy turned in his stomach.

A tiny flame burst from the burlap bag, swallowing it up. Black ashes and glowing embers fluttered up like moths, revealing what appeared to be a goblet, or chalice in the crate.

Leaning forward, Jyro could see that it was perhaps eight inches high, black and glossy, with a coat of shiny, smoldering residue. Like a magician's assistant, it slowly floated up out of the crate, into the air, emitting the same soft red glow he'd seen emerging from beneath the burlap cloth just moments earlier.

Unmoving, Jyro could only stare at it wide-eyed and dumbfounded as it climbed to a height of ten or twelve feet. The seconds passed, and the chalice grew darker, its outermost edges turning nearly black, like onyx. In the center of the chalice he could see etchings similar to those on the surface of the crate.

The red light grew brighter around it, the chalice itself a turbulent focal point swelling before his eyes, like a great pupil focused solely on him.

The room grew hotter. Sweat burst from his brow as fear and anxiety roiled in his blood. Frightened, he shoved the flashlight into his pants, then with a gasp stepped onto edge the crate and gripped the sheared perimeter of the wooden floor. He hoisted himself up, feet scrambling against the exposed bricks, fingers digging into soil, face in the dirt, hands cramping as he pulled himself up over the edge of the hole, onto the dusty floor. Quickly, he climbed to his feet and scampered to the room's entrance, where he grabbed the doorjamb and peered over his shoulder to look at the chalice again.

It floated far above the hole: a widening pinpoint in the aura of red light still aimed at him, looking at him.

From within, a din of raging fires surfaced. It filled his ears with dense pressure that dulled his shouts. A wind sprung up, stinking of rot and sulfur, assailing him physically and shoving him back into the hallway.

He looked around wildly, back and forth, up and down. He staggered away, tailing the flashlight's beam back into the dark lobby. When his breath returned, he released a sharp gasp and looked back down the hallway. Red light spilled out of the rec room, illuminating the once dark hallway as though a fire were raging nearby.

He fled up the steps to the second-floor landing, where he collapsed breathlessly onto the threadbare carpet, trying to rid the image of the floating chalice from his head.

These will help me, he thought, seeking out the rosary beads in his pocket.  Hands trembling, he gripped them tightly, staring at them with awe and wonder and the want of salvation from the dark event he just witnessed.

They are beautiful, and they will protect me as my mother's beads protected her until the day of her death, all those years ago.

He grasped them into a tight ball, thoughts focused solely upon the calming magic they seemed to possess. Exhausted, he lay down on the carpeted landing and stared into the darkness, listening to his heart pounding, feeling his skin tingle.

Soon, sleep took him, and in his dreams he could vaguely hear in his dark dreams his own voice repeating the same phrase over and over again: "The evil that promises man the end of days."

Chapter 2

Blue skies.

Proud sun.

Warm breeze.

The weather in Manhattan could have been described as joyful, and those basking in its noontime brilliance echoed it with generous smiles. Traffic was flowing smoothly, devoid of impatient horn-honking. Perched in the branches of trees growing amid square cut-outs in the cement sidewalks, birds fluttered and chirped, seemingly jealous of those brave pigeons pecking at the feet of passing pedestrians.

Two middle-aged men met on 78th Street before the entrance to the Church of St. Peter. One of them was a priest, the other a construction foreman. Each was approximately the same age, of the same build and height and perhaps ethnic background. But that's where the similarities ended.

"This way, Father."

The construction foreman, wearing a yellow hardhat, held the orange construction tape up to allow Father Anthony Pilazzo to pass below. The priest leaned down, the bones in his forty-three year-old body creaking as he conducted the once undemanding feat with difficulty. Perhaps now would be a good time to start exercising again, he thought, knowing that finding time for such a simple routine would be as trouble-free as performing a service for a church full of Satanists.

He leaned back up and eyed the Church Of Saint Peter, its crumbling face more obvious now that its demise was in order. The once-red bricks were faded and chipped, dusty gray innards showing like open sores. The facing of the public announcement board was shattered, the majority of its plastic letters lying on the sidewalk below like discarded cigarette butts. What had originally read I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see now read new stud slut in a disconcerting stagger of letters: the simpleminded brainstorm of some moronic passerby.

Pilazzo shook his head and adjusted his priest's collar as perspiration trickled its way beneath. Taking a deep breath and tasting the grit of cement and sawdust, he buried his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. "One hundred and fifteen years. What a crying shame."

The foreman flattened his lips and narrowed his eyes in a struggle to feign compassion. He slid the hardhat back on his head, revealing a sweaty brow.

He looks nervous, Pilazzo sensed. Why would he show nervousness? All he has to do is tear the church down, then build it back up, addressing the gluttonous ways of corporate America.

"I've never been the religious type Father, but I can certainly relate to your disappointment. My wife and I had to give up our home after her company transferred her to New York last year. Toughest thing we'd ever had to do, especially with the kids going to a new school and all. Only recently have we begun to feel comfortable in our new surroundings."

In the tree immediately behind Pilazzo, a troop of perched sparrows tossed their tuneful song into the air. "It's much harder than you can imagine. It's like watching my own parent being led into the execution chamber, as morbid as that sounds."

The foreman smirked, making no clear effort to suppress his lack of compassion for Pilazzo's situation.

Pilazzo shook his head. "With all due respect, Mr.…I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

"Henry. Henry Miller."

"Yes, Mr. Miller." He pointed to the edifice and jerked his wrist a half dozen times, as if bullets might start firing from his index finger." This church has been here since the turn of the century. It was built by our grandfathers, the priests and parishioners themselves, back in 1892. Every column, every pew, every sliver of stained glass, paid for, manufactured, and erected by the hands of those who worshipped and lived in its walls. There's a history here that could never be duplicated. And now corporate America has brought its fist down hard on one of the few truly historical catholic components this city still has to offer. It's a terrible disgrace, Mr. Miller, an injustice to the catholic religion."

Henry Miller's eyebrows furrowed above a deadpan face, marking his disinterest in Pilazzo's plight. "I don't disagree with you, Father. But I have a job to do here, ya know?"

Pilazzo continued, the words spilling from his mouth ungoverned: "What took our forefathers a year to build, will take your crew a couple of days to tear down. A few months from now, in this thirty foot wedge of space between office building number one and office building number two, office building number three will stand with the money-hungry lawyers resting comfortably in the top floor, overseeing the contracts between the foam-jawed landlords and their kennel of leasers. It's all about the money, and nothing more." He paused, swallowed past the grit in his throat and added, "No one cares about God anymore."

Miller aimed his dark eyes toward the dusty sidewalk. Lunch-hour pedestrians paced busily along the curb, clear of the construction tape, oblivious to the fact—and not really caring—that a hundred and fifteen year-old church was about to be torn down.

Pilazzo brushed by him and stepped across the sidewalk toward the five steps leading up into the church. He placed his right foot on the bottom step and stared into the darkness beyond the open half of the twin doors.

A breeze sprung up, carrying with it a cloud of dust that circled into the church's gloomy depths. It doubled back, tossing bits of debris against Pilazzo's face. He closed his eyes and coughed away the invading grit. Behind him, the lone tree's leaves rustled. When he opened his eyes, the afternoon sun caught the chrome edge of the closed left door, causing a pinpoint glare to pierce his eyes. He moved aside, realizing that all the sparrows in the tree had ceased their tuneful chirping.

"The actual demolition won't start until next week," Miller said. "At this point in time the crews are disassembling the pews and some of the other items on the donation list. As discussed, we'll need you to approve the new applications before we can move them all out."

Pilazzo nodded. He looked at the tree and noticed the sparrows had indeed taken flight. The tree looks empty without them. Like the Church of St. Peter does now, minus its parishioners.

"And the statues, and the crucifix behind the altar…" Henry added.

"What about them?" Pilazzo diverted his attention back to the foreman. His heart began to pound. He massaged his chest with a closed fist, thinking, I can't take much more of this. I feel as if my insides are being ripped out.  "They haven't been damaged, have they?"

Miller hesitated. His face paled, drawn of its color, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "No, they have not," he answered weakly, guiltily.

Pilazzo said, "I've performed thousands of masses under the watchful eyes of those statues. I hope nothing bad has happened to them."

"As you know, our…our crews are not insured for moving such valuables. Again, I strongly suggest you hire a moving company to handle them. We won't be able to move them out unless you sign a damage waiver…but I advise against that. Our men aren't quite trained to be delicate, ya know what I mean?"

If it weren't considered an act defiant of the graces of God, Pilazzo would have cursed the man out, and lord, it probably would have felt darn good using those words he'd only heard others say during confession, or in the movies.

"I'll see to it, then," he uttered, eyeing Miller suspiciously. Something about the foreman was really bothering Pilazzo. It's his eyes, he thought. They're cold and dark, embroiled in guilt. Then he wondered if he and his men had damaged the statues after all. Had they desecrated the last remaining vestiges of the Church of St. Peter in some vile, immoral, time-wasting horseplay?

Dear God, no…

Again Pilazzo stared into the darkness beyond the open door of the church.

The breeze emerged once more, as if attempting to send a message to the priest. This time it created a spiral of dust at the jamb that for a moment resembled a tiny tornado. Pilazzo felt himself being drawn toward the windswept debris, toward the door and the waiting darkness beyond, his mind suddenly released of its anger and frustration, brimming with a want to enter the church one last time and bless its walls before they came tumbling down.

It's calling to me, as though it is alive, begging me to grant upon it salvation from its looming demise.

Something is calling me, and I must follow…

"Father?"

Pilazzo turned and looked at Henry Miller. The foreman had removed his yellow hardhat, exposing a hairless, sweaty, sun-burned head. There was a patchwork of dark lumpy freckles toward the rear of his dome, suggesting too much time in the sun and not enough concern for skin cancer. "Yes…Mr. Miller, what is it?"

"It's lunch time now." A near-cocky grin cut into his stone face. "The guys are on break for the next hour. If they ask you for ID when they get back, just show them this." He handed Pilazzo a plastic card with the word VISITOR in big bold letters on the front. Along the top in smaller letters was the name of the construction company: Pale Horse Industrial.

Pilazzo grinned, despite the upsetting state of affairs. He pinned the foreman's eyes, which appeared peculiarly black under the sun's glare. "Thank you Mr. Miller."

Henry Miller nodded. "You're welcome, Father."

"If I've sounded crass, please know it's because I've been living in this rectory for seventeen years. After getting evicted…well, let's just say that the last two months of my life have been less than comfortable."

"I understand," Henry Miller said unconvincingly, seemingly impatient with the priest.

Pilazzo shook his head back and forth, suddenly and quite inexplicably assaulted with feelings of anger and resentment. "No, I don't think you do, Mr. Miller. Imagine this: one day you wake up and there are city employees knocking on your door telling you that one of their paid-for-hire attorneys has just found a loophole in your sixty year-old contract, and that now they own your property, and "thank you for your business sir", but you now have exactly one week to gather up your things and get out. Think about it Mr. Miller. How would that make you feel?"

Henry Miller nodded, dark eyes again aimed toward the ground. He looked like a scolded child—one with a hidden weapon up his sleeve. "Not too good, I suppose…" He hesitated, adding as Pilazzo gazed at the open door, "If you don't mind, Father—" He pointed up the street, signaling his exit. "I'm on union hours."

Pilazzo brushed him away with one hand. "Go, then. I'll be fine."

"There's some protective gear on the table to the right, as soon as you walk in. There's also a yellow envelope in there. Inside are the documents for you to sign. The ones on top are for the donations, the others are damage waivers. But again, I must tell you we'd rather not have to move—"

"I'll hire a mover," the priest retorted, keeping his gaze pinned to the door and the black space beyond. "But I won't sign anything until I have to.. I have to sit in the confessional this afternoon, and really can't afford any distractions."

Let the foreman wait.

Henry Miller grinned smugly. "Tomorrow, then. But I'd prefer if you came at noon, so there won't be any work going on while you're inside. For your safety." He tossed his hardhat into a tailgate cab, and bustled away, the sun beating down against his spotted baldness.

Father Anthony Pilazzo remained standing on the cordoned-off sidewalk for what seemed an eternity, staring into the stark blackness beyond the doors—the void of his church that seemed to plead for his cooling presence.

This time, no whirling dust…but still, it calls me. I can feel it… He took a deep breath, then paced away from the place he'd called home for nearly twenty years.

Chapter 3

Again Jyro dreamed of the fathers of the church who'd labored so hard to erect its walls and adorn its interior. Like a fly on the wall, he witnessed the men of the past digging a ditch at the bottom of a similar hole to the one he found in the rec room. He watched as they threw their shovels down and lowered the crate with the odd lettering into its hidden depths.

Dozens of others—men, women, and children—looked on from the upper perimeter of the hole. They were crying and praying with their eyes closed and their heads shaking back and forth, tears glistening in the flickering candlelight.

The men standing in the hole began to shovel dirt back on top of the crate. An odd wash of red light spilled out of the crate and spread across the entire hole. Now he could see dead, naked bodies lying in the hole, dozens of them, men women, and children, bleeding out onto the dark soil. They'd been quartered, their arms and legs positioned across their torsos like logs on a flatbed, drawn bowels exposed to the elements. Blood streamed from their eviscerated abdomens into the ditch where the crate was buried, seemingly flowing of its own accord.

Jyro tried to move closer to the action taking place—he wanted to confirm that what he was seeing was real, that they were in fact murdered…no sacrificed people being buried in the hole, that their blood was actually flowing across the bottom of the ditch. He felt himself floating down from his place of safety into the crowd of onlookers. When he reached the ground, he staggered through the people gathered around the hole until he broke through the front of the line. Here he was confronted by the waiting gazes of the men in the hole, each and every one of them staring up at him as if he were an intruding enemy. One of the men appeared beside him and grasped his arm, brandishing a knife, its twelve-inch blade coated in blood. Jyro tried to scream but like in any other nightmare, was unable to find his voice.

The man's eyes turned black, and with a single strong-armed thrust, he plunged the bloody knife into Jyro's gut…

Jyro startled awake, the horrific and utterly realistic nightmare giving way to the snores of the sleeping vagrants in the bedroom.

He rubbed his eyes, and then his stomach, feeling the ghostly ache of the knife from his dream. As the images of his dream faded and his conscious state grew more tangible, he wondered if the chalice he saw floating in the air had indeed been real.

And if so, was it still there now?

The rosary!

Heart pounding, he clawed into his right pocket, and for a moment panicked because all he felt was a torn hole giving way to the rough bare skin of his thigh. But then he realized he was fishing in the wrong pocket, and upon examining his left pocket was relieved to find the beads still there.

This means the chalice I saw was real…

He struggled to his knees and started looking around for a good place to hide because he wanted—needed—to remain alone with the rosary. After all, it had called to him and even perhaps had a message for him. He climbed to his feet and a number of tender places on his body reminded him of his fall into the hole: his back, hips, and legs all throbbing with sharp aches and pains. Grimacing, he bent over to massage his right thigh and saw the halogen flashlight he'd taken from Larry on the floor alongside the wall.

He retrieved the flashlight and plodded away from the carpeted landing, his laceless boots leaving a dusty trail on the hallway's hardwood floor. He passed the bedroom and peeked inside. It was still packed with sprawled bodies, many of them snoring loudly or mumbling in their sleep. Beams of dim light played in through the room's only window, illuminating the dust motes floating lazily over the sleeping men.

It's morning now…how many hours have I been sleeping for?

He looked down the hall toward the rectory's only bathroom, its door slightly ajar.

He limped to it, hesitated at the threshold…then went inside.

Something is calling me. And I must follow.

The bathroom stunk to high-heaven. He switched the flashlight on and shined it around. He glimpsed the toilet, now backed up and overflowing with thick, dark sewage. Gagging, he turned, thought about leaving but ended up closing the door behind him, fighting back the stink with a nausea-filled gulp. He took a step forward, placed the flashlight on the edge of the sink and aimed it toward himself, then cocked an ear against the door.

Certain that no one else was around, he dug a hand into his pocket, and took out the rosary.

It is beautiful…

Like an entomologist studying an insect, he contemplated it with heart-pounding fascination, with awe. He touched every marble-sized bead, the lone crucifix, its oddly-shaped charms carved in ancient wood.

It is mine. It called to me…

One thing was for certain: he wouldn't let anyone else see it. If they did they would most certainly fight him for it, because a charm like this would fetch a pretty penny at the pawn shop on 8th Avenue and 44th Street—enough, at least, to buy a good bottle of liquor, or a meal at Tad's steakhouse.

He closed his eyes and let the rosary slip through his fingers. They seemed to press up against his skin, like a cat looking to be petted. Must be my imagination, he thought, feeling the weighty grain of the beads as they released a pinpoint of warmth into his palms.

The center of his palms…

Time seemed to slow. He felt rejuvenated, stronger perhaps. When he moved his arms he could feel his bicep muscles flexing. Truth be told, the aches and pains from his fall last night were no longer there. It's as if it's…healing me.

His fingers weaved about the beads, more fervently now. Out of the blue, fond memories of his mother returned to him, she doting upon him when he was a smart young boy, watching over him every second of the day with her strict eye and God-fearing intent to protect her only son from the evils of the world. As a young boy, Jerry Roberts saw no choice but to gratefully accept his mother's vigilant security, and follow God's intended path for him.

He saw images of his father, and how the man had impinged upon him a harsh and drunken demand to 'ignore his nutjob of a mother', had told him to find some work other than his after-school duties as an altar boy at the Church of Holy Innocents. His father would shout out, time and time again: We need you to help support the family. We earn barely enough money to pay the rent on this hell-forsaken rathole we call home. You've earned straight-A's in school—put some of those smarts to work and help us pay the goddamned bills!

Jyro realized that his father had been justified in his demands, but was unable to win the losing battle, and in dire frustration had chosen to drink away his sorrows. In the end, his father had surrendered his liver to the Devil, who as his mother once said, was more than willing to take it from him.

Jerry had been sixteen when his father died. Three days later, as they walked home from the funeral, his mother was killed by a hit and run driver, her body snatched away from him as he held her hand, the rosary in her clutches torn apart, its beads scattered in the street like seeds.

Soon thereafter, he'd quit school—much to the dismay of his teachers, who were all quite smitten with their attentive honor student—and started attending church every day; it was the only thing that helped erase the haunting image of his mother's body laying bloody and mangled in the street, her eyes fluttering as they took one final glance at him. He'd prayed daily for the strength to carry on unhindered by the perils of mental trauma—a viable consolation for his pain. But with no inheritance to claim—and no living relatives to take care of him—the rent on the 'rathole' came due. Despite his prayers, Jerry Roberts had no money left after feeding his inherited propensity for drink.

With nothing more than the clothes in his closet, Jerry Roberts soon found himself amongst the wanderers in the streets of New York City.

He shook the disparaging memories from his head, squeezed the rosary tightly and prayed for them to lead him away from the fourteen years of pain and sickness accrued while living on Manhattan's streets and shelters.

They will protect me, guide me. I have never lost faith in God. My mother introduced Him to me and I have lived with Him in my heart ever since I was an altar boy. Now, he has called upon me to perform a service, just as He did when I was a young boy, after my mother's death. Yes, I can see it now…the beads. I must heed their appeal.

He opened his eyes and met the splay of light from the flashlight, the shadow it created upon the soiled wall that of a praying Virgin Mary, her innocence shattered by water stains mimicking a unbound period. He sucked in a long fouled breath and shut his eyes, wishing for the startling image to vanish. Certain fear riddled his trembling body, and he squeezed the rosary more tightly, the warmth emanating from it both certain, and disconcerting.

"Find him…"

The whisper in the room with him was as real as the beads were warm. His hand went to his mouth and his eyes shot open. Had he just heard a voice surface from the looming shadow on the wall? The hair on his arms stood on end, his gaze fixed upon the wavering silhouette, the stains on the wall darkening the area around its pubis.

"Who?" he managed to utter, eyes still fixed upon the shadow. It appeared for a daunting moment to have moved, the dark outline twisting toward him, eyeing the rosary in his hand. Wanting it.

There was a surge of light as the flashlight's beam brightened. It then faded and died with a firecracker pop.

From the darkness that now surrounded him, the icy-cold grasp of a hand seized the back of his neck.

He cried out and swatted himself, writhing and struggling against it not unlike the time he awoke in the subway with a litter of baby rats nesting in his hair. Unable to free himself of the sensation, he leapt forward and banged into the closed door, fumbling blindly at the knob and listening to the whispering voice of the unseen shadow behind him as it filled his harried mind: "Find him."

He cried out until the knob turned beneath his slipping grip. He burst free of the bathroom like a tiger from a cage, clutching the rosary against his chest as he shambled down the hall, away from the tainted darkness.

Right into someone he'd never seen before.

Chapter 4

Three blocks away from the Church of St Peter, Father Anthony Pilazzo entered the V-line subway station at 70th and Lexington, tackling the steps as the heated stench of urine seeped its way into his nose. People of all denominations scurried to and fro, some more quickly than others, most having to sidestep a pair of homeless men seated alongside the turnstiles, tin cans readied in their shaking hands. Somewhere Pilazzo had read that the average Manhattan panhandler netted approximately forty grand a year, which to the New York taxpayer amounted to an annual salary of about fifty-three grand. Considering that the Church of St Peter brought in roughly a hundred thousand a year, panhandling didn't seem like such a bad racket after all. Pilazzo once jokingly told his fellow priests that he might dress them up as hobos and have them cruise the subways in between masses.

He waited on the platform, watching no one in particular but noticing two construction workers engaged in conversation alongside a cement support beam. They wore soiled jeans and tees with leather tool belts draped around their bulging waists.

An attractive young woman, finely dressed in high heels and a navy business suit, paced by them, thus becoming an immediate target to their distasteful comments. She paid their catcalls no attention, stepping farther along the platform with her leather briefcase clutched tightly in her right hand, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze escaping the tunnel. The men expressed amusement with their obnoxious act and shamelessly resumed their discussion.

The train pulled into the station. Pilazzo stepped onto the plastic safety strip at the edge of the platform, a few feet in front of the construction workers...

…and shuddered as he imagined, for the briefest moment, both men leaping forward and pushing him onto the tracks before the oncoming train.

He turned and looked back at the workers. The two men ceased their conversation, twisted their heads and stared at the priest, the drill of their eyes boring imaginary holes into him.

Pilazzo's face tightened as a strange yet understandable uneasiness overcame him. He offered the men a weak grin and turned away. Whereas most folks typically put forward a friendly or respectful demeanor toward him, these two seemed to contemplate him as though he were a curiosity at the zoo. As if they are scared of me, Pilazzo thought with concern.

Pilazzo stepped back, off the plastic strip.

He looked at the men again.

The man on the right, thirty-something and in need of a shave three days ago, clutched his stomach with both hands, as though stricken unexpectedly with cramps. His cohort remained motionless with his hands at his sides, eyes still glued to the priest in some troubled, God-fearing manner.

The train's brakes squealed and sent up a windblown scent of burning steel as it came to a grinding halt. In a friendly gesture, Pilazzo nodded toward the two men as the doors rang open then spun a nervous shoulder and entered the subway car, careful not to trip over those riders hurriedly disembarking.

Three plastic orange seats offered him a view of the platform. He sat in one and peered back out through the open doors.

The two workers were still there, seemingly unwilling to board the train they'd apparently been waiting for. The doors rang shut, the train pulled away, and Pilazzo watched with consternation as the two men craned their necks to look at him through the soiled windows.

"Spare some change, Father?"

A ripple of gooseflesh sprinted down Pilazzo's spine. He twisted his head around, shuddering as he locked gazes with a grubby homeless man. Hunched and scowling, the man pushed a grimy calloused hand out that trembled as if enmeshed in a later stage of Parkinson's, and fired a stare into Pilazzo's eyes.

The priest ogled the vagrant's face with repulsion, ancient acne scars and fresher wounds swelling through an untended landscape of wiry facial hair. The vagrant spoke, fouled breath beating back the stench of bacteria thriving on his unwashed body.

"My uncle was a monsignor, Father."

Automatically, Pilazzo nodded, shuddering beneath the pungent shadow of the man. The train shifted and shook as it raced through the tunnel. The homeless man's body wavered forward, but didn't tip; he had the balancing act down to a science.

Grinning in a congenial but dissuasive manner, Pilazzo faced the floor, focusing in on a spot of gum flattened and trampled into a dark gray circle; ignoring those seeking financial support in the subways and streets of New York City was the universal way of letting them know that they should shuffle along.

But the homeless man remained unmoving.

Seconds passed. Again the priest shuddered, his mind now fraught with an unnerving wave of logic: There is more to this man than a simple request for loose change.

Pilazzo peered back up at the homeless man, and in this instant saw a glow in his previously dead-to-the-world eyes that wasn't there before, once black but now brimming with intellect and an inexplicable bond that for the moment was unbreakable. To Pilazzo, the vagrant exhibited intent on something more emotionally charged than financial gain.

The vagrant reached forward and grasped the priest's shoulder…

…and in this moment of contact Father Anthony Pilazzo saw in his mind blackened skies and an army of tattered men facing a great evil rising up before a wall of raging fires and billowing smoke…

The sound of the train doors ringing shook Pilazzo from his nightmarish reverie. Heart pounding, eyes bulging, he slid out from beneath the grasp of the homeless man and staggered away through the open doors onto the subway platform, uncaring at the moment as to his present location.

He leaned against the arm of a battered bench and turned to look at the homeless man, who was now pleading for the generosity of an indifferent young woman seated with her head faced down.

Slowly, the train began to pull away and the homeless man rolled his eyes and pinned Pilazzo through the cloudy window, not unlike the two construction workers had earlier. The priest's breath escaped him in a single gasp, leaving him confused and afraid as the clear, daunting image of destruction continued to burn in his mind.

A wall of raging fires and rising smoke…

He rubbed his eyes, wishing it all away. Soon, the train disappeared into the tunnel, and the image of the homeless man faded…but in his mind, the nightmare fires remained and continued to burn as he made his way back out onto the streets of Manhattan.

Chapter 5

Before Jyro stood a pale, dirty-faced boy, whom despite being nearly six feet tall, looked maybe sixteen years of age. He wore jeans and a stained yellow tee-shirt that hung slackly over his thin, trembling frame. His blue eyes, bloodshot and swollen with tears, stared inquisitively at Jyro.

"What are you doing here?" he said, voice weak and hoarse.

Jyro remained silent and self-protective, fingers trembling as he covertly tucked the rosary into his palm. His heart sped at twice its normal beat, the rosary strangely warm against his skin, feeling as though it were a living, breathing creature. He swallowed past a nervous lump in his throat, and in an attempt to distract the boy from the rosary, motioned toward the bedroom, which was still packed with lazing vagrants.

Following the diversion, the boy shoved past Jyro and looked into the bedroom. The expression that appeared on his face was one of immediate shock and disbelief. "How long have you all been here?"

"About two weeks," Jyro responded, both hands now clenched around the rosary to keep it hidden and safe.

It's mine…all mine…

The boy paced tight circle in the hall. Jyro noticed a patch of blisters on his hands, wet and red as if recently burned. "It's only been two months since we last performed mass here," the boy said, "and now just look at the place…"

"The construction crews," Jyro replied, as if to say, don't worry, we won't be here for long, then added, "The rec area…did you see it? It's destroyed." His thoughts flickered back to his midnight walk: Strange that the construction crews aren't tearing the place down as they should be. They've been here for nearly a week. And all they've really done is dig a big hole in the ground.

That's because they were looking for something…

The boy gazed about the hall, clearly distraught. He looked at Jyro and said, "I saw it." Fear and pain seeped into the boy's face, and he gazed down at his burned hands.

"The hole? You saw it?"

The boy nodded. Tears flooded back into his eyes. He shuddered hard and wrapped his arms around his waist. His lips, blue and chapped, quivered as if freezing.

Jyro clutched his fists against his chest, the warmth of the hidden rosary soothing his thumping heart. In this moment of pause he thought of the floating chalice, with its glaring red light and eye-like crux of blackness. He stared at the injured boy and wondered if there was any connection between him and the chalice.

"Did you notice anything odd about the hole?"

The boy's eyes darted back and forth between Jyro and the entrance to the bedroom. "I came back here because I'd forgotten to empty my locker. And that was when I saw the hole." He paused, head shaking like a man ill with disease. "It broke my heart to see that—do you know how many games of basketball we played down there? How many times we gathered on the stage singing songs of worship?" He paused as he seemed to gather his thoughts. "I…I don't know how long I was down there, but at some point I got real scared and I ran out of the room and came up here…and…" He trailed off, rubbing his wet eyes, seemingly fatigued from having to relate his story. "I think you need to leave now. All of you. The construction workers are going to come up here next."

The workers, Jyro thought. They must've seen the floating chalice. One of them probably grabbed it, just like I did the rosary. Unless of course I imagined everything. No…no…I couldn't have imagined it! It was real—as real as the beads are warm in my hands.

Jyro fixed the boy's solemn gaze. Something terrible has happened to him. Again he asked, more sternly now: "Did you see anything unusual in the hole?"

The boy stammered, tongue-tied. He began to fidget uncomfortably, and seemed anxious to leave now. "Unusual?"

Yeah, like a floating chalice filled with fire? Is this why your hands are burned? Because you tried tograb it?

It really shouldn't have been brought up at all—what Jyro had witnessed was a mystical occurrence, one that may have been meant for his eyes only. But he found it odd that a boy off the streets would have remained here at all, carrying on a conversation with a paranoid vagrant and his sleeping allies. Is he meant to be a part of it all too?, he wondered, considering for an overwhelming moment the grand nature of the situation. A floating chalice. A numinous rosary. A whispering shadow. It all must mean something. And now here I am, a part of it all.

And on top of that revelation, he thought: My god…the boy is here because…because he came for the rosary. His visible fatigue and pain are the battle wounds he's suffered in his plight to find the blessed charm.

As surreptitiously as possible, Jyro shoved the mystical piece into his pocket.

The one with the hole.

It dropped down his leg, past his torn cuff, and onto the floor.

The fear and uncertainty that beset Jyro at this moment stormed at him from multiple directions. He cried out, clawing at the unanticipated singe of pain the rosary left behind on his thigh. He looked down and saw the beads lying on the floor like the shed skin of a snake, free for anyone's taking.

No!

He scrabbled down on his knees and quickly retrieved the charm, kissed it and rubbed it all over his face, whispering tearfully as he relished in its warmth, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" An odd feeling of mourning prevailed over him, his heart and blood tingling with waves of despair. Don't leave me, ever again…

"Are you a religious man?" the boy asked, puffy eyes narrowing.

Jyro nodded emphatically without looking up, inexplicable tears filling his eyes. "I used to be an altar boy, just like you."

A few seconds passed as a deafening silence pervaded the room. The boy cocked his head and replied, "I never said anything about being an altar boy."

Further waves of uncertainty doused Jyro's spiraling mind, his heart beating out a harsh rhythm in his chest. He pulled the rosary away from his face and stared at it with marked curiosity—had it revealed to him that the boy had served as an altar boy here at the Church of St Peter, just as he himself did at Holy Innocents all those years ago? Or did he know this because the boy had said something about performing mass here?

It didn't seem to matter, because somehow, he also knew the boy's name.

"Timothy," he whispered, wholly aware of an undeniable—and inexplicable—connection with the boy.

The boy's mouth fell open, eyes glassy and wide. "How…"

But Jyro ignored him, feeling the need to gaze upon the exposed rosary webbed between his fingers. He marveled at its carved detail…and the secreted power buried deep within its wooden charms and beads. At the irrefutable message it seemed to convey.

"That rosary," Timothy uttered. "It is beautiful…"

Find him…

The boy?

Jyro shot a glance up, shuddering now with immediate concern and dismay. Like an animal eyeing its prey, Timothy's eyes were glued to the rosary. A moment of grave silence passed between them during which the boy may have been tranced, not unlike Jyro had been upon first laying eyes on the beads.

Stirring, the boy shook his head. He closed his eyes for a second, then gazed back at the rosary. "Where did you get it?" he asked calmly, taking a deep breath, licking his wet lips.

"It's mine…" he said, the instinct to protect the rosary burning in his blood. He climbed to his feet and took a step backwards. He jerked his hands to his side, keeping the charm close. "My mother gave it to me, years ago."

Timothy's brow creased, blue eyes slicing right through Jyro's lie. "You stole it, didn't you? It belongs to the church."

Two vagrants emerged from the bedroom, presumably to see what was going on; conversations in the rectory had been kept to a minimum in an effort to keep themselves hidden from the workers, so the sound of the boy's voice was a concern. Jyro had become acquainted with these two during his stay here at St Peter's. The first was a heavy-set man named Rollo that toted a bible around like a child would a teddy bear. He had a high-pitched voice like a woman's and spoke primarily in biblical phrases. His thinner counterpart, Marcus, was a man only recently on the streets after he lost his job and apartment. The dress shirt he wore wasn't even that soiled yet. He chain-smoked and had a deep, raspy voice that corroborated his bad habit. With great interest, both vagrants watched the exchange between Jyro and the boy, but said nothing.

The beads grew very warm in Jyro's hands. He tightened his grip and took another step backwards. He looked back and forth between Timothy, Rollo, and Marcus, feeling strangely threatened by them all. Was it possible that they all wanted the rosary? "No…they're mine. Mine…"

"Like hell they are!"

The voice had come from behind Rollo and Marcus. The three vagrants and Timothy looked toward the bedroom entrance and saw one-eared Larry, thief of tools, standing in the threshold. His hair was mussed and his eyes were wild. His two teeth jabbed out in a mad grimace.

In a crooked yet hefty stagger, Larry dodged across the hall. He threw his arms out and slammed into Jyro like a linebacker would a quarterback. Their bodies toppled sideways and struck the wall with a ground-shaking crunch. Plaster rained down from the ceiling as an abrupt struggle ensued, both men locking their arms in a slow, pathetic brawl. Jyro locked gazes with Larry and glimpsed a frightening level of brute determination in the vagrant's dirty face: eyes bulging, lips scowling wet and foul. Clearly the madman wanted the rosary, and would kill to get it.

Larry gripped Jyro's arm by the elbow, and with surprising strength, yanked his hand out of his pocket. Jyro roared and thrashed, making every effort to defend his prize, but was unable to loose himself from Larry's determined grip. A sweeping feeling of paranoia came over him, and suddenly there was a conviction in him that every head in the room had turned on him.

Then the rosary grew very hot. A waft of cooking flesh seeped into his nostrils. Screaming in pain, Jyro opened his fist and shook it…but the wooden charm remained clinging to his fingers like a praying mantis clutching a twig.

Larry made a repulsive snarling sound and again lunged for the rosary.

Timothy yelled "Stop!" from his position on the landing, where he remained safely poised to flee the fracas should it get out of hand. The other vagrants had emerged from the bedroom to check out all the excitement and were now lined up in the hall, faces wide-eyed and gaping-jawed. One vagrant, a lanky albino, clutched the threshold and trembled like a frightened puppy.

There was a smash of breaking glass, and in the next moment Jyro could see the shattered end of an amber whiskey bottle in Larry's hand, the neck gripped firmly in his fist. He lashed out with the makeshift weapon at Jyro's face.

Jyro dodged sideways, avoiding Larry's assault. The bottle ripped into the soft plaster wall where Jyro's face had been, giving him enough time to whip his head forward in a desperate, do-or-die move.

His forehead connected full-force with the crazed bum's nose. The collision produced an abrupt, wet cracking sound, followed by a shocking flare of blood that spattered the wall like a water-balloon's aftermath.

Larry staggered back against the opposite wall. His mouth fell open, soaking up the loose runner of blood pouring from his nose. His hands swung blindly through the air, and the bottle dropped from his hand and shattered amid the growing puddle of blood on the floor.

Jyro stood paralyzed as a harsh bolt of pain ripped through his head, echoing the raw burn of the rosary in his hands.

It burns!

Screaming, he broke his paralysis and shook his hand hard. The rosary at last separated from his hand and dropped to the floor. Tiny patches of his skin smoldered on its dark surface like embers.

Dizzy and nauseous, Jyro faltered along the length of the wall toward the bathroom, flexing his hand in agony, in fear. A filmy blur doused his vision, obstructing his view of the rosary, which appeared in his distressed sights to be writhing on the hardwood floor like a worm out of earth. He fell to his knees, leaned forward to grab it…but it was too far away.

He rolled his eyes up and saw Larry, dazed eyes peering from a mask of gore, a running swath of blood coating his mouth and neck like a scarf. He attempted to shout, but only guttural, throaty gurgles emerged, seemingly draining him of his remaining strength as he slipped into unconsciousness and collapsed to the floor.

Shaky and confused, Jyro struggled to stand. He made it to one knee, and almost collapsed down, but was immediately aided by a pair of helping hands. On his feet, he leaned back against the wall, head spinning, listening to his labored breathing and the adrenalized chatter now filling the hallway.

He gazed around. Blurry faces stared at him, so many of them. No one spoke except Rollo, who had his bible open and was reciting a scripture from the book of John.

He twisted his neck to look at the man who helped him to his feet. He was in his thirties, gawky, going bald, wearing glasses with the frames taped at both corners. He stared not at Jyro, but at the floor, eyes dark and wide behind the clouded lenses of his glasses.

"What is it?" Jyro asked him.

The man's eyes stayed pinned to the floor, shifting slowly from right to left. "You…gotta…be…shitting…me,"

Jyro traced his line of sight. In silence, all the others in the hallway did the same: nine homeless men—not including unconscious Larry—and Timothy, who had meandered back into the now settled fray.

At first Jyro had assumed that everyone was looking at the rosary—after all, just moments earlier he thought he'd seen it moving on the floor—but that wasn't the case at all; it'd remained just as he'd left it: bunched up into a small pile, giving off tiny smoke-signals. No…what he saw on the floor, along with everyone else, was something much more unsettling, much more fear-provoking, and it made him realize that indeed, something dark and foul was present here within the tattered walls of the Church of St. Peter.

One-eared Larry's injury had left a pancake-sized puddle of blood on the hardwood floor in the center of the hallway. It was moving…rippling along the edges as though a rock had been dropped into its impossible depths. Jyro found himself stiff with fear and uncertainty, unable to dislodge the lump in his throat threatening to suffocate him. His mind's eye flickered back to his dream, how the blood from those innocents of the past had flowed of its own accord across the bottom of the pit into the ditch the men had lowered the crate into. Just like this blood…

Incredulously, everyone watched as every errant drop of blood in the hallway was drawn back into the puddle—the spots on the wall, the stream on Larry's face, even those absorbed into Jyro's clothes and beard. Every last bead, skittering and hopping like water in a hot frying pan, marching into submission toward the rippling puddle, like bees returning to their hive.

The room plunged into silence as everyone present struggled to make sense of what they were seeing: movement everywhere, all around them, tiny drops and thicker streams of red, crawling snakelike on the floor and walls, leaching out of their clothes and skin. It was a wicked picture, so unreal. And yet there they all stood, witnessing a scene that in the past could only have been made believable through the workings of Hollywood computers, or some drug-induced hallucination.

As the reality of the situation struck, the albino vagrant cried out and slipped back into the bedroom, looking not at all well. Everyone else stood and watched as the puddle, widening and now nearly a foot across, started to seep across the floor, moving slowly and in stages like a jellyfish in saltwater, producing a wet slurping sound as it went. Errant streaks of blood, like veins of rainwater on the surface of a windshield, wandered across the floor and bled back into it, causing it to grow thicker and larger. In daunting silence, all eyes watched the blood as it seeped its way across the threshold of the bathroom and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

The thin man with the broken glasses held Jyro's arm in a tight, fear-induced grip. Jyro jerked away and eyed him fearfully, as if he'd been the cause of the blood moving.

Then he stared around at all the men. They looked terrified, and rightly so, their faces appearing elongated in the semi-darkness. He looked back toward the bathroom, then stepped down the hall and stood before the open door.

Here the air felt thick, greasy. As he gazed into the darkness beyond, his mind pitched and yawned and he could hear his heartbeat in his head.

"Here."

Jyro startled, spun around.

The vagrant with the taped glasses stood behind him, offering a penlight. "I found it in the bedroom, along with a bunch of tools." He licked his lips, and added soberly, "In case you're thinking of going in."

The rosary!

Jyro panicked. He jerked his gaze back and forth between the bathroom, the vagrant with the glasses, and the floor. In an instant of terror, he saw that someone had lifted the wooden charm, my god it's gone no no no…but was immediately relieved to see Timothy approaching, clutching it in his right hand.

Find him…

He held it out toward Jyro. "Perhaps we can use this to protect us."

Jyro nodded in silence, wondering again if the rosary were meant for Timothy. Could it be that the altar boy was the one to 'find', find him, and that he would help to protect them from the evils unleashed here?

He looked around. The small group of homeless men had formed a distant semi-circle near the bedroom door, and Jyro couldn't help but contemplate them: the thin lip-licking man with broken glasses; the scrawny elderly man with long straggly hair and faded tattoos covering his arms; the bearded man in his late twenties with dreadlocks down to his waist and tiny bones piercing his earlobes; the tall, bald, muscular black man with eyes that penetrated Jyro like lasers; and then Rollo with his bible clutched tightly against his chest, standing alongside Marcus who was nervously smoking a cigarette; and finally, the heavy-set vagrant with a mane of blond hair, blue eyes, and a cherub-like face who in a mindless ramble yesterday had introduced himself as Weston.

Jyro looked back to the bedroom. The albino who'd fled inside was now perched at the door, hair wispy thin and snow-white, hanging over eyes as red as rubies.

All the men stared at Jyro pleadingly, and it came to reason that he had by default become some sort of leader. Jyro locked gazes with Timothy, hoping for a partner in crime. The boy remained silent as he rubbed the rosary over his hands—hands that didn't appear as burned as they were just minutes earlier.

"Do we have a choice?" Jyro asked, peering into the dark bathroom.

"I don't know…I mean, all I'd really come here for was my duffle bag."

Jyro paused, looked back at Timothy. "So why then, after two months, did you decide to return for it today?"

The boy shrugged, eyes glossed over. "I…don't…know."

Disconcerted, Jyro peered back into the looming darkness of the bathroom, its stench leaking out more profusely than ever. "You do now," he said, and when Timothy didn't question him, he aimed the penlight inside. "C'mon…let's go find out why we were called here."

Chapter 6

In an attempt to keep himself from falling, Father Anthony Pilazzo brushed his fingertips against the facing of the storefronts he passed, pulling away only when an oncoming pedestrian got in his way. He'd walked like this for thirteen blocks to 103rd Street, where the Church of Holy Innocents stood waiting like an oasis in the desert.

Upon being forced to leave St Peter's two months earlier, Monsignor Thomas Sanchez at Holy Innocents had enthusiastically offered Pilazzo residency at his parish. They'd been childhood friends, having attended Catholic school together in the Bronx where they consented to the livid tendencies of the schoolmarms, all of whom were ready, willing, and able to wield their mighty wooden rulers should any shenanigans occur in their classrooms. Their weekdays were spent playing stickball in the streets until their mothers called them in for dinner at six, and on Sundays the boys would fritter away their afternoons at each other's homes, discussing religion and arguing about whose mother made better meatballs and sauce.

Unlike The Church of St Peter—one of the last remaining churches in Manhattan that'd offered all-day masses—Holy Innocents provided services only once an evening, Monday through Saturday, and then all day on Sunday. Pilazzo found it odd, despite its apparent norm, to walk into an empty church in the middle of the day. Having performed two masses daily at St Peter's, he'd wondered what he might do with his free time, knowing that he'd probably end up in the confessional. Here in the city, those seeking forgiveness of their sins were more than willing to cough up every detail of their indiscretions, something Pilazzo, despite his pledge to society, hesitated sitting in judgment of. I am a priest, not a psychologist.

Today the church offered much of what he'd become used to: emptiness. Like most days, not a single passing individual sought a few moments of undisturbed prayer in the church, the pews bare and vacant and inexplicably opposing in spirit. The lamps overhead were dimmed, basking everything in dull, amber light, the fragile luminescence reflecting dully off the polished pews and etched-wood nave. The painted walls, normally bursting with convincing hues, lay drab and ghostlike in the gloomy atmosphere. Candles flickered from the pulpits assembled on either sides of the altar, their crimson casings casting a reddish glow against the Jesus and Mary statues peering remorsefully at the communion rail.

Pilazzo moved forward, his footsteps echoing in the tomblike silence, the faint smell of incense hanging inertly in the air. He reached the transept positioned directly before the altar, knelt and performed the sign of the cross. After a moment of prayer, he stood and paced to the far right corner of the church where the two confessional booths stood, their black curtains showing signs of wear and tear—a consequence of those eager hands anxiously seeking solace behind them.

He unlocked the first confessional, reached up and turned the light switch on. Two bulbs ignited beneath faux brass shades, a white one in the compartment he entered, and a green one opposite the sliding plastic grate, where the open curtain welcomed religious comfort to those pursuing it.

Closing the door, he sat in silence upon the cushioned bench, his thoughts at once racing with the events of the day: the foreman Henry Miller and his haughty arrogance; the odd behavior of the construction workers on the subway platform; the homeless man on the train and the prophesizing image he seemed to cast into Pilazzo's mind.

An army of tattered men facing a great evil rising up before a wall of raging fires and blackened smoke…

The sound of the curtain sliding in the attached booth jarred Pilazzo from the intimidating images. He gazed at the opaque plastic partition, strangely hesitant to offer spiritual support to the unseen confessor. He peeked down at his watch and was startled to see that almost thirty minutes had passed since having settled down here. His hands trembled, inflicted by the baleful images haunting his mind.

Visions of fires rising, of apocalypse.

Tears welled in his eyes. He shook his head, cracked his knuckles, and slowly slid the plastic divider open.

At once he could hear deep, raspy breathing, implying that a man of poor health had taken residence in the confessional. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed, and in this time he briefly thought back to the hundreds of confessors he'd encountered over the years seeking God at the eleventh hour due to some life-changing operation, or diagnosis of cancer. Finally, Pilazzo uttered, "What is it that ails you, my son," feeling no need or desire to commence with a prayer.

"We are brothers," the man croaked. "Brothers in arms."

The stench of something rancid seeped through the plastic partition, its tiny holes allowing in more than just the man's voice. Pilazzo grimaced, realizing at once that in the attached booth sat a down-and-out veteran of the street: a homeless man.

"Then brothers we shall be," Pilazzo replied hesitantly.

"And as brothers, God's lambs, we shall fight evil hand in hand until death comes pounding on our doors. There is no promise of sanctuary in this world we exist in. Evil has arisen. And it awaits us…brother."

Pilazzo grinned pitifully...and then a bit uncomfortably. Having heard some unusual confessions in the past, he put nothing past this somewhat disconcerting display: a homeless man on his deathbed, in fear of the devil due to a life of iniquity and sin.

Is it that…or something else that drives this man?

"God forgives all those who've sinned in their lives, regardless if their failings amount to one, or many. You are His child, and you shall be forgiven. All you need to do is ask for His forgiveness through penance."

Silence, save for the man's labored breathing.

"Your guide into heaven lies—"

"We must fight evil hand in hand," the man whispered hoarsely. "As brothers. As God's lambs."

Lambs to the slaughter…

Pilazzo blew out a long breath—frustration toying with his already enfeebled state. "God asks that you face your fears—"

"NO!"

The man's bellow ricocheted throughout the church like a gunshot. Pilazzo startled, clutching the brass cross dangling from the chain around his neck. His heart-rate sped, not unlike it did when the vagrant on the subway grasped his shoulder. He reached forward and turned the latch on the door to his compartment, locking himself in as a precaution. Four years earlier, a priest at St. Joseph's in Harlem had been murdered in the confessional, slashed at repeatedly in the empty church while crowds of people lined the streets not two hundred feet away. Since then, a number of parishes had locks installed in the booths to be used at the priest's discretion should a confessor become unpredictably unruly.

This had become one of those instances.

Pilazzo peered at his watch again, keeping in mind that somewhere in the attached rectory a hundred feet away, his fellow priests and deacons were studying, playing cards, watching television. Surely they heard the man's shout, and are coming to investigate? He glanced around the booth, hearing only the labored breathing of the homeless man on the opposite side of the plastic partition.

The homeless man scratched his fingernails against the plastic partition, the grating sound sending shudders across the priest's tightening chest. In a strange monotone, the vagrant uttered, "Evil has dug its way out from the grave, brother."

Nervously standoffish, Pilazzo replied gruffly, "And just what is this evil you speak of?"

There was a pause, the seconds ticking like hours. Eventually, the man answered, "The evil that promises man the end of days."

At once fear and anxiety doused Pilazzo, his mind assailing him again with the now familiar haunting images of fires and smoke rising into the heavens before an army of tattered men.

Men who were suddenly coming into focus.

Oh my dear God…

He could see them now. The tattered. The torn.

The homeless.

Bewildered, Pilazzo squeezed the cross in his hand, the images in his mind as real as the words seeping through the plastic divider from the unseen vagrant. He'd never experienced such a hallucination before, such a personally distinctive vision that he could see, smell. He moved to speak, his tongue now coated, the words crawling sluggishly from his mouth in a harsh whisper. "What is this evil you speak of? Is it…is it an army of men?"

Light, throaty laughter emerged. "Now you see, brother."

Pilazzo nodded in the darkness, inhaling deeply the man's penetrating stench. The muscles in his neck tightened, delivering jolts of pain into his head.  "I see the army…and behind them, fires and smoke."

Is it a stench of urine and body odor I smell, or is it the charred embers I see burning in my sights?

"It is an image, brother, that will stay with you until we bring evil down."

"We…"

"You and I. As brothers, we will fight to the death against evil."

Pilazzo searched for a fitting response to the vagrant's darkly questionable demand. As he moved to speak, the sound of the curtain's hooks sliding on the plastic bar sifted through the partition. Racing footsteps followed, their ricocheted echoes fading quickly. He leaped up, twisted sharply at the latch. Forgetting it was locked, he caught his index finger between it and the wooden door. He cried out in pain, shook his hand with frustration, then unlocked the door and threw it open.

Ahead, the dark shadow of a figure sped out of the church, an invading beam of sunlight blinding Pilazzo a split second before thinning and vanishing behind the church's closing door.

Pilazzo sprinted from the booth to the nave, realizing with inexplicable remorse that his conversation with the vagrant was over. He stopped with his hands on his knees, gasping, mind racing in perplexing circles. As mad and unwise at it seemed, the coincidental occurrence of two homeless men delivering to him messages of looming destruction—of apocalypse—could not be completely ignored.

He gazed back at the confessional, then slumped down in the pew closest to him. Moments passed in restless silence, the priest unable to render his thoughts away from the strange events taking place today.

The evil that promises man the end of days…

And as he stopped for a moment to reflect upon the uncommonly empty church, he couldn't help but again lament over the demise of his former home, The Church of St. Peter, once bustling daily with parishioners, now dead and being eviscerated beneath the unsympathetic throes of Henry Miller's construction workers.

Chapter 7

The beam from the penlight in Jyro's hand pinned the odd shadow on the wall, its tall shape still that of a praying Virgin Mary, the stains near her womb nearly black now. Behind him he could feel Timothy's presence, the tall boy peering closely over his shoulder, also seeking an answer within the tainted gloom.

"Jesus, it stinks in here."

Jyro grunted, his mind suddenly rolling in the past—of the devout Catholic ardor he'd shunned years ago while living on the streets. How on his first night sleeping beneath the clouded moon he sought the shelter of a dumpster in an alley, only to encounter a veteran vagrant who took exception to his territory being invaded. The two men, both sodden with drink, had argued, then fought, the conflict coming to an abrupt end when the crazed bum flashed a switchblade at Jyro. Jyro had fled into the night, coming away from the experience with a slashed lip and the ongoing anxiety of entering into some other drifter's domain. From that point forward he knew it would take much time and strength to learn the unwritten laws of the street, so he reached out and sought the protective shelter of the local churches, praying to God daily for some miracle to come along and deliver him from the evils of the cruel world. But as his appearance and cleanliness sunk to repellent levels, even the usual accepting hand of the church rejected him, forcing him to remain on the streets, bitter and resentful of God's chosen path for him.

"Reeks of evil," he replied, staring at the shadow, thinking for a moment that it had moved slightly. Like before.

He entered the bathroom and stepped to the left, allowing Timothy to squeeze in alongside him. He moved the beam from the penlight across the cracked tiled floor.

No sign of the moving blood puddle.

"Did we really see it come in here?" Timothy asked, massaging the rosary. "Or am I crazy?"

Jyro took a step forward. The edge of the porcelain sink nudged into his bruised hip. A burst of pain shot across his midsection and he grunted out loud. The dead flashlight he'd left there toppled in with a clunk.

"You all right?"

Breathing deeply despite the stench, Jyro angled the penlight's beam toward the backed-up toilet. Motioning with his head, he replied, "No. Not at all."

Timothy's eyes traced the beam. After a deadly pause, he whimpered, "Dear God..."

Beneath the diffused glow of the penlight was the puddle of blood. It was pooled around base of the toilet: a foul moat welling and rippling like a gush of dark lava. Thin streaks of it flowed up along the porcelain surface like veins, glistening as they vanished over the soiled rim, into the sludge.

In a sudden sweat, Jyro uttered crazily, "Drink this, for this is my blood."

As If in response, the sludge in the toilet gurgled. Once at first, and then twice, and then like a science experiment gone bad, the horrid stuff spewed over the brim of the toilet onto the floor, soaking up what remained of the stirring blood.

Looking bewildered and nervous, Timothy stuck the rosary out. Its small charms dangled like pods in his shaking hand. Jyro heard him utter something but couldn't make it out over the bubbling sounds the sludge was making. He stepped back and hit against the doorjamb, unable peel his eyes away from the erupting sewage.

Timothy leaned forward, arm still outstretched, fear and curiosity painted on his face like grease. He shook his head back and forth.

"What's happening?" Jyro's eyes darted between the boy and the toilet. For a crazy moment, he hoped for all this to be some run of the mill plumbing issue, one they could walk away from once and forever, never to look back. But his instincts told him otherwise: If this were your ordinary backed-up toilet, you wouldn't have felt compelled to come in here in the first place. There was blood on the floor, and you saw it seep in here as if it were alive. And when you came in here, you saw it rise up to meet the sludge, and the sludge move down to meet it.

The blood. That which brings life.

Timothy didn't reply. Jyro pressed him, more urgently now. "What do you see, kid?"

"I don't know," he answered sharply, and then the toilet exploded, spraying them with shards of porcelain and thick, brown sludge.

Jyro screamed so loudly it hurt his throat. Both he and Timothy cowered and screened themselves with their arms. Shouts erupted from the hallway. Jyro heard someone call out, "What the hell's going on in there?" but no one ventured in to investigate.

"Kid, c'mon!" Jyro grabbed Timothy by the arm. The slanted beam of the penlight bobbed and weaved across the bathroom walls. "We need to get out of here!"

Timothy didn't move. Terror had him: eyes bulging, body trembling like a bundle of charged wires, mouth downcast as if weighted.

Jyro shook him, but the boy remained unresponsive. A whisper fell from his lips, "Oh my God…"

There was a dull sound, an odd shaking thump that Jyro felt in his feet. He looked toward the toilet…and saw something rising up from its shattered remains: a hideous bulk of malformed legs—vestiges of some freshly slaughtered carcass bound together like a hunter's bounty. The thing was moving, shaking loose its foul coating of waste…and then the animal legs—those of deer's perhaps—rendered themselves apart from one another with brutal tearing sounds: Phrrrrak! Phrrrrak! Huge claws burst out of the thing. They latched onto the edge of the shattered porcelain and pushed upward, the central bulk from which they surfaced rooting firmly into the toilet's plumbing. Jyro gasped as the massive thing rose up to the ceiling, a misshapen lump of feces wrenching back and forth and to and fro like a birthing animal, black craggy slabs of sewage sliding from its splitting surface, leaving behind slick patches of blood.

He spun away from the thing, a silent scream snared in his throat. He lunged for the exit but the door slammed shut in his face with a deafening crash, closing out the weak splay of light seeping in from the hallway...and his ability to see the creature.

Timothy, having remained impossibly quiet to this moment, screamed bloody terror in the dark. He turned and began kicking and flailing against the wall. Jyro pointed the penlight at him, and the boy shrieked at him, "Get me out of here!"

"Over here!" Jyro pulled the beam away from Timothy and aimed it at the door. He managed to grab hold of the knob, but it wouldn't budge. He banged the door. Timothy stumbled over and did the same, their arms and fists colliding roughly. Jyro could hear the shouts of the others in the hallway. Someone outside was attempting the doorknob, but to no good use.

The thing behind them turned out a monstrous croak, startling immediate silence into them. They ceased pounding on the door and cowered against it, listening helplessly to the ensuing squelching noises the thing was making.

Jyro looked over his shoulder. He threw the penlight's beam at it. The shadows the thing made melted and moved behind it: an utter abomination, seven feet of writhing, sputtering feces anchored from floor to ceiling, its surface roiling and shifting as various shapes took hold of it, deformed human hands and animal legs and claws, bestial faces emerging to scream only to melt back into its dark, jagged bulk. It seemed not formed of anything wholly solid, but vacillated amoeba-like, spitting hunks of itself onto the walls and floor that swiftly surged back into its massive collective like water being propelled by air.

"What is it!" Timothy screamed, shoving back against the door, tears bursting from his eyes. Jyro felt the boy trembling alongside him, offering his own sheer terror no comfort at all.

As if responding to the boy's voice, the thing jerked toward him, its repositioning midsection bending sideways and showing signs of an apelike face within. Somewhere deep inside its churning mass, a series of bellowing snorts surfaced, like those of an angry bull.

Jyro and Timothy huddled against one another, wobbly with terror.

"You're not real!" Timothy shrieked, shoving back against the door. "You…can't…be!" The thing swayed back and forth like seaweed in the ocean and coughed a storm of foul matter across the small tiled room. The severed pieces throbbed like little hearts and rolled back into the bulk like drops of mercury returning to a silver pool.

Seeing no alternative but to seek out God for assistance, Jyro began to pray: "Be gone, foul creature, to hell from where you came!"

From above came a ghastly sucking sound. Jyro pointed the penlight overhead and saw root like tentacles of sludge writhing and twisting across the ceiling. They moved to a point just above their heads, then separated from the ceiling and wriggled down towards them. Jyro could see ridges on the pale underbelly of one, like those on a snake.

Jyro and Timothy screamed, "No! No!" They hunkered down, jerking their gazes about the dark room in an attempt to defy what they had already come to know: that unless they got the door open, there'd be no getting the hell out of there.

Again they slammed the door with their fists, screaming in desperation, "Help us please! Help! Get us out of here!" The doorknob shook back and forth, but the door itself remained impenetrable.

The tentacles continued their downward approach. Timothy tore away from Jyro and slid on his knees across the wet tiles. Jyro shouted, "No!", fell to his knees and grabbed the boy's belt.

A tentacle slithered around Timothy's waist. The tip of it, soft and wet, brushed against Jyro's hand. He screamed and let go of the boy.

Dear God, help us…

Timothy looked down and saw what had him. His eyes swelled. He kicked and flailed. "Ahhh! Get it off! Get it off!"

"Oh Jesus, no," Jyro cried.

They fell from the ceiling like vines—a forest of winding root-like things ringing around Timothy's arms and legs, leaving dirty wet trails on his clothing. The boy screamed and clawed, whipped his head back and forth, but was unable to free himself. "Help me, please, help me…"

One tentacle channeled out of the darkness and latched onto Jyro's bicep. Jyro pointed the penlight's beam on it and saw two amphibious eyes glaring back at him, black and wet and multi-faceted. They blinked and rolled in and out of its mucky body, as if trying to focus on him.

Jyro screamed and swatted at it.

The tentacle coiled around his bicep and traveled to the nape of his neck, leaving a cold wet track of sludge on his arm.

He dropped the penlight and clawed at it, burying his fingernails into its soft pulpy skin. It hissed at him. A chunk of writhing flesh tore away and Jyro watched incredulously as it slithered into the darkness. All the other tentacles started hissing then, as if in their spurt of development had just now formed throats.

They floated across the floor and curled around their ankles, thighs, wrists, waists, little puckering mouths taking bites out of them.

Timothy kept on kicking and flailing wildly, although Jyro could see his efforts waning. The tentacles swelled and bulged, pulling the boy across the floor toward the massive bulk.

Jyro eyeballed the penlight and with his free hand on the floor and snatched it up. The light swam across the wall where the Virgin Mary shadow had been and he noticed that it was gone now—dark water-stains included. He banged on the door and cried out, "Help me!" Again the door shuddered back and forth, but its grain remained impassable.

He spun and pointed the light past his feet, toward the bulk. He saw a dark trench in its side. A mouth, he thought with sick horror, and at that moment an oily forked tongue slid out and whipped back and forth.

Timothy kept on screaming, fingernails scraping madly at the tiles. He jerked his head back and forth. The tentacles drew him closer…closer to the massive flickering tongue and gaping mouth.

Jyro screamed "NO!" realizing all too suddenly that he too was now being dragged toward the bulk. The bangings on the door went on and on. Ahead, one of Timothy's feet was off the ground. The monstrous black tongue was wrapped around his foot. By accident, the penlight's beam fell upon the rosary, still gripped tightly in Timothy's hand; the boy, out of fear or pain or shock, had forgotten that he still possessed it.

Oh my God…look!

It wasn't the rosary itself that gave Jyro the sudden hope that escape was possible; it was the sludge and liquid around it that made him realize they could actually come out of this alive.

He screamed, "Timothy! The rosary!"

Timothy, his foot now inches from the bulk's mouth, twisted his neck around and saw the rosary dangling from his hand.

And around it, eighteen-inches of dry clean floor.

The waste was unable to come into contact with the rosary.

The two former altar boys locked gazes, and it was at this moment they seemed to connect on a deeper, mental level—that in this instant of life or death they came into full understanding of one another, and what needed to be done.

More tentacles wound down from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around their arms and legs. One closed around the toilet paper dispenser. It yanked it off the wall. The paper roll landed in a puddle of sludge, rolled a few inches before it was snatched up and pulled into the bulk.

Timothy, eyes suddenly bright and alert in the darkness, assured his grip on the rosary…

…and in this moment Jyro recalled Timothy's words moments before they entered into the bathroom: Perhaps we can use this to protect us…

…and lashed it into the gaping mouth of the devouring bulk.

A sound that rivaled the slaves of Hell ripped through the room, a thousand throats screaming out, deep guttural grunts alongside the high-pitched screeches of women and children in agony. The tentacles whipped away, writhed frantically then turned black and melted into runny sewage that spread across the floor in a deluge of gunk. From above, the liquefying appendages rained down on them. The massive bulk in the middle writhed and flopped back and forth like a salted slug before melting into a massive heap of waste. The atrocious sound it made—a colossal passing of gas—reached down into their guts and urged their gorges out onto the floor.

For a moment there was no sound other than Timothy crying alongside the huge pile of gunk. Jyro aimed the penlight at him and could see him lying on his side with his arm still outstretched, still clutching the rosary.

Jyro was about to say something when a loud slam shocked them both out of their skins: the door bursting open. Light filtered into the room, offering a doubtful view to those peering in upon the aftermath of the war had taken place inside.

Jyro shot a harried glance toward the door, and over the sounds of Timothy throwing up alongside him, cried, "Get us the hell out of here."

Chapter 8

The silence is deafening, Pilazzo thought, peering about the church. He'd remained seated in the pew, staring at the altar, vaulted ceiling, and walls—all dimly lit beneath the flickering glow of the prayer candles. No one else had come in for confession, leaving him time to replay in his mind the events of the day.

Despite the daunting, prophesizing confrontations with the homeless men, he again found himself mentally occupied with the demise of his former church. Having been forced to pack up and leave had been quite stressful. It had brought about harsh periods of uncertainty, coupled with headaches and bouts of stomach distress. But as that all lay in the past now, it was the actual deterioration of the church—something he'd seen for the first time today—that flooded him with insecurity and mourning.

How will I feel when I enter through those doors and see for the first time the walls being torn down, the pews being dismantled, the statues being moved out? He knew that the negative emotions besetting him were just a sampling of the feelings that would assail him upon finally entering the battered interior of the Church of St Peter, and likened the forthcoming affair with having to sit beside a loved one during their final painful minutes of life, a circumstance anyone would find difficult to endure.

His thoughts drifted back to memories of his mother's dying days: of how he found no alternative but to put her away in a city-run home for the elderly because he couldn't afford a private facility on Long Island. He recalled how she lambasted him from the discomfort of her soiled linens for his decision to become a priest, how in her illness she'd cared less about his faith and worldly goodness and wanted only to be comfortable, not saved, in her dying moments. How she cried to him about how the screams from the other patients at night were driving her toward madness—even more so than the lashing periods of dementia and delusions of ruby scars around her fingers. And then, how she refused to say goodbye to him the night she snuck out of her room while the night-nurse was making rounds, climbed out onto the roof of the old building and hurled herself into the path of an oncoming cab four stories down…

I'm sorry Mother…

The afternoon grew late, and the time had finally come for Pilazzo to retire to his quarters for the evening. Outside the shuttered doors of the Church of Holy Innocents, rush hour prevailed: the hustle and bustle of Manhattan's workers escaping the rigors of everyday life; cabs fighting against one another for precious road space, the subways racing back and forth in the tunnels below. The city's lifeblood, coursing through its concrete veins.

Despite it all, deep silence dominated the church's interior, and it frazzled Pilazzo. What was once a comforting escape, he thought irrationally, shaking away the horrific memories of his mother's death, is now a daunting calm before the storm.

The war…

Trying to clear his mind of the ruthless shambles awaiting him inside the Church of St Peter, he took a long, deep breath. He tasted the faint odor of incense from masses past, which under normal circumstances always brought a small sense of comfort, of solace.

Today, however, feelings of darker ruin prevailed.

He couldn't help but be wholly concerned with the convincing images of devastation he'd seen in his mind's eye; it had been no dream, no simple musing or imaginative reverie. The homeless man had touched him, delivering into him a message that was clear-cut and tangible, undeniable. He'd been able to smell the charred remains of the visual's destructive nature, feel the heated wind upon his skin as the distant flames raged and burned, hear the tortuous roar of the army as they gathered before it like bats in a cave at dusk.

Homeless men…thousands of them…

He'd never experienced anything even remotely like it. It had been as though a snippet of a motion picture had played out on the surface of his mind, revealing to him a record of something that had occurred in the past. And yet, he knew this could not be. Two homeless men, one delivering his message intuitively, the other conveying his own—and confirming the first's—through speech. Not only was it impossible to ignore, but he knew it would continue to haunt him until he was able to unearth some form of rationale in it.

He stood up and grimaced as his bones cracked like tiny firecrackers. He walked around the altar to the rectory entrance, noticing suddenly how unusually hot it was in the church. The door to the rectory, eight feet tall, was fitted well into the rear wall, its grain a perfect match to the sides around it, making it appear invisible beneath the church's dim lighting. A recessed brass hinge acted as a doorknob; he gripped it, turned it to the left, and pushed inward. The door moved, hinges squeaking like mice as he crossed the threshold.

From the darkness behind, something cold and bone-dry touched the back of his neck.

He shuddered as wrinkles of gooseflesh triggered every hair on his torso to stand on end. A rancid odor arose in his nostrils, like that of human waste, and he nearly slipped down on the floor as he whipped a hand around to swat away the terrible sensation against his skin.

Slowly, he turned around. Saw only the door as it slowly closed and sealed out the disconcerting calm of the church.

He stood still and silent for a few moments, listening to the blood rushing in his head, his heartbeat filling his ears. He took a few deep breaths to help ease his heaving lungs, then moved away, turning only as he entered the rectory's meeting room.

Must be the anxiety of the move catching up with me. I saw the exterior of the church in shambles, and now the reality of the situation has set in, bringing about in me a surge of tenseness and discomfort. There is nothing to be afraid of, nothing out of the ordinary. It is my sensitized nerves playing games with me, aggravating my senses, and nothing more.

But as he entered the rectory, he realized that things were without question far from ordinary.

Typically alive at this time of day, the rectory's meeting room lay in bitter emptiness, a no-man's land devoid of life. The card table and counters had been wiped cleaned, a customary task carried out before the priests set to bed around ten, still four and a half hours from now. The television was a black hole beneath the pallid splay of the end-table lamp; the room's lone window, looking out past a set of iron bars into a small alley, lay clouded and corpselike beneath its partially drawn shade. The kitchen, which should have been tossing its hearty aromas into the air (thank goodness for Father Keene, Holy Innocents' resident chef), looked oddly barren with no pots or pans stewing atop its surface.

Heart running, Pilazzo looked around suspiciously. He called out, "Hello?"

No answer.

Leading away from the kitchen alongside the gas oven was the rectory's lifeline: a twenty-five foot hallway that angled to the right and abutted the entire back length of the church. Fondly referred to as 'Heaven's Walk', it was from here that the bedrooms branched off, each priest and deacon having the luxury of his own quarters—one of the few extravagances Holy Innocents claimed over St Peter's, which housed only one stark barrack-like room for the five priests in residence.

Pilazzo stepped down the hall, lit only by crystal nightlights plugged into the four wall-sockets. Again he called: "Hello?", his voice nearly absorbed by the absurd stillness of the place.

Again, no reply.

The first bedroom on the left belonged to Monsignor Sanchez. It was the largest of the rooms, fitting a double bed, an easy chair, and a private bathroom that always reeked of lavender.

The door to the room was ajar.

Pilazzo paced over, grabbed the doorjamb, and quietly peeked inside.

He saw the Monsignor. The man was kneeling on the floor before the carved wooden cross on the wall, a set of black rosary beads gripped in his trembling hands. He was dressed in his violet robe and cloak, odd to Pilazzo because he wasn't scheduled to perform mass tonight. Pilazzo's eyes fell upon Sanchez's shadow on the wall, elongated and ominous beneath the dim light seeping in from the bathroom.

"Tom?" Pilazzo whispered weakly—it was the best he could do as he stepped into the room. A whiff of something gone afoul wrenched his nose—the same odor he smelled upon entering the rectory moments earlier. He peered curiously toward the bathroom.

"Tom—" he said, more sternly now. "What's going on here? Where is everyone?"

Monsignor Sanchez twisted to face Pilazzo. The man had been crying. His eyes were watery and red, their common spark of kindness lost beneath a sea of misery and confusion. His hair jutted at untidy angles, as though he'd been running his hands through it in utter frustration. His face was drawn of its color, the once jovial features caught beneath a burden of unmistakable worry.

Pilazzo had never seen his friend looking like this. He stepped forward, shaking badly, wanting to help but somewhat hesitant to do so. Something wasn't right here, and it inflamed in him the fear festering in his blood like venom.

"Tom…please, what's going on?"

"Anthony…" Sanchez finally whimpered. His eyes fluttered, releasing a spring of fresh tears. Voice trembling along with his body, he said: "We…are…being…summoned…" then closed his eyes and returned to his prayers.

An immediate glut of emotions assailed Pilazzo, adding to his fear and uncertainty a flood of concern and mourning. Despite the absence of any noticeable threat, he'd never felt more scared in his life, his mind completely unable to make any logical judgments. He took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, but his hammering heart had muscled its way into his throat and muzzled him. He could do nothing but clutch his chest and continue to wonder if everything occurring today—the church, the foreman, the workers, the visions—were all tied together somehow.

And now this: here in the rectory at Holy Innocents, something gone terribly afoul, beating back the brotherhood's close-knit bond of religious joy with sadness, fear, and uncertainty.

Why am I coming to assume a common bond between these seemingly unrelated events? No evidence exists that my conversation with Henry Miller or my being eyed by the construction workers has anything to do with the homeless men, or with Sanchez's sudden despair.

Still, I wonder…

Finally, after a few ill-defined moments, Pilazzo found the strength in his mind and body to place a reassuring hand upon Sanchez's shoulder.

The man was hot to the touch. Doused in sweat. Pilazzo felt a vibration under his fingertips—not a trembling, but a vibration—and it made him jerk his hand away, as if a bug had skittered across his knuckles.

"Tom—"

"Do not tend to me, Anthony," Sanchez murmured, head still facing forward, eyes still closed. "Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…"

The evil that promises man the end of days…

Oh my dear Jesus…

Pilazzo staggered. Dizziness rushed through his head and he had to grip the dresser for support. All he knew of life, the miracles of God and the studies he'd devoted his life's work to, the sacrifices he'd made, of the vow of celibacy he'd adhered to for so long,, had instantly crossed into a realm of null and void where nothing seemed to matter anymore, and that all he could concern himself with was this defining moment in time, where his lifelong friend and confidant had spoken the same exact words as the vagrant in the confessional.

The rectory had never lain in such silence. No televisions played, no distant laughter transpired. There were no shuffling feet, nor emanating snores. All Father Anthony Pilazzo could hear were the whispered mumblings of Monsignor Thomas Sanchez as he remained buried in impassioned prayer.

Pilazzo stared at his friend for a moment, fear running through his body in leaps and bounds. The situation had become very real, and all too undeniable. Something terrible was happening, Sanchez's words now revealing its import to be far more striking than the mental perils of his own lost cause.

This was a message of warning from God.

God…

Pilazzo tightened his grip on the dresser. All his life he'd prayed to God, thanking Him for His forgiveness, all the while assuming Him to be some iconic, spiritual essence, a praiseworthy figure of goodness and devotion placed in a role of authority to provide faith, hope, and love to those seeking serenity in their lives.

But now? He took a deep breath, making every effort to absorb the truth of the matter: God was real, a sentient, omnipotent being watching over them, delivering a message to them.

Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

Pilazzo took one last glance around the room before exiting. In the hallway, he leaned up against the wall, contemplating for a moment the drowning state of depression Monsignor Sanchez was in. All our lives we've waited for God to show himself to us, to deliver to us a message of His existence. Well, here it is, and it's not the one we've been hoping for. What made us think that He would arrive on some silver-lined cloud healing the evils of disease, war, and famine? Instead, here is God, the Almighty One, coming out after all these millennia to inform us that we're knee-deep in some kind of otherworldly mess that promises to bring man the 'end of days'.

His body was shaking so badly, he nearly collapsed as he gazed down the empty hallway. He moved slowly and painstakingly, palms against the wall for balance. He peered into every dark room as he went by, witnessing the priests and deacons in their quarters, kneeling on the floor before the crosses hanging upon their walls, their lips spilling whispers as they turned to God for answers to their sudden plight.

And Pilazzo wondered: Messengers have come to me…and yet here I am, still riddled with doubt and confusion. Clearly something terrible is happening, and I wonder: am I to play a role in its unfolding? If so, then why have I not yet been placed to task as my brothers have? Where am I to go, what am I to do now? Pray?

He paced to the end of the hall, seeing no alternative but to allow the anomalous events to unfold around him while he awaited his directive to come.

If one comes.

He lingered in bitter silence, the strength threatening to run out of his legs and drag him to the floor. He stared at the door to his room, the only one in the hallway that was closed. He gripped the knob. A static shock tickled his sweaty fist. He swallowed a soft lump in his throat, and went inside.

Everything appeared as it should: the bed, the dresser, the television, the desk and computer, untouched and entirely insignificant. He turned to close the door, and then thought better of it, as all the other bedroom doors in the rectory had been left opened.

He'd noticed that all of his brothers had been dressed in their robes, so he straightened his collar, removed a clean robe from the closet, and put it on. Gooseflesh appeared on his arms as he did so.

He turned and peered in the mirror.

His eyes widened.

One hand went to his mouth.

Oh my God…

Here was his message from God.

He stepped to the mirror and placed his fingertips against the warm glass, thinking for a moment that he might be able to reach through the reflection and touch it. A vibration rushed through him as he came in contact with the mirror's surface, not unlike the one he felt upon placing his hand on Sanchez's shoulder. For endless seconds he stared at the message, the events of the day returning to him with all the hazy qualities of déjà vu: Henry Miller, homeless men, construction workers, visions of apocalypse...

Scrawled in black ash on the wall behind him was his message, written in reverse so they could be read in the mirror's reflection:

Your Church Awaits You

He turned to gaze at the wall, but saw nothing. No evidence at all that the words he saw in the mirror had ever been written there. His mind suggested that he might be experiencing some sort of optical illusion, that the words could have been drawn upon the surface of the mirror itself. But when he looked back into the mirror, and again saw the sprawling, jagged letters on the wall above his bed, he knew this could not be.

Frightened, he wondered for a fleeting moment what messages his brothers had found in their rooms. Unique directives perhaps, coercing them away from their duties (were there parishioners sitting in the church at this very moment, waiting for the six-o'clock mass to commence?), and into prayer.

Prayer…is that what I am to do next?

He gazed down at his hands and all but fainted from sick horror.

Like the words he glimpsed in the mirror, his mind insisted that it had to be an illusion. A hallucination.

There was blood on his hands…seeping out from what appeared to be punctures in his palms.

Stigmata. The sacred wounds of the Lord. His calling to those free of sin.

Free of sin…

He dropped to his knees and held his hands up before his face, staring fearfully at the blood as it dripped down over his wrists, beneath the sleeves of his robe. His jaw locked up beneath the weight of dread consuming him—at the sudden pain striking his feet, his chest. A perfumed aroma rose out of the blood, that of roses and sandalwood. The odor of sanctity, his mind whispered.

He shot a fleeting glance into the mirror and saw that the scrawled message had vanished.

My message has been delivered.

His eyes bulged, wet with tears. He looked toward the door, still open as he left it. He heard a creaking noise and fixed his gaze upon the pain-filled eyes of the Jesus figure on the cross above the entrance. A shudder worked through him as he found himself instantly drawn to the cross, the terror of the moment suddenly diluted with an utter want for prayer, with a burning desire to beseech God for His guidance in the difficult time to follow. His breathing quickened. Despite his current state of bewilderment, he knew, from years of spiritual study and guidance, that he was being called upon to allow the mystical body of Christ to suffer through him and guide him toward a task of reducing the level of suffering in the world.

Dear God, help me…

A tunnel of black clouds filled his vision, blurring his ability to see peripherally—to see the blood on his hands. Only the cross on the wall remained in view, and he crawled toward it, feeling his mind drifting…drifting…drifting away from all that he knew and understood at the moment; nothing else mattered but the carved cross and the power and strength it diffused into him, little by little, drop by drop. He could feel it filling his veins, his mind, his soul...a power like he'd never felt before, charging his blood and body through the punctures in his hands, his feet. Stigmata! He remained motionless, paralyzed, unable to move or hear or see anything other than the Jesus figure and its utterly persuasive message of power that ever so slowly descended upon him, granting him the fortitude to face the unlit road ahead.

The unlit road, soon to be illuminated beneath a wall of raging fires and rising smoke.

Chapter 9

The group of vagrants rushed Jyro and Timothy into the bedroom. Jyro staggered forward and collapsed down onto one of the beds. His clothes were soaked with sludge, which spread all over the bare mattress as he skittered back against the iron headboard. Gazing incredulously at the footprints he left behind on the floor, he screamed in a hoarse, demanding way, "Shut the goddamned door! Don't let it in here!", wondering if the sludge on him would begin moving like it had in the bathroom. It didn't.

The old, tattooed vagrant slammed the door shut, closing them inside the bedroom. A dreadful silence consumed the room, nearly absorbing the labored breathing of the vagrants as they stared wide-eyed at the closed door.

"Is everyone here?" Jyro shouted, tossing his gaze around like a soldier would in a sniper's sights. The men looked at each other frantically, mentally adding their total numbers and perhaps having trouble doing so. Jyro counted ten bodies in total, including Timothy.

"Got us ten men," Weston blurted breathlessly, head bobbing up and down. The burly man looked down at Jyro, eyes bloodshot and scared, blonde hair matted across his forehead in greasy strands. He put his head down to Jyro's. As he did so, the large black man stepped in behind him, dripping beads of sweat from his bald head. A tiny cross dangled from his right ear and glinted against the sunlight filtering in through the window. His oil-stained jeans and too-tight polo shirt accentuated his muscles and delivered a little wave of security to Jyro.

Weston whispered, "We're dead meat, ain't we?"

Jyro pulled his eyes away from him and looked across the room. The man with the dreadlocks was setting Timothy down on a bed. The boy wore a suit of waste from head to toe. His eyes bulged whitely beneath the dark mask of filth on his face. He jittered and twitched like a tangled marionette. Rollo stood at the edge of the bed with his bible open, the Lord's Prayer spilling from his lips in wavering stammers.

Weston snapped his fingers in front of Jyro's face, then jerked a swollen, red thumb over his shoulder. "This here's Wrath. He—"

"What went on in there?" Wrath's voice was deep and booming and set the room into immediate silence. "You were in there for hours."

"Hours?" That seemed absolutely impossible to Jyro; it seemed as though only twenty minutes had passed since he'd first gone into the bathroom to check out where the moving blood had gone.

Weston nodded interminably, up and down, up and down, even as he spoke. "We waited for you to come out. Both me and Wrath banged and kicked at the door, but it was useless. Even tried to break it down with a hammer from the crazy guy's stash." He motioned toward the hallway where one-eared Larry still lay unconscious. "But the flames…"

"Flames?" Jyro looked at the black man, then contemplated Weston again, whose large wild eyes appeared more than capable of witnessing a murder with little or no remorse. Jyro noticed a small patch of dried blood on the man's chin, and there was a faint yellow bruise beginning to form on his cheek. He wondered if he'd recently been in a fight.

Weston kept on nodding, and Jyro figured the man had a nervous tic that kept him forever moving his head. "Every time one of us touched the door, these blue flames shot out of it. The doorknob…it was…on fire. Burning up everyone's hands. When Wrath kicked the door, it burned his leg. There was no way we could get you out of there. Look at my hands…" He spread his scorched fingers into a starfish shape, then grimaced, clearly regretting the action.

Jyro looked at the big man's pants. They were gone to the knees, charred at the edges and displaying blistered skin beneath. Recalling that the boy's hands had been burned as well, he glanced over at Timothy and saw him staring at his palms with strange fascination, mouth hanging open, a runner of snot carving a swath through the filth on his face. He looked far gone, as though dreaming while awake.

Jyro muttered, "Christ…what kind of mess are we in?"

Various discussions rose up as the men, barrel-eyed and edgy, shouted and gestured maniacally, much to the dismay of Jyro, who thought it might be best to keep things quiet. Weston and Wrath talked about the mysterious flames that had materialized and were examining their wounds with a great sense of uneasiness. The albino, perched alongside the closed door, measured Jyro for a moment, then pulled his red eyes away, keeping as still as an ash tree on a cold winter's day.

Jyro closed his eyes, vainly trying to close out the clamor. It had been only a few minutes since he and Timothy escaped the bathroom, and he wondered if they would survive much longer. He placed a hand over his mouth, hoping to restrain the screams of insanity threatening to make their way out. He'd never experienced such a fright before, in spite of all his years on the streets confronting drug dealers, muggers, and addicts.

He had an uneasy feeling things were going to get worse.

The elderly man with the tattoos began shuffling back and forth, eyes bulging, tufted hair waving like webs in the wind. He spread his arms wide, looking at no one in particular as he spoke out: "I tried to leave, but the door leading into the church burned my hands!" Spit sprayed from his cracked lips as he shouted, alighting on those within five feet of him; Jyro could see a white foamy globule perched in his beard like a giant flea. He marched toward Jyro and displayed a map of smooth, red patches on his palms, peppered with white blisters. "See?" He paused, looked at Wrath and Weston, then back at Jyro. "Something ain't right here, man," he whispered, lips wrinkling back to show yellowed teeth. "They don't want us to leave."

They.

Jyro nodded coldly, thinking of the tentacles, wet and marauding, grabbing him, trying to feed him to the thrashing tree-trunk of sewage. He peered toward the door and saw the albino man still staring at him with those creepy red eyes. Something about the pale man bothered Jyro, but he had neither the energy nor the wits to formulate any intuition right now. Eyes still pinned on the albino, he said, "After what I just saw in there…I'd believe anything." The albino looked away.

Strangely, no one asked what it was he saw in the bathroom. Instead, an uncomfortable silence filled the room where the men just stood looking at one another, minds no doubt wondering if they were going to die in the next few minutes. Clearly, they were all just trying to cope.

The dreadlocked vagrant began pacing erratically, sharp brown eyes glaring condescendingly at Weston and Wrath. "So what are we gonna do, man? Huh? How the hell are we gonna get outta here?"

Timothy stood up from the bed. Pieces of waste fell from his body and plopped on the floor. He marched into the uneven circle that had formed, gazing around the room with a sharp, weighty stare. Jyro imagined him thinking, Little did I know when I woke up this morning that I'd be hanging out with a troop of vagrants, covered in shit. This, after battling a demon-creature from Satan's toilet. God works in mysterious ways.

Timothy eyed the dreadlocked man. "We're gonna get out of here. We just need to work on this, together." A promise as empty as the church below.

Weston spread his huge arms out, the white of his skin seeming to shed some light into the shadowy room. His head quivered madly. "How?" He pointed a scorched finger toward the door. "If we try to leave, we're just gonna get burned again!" His blue eyes bulged like balloons as they swept across the entire congregation.

"Well, we can't just sit here." Jyro struggled to his feet. The muscles in his body stretched audibly, like rotten rubber bands. He sidled up alongside Timothy. "Me and the kid were almost eaten by a god-damned monster in there!"

Again an unnerving silence filled the room, none of the men showing any desire to confirm what they already knew—that Jyro and the boy had confronted something evil in the bathroom, and had almost died in the process. But Jyro felt it necessary to give it to them anyway, as it seemed the only way to prepare them, however inefficiently, for the sights that lay ahead.

The sights that lay ahead…

From the corner of the room, Rollo held his bible out in a Heil Hitler gesture and lamented, "The end of the world is nigh! The Devil has risen and has disgorged its atrocities upon us all!"

"Shut up, dude," the dreadlocked man shouted. "We don't need that kinda crap right now."

Rollo thrust the bible back and forth. "The scourges of Hell are upon us. What do you think it was they battled inside that bathroom?"

"Enough!" Jyro shouted, silencing the room.

Rollo looked at Jyro, eyes piercing him sharply, balefully. "Are you afraid to confront the truth?"

"I've seen the truth, and it ain't pretty," he replied loudly, reaching for emphasis but sounding mostly frustrated and scared. He shambled past the homeless man with the taped-up glasses, knowing that they couldn't just stay put; they'd all end up killing each other out of fear. He stopped by the door, ignoring the albino's creepy glare. He grabbed the doorknob; it felt warm, almost hot, but there was no fire here as the others had claimed.

He opened the door and went back out into the hallway, the image of the monster in the bathroom now playing out in his mind like a video in frame-by-frame. Are there more monsters here?

And then, adding to his trepidation, he wondered: Did it appear because of what I did? The chalice? The rosary?

The Rosary!

He took a deep, gasping breath, held it in his lungs. The harsh image of the creature in the bathroom faded abruptly…only to be replaced with a stronger, more tangible horror.

Larry, thief of tools, was kneeling on the floor just beyond the threshold of the bathroom. Like Jyro, he was covered in sewage from head to toe. His pulverized face was seeping fresh blood, an utter contradiction to the grin he wore, lips spread wide, gray teeth bared as if entertaining some amusing story. His eyes, glossy despite the poor lighting, bulged and jittered back and forth as if observing a game of ping-pong.

In his clawed hand was the rosary, swinging like a hypnotist's timepiece.

Jyro stepped toward him, gazing intently at the rosary, unblinking eyes watching it go back and forth, back and forth. The blessed charm seemed so unreal in the hands of such a thief, a monster, a sinner.

It does not belong with him.

Larry's legs and arms twitched and quivered, as though charged with volts. The rosary continued moving back and forth, left and right. Jyro could do nothing but stare at the charm and allow his thoughts and memories to cloud up in his head. Despite the horror of the moment, he felt a sudden longing—not a desire for the beaded charm itself, but for the message buried deep within its ancient elements.

Timothy appeared at the bedroom door like a shadow. So did Weston. Behind them, Wrath loomed.

Weston made a move toward the bathroom. Jyro held a stiff arm out, holding him back in an act that was purely instinctual. He whispered, "You don't want to go in there," eyes still wholly focused on the charm. A feeling of unreality stole into him, making him feel as if the top of his skull were open, his consciousness floating up and away like a helium balloon.

You are getting very sleepy…

Larry's face contorted, eyes rolling up into his head, lips now wrenching into a twisted scowl. His throat swelled and undulated as if attempting to reject a large object, then produced a loud, screeching cackle—something a hyena might make with its muzzle buried in fresh meat. Jyro flinched back, so did the others. He heard someone say, "What the fuck?"

From behind Larry came a flashing beam of light. It ignited the bathroom in intermittent bursts, throwing the eerie shadow of the praying virgin upon the wall again. Amid the bursts of light, Jyro could see tendrils of hot steam rising up from the polluted matter on the floor, gathering about Larry like praying hands.

The flashlight, Jyro thought quickly, staring at the shadow. It's working again...

Larry's eyes, huge and white and wholly shocking in their wickedness, filled up with blood and spilled two red runners into his gored face. Someone uttered dully, "Jesus Christ…help us…"

The rosary kept swinging, back and forth, to and fro. Jyro felt himself being pulled toward its promise of answers to this whole eerie mystery.

Like a baby bird begging for a worm, Larry opened his mouth wide. From it, red vomit gouted, dousing his chin and grimy shirt. A string of garbled words followed, his voice strident and clogged: "One holds darkness, one holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. Find the sinless one…"

A gust of cold wind whipped about the room, rippling through their clothes. Waves of horrible gooseflesh marched down Jyro's back. The wind grasped the door to the bathroom and slammed it shut, closing Larry inside. The icy gust moved across the hallway like an invisible tornado, forcing the men to grasp their own bodies for warmth and protection.

A feeling of sickness nailed Jyro's stomach—intense nausea stewing in him, threatening to push out his gorge. A clear sense of panic rose in the room as the men clutched themselves and cowered against the wall, crying out in fear…and then, as suddenly as it came, the cold air dissipated, along with the sickening attack of fear, leaving the men heaving for air in the rancid heat that again dominated the hallway.

But…not before delivering to them a message of hope amid the promise of disaster threatening to kill them all.

Find the sinless one…

Jyro, shaking away the hypnotic state he'd been in, could see the incredulous looks upon the men's faces as they gazed despondently at one another.

Find the sinless one…

They'd all heard it, the voice, like a distant call from a mountaintop echoing across a landscape of hills and valleys. It'd entered into their heads alongside the disturbing visual now haunting them like a sick virus: an apocalypse in the form of an army of tattered men facing a great evil rising up before a wall of raging fires and blackened smoke.

Jyro shuddered, seeing some sort of odd familiarity in the collective of men he just hallucinated. Had any of the others realized what it was?

"What the hell is going on here!" the thin man with the taped glasses cried out, racing toward the landing. He teetered at the edge of the stairs and fell forward along the curve of the first few steps. Lunging, he grasped the banister, keeping himself from falling any farther. Tears sprung from his eyes like rain. From the bedroom, Jyro could hear Rollo shouting a prayer like a minister delivering a sermon before thousands.

"Jyro…" Timothy shouted, the look of confusion on his face immediate as he attempted to express his thoughts. He was scared now, not just with the sudden state of affairs taking place, but also with the eerie power he now seemed to possess. He paused…then uttered, voice trailing off, "How did I know—?"

"Just as I had," Jyro answered without delay, knowing that he'd never told the boy his name. Timothy knew. Just as Jyro had earlier.

Eyes wide with fear, Timothy glanced down at his hands again, flexing them with a look of striking incredulity on his face.

The burns on his hands were gone. Healed.

Timothy gazed back toward Jyro, mouth agape.

Jyro narrowed his eyes. His bond with the boy was stronger now, delivering to them both a trace of comfort amid the gathering doom. If they could reach into each other's minds, the same thoughts would emerge: We were meant to be. It is a calling from God. We've no choice now but to heed His word, receive his messages.

In a voice slightly louder than a whimper, Timothy said, "The rosary…"

There was a moment's hesitation, and then Jyro replied, "Perhaps the thief is the one," wholly unbelieving in himself as the message from the rosary reasserted itself into his mind: One holds darkness, one holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. Find the sinless one…

Find him…

From the inside the bathroom, a quick succession of bangings struck the door, as though Larry had finally slipped free of his trance and with terror had found himself in a place and position he had no memory of putting himself in. A long, fading gurgle sounded, like that of a man trying to yell with a mouth full of hot soup, then tapered down. Soon thereafter, silence prevailed, setting the room into an aura of threat.

Jyro performed a quick head count. Everyone was out in the hallway now, gathered against the wall, looking to him for some sort of guidance, as useless as it might be. Marcus was trembling, staring at the floor as he sucked nervously on a Winston; Rollo had his eyes closed and was holding his tattered bible to his chest, mumbling to himself; Wrath and Weston, bodyguards by their own right, were looking toward the bathroom door, eyes narrowed, muscles flexing, seemingly prepared should Larry come barreling out. There was the old tattooed man, the young dreadlocked man, and the lanky man with the broken glasses who was still by the banister on the landing, clutching it like a squirrel on a tree branch. And then, the silent albino, who remained trembling in the bedroom doorway like an injured rabbit, red eyes cast downward.

What a crew, Jyro thought, realizing suddenly that his experience in the bathroom had made him, by default, their leader, with Timothy second in command.

Little did the others know that it was he who may have brought all this havoc into their lives.

Jyro turned and looked toward Timothy. Despite being covered in sewage, the boy stood tall, seemingly prepared for whatever evils lay in the perilous road ahead. He looks like one of us now, Jyro thought, scanning the others in the room, his army

(an army of tattered men)

standing crookedly before him like a cluster of forgotten mannequins, lame and wretched. In the moment of winded silence that followed, Jyro thought back to the message that had been delivered to him and Timothy.

One holds darkness.

The chalice filled with fire.

One holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope.

The rosary.

Find the sinless one.

The one. The rightful possessor that will use the Rosary's power to bring down the evil that…

…and it is here that fragments of his dream slip back into him, of the faceless men who were burying the crate in the soil beneath the church, and as he'd slept he'd been able to hear himself uttering over and over again, The evil that promises man the end of days, and it is now that he remembers it, and sees its significance…

…promises man the end of days.

He focused upon Timothy's waiting gaze, the boy's eyes sharp beneath a mask of filth and fear. Without hesitation, he spoke with authority, the shaky fear lessened: "We were brought here by God to fight a war. All of us. And we will adhere to His command. Why us? I do not know. But there is a reason, for God never acts without just cause or purpose. We will uncover this purpose, and use it to gain strength against the evil that promises man the end of days!"

He waited here to see if any of the men would recognize the haunting phrase. They didn't. They all stood there unmoving, looking at him respectfully with a willingness to go along with his contained strategy. Even Rollo.

Why?

Because, like me, they have all been brought here for a reason.

He swept his gaze across the pitiful group, and said, "Before we move on, before anyone else gets hurt, let's try and figure out why we were the ones that were called here…"

Chapter 10

He is walking amid a colorless landscape pitted with destruction. A city of death surrounding him, buildings and streets destroyed, their occupants long vanished. He is the last man standing, God's final living, breathing creature on an earth buried beneath the severities of apocalypse. The skies shine red and black, the clouds thick and permanent, swollen with fatal acids. Black rain pours down on him, dousing his skin with disease. Should he live beyond this day, his flesh and blood will wither and rot, not long after his mind finds itself buried beneath the infection, suffocating from brutal oppression, entirely unable to comprehend the annihilations that have taken place.

But for now, he remains whole and lucid, gazing out upon the torn landscape, eyes heavily poisoned from witnessing its cause. He was the one who made this happen. He was the root cause of this destruction, simply because he had not found the strength within to defeat the evil that had promised man the end of days.

A wind picks up. Wet debris flies into his face. For a moment, he shields his eyes, then takes a breath of searing pain and peers down at his hands. Here he sees blood, warm and wet against his skin. He gazes at his bare feet. The wounds are there too, bleeding out from punctures in his heel bones. He struggles to utter through split and bleeding lips, "Stigmata," his voice beaten back by the bitter vacuum and pouring rain that surrounds him. He holds his bleeding hands up to the dark, pregnant sky, screaming, "Noooo!" Rivulets of blood wash up his forearms to his wasted biceps and shoulders. Black bolts of lightning fill the sky like dead branches.  "I am no savior…" he whimpers, utterly drained of strength, a sudden stench of ozone filling the dense air.

"But you are, Antonio", comes a familiar voice from behind. The accent is thick with Italian heritage.

"Mother…" He turns to face her. She stands before him, only feet away, the black tattered robe shrouding her frail body billowing in the tainted wind. She is unaffected by the years of dementia that had contaminated her mind and body. She is entirely normal looking, perhaps as she might have been had she not been stricken with disease in her later years.

She places a gentle finger across her pink lips. Here he sees the ruby ring of scars she'd for years claimed to wear upon her finger. She speaks softly, eloquently, the wind tossing her gray hair across her face. "God has placed the blood on your hands because you have lived your life free of sin. He sends to you a message Antonio, and you must heed it. If you so choose to deny his appeal, then this will be your consequence." She waves a hand beside her, motioning toward the ruined landscape.

"M-Mother," he stammers, dehydrated eyes unable to provide the tears they aimed to produce. "How…?"

For a second time she silences him with a finger against her lips…just as she used to do when he was a child. The ring on her finger is darker now, the scars thick and wrinkled. "Antonio…long ago Christ came to me, and united with me, leaving with me this ring of flesh upon my finger. As the Creator and Savior's bride, he delivered to me my son, with a purpose that remained to me unwhispered in my time on earth. I kept his faith hidden until the day I was called to sacrifice myself into the arms of His divine will. I went to Him, in Heaven, and celebrated the marriage that has no end—and it is why now, Antonio, that you can see the ring I have worn for much of my life."

He pulls his gaze from her eyes to her finger, where she displays the ridge of flesh she professes to be the ring of Christ.

"Fear not, my son: it was Christ who made you choose faith for empowerment in my dying days. After I was gone, you maintained your faith steadfastly, which enabled Him to behold the strength in you. You are His son. And now, he needs you. Do as He says, Antonio."

He steps forward, thinking of the faceless man his mother had told him about only once when he was a teen—the man that had come into his mother's life, fathered him, and then left, never to return.

Was this 'man' Jesus Christ?

Suddenly, from within the tattered shell of a nearby building, a dog appears. It is large and black, with eyes as red as fire. It begins to bark ferociously. Pilazzo moves his glance back and forth, between the dog and his mother, who now bears lacerations upon her forehead that spell out the word CHRIST. Blood seeps down from the jagged letters into her eyes, which remain unblinking. "Mother," he calls, but she holds her hands forward and steps back, fading into the gray environment and leaving him with an alarming choice of parting words: "Your church awaits you…"

Alone now, he looks back at the dog. His heart pounds with terror. The dog kicks up wet black ash with its hind legs, and approaches him, foam-burdened jaws growling furiously.

Pilazzo shoves his bleeding hands toward the dog. Pain attacks his body at five distinct points: his hands, his feet, and at the right side of his torso. Where Jesus was speared. He cries out in the words of the Apostle Paul, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ!"

The dog releases a series of barks…and then leaps at him.

He holds his bleeding hands high and screams for his mother…

…but she didn't come. Instead he woke from the feverish nightmare on the floor of his bedroom, buried in terror, darkness, and a vague form of consciousness. He remained there for a long period of time, allowing the seconds to evolve into minutes, the minutes into an hour or more. His breathing remained slow and painful, his lungs rattling as if mired in pneumonia. His mouth was parched, and so were his eyes, and when he tried to open them, his lids stuck to them painfully. He reached a hand out and touched the familiar knobby texture of the rug, then raised a finger to his face and gently peeled his eyes open, one at a time.

The first thing he saw was the Mother-of-God nightlight he bought during his last trip to Rome, the small bulb within painting the room in a pale yellow glimmer. He rolled his eyes up toward the mirror,

(your church awaits you)

and then more quickly, to his hands, which in his dream, and in my waking state, had bled with the marks of Christ.

They were unblemished. Unmarked. He shook his head with both denial and confusion. Had he dreamed it all?

He struggled to his feet, groaning as the bones in his back grated and popped. He was dimly aware of his head throbbing, feeling as it had on those occasions he'd drunk a bit too much red wine with dinner, and had woken with a hangover. Silence ruled the world around him. He leaned up against the dresser to rub his eyes. The room rocked and creaked back and forth. His legs and feet tingled with numbness.

Out of the blue, his mind began to pick up some images from his dream. They came back to him in glimpses, reminding him of the horrific landscape he'd visited, and the inauspicious words of warning from his mother. For a moment he considered trying to make sense of what he saw, but the fearful warning of coincidence rained down on him again, overwhelming him too much to think it all through.

Still, his mind taunted him: my mother, the bride of Christ. Me, the son of Christ? In life, she used to claim the ring of Christ on her finger. He'd always feigned his belief in her by nodding his head and touching her finger, and then he would smile and pace away, assuming her religious fanaticism as something swayed by the perils of her dementia.

But now, he wondered.

It was just a dream, and nothing more. Or was it? His dream-mother had alluded to a message he'd received in his waking state, (your church awaits you), and that he had no choice but heed it, lest he suffer the apocalyptic environment surrounding them (the evil that promises man the end of days). It was just as the homeless man in the confessional had alluded to—and just as Monsignor Sanchez had mentioned. All additional coincidences, trying his mind.

Scared, he ran a trembling hand through his hair, feeling sweat. He peered over at the clock on his nightstand.

It was dark.

Was the power out?

Couldn't be. The nightlight was on, jutting from the socket behind a frosted glass shell. He focused upon the Mother-of-God portrait hand-painted on the shell's surface, her wide glossy eyes aimed remorsefully toward the wall above his bed.

Your church awaits you…

He stepped to the doorway, felt out the light switch on the wall. With his eyes still fixed on the nightlight, he flipped it up.

Then down. Then repeatedly, up and down.

Darkness lingered.

He gripped the doorjamb and stuck his head out into the hallway, now a taunting, pitch black hole, the nightlights once guiding him to his room also extinguished.

The power was out.

Everything, except the Mother-of-God nightlight in his room.

He gazed back at it, intently now.

The Mary-painting's eyes were no longer aimed above the bed.

They were peering directly at him.

Gasping, he lurched sideways from the room into the sheer darkness of the hallway. His mouth wrenched. He was petrified, unable to define the sudden blur between that which was perversely real and utterly insane. He fled unsteadily with his hands outstretched, bumping into the walls like a mechanical toy. He opened his mouth to shout out, but only weak sobs escaped his bone-dry throat. He touched blindly along the right wall and came to an opening. He shoved his head into the unseen bedroom. "Is anyone here?" he cried out breathlessly, not seeing but knowing that he was the only man left. Like in my dream.

He received no response.

Short of breath, he continued down the hall, fear sapping the strength from his body as if his blood were being drained. Tears rained from his eyes, leaving warm tracks against his cheeks.

He heard a noise.

Is that…music?

The next door he arrived at was closed. He leaned against the paneled surface, heart slamming so hard that it nearly blocked his ears from hearing the light play of Bizet from the turntable behind the closed door.

Monsignor Sanchez's room.

He pressed an ear against the door, listening closely and realizing suddenly that something sounded off about the usually familiar classical music. It could have been the swell of immeasurable fear ripping through his body, mind, and soul, that had him so confused and perhaps delusional…but in this surreal moment, he was almost certain of what he was hearing.

The music…it was playing backwards.

Silently, he ran a hand along the door and grasped the knob. Instantly he was reminded, before succumbing to his dream, of standing at the threshold of his own room and receiving a jolt of static electricity upon touching the doorknob. The same thing happened now. Only now, in the darkness, he could see it: a flash of blue light, like a burst of sheet lightning through a rain-soaked window. It gloved his hand for a split second, and then vanished, leaving blotches of imaginary light dancing in his sights. And it hurt, more so than any static shock might cause, as though he'd just barehanded a few dozen volts of electricity off an exposed wire.

Despite the pain, he maintained his grip, and turned the knob.

The door moved forward with a loud creak.

He stepped into Monsignor Sanchez's room.

Like his own room, there was a tiny bit of light in here: the same pallid splay from the bathroom he noticed during his earlier visit. The room was vacant now, eerie beneath the indistinct wash of light and play of backwards Bizet. He eyed the turntable against the far wall and could see a small dark glow on the record's surface as it not only spun backwards, but seemed to skip over and over again: the same few seconds of music blaring from the tiny inset speakers. He stepped to the aged turntable, hearing now something else in the six or seven seconds of Farandole playing in reverse.

He shuddered. My god.

It was there. He could hear it. A voice. Barely a whisper, but still registering in his ears. And he knew, it was significant.

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

Chapter 11

All those present followed Jyro's lead downstairs into the lobby of the rectory. He felt, despite wanting to remain close to the rosary (none of them in their right minds were willing to try and get it from Larry), that it would be best to assemble everyone in a more 'open' space so they could discuss their options.

Two emergency lights jutting from red fire boxes in the walls lit the lobby, each providing a hazy glow on either sides of the room. In the center of the ceiling, a sole dome light supplied a dim splay of light, the attached sprinkler dry and still, coated with dust. The vagrants milled about like gnomes in a cave, feet shuffling heavily against the dusty carpet as they examined the bare room.

From somewhere outside the walls of St Peter's, a woman screamed. The men fell silent and listened as it went on and on and on…

"We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" the vagrant with the broken glasses screamed. His face was as red as a tomato. The tendons stood out in his neck, nearly as thick as bungee cords. He bolted across the room and launched himself at the closed door that offered access to the church. Timothy roared, "No!" but the warning fell on deaf ears.

The vagrant grabbed the doorknob and a sickly blue light hissed out. He howled out in pain. A pungent stench saturated the room, of ozone, and then of cooking flesh. He collapsed to his knees, wailing in a hysterical panic, holding his hands up in front of his face and staring disbelievingly at the tendrils of smoke spiraling up and away from them.

The vagrants staggered back, pushing and shoving against each other. A few frantic discussions rose up. Wrath and Weston moved to within a few feet of him, but no closer, knowing they could do nothing to relieve his pain.

"It doesn't want us to leave!" Jyro shouted with a slight tone of revelation. He gazed incredulously at the burned man, promising himself to keep away from anything with a doorknob on it. "Whatever…whatever it is."

The vagrants looked back and forth between the injured man and Jyro, some nodding in defeat, the others too scared to do much more than tremble and hope the blue light didn't get them too. As Jyro looked at the men, he thought, We are a throng of hopeless saviors, most of us with long straggled hair and beards, with dazed and peculiar looks in our eyes. Take away the bald guy, and it's darn safe to assume we all resemble Jesus Christ…

"Now what?" Weston blurted, looking back and forth between Jyro and Timothy; despite his intimidating size, the big blonde man looked apprehensive, the blue of his eyes seeming to have paled into an ill-looking gray. Jyro looked at Timothy. The boy was staring at his hands again, this time with a look of fear on his face, as if he'd just woken from a witch's spell to find claws there instead.

"We wait," Jyro said.

"Wait for what?" Weston's head was bobbing so much Jyro thought it might detach from his neck and plunk to the floor.

"I don't know." For a moment there was total silence in the rectory, and it was here that Jyro realized how frightened he was. He tensed up, thinking that their only logical course of action was to stay put and try to find out why they were all there. Perhaps then they could figure out what steps to take to get out. It won't let us out, Jyro thought with dismay, until it's good and ready.

The dreadlocked man said, "This really sucks, man. I ain't digging this one little bit."

Jyro nodded. "You think I like this? All I know is that we have to remain calm. As long as we don't go near the doors, then we'll be safe…at least for the moment." He twisted his head and looked at the man with the taped glasses; the injured vagrant was sitting on the floor, crying like a child, burned hands perched out before him as if accepting a host.

Jyro went to him and kneeled down. "What's your name, brother?"

The burned man gasped in pain, and managed to utter, "Seymour."

"Seymour—my name's Jyro. The boy is Timothy. The two big men are Weston and Wrath. The guy with the bible, his name's Rollo. And his buddy with the smoking habit is Marcus." He peered over at the man with the dreadlocks. "If we're going to work together, then we should at least know what to call each other."

The vagrant with the dreadlocks shook his head and spit on the floor. Digruntled, he muttered, "Wilson."

Jyro looked at the old man with the tattoos, sitting on a folding chair, elbows on his knees, bearded face rutted with sharp wrinkles. He was shaking terribly, as though connected to a charge of volts. "You with the tattoos…what's your name?"

The vagrant peered up at the men, eyes wet and rheumy. "Dallas."

Jyro looked at the albino. He was leaning against the wall and staring at the ceiling. His lips were trembling and a long line of spit wavered from them like a web in the wind. He seemed to have paled further, if that was even possible. Jyro decided not to drum up any conversation with him, and let him be.

Wilson, tugging nervously on his dreadlocks, said, "Okay, now that we're all acquainted, why don't you tell us all how the fuck we're supposed to get out of here.

"If there's a will, there's way," Rollo replied, tapping the tattered bible in his hands.

"Yeah, you can keep to your book of faith if you want," Wilson said, frowning with contempt and frustration. "The only way I see us getting out of here is through that door, and as far as I can tell, we can't even touch it."

"I think we need to figure out what the hell is going on first," Jyro said. "Why we're all here."

Wilson opened his mouth to protest, but remained silent. Everyone else remained quiet as well—a strange and rather instant conformity amongst them all, given the unstable circumstances. Perhaps there was no other course of action after all.

Jyro turned toward the altar boy. "Timothy, when you got here, your hands…they were burned like the others. But now they're not." His voice sounded oddly muted in his ears, as though something was trying to restrain him from making this observation.

Timothy looked grimly at Jyro, face still soiled with patches of waste, despite having tried to wipe it away with his hands. "The rosary…it must've healed—"

From the second floor came a scream, very long and razored with pain and terror. The men startled and jerked their gazes toward the ceiling. It went on and on, seeming to vibrate the floor beneath their feet.

It was one-eared Larry, thief of tools (and now the rosary). He was still upstairs, trapped behind the closed door of the bathroom. The scream ended and a succession of banging noises followed: Larry's feet perhaps, kicking against the door.

After endless seconds, the banging stopped, and then there was nothing but silence in the room.

The albino staggered toward the lobby's only window. He bumped against the wall, gripped the sill, and gazed out into the dark alley, mumbling incoherently to himself.

Jyro could see that it was dark outside now. How…

"How can it be night already?" Timothy blurted, echoing Jyro's thoughts. The boy was trembling, fists clenched tightly at his sides.

"Christ, it can't be…" Jyro jerked his gaze around the room, wondering where the hours had gone. He looked at Weston. "You said we were in that bathroom for three hours…" He trailed off, feeling unconvinced as a shallow throb of pain settled into his head.

"That's right." Weston's head was practically gyrating on his neck now. He looked like a bobble head doll.

Jyro gazed out the window, past the lingering albino, whose face was pressed against the frame. "Well how can it be night already? It was morning when the kid and I went in there."

The boy shook his head back and forth. He looked overwhelmed and weary. Thick tears carved wet lines into the filth on his face. "It f-felt like we were in there for only fifteen minutes."

Jyro tugged nervously at his beard, eyes rolling around the room. He looked at the men, at the stairs, at the door leading out into the church. "Time is not on our side right now..."

"And we are at its mercy," Rollo said.

"So what the hell do we do?" Wilson shouted, voice breaking. "How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?"

The albino raised a determined finger to the glass pane. "Through here…"

Timothy shouted, "No!" and with his right hand outstretched, lunged toward the window. The albino, buried in his own inconsistent little world, reached up and gripped the latch on top.

There was a sharp popping sound, as if someone close by had pulled a party noisemaker. At the same instant a flash of blue light, a fire, branched out from the window and doused the albino's hand. The sleeve of his tattered shirt went up in flames. He screamed piercingly. His legs buckled and he collapsed down on his knees, waving his injured hand back and forth like a rain-drenched man trying to hail a cab.

Weston grabbed a tattered towel from the floor and smothered the fire before it could spread any further. A hideous stench filled the room, of singed hair and roasting flesh. Wrath shouted, "Oh God! Holy Jesus! What the fuck is going on?"

Still on the floor, Seymour skittered back against the wall in a panic, burned hands held up high. His head bobbed forward, and he threw up on the floor between his legs, nearly missing Marcus, who performed a lopsided jig in an effort to avoid getting splattered.

Feeling a strange sense of loss, as though my army is dwindling, Jyro shouted, "Already too many injuries! Too…many! We need to gain control of the situation!"

Everyone in the room fell silent. Except the albino. He was screaming hysterically. He was lying on his back, feet rapping the floor like crazy, straggly hair falling into his bulging, red eyes. He looked up at Jyro, bottom lip quivering, saliva bubbling from his mouth in suds.

Jyro paced back and forth, arms flailing, heart driving a heavy rhythm in his chest. "We need to stop making rash moves! We need to start thinking about why we are here, and what we can do to get out!" His words carried volume, but very little weight.

Wrath shouted out, "You keep saying that, but you're doing nothing about it!"

"Okay…okay…" He stopped pacing. Breathing heavily, he said, "We have to remain calm, all of us, myself included. We need to think this out…"

Wrath looked at Jyro closely, dark eyes narrowed. "Man, how can you expect any of us to stay calm? Do you see what's going on in here?"

"Of course I do!" He paused, composed himself, and said, "Look…I'm scared. We're all damn scared. But it's here, and we're stuck in the middle of it." He considered Wrath's size, and grew almost as scared of him as he was the unexplained circumstances. The big man had a glimmer in his eyes, the kind he'd seen too many times in the streets from those threatening to make off with his belongings. "I really believe we're here for a reason. And the sooner we find out what that reason is, the sooner we can make an attempt to get the hell out of here."

Wrath peered down at Jyro, face painted with mixed contempt and understanding. After a moment, he nodded, the harsh light in his eyes fading.

A moment of uncertainty followed where the men could only listen to the choking, sniveling sounds of the albino. He continued writhing on the floor like a soldier left for dead in a battlefield, burned hand red and wet like a peeled tomato.

"Same thing happened to me," Timothy said, stepping into the loose circle that had formed, swollen eyes pinning the wounded vagrant. Weston and Wrath grimaced beneath the pain of their injuries, as though reminded of having suffered them, and the others rubbed their palms with nervous shock, feeling their comrades' pain. Seymour remained on the floor, seated against the wall amid his puddle of vomit. He was looking toward the group, body arched to one side. His glasses sat crookedly on his nose. They had specks of puke on them.

"What happened, kid?" Jyro asked.

Eerie silence filled the room; even the pained grumbles of the albino had tapered down. Jyro peered over at the pale man. His eyes were shut now, his tongue lolled like a dog's. Unconsciousness was knocking on his front door.

Timothy said, "I've been here for three days." The splay of the emergency beacon above bathed him in colorless light, making him look like a ghost as he pitched his gaze back and forth between the men.

"Three days?" Jyro said.

"It seems that long ago, although I've lost track of time. The days and nights have come and gone more quickly than usual."

When no one spoke up, the boy continued, speaking in a quick and anxious manner, as if a gun were pointed at his head. "I woke up in my bed and remembered that I'd left a duffle bag full of clothes in my locker. It'd been more than three weeks since the church was locked up, but for some reason I felt an inexplicable need to get my bag back. I tried hard to ignore this feeling, but it ate and ate at me until I saw no choice but to come here and get it. It was almost as if something was calling me here, using my recollection of the gym bag as a lure."

All of the men nodded, a clear sense of understanding showing on their grief-stricken faces, as if they too had been drawn in the same unearthly fashion.

Listening to Timothy's story, Jyro realized that he himself might very well have been 'called' here. Somehow he'd known the church would provide him with much more than a bed and a temporary roof over his head, as if there was a voice in his brain, calling all the shots.

Didn't you think it odd that the air-duct grates leading from the subway to the church had come away much too easily? And then, you dreamed of the men and the crate…and then you found the crate. That's no coincidence. You are here for a reason…

"While walking here, I remembered thinking not of my gym bag, but of something else…something vague and imperceptible, and yet so undeniably important—it was as though I knew I'd find something else here!

"It was mid-morning when I arrived. There was a foreman outside. At first I didn't think he would let me in, but when I told him that I'd left a few things behind, he just gave this creepy blank stare, and showed me the door."

Jyro thought: I saw this 'foreman'. On the first day I arrived. And he saw me too, as I was rushing across the altar into the rectory. I thought for sure that he would come and chase me away. But he just stood there, staring at me with this weird look in his eyes, as though he were frightened of me.

"So I came into the church, and was sickened at what I saw: dust and demolition everywhere. I mean, this place had been my sanctuary for two years—to see it like this made me sick to my stomach." The boy shut his eyes, took a deep breath and blew it out, long and slow. "There were a number of workers here who eyeballed me up and down as I stepped up onto the altar. I remember feeling so anxious and scared that I thought I was going to pass out."

He paused, and said, "But I knew: I needed to be here. So I ignored the men and went through the doorway on the altar that leads here into the rectory. When I reached this point…" Timothy pointed toward the closed door in the lobby that gave way to the church hallway, "the door leading back out to the altar slammed shut. At first I thought one of the workers had not realized that I'd come back here, and closed it. So I ran back and tried to get out, but when I grabbed the handle to the door, the…the blue flames shot out at me and burned my hands. I panicked, had tried a couple times to get out, but got burned each time."

He displayed his stained hands. Unlike earlier, there were no tiny white blisters peppering the palm.

"You don't show no wounds," Wrath said.

"They were there," Jyro interjected. "I saw them. But…they're healed now." He gazed at Wrath's hands and saw the big man flexing them, grimacing as he did so. He thought: If I had to venture a guess, I'd say his hands are starting to heal too.

Timothy added, "Even the doors leading into the rectory did the same thing: they shot fires at me. I was trapped in that hallway."

Jyro's eyes searched the gloom in the rectory behind the boy, his harried mind wondering: Why are we just standing here talking? We should be trying to find a way out of here, to find out why we're here!

As if in response, his mind answered: You know there's no way out of here. You were called here for a reason. A purpose. And until you fulfill God's need of you, then you must allow the chips to fall where they may. A game is about to be played, and you are an integral part of it. You were the one who found the rosary...

Timothy continued, "I waited. For hours it'd seemed. I screamed and yelled through the crack in the door, hoping that someone in the church would come and get me out. But my shouts fell on deaf ears. The workers, they were out there, I could hear them drilling and hammering and sawing, but they didn't come for me. I even waited for the noise to stop before hollering out, but it was no use.

"Eventually, their tools stopped altogether. Then the lights went out, and I was alone in there, in the dark."

"How did you get out?" Marcus asked, snuffing out a cigarette on the carpet.

Timothy cleared his throat. "During the night, the door to the rectory opened. A construction worker appeared. I was laying on the floor and immediately feigned sleep. He must've not seen me in the dark. When I squinted I could see his outline. He walked right by me and went out into the church area. I waited a minute or so, then snuck out into the rectory. I immediately heard some noises here, and when I looked down the hallway, I saw a flickering light spilling out from the rec room. I thought there was a fire."

And Jyro remembered: The chalice, floating in the air, with its splay of evil light and din of raging fires. It seems Timothy was set free after I opened the crate and went back upstairs with the rosary.

"So I went down the hall, keeping my eyes on the flickering light, and looked into the rec room." Timothy paused, took another deep breath in an apparent attempt to gain composure, and said, "What I saw in here nearly killed me."

After a pause, Wilson said, "C'mon man, fess it up. What did you see?"

"An atrocity." He took another deep breath, then gazed hard at Jyro, who nodded as if permitting Timothy to commence with his story. "At first I refused to believe what I was actually seeing. My mind…it wanted to reject it all as some vision straight out of my worst nightmare…but…but I knew it was real. It was just so hard to absorb! The place…it was barely lit from the emergency beacons on the walls, but it was enough for me to make out everything. There were a group of construction workers there. They were gathered about the hole. Some were tearing at the edges with shovels and crowbars; the others…they were…"

"They were what?" asked Wilson.

"They were cutting up bodies."

A horrible silence filled the room. The men stood motionless, staring at Timothy, burdened by the fact that was to follow.

"Who were they cutting up?" Jyro asked, already knowing the answer.

Timothy's eyes darted back and forth, catching for a moment all the tortured eyes of the men in the room with him…and the burned albino, who had fallen unconscious.

"Homeless men."

"Christ man, how were they doing it?" Wilson was clearly shaken, trembling, yanking nervously on his beard.

Timothy said, "With their tools. Saws, axes, knives. I…I saw it all."

Jyro peered at the carpet under his feet, noticing for the first time a smattering of thick, irregular stains. Blood. He stepped back a foot or so to an untainted section of the carpet, head jerking back and forth as additional stains came into view beneath the dim lighting. A dizziness beset him. The room seemed to grow very warm, and he nearly collapsed to his knees.

"And yet," Timothy said, "despite having witnessed a massive human slaughter, nothing could prepare my mind for what happened next."

The men waited in silence.

Timothy opened his mouth to speak…then stopped, eyes and mouth suddenly knotted with unmistakable terror. He raised his hand and pointed to the wall, gagging on the scream that would emerge from his throat seconds later.

Jyro spun around, along with the other men, who all began cursing out in fear as they staggered backwards toward the staircase.

The albino was crucified on the wall.

Chapter 12

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

There was no mistaking it now. It was there, replaying in his head over and over again. The music remained as well: an eerie reverse-playing environment to the whispering back-masked voice filling his head like a terrible headache.

And yet, despite its supernatural nature, and the fear it provoked in him, he knew that it was good, just as the stigmatic message from God had been: terribly frightening, and yet so mystically acceptable. He saw no choice but to heed its implication, and move on with his still unknown duty.

The rectory was indeed empty; he could not see so much as sense its barrenness. He'd been left to fend for himself by the others, all of whom were well on their way to setting their required tasks into action, whatever they may be.

In Sanchez's room, the digital clock on the nightstand was dark. But the battery operated clock (showing upon its face an image of Jesus shepherding sheep in a pasture) read exactly three AM. He assumed this to be the time until he felt his way through the darkness into the kitchen and saw the clock on the wall there, bathed in the pallid streak of light from the overhead emergency beacon, also reading precisely three AM.

Struggling to see, he stumbled his way through the rectory passage (where he again received a sharp twang of static shock upon gripping the doorknob) and moved back into the dark and empty Church of Holy Innocents.

Utter silence prevailed in the church, save for the quick, deep rush of air escaping his lungs, and pound of blood inside his head. Guided solely by the faux pulpit candlelight, he stepped across the dark harbor of the altar and moved down the three marble steps into the nave. His footsteps creaked hollowly as he went, the eyes of the saint statues on the altar seeming to pursue him down the center aisle. He shuddered, never in his life feeling so unprotected amid the consecrated walls that had always provided unparalleled levels of security and comfort.

Halfway down the aisle he stopped. He trembled uncontrollably, sensing he may not be alone after all. He twisted around, peered back at the altar. Here he observed the surrounding statues, gazing away from him as they should be; the crucifix, hanging upon the wall above the altar; and then, the confessionals, where hours earlier he'd been confronted with malignant images later to be encountered in his dreams.

Visions of apocalypse. Of an army of tattered men standing before a wall of raging fires and billowing black smoke. Of its aftermath: death, destruction, and decay, all but an embodiment of evil surviving its devastating perils.

He heard a noise: a light tapping from above, as though a pigeon were perched in the rafters, drumming out its boredom against a wide beam of wood.

He called out: "Anyone there? Monsignor Sanchez? Father Monteleone?"

No answer. The tapping ceased.

A wave of unsettling dizziness caught him and threw him off-balance. He sought out the firm stability of the closest pew, peering toward the altar in an attempt to seek comfort in its silent repose.

The statues continued to peer away from him, as though denying him their offer of solace. The life-sized Jesus figure hanging upon the cross behind the altar maintained its pained gaze toward the heavens, seemingly in search of an answer Pilazzo could never provide. He thought of the nightlight in his room and shuddered at the image of the painted Mary's eyes examining him, torn away from their faithful point upon the wall above his bed.

Your church awaits…

The tapping in the rafters returned, a bit louder this time. He drew his eyes away from the statues and looked into the darkened heavens above. He could see nothing, as the altar candles lacked the strength to cast their flickering glow to such heights. Ignoring the senseless sound, that tap, tap, tapping of some mindless pigeon, he moved on, more slowly now, eyes attentively exploring the pews. His blood raced hotly in his veins. A sweltering flash consumed his head like a burst from an open oven, and he used a hand to wipe his perspiring brow.

Tap…tap…tap…

Louder now.

Directly above him.

Something warm and wet beaded down upon his hands; he flinched, clenching his hands in immediate, anxious prayer.

He looked down…

…and saw dark, wet drops pooling between his fingers.

Tap…tap…tap…

Dear Jesus…

Blood.

Gooseflesh sheeted his body, infecting him with terror. He could feel the skin around his mouth tighten with fear as he twisted his neck upwards.

In the dark area above the crossbeam, he glimpsed a pair of eyes peering down at him.

There was a man up in the rafters.

A series of lightning-strike thoughts assaulted Pilazzo. The first thing he wondered was exactly how the man got up there; clearly one would need the aid of a ladder to explore such heights, as was evident by the paint crews that had treated the beams a few weeks back. Now, as his fear spread and his vision adjusted to the gloom, Pilazzo could see that the man perched upon the crossbeam was dressed in a white jumpsuit, heavily spotted and streaked with paint.

"Hey…" the priest called out weakly, his voice a notch above a whisper. He stood still, listening to his voice echo away into nothing. And then, at the very brink of audibility, the faint, wet drip of blood hitting the floor somewhere in the darkness.

The man, eyes gleaming despite a lack of reflective light, tapped something against the wood beam between his feet, tap…tap…tap…

Pilazzo's eyes pinned the object in the man's hand, and upon identifying it, felt the mounting fear in his body thrust him into a state of unbridled terror.

The man shifted his knees closer to his chest, perhaps in an effort to maintain his balance. His face was an expressionless mask, eyes feral, reflecting like an animal's gaze at night.

His hand flicked up and down as he pattered the flat edge of a priest's collar against the wooden beam, tap…tap…tap.

More blood dripped down, now onto Pilazzo's face.

Pilazzo staggered back. Using the back of his hand, he wiped at the blood on his cheeks and lips, then looked up again and saw with utter incredulity the plummeting body of Monsignor Sanchez.

He had only a second to react. He leaped head first down the aisle, much like a baseball player trying to stretch a double into a triple. His ribs collided hard against the floor, sending a hard shock of pain throughout his body. His teeth came down stiffly on his tongue, bringing about a sour tang of blood in his mouth.

Behind him, a hideous crack of bone against marble echoed throughout the church as the Monsignor's body crashed down against the floor.

Pilazzo shot his head around and with hideous disbelief saw Sanchez's body lying motionless on the floor. The monsignor had landed in a face-up position, arms and legs twisted into dreadful slants, eyes staring vacantly at Pilazzo. His head was arched backwards, gray hair tossed back like matted webs. A chisel or spackling knife jutted from his exposed throat, the hilt drenched with blood. His purple robe glistened wetly from neck to crotch.

From above: tap…tap…tap…

Pilazzo skittered backwards on all fours, gazing up at the rafters, at the man still perched there staring back at him with those horrible shimmering eyes. He continued tapping the plastic collar—Sanchez's collar!—against the wood beam, like some prehistoric man tooling with a slice of petrified bark.

Breathless gasps spurted from Pilazzo's lips. His shoes shuffled across the grainy marble in aimless fits. He cried out, assuming his seconds to be numbered, expecting the man to leap down and deliver into him a fate similar to that of his fallen brother.

But the seconds grew, and suddenly Pilazzo found himself clawing at the front doors of the church, gazing not at the man in the rafters whose unremitting gaze bore deep holes into his back, but at the brass hand plate screwed into the door. He struggled to his knees and pushed against it. The left door swung into the vestibule with a dry screech. Pilazzo scrambled across the threshold, guided by his undying will to live—to carry out the still indefinite task required of him by God.

Your church awaits you…

The door closed behind him, shutting him into the foyer—into darkness. A cloud of dust rose up, tickling his nostrils and palate. Bitter silence washed over him. He crawled toward the front doors, feeling with terror his eyes bulging in their sockets, his skin crawling, his gorge rising.

He struggled to his feet and with sick terror plunged through the front doors of the Church of Holy Innocents, into the unjust darkness of the night.

Chapter 13

The seconds felt like hours. The dim light in the lobby grew even dimmer as the emergency beacons struggled with their fading batteries. Jyro widened his eyes against the poor lighting, hands locked in instinctive prayer, hoping to corral a bit of realism back into his life.

A horrific silence hung over the room. The air grew suddenly cold and a slight breeze sprung up. Jyro felt his ears go pop, and then a sharp pain clawed across his brain as if a set of talons had latched on for purchase. He heard another noise—his breath running out of him in a sickly wheeze. The strength in his body, what little remained of it, seeped away from him in a similar way.

None of the men uttered a word—they simply stood there, amazed and petrified, unable to tear their eyes away from the albino man hanging on the wall.

Like a wax statue, the albino's scrawny white body remained inexplicably suspended, arms extended out, palms facing outwards (his burned hand smeared slimy blood on the wall behind it), each finger pinned against the chipped plaster. His legs were pressed together, bare ankles crossed as if knotted with hemp. A stink came off of him as rotten as garbage.

The man's eyes jerked open.

They stared at Jyro, red and ablaze with fire.

The man's mouth shot open, revealing bloody teeth and gums. His body began to shudder and tremble, like a man caught on an electrified fence.

Jesus…oh my Jesus…help me…save me…

Jyro tried to tear his eyes away. He tried to move. He tried to scream. But only raspy breathing came out.

A hurting, helpless sound spilled from the crucified man's mouth, and a jolt of pain rose out from the center of Jyro's brain. He looked and saw the others in the room grimacing, a few of them rubbing their heads in frightened response.

The albino's red eyes filled up with blood. Thin red lines coursed down his parchment cheeks like two filaments.

Jyro's mind screamed, I can't take any more of this! Creatures made of human waste! Men possessed by evil spirits! Help me God!

Help…me…

Lips barely moving, the albino spoke, voice weak and raspy: "One holds darkness, one holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. Find the sinless one…"

Using some final harsh effort of will, Jyro tried to step away, and may have succeeded but the all-consuming fear and terror made him numb.. He could feel only his lips moving, from which he may have produced a weak fearful sound.

The man on the wall began to jerk and spasm, inhumanly quick, looking like a frame-by-frame video suddenly put into fast-forward mode. These shocking movements made his skin appear almost gassy in nature, his face rippling as though caught in gale-force winds.

The words spilling from his trembling lips were broken, but perceptible: "The rosary belongs to the Mother, the chalice to the Darkest One. Only the sinless one can bear her charms to bring It down.

To Jyro, its meaning was instant and conclusive: that one of them would need to use the rosary to defeat the hideous evil assuming control of the church…the church, and then perhaps much more beyond the crumbling walls imprisoning them.

But which one of them would it be?

Dark blood ran down the wall from the albino's palms. His eyes, still wide-open, were completely white now, nearly matching that of his skin. His lips drew back, revealing slick red gums. He made a cheated hissing sound.

Bewilderment and revulsion crept through Jyro, face and mind twisted with the extremity of his fright. He felt his sanity crumbling, eyes unable to render themselves away from the ancient-looking figure, the man whose body was caught in some possessive struggle of Good attempting to deliver its message against Evil. Here, Jyro realized, was an ethereal tug-of-war taking place with an albino vagrant being used as the rope.

A torrent of wind flooded the room, like the one upstairs. It blew over the men, whipping through their clothes, chilling their blood. The albino released a wretched scream—the agonized cry of a prisoner subjected to a thousand tortures. Brown vomit arced out of his mouth and landed in a splatter halfway across the room. Dallas gave out a horrific scream and cupped a wrinkled hand over his mouth. Wrath was the closest to the line of fire and backpedaled away, catching a few rebounding scraps in the leg. A second heave poured down the albino's chest. A horrible smell immediately saturated the room, like bad meat soaked in whiskey. Jyro's stomach leaped, and an acidic burp scorched his throat.

"Oh shit, oh Jesus!" Wilson shouted. He ripped across the room and staggered halfway up the steps. He spun and looked on, eyes starting from his face, beard trapping drips of spit as it spluttered from his mouth.

There came more answering cries in the room. Rollo blabbered an inaudible prayer. Marcus cried out and coughed up a huge wad of phlegm, which he deposited on the floor. Weston slid an arm around Seymour and helped him away from the albino as everyone retreated toward the staircase.. Timothy gripped his head. "Oh my God! It hurts, it hurts!"

The albino cried out, "Castigo laudible, corpus meum!" Then his trembling slowed. The force that held him up seemed to slip, and his hands fell away from the wall. His throat swelled like a balloon as he coughed, "Destroy…the…evil…that…promises…man…the…end…of…days…"

Trying like mad to think past the crude image in front of him, Jyro tottered into the center of the room, away from the clutch of cowering men and toward what he felt was an answer to this horrific enigma, despite the cries of protest behind him. With each step he took, the answers in his head grew clearer. He could feel his eyes bugging, his mouth hanging open, his bowels cramping furiously...but he could also feel his mind working overtime, as though some buried gears he didn't know about were now set into motion. Something inside him (damn, if it didn't feel like a little voice in his head) had helped him make sense of the man's words, which he knew now, had not been articulated through any focused intent on the man's part, but were in fact messaged through the undying will of Good lying beneath the shroud of Evil crucified upon the wall.

I can see…I understand…

The twisting breeze in the room hit Jyro hard. The tangle of hair on his head flew up like a wing, and he had to shutter his eyes as grit flew into his face. Arms raised, he howled his erratic thoughts through the storm, praying his desperate words made sense to the Good inside the man: "What is this evil?"

The man uttered one word, "Chalice,", then slid off the wall and collapsed to the floor in a knotted heap of rags and flesh, leaving jagged smatters of blood behind. At the same instant, the icy wind in the room dissipated, leaving everyone shivering in its chilling wake.

Staring at the now motionless man, Jyro muttered, "The chalice that belongs to the Darkest One…"

Dear God, help us…

A few seconds of silence passed before the remaining men started riling about. Incredibly, despite all the warnings of the past, Seymour leaped at the door again, this time with his coat wrapped around his hands. He screamed, "Get me the hell outta here!" As he came in contact with the door, a blue flame burst up and the coat immediately caught fire. He shouted out in agony, finding himself the recipient of a smoking scald on his face. "Shit! Shit!" he screamed, tossing the coat to the floor. He collapsed down on his rear, both eyes bulging like balloons behind the clouded lenses of his glasses, nose and both cheeks red and blistered, oozing drops of blood.

Jyro kept his eyes glued to the albino, now motionless and twisted, lying in a puddle of blood and vomit. His pants were bunched up high around his knees, exposing legs resembling snow-covered branches. His drawn face stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, blanched eyes coated in blood, mouth pulled into a rictus grin of terror, baring slick red gums. He looked like someone who'd just died after years of a debilitating illness.

Timothy hobbled over to Jyro and stood alongside him, gripping the vagrant's arm for support. "N-Now what?"

"We wait," he replied automatically, eyes still fixed on the fallen man. The dead man.

"The chalice…the one he spoke of. I saw it."

Jyro nodded, and after a few seconds of daunting silence, replied, "So did I," at once realizing that he hadn't mentioned anything about seeing the chalice until this moment. He wanted to add, I'm the one who released it from its ancient bonds, but decided this information would do him and the rest of the men no good.

His harried thoughts quickly triggered back to the rosary, still in the possession—he assumed—of one-eared Larry. Both Larry and the crucified man had said, The mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. He recalled holding the rosary in his hands, how it had offered his fatigued body a level of strength and resilience previously unfelt for many years. Protection. And then, how it had seemingly healed Timothy's hands of the burns he'd suffered. How it seemed, by some incredible miracle, to be healing from a distance the wounds of those who were burned in their attempts to flee. Clearly this rosary was a powerful charm, and with its rightful possessor, a presumably critical weapon against the Evil rising in the church.

"I saw it floating in the air," Timothy said, looking frantically at the others, all of whom saw no choice but to stand by and listen as he spoke, except for Seymour, who had repositioned himself against the wall, staring at his burns. "Right above the hole in the rec room. This is what I started mentioning earlier, before…before…" Tears filled his eyes, and he shuddered visibly, the words throttling in his throat.

"Tell us," Weston said, oddly composed and strong in contrast to Timothy's state of panic. He placed a hand on Timothy's shoulder. A healed hand. "What did you see?"

Timothy took a deep labored breath, closed his eyes, and said, "It was swaying back and forth, like a pendulum. And it was big, maybe the size of a small barrel, or something."

"Bigger than when I saw it." Did it actually grow in size? Become bigger? Stronger? Suspicious of several accusatory stares, Jyro took a long, nervous breath, blew it out, and motioned for Timothy to continue.

"I watched as the workers dragged the body parts to the hole. They…they slit open the torsos and tilted them over the edge so that all the blood and guts dumped out into it. Jesus…" he moaned, "there was so much blood…" He began to sob, shoulders hitching up and down.

"Go on, kid," Jyro said, tugging his beard. "It's important you tell us what you saw."

Timothy nodded repeatedly, speaking as he did so: "After a few minutes, it'd…it'd started shooting up out of the hole."

"What did?" Weston asked, eyes skirting back and forth between Timothy and the downed man.

"The blood."

"The blood?"

"Yes..." He nodded again. "It looked as if there was some kind of pump down there. It just started squirting up in these thin streams and was splashing against the floating chalice. It seemed as if the chalice was absorbing it, because I didn't see anything dripping back down into the hole. The whole time this was going on, the construction workers kept on with the bodies, dumping the blood into the hole; it seemed that for each body they gutted, another stream of blood would shoot up.

All on its own, Jyro thought. Like the blood on the floor that stirred demonic life into the waste in the toilet. Did it stir some sort of life into the chalice?

Timothy halted, breathing in deeply through his nose in a struggle to gather some composure. "Some of the bodies…even though they were dismembered, I could see them…they were still alive. They were gutted! Gutted! And yet, I…I could hear them moaning, I could see the mouths moving on them! One of them, just a torso with only the head attached…he was looking over at me. His eyes, were bloody and…and bulging…and moving…and his mouth was opening and closing as if trying to speak to me…"

With this, Timothy trailed off. He started crying hysterically, hiding his face in his trembling hands.

"Jesus kid, why didn't you say anything when you first came upstairs and found us?"

Timothy shook his head, confused, stammering through his tears, "I…I don't know. I was in shock at the time, and the images of what I'd seen…I could only vaguely remember them. It was as if they were being blocked, as if something was trying to stop me from talking about it. Now…I mean, now I can remember everything…" The boy ran his hands through his hair and shouted, "Jesus Christ, what's happening?"

"The shit's hitting the fan, that's what," Wilson said.

Jyro shook his head and gripped his cheeks, looking sorrowfully at the men, all of them, eight strong now plus one boy, gazing back at him in their pathetic states, tattered before they arrived, now beaten down like roadkills, each and every one of them looking worse than Jesus must've after rising from the dead.

"Lotta good my years as an altar boy did me," he uttered.

Sudden, unmistakable silence filled the room. Weston shot Jyro a serious glance, eyes wide, mouth falling open. "You were an altar boy?" he asked, face flaming with shock.

Jyro nodded. "Yeah. Why?"

"So was I."

"I…was…too…," Wrath added without delay, suspicion and shock narrowing his watery brown eyes. "And then after that, a minister."

Right away, the others followed suit, and in seconds the group of vagrants caught amid the tainted walls of the Church of St. Peter discovered that in their lives prior to falling from grace and turning to the streets of Manhattan, had once either been altar boys, ministers, or priests.

Holy men.

Wilson said, "I suppose it's obvious now as to why we were the ones called here, eh Jyro?"

Jyro nodded in utter astonishment, realizing now with the sudden onset of this revelation that his prior assumption of some rationale for them being here was in fact justifiable.

He nodded, smiled with no humor, and replied, "Well then, my brothers, lets figure out how we go about getting our hands on the chalice."

Chapter 14

Darkness prevailed like a deadly virus. Not a single pinpoint of light sliced through the windows all around him. The street posts spanning the length of the block were out, standing vague and frozen like sentries at the gates of some dark palace. In an appropriate bond, heaven's boundless canopy lay gray and dismal across the sky like a woolen blanket, cloaking the moon, the stars, and the city's uppermost rooftops.

In the distance however, Manhattan's power burned on, the faraway lights like dim beacons on a dark, billowing ocean. For this, Pilazzo was thankful. Head down, he raced away from the church as quickly as his aching legs would take him. Not once did he look back, knowing that regardless how this all played out, he'd never set foot inside the Church of Holy Innocents again. It was tainted now…tainted by a pure, nameless evil.

But what perils lie ahead, in my church? The church that awaits me?

His footsteps echoed in the night, slapping the gritty ground not unlike they had upon escaping Holy Innocents. Guided solely by the dim and distant streetlights—(beacons)—he turned the corner and raced across the street, onto the sidewalk of 2nd Avenue. Here, thankfully, a few scattered posts burned on. He thought, I'm having a breakdown, and I'm going to die soon, feeling the heat of the night attacking him. He began to feel ill, and imagined it a physical symptom of fear. Then he came to realize that he hadn't eaten in over twenty hours. He briefly recalled stories of mystics who'd experienced stigmata and had apparently gone weeks without consumption, their claims of being guided solely by God reinforcing their constraint for food. He wondered if this was happening to him now.

Guided by God…

The strength bled out of his legs, and he saw no choice but to slow down. Walking now, he could feel his lungs burning, wheezing for precious air. Lightheaded, he nearly collapsed onto the pavement.

A sudden blare of light emerged in his mind's eye, and in this light he beheld an image, that of the crumbling Church of St Peter. My home—my sanctuary. The image appeared as a defined silhouette, beckoning him forward just as the words scrawled in ash upon his bedroom wall did. He again came to realize that he was being guided by some greater power, and the clues being provided to him would point the way.

Your church awaits…

So he forced himself to press on, conscientiously seeking out the stability of the parking meters for precious support. He reached the street corner and leaned against a mailbox, a flyer slapped on its rusty hood advertising a techno nightclub called Atmosphere. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and peered across the street to the opposite corner. It appeared unreachable, caught in shadows of darkness and light.

Heaving and sweating, his thoughts whipped about his mind like grains in a sandstorm, demanding that he move on with his journey into the unknown…into the impending war of Good vs. Evil. I can't! his fatigued body screamed, wishing for the time and energy to reconsider the peculiar events leading him here. But he knew this possibility did not exist. Some higher authority, God!, needed him in a specific place, and the time to go there was now, without delay. He only hoped his mission would in some way be explained to him upon his arrival at St Peter's.

He looked around and saw that the city continued to lay in terrible silence, with no cars or cabs racing back and forth on 2nd Avenue. Typically, in the early morning hours, life existed everywhere in the city, lacking only the congestion of the daytime hours. Here and now, looking both ways, he could see that nothing existed.

Nothing…except for the man standing in the middle of the street, staring at him.

The man remained at a distance…a safe distance Pilazzo immediately gathered by his intense, troubled stare, his downcast scowl; in some inconceivable way, this strange man—the only other living being in sight—appeared afraid of him.

Pilazzo straightened his body and slowly stepped backwards, across the sidewalk. He kept his eyes trained on the man, who wore jeans, a dirty white tee-shirt, and a leather utility belt wrapped around his waist.

The man was a construction worker.

Standing with his muscled arms at his sides and his dark, blazing eyes fixed upon the priest, the worker opened his mouth and released a screeching howl on par with something a dog might make upon having its leg chopped off.

Pilazzo backpedaled into the storefront behind him. A loud crash sounded as the store's gate, loose upon its hinges, wavered back and forth.

His thoughts quickly triggered back to the construction workers he encountered on the subway platform the previous day. They were scared of me, he remembered. With an odd mixture of sick dread and relief, he saw that this man remained unmoving like the other workers had, stiff and wide-eyed in the center of the street. Thin runners of spit, like windswept webs, hung from his gaping mouth. Despite the warmth of the night, his breath was visible as it unfurled from his wet lips.

Pilazzo staggered along the length of the gate then darted across the street. Heart pounding furiously, lungs pulling hopelessly for air, he continued racing away from the man, down the sidestreet toward 3rd Avenue.

Just ahead, another figure emerged from an apartment well.

Pilazzo gasped. He put his hands to his heart, expecting a jolt of pain or even a twinge of an ache, but felt nothing.

Nothing but fear, and the clear image of horror before him.

In the semidarkness, Pilazzo could see the figure—a man—hauling a body out of the well. Holding it by the arms, the man dragged it down the sidewalk, toward the priest.

Pilazzo skidded to a stop against a parked sedan, now aware of sirens blaring in the distant, of acrid smoke saturating the air.

Fire.

The man looked at Pilazzo, grunted. The flickering light of the streetlamp he passed under reflected off his sweaty, hairless dome.

Dear God, what is happening…?

The man was a construction worker, this one clothed in jeans and an orange safety vest. Tattoos ran the length of his flexing arms. His clothing was painted with patchy, black stains. The motionless man in his grasp appeared to have been a homeless vagrant, judging by his tattered clothes and straggly beard. He was dead, having met his fate beneath the thrust of two orange-handled screwdrivers jutting from his eyes like road flares. Fresh blood poured from his sockets down his face. His pants, bunched to the thighs, bared legs coated with grime-puckered scabs.

The worker stopped, then grasped the body by its matted hair and arched the head back, placing the vagrant's face beneath the streetlamp's flickering light. The screwdrivers wavered up and down like batons in the hands of a tarmac guide.

The worker laughed, deeply, gutturally.

Pilazzo was momentarily paralyzed, unable to gather even the slightest bit of momentum in his legs. In his mind, a voice whispered, Your church awaits, and this simple line of remembrance provided him with the fortitude to carry on with his task, whatever it might be.

He heard a shuffling noise behind him. He spun around. The worker that had stood in the middle of the street was now leaning against the corner street-sign. His eyes were rolled up into his skull, baring only stark whites. His teeth were bared, white and glimmering.

From around the corner, another man joined him, his profession of a city laborer evident by the yellow hardhat on his head…and the circular saw in his hands, its electrical cord dangling like a tail. He jabbed the saw forward, grunting with each derisive movement, "Uhrr…uhrr…uhrr…, childishly emulating the saw's rev.

Breaking his sense of paralyzing terror, Pilazzo slid between a pair of parked sedans and staggered across the street. Only now did he see the clear logic of screaming out loud in the deadly silence of the night—death seemed the only end-result in allowing the workers to maintain their quiet approach upon him. He grabbed at his hysterical thoughts, and managed, somehow, to corral them, brain once again bellowing, Your church awaits!

He lurched drunkenly down the sidewalk, peripherally seeing even more workers gathering, not coming after him but keeping a watch on him from a distance with their poisoned, white gazes. They were murderers, Pilazzo thought. Each and every one of them, accessories to a crime that would land them in jail forever.

Or Hell…

But it didn't really matter at the moment. Something dark and evil was influencing them, just as something good attempted to guide him forward and provide him with a safe harbor that discouraged the workers from killing him.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw with horror six or seven men now—all of them construction workers—milling about on the sidewalk with utter disregard for the dead man at their feet, possessing eyes pointed unwaveringly in his direction as he fled down the street.

Reaching 3rd Avenue, he saw smoke billowing from a distant downtown building, sirens blaring nearby.

My goodness, he thought, instantly reminded of his vision: An army of tattered men facing a great evil rising up before a wall of raging fires and blackened smoke…

People shouted in the distance…and now, a number of confused individuals who'd apparently caught news of some murderous anarchy going down in the city, ran aimlessly across the shadowy street.

Soon, Pilazzo assumed, there would be many more people crawling from their beds to take witness of the hellfire budding upon the streets of New York City.

He turned and saw the construction workers making a slow, tentative approach toward him, stalking him like a gang of prowling jackals.

A girl ran by them, her face a sickly pale-white.

They paid her no interest.

They kept their gazes on him—the priest whom they inexplicably feared. How can this be? he wondered. What would happen, he thought for a crazy moment, if he chose to spin around and charge after them? Would they run? Would they cower in defense?

Would they grab him, kill him?

He didn't want to find out. He turned and staggered away from the men, gripping the steel post edging the entrance to the subway for support. Somewhere close by, a woman screamed. Even closer, a dog started barking ferociously.

Unreality washed over Pilazzo. He took a hurried breath. Then, seeing no other option, he stumbled down the steps, deep into the bowels of Manhattan.

Chapter 15

In the battered rectory of St Peter's Church, the homeless men drew together in a loose circle, all of them frantically searching their thoughts for answers, but unable to come up with any.

Marcus lit another cigarette from his seemingly never-ending pack and blew a cloud of smoke out toward the downed albino. He had dried blood on his lips and cheek, and Jyro wondered who it came from. Seymour had fallen into a pained stupor, and was sitting on the floor with his head drooped down between his raised knees. His hands had turned an angry shade of purple, and rag-sized cuts of skin hung from them like gauzy veils. Rollo wore out a path between the men and the steps, lips uttering some unheard prayer. Weston and Wrath were whispering to one another, each man giving Timothy a guarded look.

The room had grown very cold. A light steam rose up from the blood and vomit beneath the motionless albino. All those present shuddered uncontrollably as they considered their only option.

Wilson was the first to speak. "So what we need to do is get our mitts on this chalice you're talking about."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Dallas asked, hugging his frail body for warmth. He'd been running his hands through his grizzled hair, setting it into an Einstein perm.

The men discussed what they knew. Both Jyro and Timothy had claimed seeing the chalice floating over a deep hole. From the chalice, Jyro had said, fires rose six feet in the air with a gush of foul-smelling wind that physically knocked him down. Again Timothy described the streams of blood that spewed up out of the hole like shots from a fountain.

Wrath said, "Even without all that, trying to reach a trophy too far out of reach is dangerous."

"We should see if it's still there first," Jyro said. "And then make a decision on what to do."

"And if it isn't there?"

"Then we look elsewhere."

Wilson, eyes glued fearfully to the heap of twisted flesh on the floor that used to be a man, yanked nervously on his dreadlocks. "Man, I sure I hope it ain't."

Jyro peered down the dark hall. He took a deep wheezy breath, remembering how he'd seen the light from the chalice's fires flickering against the hallway wall. Now the hallway lay in darkness, the twin-doorway on the right nearly buried in shadows.

"We need flashlights," Wrath said, moving in alongside Jyro, bald head glistening in the pallid light.

Jyro looked up toward the ceiling. "Larry's stockpile of tools. I'd lifted one from there earlier. Timothy found a penlight there, too. There might be more."

Wrath turned and peered up the winding steps like a child with anxious thoughts of monsters under the bed. "I'll go," he said, falsely eager. "Where are they?"

"There's a sliding closet in the bedroom. They're inside, under a blanket." Jyro looked at the hallway door, thinking for a moment of the all those who'd burned themselves there earlier—Wrath, Weston, and Timothy—and then of their wounds that were nearly healed now. The rosary. It healed my pains when I possessed it, he thought, flexing his arms. He looked over at Seymour and thought, just for a moment, that his injured hands were starting to look…better.

Marcus said, deep voice clogged with phlegm, "Maybe the tools could be used as weapons. Something to protect us." He coughed, then pulled another Winston from the tattered pack in his pocket and lit it with the one he just finished.

Jyro nodded, trying to theorize how a few screwdrivers or awls might prove useful against the inexplicable evil possessing the church. He considered the painful absurdity of the idea…then realized, if anything, that the tools might serve as a means of security to this force of eight desperate men.

Wrath said, "I'll gather what I can."

With silent determination, the big black man climbed the dark staircase, all those downstairs left behind, watching with a mixture of fear and cautiousness. As soon as Wrath disappeared around the turn, Weston ascended a few steps and waited, while Marcus and Wilson gathered at the bottom step, listening.

"Shout out if you see anything," Weston called, and Jyro wondered with skepticism if any of them would dare race up those steps if the biggest and strongest one of their bunch started screaming bloody murder. Certainly not the elderly Dallas, whose pale tattoos looked older than Jyro himself.

The men waited in silence, and in these passing moments Jyro felt an odd disconnection with himself, as though his mind were floating away from his body. He shivered and a despondent voice inside his head screamed, Help me! not a second before Wrath shouted, "Holy Shit!"

Jyro shuddered back into reality. He staggered as Weston leaped down the steps, not in fear of what had Wrath so startled, but to simply get out of the fleeing man's way. Weston lunged past Wilson and Marcus, then spun into a defensive posture and watched along with the others as a grimacing Wrath bounded down the steps like a pissed-off bull.

The big man lurched into the center of the group, screaming, perhaps on the verge of losing all control, then spun around and peered up the steps in fearful silence, bottom lip trembling below a pair of bugging eyes.

"What is it?" Jyro stared at him, wrought with panic and confusion. What could be more frightening than a possessed man crucified on the wall?

Wrath pointed a trembling hand toward the stairs, lips drawn back to reveal huge white teeth, saliva running from them in loose smatters. His barrel-like chest heaved.

From upstairs came a string of plodding footsteps that were soon muffled as they met the runner covering the upper landing. The men waited, watching in rigid silence as they listened to the footsteps slowly descending the steps, one at a time, thump…thump…thump…

From around the turn, six steps up, they saw.

First the booted feet, doused in blood, leaving wet footprints behind as thick as mud tracks. Another step, legs up to the calves, the saturation of blood as deep upon the trousers as on the boots. Another step, the thighs now in view, the blood there substantial but in streaks, winding up to the tattered shirt. Another step, and as the hands came into view, Jyro realized they were looking at one-eared Larry, thief of tools.

Wilson yelled, "Oh man, oh my God, oh man…"

Rollo blurted, "Dear Jesus!"

The world spun and swung around Jyro, and in his wavering sight could see the rosary dangling from Larry's filthy leathery fingers, the carved cross swinging back and forth in his outstretched hand, gripping Jyro almost immediately as it beckoned him once again toward its mystical charm. Jyro squeezed his eyes shut, denying himself of the charm's lure. He clasped his hands together and shook his head vigorously.

When he opened his eyes, he could see the whole horror of the man before him, two steps up and standing there in all his filthy tainted glory, staring at the men through a mask of shit and gore: nose pulverized, lips split, cheeks battered and bloodied, smeared with black waste. And his eyes…still very much alive, aglow with fearlessness, moving wildly back and forth, pinning all the men.

Jyro thought: There's no way this man could be alive, and then his conscience added: or human.

The thing that had become Larry was in an Elephant Man-like stance, one arm to his side, the other extended, twisted fingers clutching the rosary. His arms—mere bones covered in scant flesh—were fixed and motionless. His teeth glistened wetly, dark brown stuff seeping out between their wide gaps.

And the rosary swayed back and forth and back and…

It was a standstill, Larry on the second step, the rest of the men, all eight of them, a dozen feet away, unwilling to make a move.

Except for Timothy.

He took a step forward.

Jyro whispered, "Kid! Get back here now!"

Weston reached out to grab him but the boy took another step forward, out of his reach. Now perhaps three feet away from Larry (whose freakish eyes continued to remain the only part of him moving), the boy reached out with a shaky hand, fixing to grab the rosary.

Larry didn't move. He didn't look at Timothy. He just stood there, arm extended in a gruesome lawn jockey pose, dead skin flaking off in tiny peels, dusting the floor.

The rosary's charm swung slowly, from side to side.

Timothy took another step closer, and Jyro could see that no one, himself included, was willing to move between them. He could sense the tense silence in the room, and it made him nauseous and weak. A battle was about to be waged and his nerves had taken hold of him, denying him the strength to endure the situation.

The boy stepped forward, outstretched hand only eighteen inches from the rosary now, if that. Jyro closed his eyes and winced, fearing the next few moments. As he peered into the swirling blackness of his eyelids, he heard a shuffling, blundering commotion.

He opened his eyes and saw Larry in all his gory glory lunging forward, fist cocked, arm lashing out, targeting Timothy's face.

Jyro could see, in the split-moment before contact, the panic in Timothy's face as the boy's arms went up, too late to block the punch. Larry's fist connected with Timothy's right eye-socket.

The boy made an "Oomph!" sound and thumped down on his rear, both hands pressed to his face. Weston and Wrath immediately grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away from Larry.

Larry darted past the men, toward the exit. Jyro (and perhaps a few of the others) thought about charging him. But the beaten vagrant, clearly under a state of unnatural influence—like the shit-beast, Jyro thought—was too great a threat worth confronting.

Larry grabbed the doorknob with both hands.

A cobalt fire lanced out, the bright flash stemming up Larry's arms like man-made lightning in a fishbowl gadget. Jyro brought his hands up to shield his eyes, expecting the man to go up in flames. But the fire fizzled out, seeming not to affect the mad vagrant, as though his clothes were coated in some kind of fire-retardant material. In daunting silence, Larry fled through the door, leaving it slightly ajar behind him.

A few seconds passed. There was no sound except for the door leading out into the church slamming shut, and Seymour crying from his spot on the floor against the wall. His face was held in his hands, and Jyro could see that they had relinquished their purple hue for a freshly healed pink sheen.

Wilson stepped to the door. He peered through the slight gap. "I can't see anything. It's dark."

"Let…him…go," Jyro said, the room rolling in and out of focus. It was a struggle for him to speak, but still he mustered the strength to add, "The rosary…it will be delivered to its rightful possessor. We…we need to find the chalice."

"How can you be so sure?" Weston looked at Jyro, face pale except for the dark circles that had settled in under his eyes.

"Jyro…" Timothy grimaced, climbing to his feet. "We have to get it from him."

"Listen to the man," Wrath interjected, voice deep and booming. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, gentle but firm. "Our message has been delivered, our mission laid out before us. Let us gather ourselves, and abide by it as a group. There's strength in numbers."

Jyro nodded vigorously, thankful for the support. The rest of the men followed suit, along with Timothy, whose eye was swelling up and turning an angry purple.

"The chalice…" Timothy uttered painfully, looking as if he were going to puke. "We…" he trailed off, seemingly drained of any strength to continue.

The men needed to hear no more. They knew. There would be no chance for escape without it.

Jyro stared at Timothy for a moment, then working against his fear, motioned down the dark hallway toward the rec room. "Let's go see if the chalice is still there."

Chapter 16

The subway station lay silent and desolate. Like the street outside the Church of Holy Innocents, not a soul gathered. The main overhead lights were out, but all the emergency beacons still glowed, bathing the wide area in sickly yellow light.

Pilazzo passed the attendant booth and saw with dismay that someone had smashed the plexi casement and looted what cash they could find inside. A sunburst of blood was painted over the subway system map inside. Pilazzo guessed that on the floor below, amid the shards of inch-thick Plexiglas he'd always presumed to be shatterproof, the body of the attendant lay in a dead heap.

He stooped beneath the turnstile and walked briskly down the steps to the platform.

A subway train sat on the tracks, its doors open, interior lights flickering; he could hear the electric charge of them buzzing, a stench of ozone and urine saturating the air.

He turned around, and with both fear and an odd sense of comfort, saw that he was alone.

Seeing no place to sit, he leaned against the closest support column and began to cry. It was just a few sobs at first but soon the floodgates opened and the wails spilled from his mouth ungoverned, joining the warm tears streaking down his face. After a time, he stopped and gazed up the stairs that led to the outside world…and then, to the train that continued to sit motionless amid a thin wisp of acrid smoke and sputtering lights.

The open door beckoned him.

He was afraid…but wasn't terrified as he felt he should be, and couldn't fathom as to why. There were murders being committed on the streets, chaos erupting into what might be riotous proportions…and yet inexplicably he still maintained his composure—his will to press forward and move on with his mission.

Your church awaits…

He took a step toward the open train door.

From behind him came a voice, a mocking call: Uh-boo-hoo-hooooo…" It was the type of feigned blubber a schoolyard bully might make after shoving a nerdy nemesis into a mud puddle.

Pilazzo froze, abrupt fear whizzing up and down his spine. He peered over his shoulder and saw not just one man but four men standing perhaps twenty feet away. They were huddled alongside one another, staring at him, eyes feral beneath the dim lighting.

One of the men, taller than the rest, called out with derision and sarcasm, "Time to play, priest. Time to plaaaayyyy!" His head jerked back and forth, shoulder length hair brushing in and out of his face.

The men moved forward as a group, gaits hideous and unnatural, jerking and wrenching as if manipulated by intermittent surges of power. Pilazzo could see none of them boasting any kind of construction gear. But he knew: they were workers. They had muscles. They were tanned, with soiled jeans and red tee-shirts emblazoned with graphic logos.

They were afraid of him.

Like the others, they fear me. Here I stand, utterly defenseless, in a place where they could murder me as they did Thomas, and that hobo. But, they do not because…because they cannot. I do not know how I know this, but it is perfectly clear in my head, perfectly lucid.

It is the Goodness that protects you, Antonio…

Through the splay of watery light and hazy smoke, he could see a large wrench clutched in the hand of one worker. The worker grinned and gnashed his teeth, slamming the tool into his palm in an intimidating I'm-going-to-club-you gesture.

Pilazzo took a step back, icy breath suddenly misting from his mouth.

The tall worker's laughs persisted without restraint. Pilazzo could see his eyes rolling up into their sockets, showing slick whites.

In his head, a whispering voice: Rosary…rosary…rosary…

NO!!!

The worker mocked, "Come plaaayyyy with us, priest!" His wicked laughs continued, polluting the deadly silence with insane evil.

A brutal welling of emotions beset Pilazzo, intense fear coupled with pure disgust and anger. Part of him wanted to shout out and defy the evil that was toying with him, attempting to lure him into its bizarre trap, but he followed his heart and the will of the message sent to him by this evil's adversary, and staggered into the train.

As soon as he stepped inside, the doors closed. The lights continued flickering, leaving him countering intervals of light and darkness. He grasped onto the closest pole, palm slick against the silvery surface. Dizziness rolled over him. He closed his eyes tightly, praying.

With a sudden smack, the hands of the workers struck the dirty windows. He startled, stomach hurling bitter acids into his throat, watching as blood smeared the clear plastic. They peered into the train, only the whites of their eyes clearly visible, fingernails scratching harshly against the hard surface.

The worker with the wrench thrashed it forward and drove it right through the window, and it was only now upon witnessing this man's supernatural strength that Pilazzo understood how the token booth had been smashed. The worker bucked and thrashed outside the train, trying to batter his way through, shoving his face forward and cackling like a monster in a dark-ride attraction. His eyes were turned inward so much that the veins and tendons were visible, red and blue and fit to rupture.

"NO!" Pilazzo screamed. He backed up against the opposite door…but couldn't pull his tortured eyes away from the men with their twisted faces and bloodied hands bludgeoning through the shattered window. The lights continued to buzz and flicker and then the train started moving forward, and Pilazzo knew that if he raced through to the front of the train he wouldn't find a motorman at the helm.

The four workers kept pace with the train as it moved, whipping their heads back and forth like Dobermans gnawing at a steel cage. The worker with the wrench reached farther inside and the flesh of his forearm tore open on an exposed shard of plastic. Blood gushed, painting the seat below.

Pilazzo's mind ran like mad: If they are afraid of me, then why come after me now, with a barrier between us? Is it their mission to simply scare me? Weaken me?

The train picked up speed, too quickly for the workers to keep up now, and they abruptly fell away. All of them except the worker with the wrench. His arm was still snagged on the shard of plastic. Sprinting, the worker roared like an injured wildebeest as he tried like crazy to yank his arm free. Blood burst from his wound.

His derision morphed into utter distress as he lost his footing and fell. Now the speeding train was dragging him.

Crunch!

Pilazzo flinched as the worker disappeared and the darkness of the subway tunnel enclosed the windows. The lights in the train buzzed out at that instant, and in a quick flash of blue volts from inside the tunnel, Pilazzo could see the worker's severed arm thump onto the bloody seat across from him, the hand open, the wrench it held clanging to the floor. An abrupt spatter of warmth hit his face, and he knew as the lights flickered back on that he'd been sprayed with the worker's blood. He wiped his eyes in a panic and watched with sick horror as the fingers shriveled into the severed hand like the appendages of a spider beneath a shot of insecticide.

The train moved at a rapid clip, passing the next station without a hint of slowing down. The station he regularly got off at was four stops away. He wondered if the train would stop there at all.

Somehow, he felt it would.

He quickly recalled what Thomas Sanchez had said to him, the Monsignor's final words: We are being summoned. Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

And in his mind: Your church awaits…

"Priest…" This voice, low and gravely.

He shot a startled glance down the length of the car.

Seated at the opposite end was a vagrant, the same homeless man that had touched his shoulder upon returning to Holy Innocents yesterday afternoon.

In his mind's eye, the vision returned, as clear as a television transmission: blackened skies and an army of tattered men facing a great evil rising up before a wall of raging fires and billowing smoke…

His breath escaped him. He felt his lungs grasping for air. Dizziness shrouded his ability to see, and he had to close his eyes. A stench of smoke filled his nose and he felt himself edging very close to death: an accumulation of fear and uncertainty slowly murdering him.

He heard the vagrant speak: "Your church awaits, priest…"

Grasping the seat's handrail, he opened his eyes.

The vagrant stood now only ten feet away, staring at him, eyes wide and mournful, sheened with gummy tears. The homeless man extended a callused hand, displaying what appeared to be a thick wrinkle of crimson scars around his ring finger.

Pilazzo gasped. The lights in the train flashed, and in the transcendent darkness saw his mother standing there, just as she did in his dream, garbed in a black billowing robe, a single finger pressed across her lips. In his mind he heard her utter one word: Antonio…

Oh my God…

The lights flashed back on.

His mother's image was gone.

So was the vagrant.

Pilazzo shot a glance about the train, hands groping the handrail as he looked under the seats. He saw no sign of the vagrant. He stood up, peered under his own seat. Nothing.

The train pulled into a station. The brakes squealed, sending up an odor of burning metal. He wobbled as the train slowed, grabbed hold of the support pole, and peered out the blood-smeared window. The signs indicated he was at the 78th Street station.

I'm here. My church awaits…

The train stopped. The doors opened.

He looked, hesitated, tried to swallow but couldn't. Listening, he heard nothing. Saw no movement.

The train planned to travel no further.

Mumbling a prayer, he exited onto the platform, staggered away from the train and leaned up against the closest support column.

Here, he gazed up the steps leading to the streets of Manhattan.

One block away from the Church of St Peter.

Chapter 17

The men moved as a loose group, Jyro leading the way. He held a lighter out before him, the faint hiss audible in the tense silence. Jyro could see the pile of debris at the end of the hall, flickering like a restless ghost. But that was all. The wall beyond lay entirely in darkness.

Weston moved in alongside Jyro, head bobbing in a rhythm, holding a small plank of wood with both hands, ready to swing it should the need arise.  Following close behind were Seymour and Dallas, then Wilson, Timothy, Marcus and Rollo, with Wrath anchoring the procession. They passed the lunchroom and then the lockers, all of them peering ahead to the doors leading into the rec room. Just inside the entrance, a white light blared, much brighter than the emergency beacons in the lobby, enabling them to see the hole in the floor as they went inside.

Putting aside the big hole, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the room. There were no floating chalices. No fires or wind. And no fountaining streams of blood.

From the back of the line, Wrath called out, "What do you see?"

Jyro stepped forward, panting nervously at the mere sight of the hole. His feet crunched on bits of debris, some of it wet, but most of it not. Weston and the others shuffled in close behind him.

"Nothin' but a big hole," he said. A cold chill traced its way up his back.

"Plenty of light here." Jyro turned and saw Dallas peering up at the beacon, bloodshot eyes gazing woefully at the exposed bulbs jutting from the wall. He raised a tattooed arm and pointed to the lightbulbs  "They replaced the hazards with a pair of halogens. See? They're pointed down into the hole." He grinned thinly and added, "Used to be an electrician, in my former life."

The group stopped and stared, and Jyro realized that seeing this hole had confirmed to the others the incredible story they'd heard from him and Timothy—a story they did not want to believe.

Jyro separated himself from the group and stepped to the edge of the hole. He peered down into it and gasped at what he saw—at what he felt: a sudden dislocation of his psyche from reality, forcing him to sense much more than the inanimate existence of the hole's depth and exposed skeletons (many now shattered in consequence to the ruthless strides of the workers' boots) coring its dark bottom.

A rush of nearly painful tingles enveloped Jyro's body—this was how he felt last night upon first investigating the hole. There'd been an unmistakable presence looking down on him then, touching him, making certain that he moved and acted exactly as it wanted him too. He shuddered. The presence was still here. It came on to him and he could feel it. And it wanted him to peer into the hole.

Something is calling me, and I must follow…

A faint acrid smell drifted up from the hole. He took a deep breath, running his gaze along the walls of the pit and the ten or twelve feet of exposed asphalt, soil, and clay. Twisted pipes jutted angrily from the pitted surface, hunks of brown rock and earth surrounding them like barren terrain. At the bottom of the hole he could see the wooden crate, a tiny island drowning in a sea of shattered bones, ancient, cold, and petrified. Its details were instantly recognizable in the wash of bright light: four feet long and three feet wide, odd writing burned into its rough surface, its depth undisclosed as it lay partially buried in shadows.

It was open, just as he left it.

He peered into its dark center, and could see not the interior of the crate, but the men from his dreams, the forefathers of the church…

…and they were wrapping the chalice in burlap and placing it inside next to the shrouded rosary. Beside the crate he saw a line of lifeless bodies, men, women, and children lying face up, their eyes gouged, crucifixes piercing their hearts. There were perhaps two dozen dead packed in the bottom of the pit, sacrifices made to the Evil that threatened to bring mankind down…

He shuddered, could see it all in his mind's eye, like a recent memory still fresh in his head.

He struggled to step back from the hole's edge. He wiped his forehead, feeling weak and ill, scared. A jolt of pain grasped his heart and he startled away from this vision, seeing in his mind's eye now the Evil entity that had tormented these people, that had forced them to sacrifice their good in exchange for freedom from apocalypse. And it terrified him. He could feel his body trembling. He wanted to scream, wanted to lapse into panic, but his fear of the vision wouldn't let him. His mind had become a terrified prisoner in his head. This Evil…he could see it, a dark and formless thing wholly able to represent itself in any menacing form it chose. Somehow…somehow, Jyro understood this, as plainly as the excavated hole before him—it had composed itself of waste, it had entered into the albino and one-eared Larry. All representations of the beast released from its bonds, now in possession of the church.

Oh dear God, help us all…

And yet, something buried deep inside his mind made him see that there was some Good present in all these terrible representations…that within each of the beast's emergences, a certain level of goodness was there struggling to keep it at bay: the rosary in Timothy's hand, enabling him to down the possession of the waste; the messages from the crucified man, and from one-eared Larry.

Jyro jolted, and the piece of his mind making him see and understand everything happening today lapsed back into the fearful reverie of the past he so desperately wanted to escape…

…and he could see the men, the dream figures of the past who appeared as real as the men standing behind him, the crate and the dead bodies now buried deep in the darkness of the soil, the Evil in their lives lost forever along with the lives of their innocent loved ones—sacrifices made to the beast who threatened the existence of every man, woman, and child on earth.

He fought away the reverie for a second time, seeing now in certain fullness that the good of the rosary had been used by the men of the past to keep the evil of the chalice at bay, as if the spilled-out pieces of some mysterious puzzle had magically come together in his mind. A voice uttered in his head: One holds darkness, one holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. Find the sinless one. And he knew: whether bound in confinement, or exposed to the elements, the rosary was the only exploitable weapon against the Evil that promised man the end of days. And that Evil was flourishing because the chalice and the rosary had been separated. He heard this in his head as if it had been spoken from an ancient book of lore, each word chiseled in stone for his certain understanding. And it made him painfully aware that all those in the custodies of the chalice and rosary would unconsciously become representatives of their amassing armies; the workers, retrievers of the chalice from its lofty point above the pit, now incarnations of Evil; and Jyro's reclamation of the rosary, instituting those like himself—the city's homeless—to form Good's army.

It became as painfully clear to him as the gooseflesh now marbling up and down his body. The city's homeless vs. the city's workers. Good vs. Evil. And Jyro knew: the only means of beating back the beast's unfettered emergence was to bring the chalice and the rosary back together again and lock them inside the crate, once and forever. Just as the church's original ancestors had done over a hundred years ago.

A task easier considered than done.

The image of the past faded from his mind. Faintly, dimly, he sensed himself being pulled away from the hole. He tried to resist the insurmountable pull but a wave of dizziness consumed him and the real world rolled back into his sights. His feet tangled together and he collapsed back…into the waiting hands of his brothers.

He could hear them shouting out, voices coming at him from every direction, hands slapping his cheeks as he came to. He looked up, saw Timothy and Weston staring down at him, their outlines bobbing crookedly in the light as they dragged him out of the rec room.

"Are you okay?" Timothy asked hurriedly, helping him down against the lockers in the hallway.

Short of breath, Jyro peered at the scene before him, now coming into focus: seven men and one teenaged boy, pathetic and filthy but brimming with unforeseen spirit and strength.

"What happened?" he muttered, the images of the past and the questions they answered still fresh in his mind.

"You almost toppled into the pit," Timothy quietly replied.

"It looked like you were in some sort of trance." Weston kneeled down before Jyro; the big man's forever stirring face was so red it was almost purple. "You started mumbling, and when we looked at you we could see that your eyes had rolled up in your head."

Timothy said, "We left you alone at first, but…but then you started trembling and that was when you leaned forward and we had to pull you back before you fell into the hole."

There was a long pause as Jyro corralled his thoughts. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, then in silence climbed to his feet and leaned back against the lockers. With the events of a hundred years ago still gnawing at his mind, he figured upon only one course of action: to do as they did, all those years ago. If he could put this hellstorm off for another hundred years, then so be it. It wouldn't be his problem anymore. He told the men: "We need to find the chalice. The sinless one, whoever he is, will bring us the rosary. We need to put them both into that crate at the bottom of the hole and bury it someplace where no one will ever find it again."

Just like the founding fathers of the church did all those years ago.

The group of men nodded, weakly but affirmatively. Timothy's right eye was nearly swollen shut. He asked, "So where do we look for the chalice, then?"

Eyes narrowed, Jyro looked through the open doors of the rec room. "Well as far as I can see, it ain't in there..." He took a deep breath and motioned toward the partially open door in the rectory lobby.

"We have to get into the church, don't we?" Weston said, looking edgy and aimless.

Jyro nodded, and the men spread out as he trudged through them and moved down the hall.

Wilson moved in alongside him. "How, man? How are we supposed to do that without getting burned?"

Keeping his eyes pointed ahead, Jyro said, "You used to be an altar boy. Didn't they teach you that when there's a will, there's a way?"

Wilson stared back at Jyro, utterly silent.

"C'mon. Let's go find a way into the church."

Chapter 18

"My…dear…Jesus…"

Pilazzo stood trembling at the top of the subway entrance, aghast at the scene playing out before him. It was still early in the morning, the sun's rays a faint glimmer over the horizon. The streetlights were out, but in the dim surroundings he could see roiling flames and black smoke spewing from a building's windows not ten blocks away. Distant sirens blared and people meandered blindly, eyes red-rimmed and doused with tears, witnesses to sudden tragedy. A few taxis and cars zoomed past, alarm printed on the drivers' faces, alluding to stories of narrow escape.

A girl of perhaps eighteen, wearing running gear, rushed up to Pilazzo and grasped his open robe in a panic.

"Help me!" she cried, eyes red and swollen with tears. Smears of ash and soot marked her sweaty cheeks and forehead like war paint. Her thin brown hair was wet with sweat, plastered to the sides of her face.

Pilazzo startled, and in fear shoved her away. He staggered along the sidewalk, peering at the girl over his shoulder as she raced blindly into the street…

"Oh God NO!"

…right in front of a speeding cab. With a hideous crack!, the cab slammed into her and sent her flying twenty feet into the windshield of a parked sedan. Her head exploded on impact, driving portions of bone and brain across the webbed glass. Pilazzo watched with horror, his mind rejecting the horrible truth of the matter as the center of the windshield caved in and her body slid down onto the front seat, leaving her bloody legs sticking out like splintered tree branches.

Somewhere nearby, people screamed. A few feet away, a shirtless man sprinted across the sidewalk, clutching a wound on his chest. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. He collided into a mailbox on the corner, and quickly disappeared down 77th Street.

Short of breath, Pilazzo shambled down 3rd Avenue, eyes skirting back and forth. Terrors filled his senses at every angle. Cars screeching, shouts filling the air, sirens calling out to one another in the distance.

The world around him fell into a blur, making it difficult to make out any details. Nearby, he heard the shrewd wail of what he thought was a circular saw. In its midst, bloodcurdling screams surfaced, sending painful shivers down his spine.

A cold wind blew across the Avenue, feeling like a December gust. He shivered, holding his arms close, blinking as dust invaded his eyes. He moved across the littered sidewalk, robe billowing out behind him. In the curb he saw a dead dog, its injuries still wet. Its tongue was bloated and black. Alongside its mouth were two human fingers, chewed off below the knuckles.

Grimacing, Pilazzo pulled his tortured eyes away and jogged across the street, listening to the sounds of looming destruction, relentless in the distance. Ahead a homeless man lay alongside a crashed vehicle, one leg pinned beneath the car's front tire. Pilazzo hurried to him and kneeled down at his side. The man appeared unconscious. Blood oozed from his nostrils and lips, bits of hair and blood plastered on the parking meter pole the car had crashed into.

Pilazzo grabbed the man's wrist, felt for a pulse.

The vagrant's eyes darted open. He pulled his arm away and grabbed the priest's wrist. A quick jolt of pain ripped through the priest's arm. Pilazzo cried out, tried to pull away but couldn't gather any leverage.

Through split and bleeding lips, the vagrant uttered, "Your church awaits…" He then let go of the priest and fell motionless, empty eyes staring blankly toward the gray skies.

Heart pounding, Pilazzo stood and staggered back into a grocery storefront. The front door was shattered, bits of glass crunching beneath his soles. He looked inside and saw a retarded man standing in the center of the store, eating an orange, babbling as he chewed, juicy bits slathering down his chin. A male youth blanketed in tattoos sat at the foot of the register, jabbing his arm with a hypodermic needle. Neither of them looked at the priest.

Pilazzo fled the storefront and moved farther on down the Avenue. He saw a car speeding across the empty street toward him. Remembering the homeless man that had gotten hit, he hurriedly slipped into an alcove fronting a building under construction. The car zigzagged as it went, sideswiping a parked delivery truck before speeding on. Somewhere nearby, a girl screamed.

Pilazzo emerged from the alcove and peered up at the unfinished structure looming over him.

From within, he could hear them: shouts and laughs amid a harsh clanging of tools.

The workers. They were coming.

He ran as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast at all. A cold breeze lanced his face. His robe billowed behind him. He turned the corner onto 78th street.

Halfway up the block, he could see it. The Church of St Peter. He staggered toward it, noticing that all the trees on the block—those planted in cement cutouts every ten feet—were gray and leafless now, dead. Tree branches lay all over, severed from their small trunks, rising and poking every-which-way. Beneath each tree lay masses of dead sparrows, wings withered and jutting like the branches surrounding them.

What in God's name…?

As he approached the church, he saw something in his peripheral vision. He skidded to a stop, looked to his right, and stared.

In the center of the street was a mob of construction workers.

They were looking at him.

They were covered in blood.

Altogether, the men—seven or eight in all—began staggering toward the priest in the same monstrous way the workers in the subway had: arms punching forward, heads bobbling, feet smacking the ground. Like the other workers, their eyes were turned up into their heads, baring stark, vein-ridden whites.

Uttering a hopeless prayer, Pilazzo slid between two cars, then lunged across the sidewalk and grasped the rusty handrail on the steps to St Peter's.

The men, mouths chomping, blood streaking down their stubbled chins, continued moving forward. Pilazzo saw in their hands a variety of blood-drenched tools: screwdrivers, wrenches, box cutters. They were swiping the air with them, like explorers in the jungle digging through dense foliage.

They can't hurt me because they're scared of me, Pilazzo tried desperately to convince himself, but unadulterated fear kept him from standing his ground before the approaching ghouls. He struggled up the church steps, tripping over his own feet, all the while watching the men as they thumped into a BMW parked at the curb.

Instead of going around the car, the workers began climbing over it, leaving bloody smears in their wake. The harsh contact of the tools in their hands gouged jagged lines into the shiny finish. As they climbed, they maintained their hideous grins, muted snickers sifting out from between their clenched teeth.

Pilazzo groped blindly for the handle to the church door…the same handle he grasped every day for the last seventeen years. He managed to get a hold of it.

It felt warm to the touch, different.

He pulled it.

With a loud screech, the door opened. A gush of bitter air rolled out, sending whorls of dust and grit up into his face.

The workers stopped, frozen in their tracks, fixed to the car like slugs on a beer can. One of them, a middle-aged man with dark sunburn, slid off the BMW's roof and landed face-first on the sidewalk. In no noticeable pain, he leaped up on all fours like a cat righting itself and bulleted a glance at the priest, white eyes glistening.

Pilazzo stared wordlessly at the man, couldn't believe or understand what had become of him: nose crushed into a pulp, white eyes glaring through a mask of blood and bone. His tongue flitted in and out of his mouth while making a horrible gargling sound. He held a bloody boxcutter in his hand and jabbed the air with it.

The other workers were also staring at the priest, each of them making hideous sniggers, mouths showing bloodstained teeth. They began clanging their hand tools against the car, creating a wicked tolling sound that echoed up and down the street. In the distance, Pilazzo could hear a chorus of loud shouts—those workers answering the sudden toll of the men eyeing the priest.

Pilazzo trembled nervously. His eyes burned from the onslaught of dust from the door. He performed a hasty sign of the cross, and slipped inside the church.

From the vestibule he peered out at the staring workers. They kept their distance, heads weaving back and forth, trying to keep their sights on the priest. Their clanging toll went on and on…

The church door ripped free of Pilazzo's hand and slammed shut, closing him inside. For a tense moment he stood there with his back to the church, pulling on the now impassable door, listening to the echo of the slam fading away. Outside, he could hear the workers laughing and clanging, some of them now only inches away, on the other side of the door.

He let go of the door's handle and stepped back.

Then, with his heart beating furiously and his nerves screaming bloody terror, he turned around and faced the gloomy interior of the Church of St. Peter.

Chapter 19

Jyro was standing five feet from the door, eyes glued to the darkness beyond the ten-inch opening. Timothy stood directly beside him, arms crossed tightly in front of his chest. Weston was close behind, wielding the wood plank nervously like a baseball player in a batter's circle. The rest of the group was poised at various points in the lobby, away from the albino's knotted corpse.

"I sure as hell ain't gonna try it," Wilson said uneasily.

With a show of determination, Weston stepped around Jyro and Timothy, and examined the slight gap. He positioned the slab of wood inches away from the space. Jyro could see his eyes shining in the dim glow of the emergency lights. "Well…what do you guys think?"

A pause of silence followed where everyone contemplated what might happen if he touched the door with the plank. Jyro frowned and shrugged his shoulders, unable to offer any guidance. This was a crapshoot he didn't want to bet on it.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Marcus said firmly. He coughed into his hand and this was the first time Jyro had seen him without a Winston tucked between his lips. Perhaps he was tapped out.

"I think you should go for it," Dallas said, tugging his beard. "What's there to lose?"

Marcus continued, "He'll end up with french fries for fingers."

Wilson tucked a dreadlock into his mouth and chewed on it nervously. "Hell, man, he used to have 'em, but not anymore."

That much was true. Weston's hands, and Wrath's for that matter, were free of burns. For a fleeting moment, Jyro considered the true miracle of their healing; under normal circumstances, the pair would have worlds of followers at their heels in a matter of days. But here and now, the big picture had diluted their miraculous gift from God and turned it into small potatoes. Still, it couldn't be fully ignored. Something was healing the men, perhaps even making them stronger. It was all they had to rely on at the moment. "He's got a point, fellas. Your hands are cleaner than they were before you hit the streets for a living."

Rollo held his bible up and shouted, "It's a miracle of the Lord! He protects us all from evil. We are his children, and he will guide us to safety!"

For once, Jyro thought, the chubby preacher had it right.

"So let's try it, then," Weston said indulgently. Ever so slowly, he arced the plank down into the open gap between the door and the jamb.

Nothing happened.

There was a great sigh of relief in the room…but still, no overwhelming sense of accomplishment. He still had to push the door open a bit farther, enough so they could slip through.

Don't do it, Jyro thought, but said nothing. His mind shrieked with anticipatory fear, and he wondered if madness would set in soon.

"This is crazy, man," Wilson said. "Just flipping nuts."

"May the Lord be with you, brother Weston!" Rollo went on. "Let him shine down upon you the gift of everlasting life!"

"Enough Rollo, that ain't helping any," Jyro said anxiously.

Sweat ran down the sides of Weston's face. He looked back at Jyro, plainly scared, like a man who's sense of normalcy had flown the coop, and rightly so. He blew out a nervous gush of breath, and it was here Jyro noticed that the man's head had stopped bobbing. Is he…healed? A moment passed where it looked as if Weston were going to hand the torch to someone else…but then slowly…slowly…slowly, he moved the plank of wood to his left, until it came in contact with the door…

…WHOOSH!…

A blue flame burst out of nowhere. It swallowed the wood, and then Weston's arm. He tried to drop the plank, but the flames instantly fused his hand to its surface. A horrible stench permeated the room, like hotdogs left too long in a campfire. He collapsed back into the group of men, who scattered like fish in a pond, then tore around in a circle before tripping over the albino's legs. He landed on his side with a dull thud. The plank splintered into blackened pieces as it hit the carpeted floor…except for the square section that still burned freely in his hand.

Weston's silent scream gave way to a sickening wail. He shrieked, "Put it out! Put it out!, eyes bulging horrifically, wet lips puckering for air. Foam spewed from his mouth. He held his cooked arm up, and ogled it stupidly. White blisters coated his red skin like a froth of boiled milk. Flames burned on it in scattered patches.

A man's scream came from inside the church, seemingly answering Weston's wails. The men jerked their gazes toward the door, terror painted on their faces. Larry, Jyro thought quickly, his stomach feeling like it had shrunk to the size of a pea. What the hell is happening?

Outside the walls of St Peter's, something exploded. The walls shook and Jyro and Timothy rocked on their heels and covered themselves with their arms. Dust rained down on them. Wrath fell to his knees and attempted to snuff out Weston's arm with the same dirty towel he used on the crucified man.

Weston babbled loudly, "Help me, please help me!"

Unexpectedly, a blue flame lanced out from Weston's arm. Wrath yelled out, "Ahg!" He let go of the towel and lurched back from the burning man, eyes wide and fearful, hands shaking up and down and back and forth. He fell to his knees, grimacing. Tendrils of smoke rose up from his fingers. He'd been burned again.

The fires, Jyro thought. It's as if they're…alive.

Jyro got a good firm grip on Timothy's arm. He looked at the boy, silently protective, and then at Weston. For a fleeting moment he considered trying to help the injured man, but ultimately stayed back like everyone else, unwilling to counter the need to protect himself and Timothy. Wrath had given it a good try anyway. There wasn't much more he or anyone else could do.

Timothy looked at Jyro, gaze dark and vacant. He shook his head with confusion. Jyro thought he looked utterly lost, as though he'd just woken up in a place he'd never been before. "We have to—"

Weston blithered something indecipherable, a croaky "arck!" His bulging eyes rolled up into his head and another gagging sound exploded from his throat that startled everyone in the room much like the explosion had a moment earlier. His fingers, white and oozing, clawed against the floor in an attempt to stand. Everyone watched with horrible anticipation as he struggled to his knees…but no farther. Here he remained wavering like a scarecrow in the wind, smoldering hands floating loosely at his sides.

"What the hell…?" Wilson screamed.

Weston's posture changed. He stiffened up. His face turned a sickly shade of blue, upturned eyes as wide as a deer's in car-shot. His arms jutted up and down like pistons. His throat swelled profusely, like a frog's.

"I think he's swallowed his tongue!" Dallas shouted. Still no one moved to help. We're homeless men who've lived years on the street fending for ourselves, not helping others. This situation is out of our hands.

But then Wrath, in a brave yet hopeless move, blundered forward again and positioned himself behind Weston. He wrapped his arms around the convulsing man's waist, hands fisted into Weston's gut, fingernails grasping his shirt. Wrath managed to perform one or two Heimlich moves on him, but that was all. He couldn't hold on. Weston was bucking and thrashing too much, plus his arm was still on fire. Wrath surrendered his grip and stumbled back. Weston collapsed to the alongside the albino, arms and legs drumming the floor crazily. Sheets of seared skin spread out from his injured arm and smeared the carpet like oily webs.

He choked one last time, a final effort to push his tongue out of his throat, and then fell silent. At that moment, the flames on his arm subsided, giving way to winding curls of smoke. It was as if someone had cut off their source.

Moments passed in horrid silence. The men stared groggily at Weston's body. It was stuck in a discarded, mannequin-like pose, head arched back, limbs at odd angles. His burned arm was as black as charcoal. One by one, the men backed away, eyes wide, mouths agape.

"Is he dead? Is he?" Timothy asked.

No one responded. The answer was all too obvious. Weston had met his maker. Jyro leaned back against the wall, holding his head in his hands, listening to the blood roaring in his ears.

Rollo broke the silence with a sudden, boisterous prayer. "May the good Lord look down upon our brother—"

"Will you shut the fuck up?" Wilson shouted. "We don't need that shit right now."

Jyro looked up.

Timothy was standing just inches from the church door.

"Hey kid…"

Timothy turned. "The gap…it's wider," he said hypnotically. He shifted his body sideways, eyes moving back and forth between the door and the jamb. "I can do it," he said.

Jyro shook his head vehemently. "No you don't."

Wrath said, "You're gonna end up like Wes if you try." The big man leaned against the wall, his face dazed and unbelieving. His skin glimmered, coated in sweat.

"But he caught fire when he touched the door, not when he went between. Just look at the gap…I can fit through. I'm the thinnest one here by far, and the door is open a few inches more."

Seymour warned, "You'll get burned, kid, just like I did, just like he did." Jyro looked over at the frail vagrant. His hands, although healing, still looked painfully pink and shiny. His eyes were dead blanks behind the dirty lenses of his glasses.

"I won't get burned if I'm careful."

Jyro nodded. "And then what?" What will you do after you go through?"

Timothy peered through the opening, into the dark hallway. He tilted his head sideways. "I can see the door leading out into the church. It's wide open. I'll go in there and look for the chalice."

"Larry's in there," Jyro cautioned. "Or what used to be Larry." He peered through the gap but couldn't see much in the darkness. "Evil's got him. You don't need me to tell you to be careful."

Timothy nodded, and before anyone could protest—to Jyro, it didn't seem anyone planned to—the boy slipped an arm into the space between the door and the jamb.

All the men visibly flinched…but nothing happened.

Timothy pulled his arm back, and blew out a long nervous breath.

Then, sizing up the space one more time, he twisted his body sideways and stealthily slipped through the gap into the dark hallway.

Baited silence followed. Horrible gooseflesh riddled Jyro's body. He stepped to within inches of the door, peered through the gap, but saw nothing.

"Kid? You in there?"

Timothy appeared, standing about a foot away from the door. His face was bathed in shadows. "I'm here." He looked different to Jyro in the darkness of the hallway. Older. Wiser.

"You made it!" Jyro said, voice an excited whisper.

"Just stand close by." Timothy said. "I know that if anything happens, you won't be able to help me, but…I'll feel better knowing you're there."

For the first time since this all began, Jyro smiled, and it was at this moment that the bond between them grew stronger, more definitive. If there had been any doubt that the two of them were supposed to be here, it was now gone; just as Jyro knew Timothy's name earlier, he now knew the boy would risk his life to make certain every task set upon him was accomplished. And so will I.

"Just go see what's in the church," Jyro said. "And…and while you're at it…"

"What?"

He looked Timothy right in the eyes and said, "Find the sinless, and tell him to get us the hell out of here."

Timothy smiled grimly, then disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

Chapter 20

Pilazzo flinched at the explosion, this one close by, perhaps only a block away. He could feel the church vibrating in its aftermath, the faint din of screams and shouts outside seeping in through the shuttered doors.

He took a deep breath and stared about the vestibule. It made him sick to his stomach. This used to be his home, the place for years in which he’d  slept and eaten, prayed and worked. Now it was the victim of a great evil trying to tear down its walls. And to think up until yesterday, I'd assumed this to be a war waged against corporate America. How wrong I was…

He saw the antechamber bulletin board, hanging askew by one rusty nail, the glass shattered, pointed shards shredding two month-old activity announcements. The threadbare carpet beneath his feet was ripped from the weighty tugs of construction equipment. Splinters of pinewood lay about like tiny carcasses.

The only thing that remained untouched was Henry Miller's foldout table of yellow hardhats and orange vests. There's some protective gear on the table to the right, as soon as you walk in. There's also a yellow envelope. Inside are the documents for you to sign.

Pilazzo didn't see an envelope. Not that it made any difference.

Still, compelled by some irrational force, he leaned down and looked under the table. A wave of dizziness set into him. He closed his eyes and gripped his head, taking in slow, even breaths in through his nose. When the dizziness faded, he opened his eyes and waited until his vision readjusted to the gloom.

He then placed his left hand against the interior doorjamb, and gazed at the miserable scene inside the church.

A wicked sin has been committed, may those guilty of this travesty burn in the fires of…

He thought of his mother, presumably the bride of Christ—does this make me the son of Christ?—of how she'd maintained her devout convictions all her life, even more so during the later stages of her mental illness. He recalled her image from the dream, how she stood in the ruined landscape and told him: After I was gone, you maintained your faith steadfastly, which enabled Him to behold the strength in you. You are His son. And now, he needs you. Do as He says, Antonio.

I am the sinless one…

Indeed, he'd remained true to his faith, even in his mother's dying days. And now, he had no choice but to do the same.

He beat back an impulse to flee

…your church awaits…

and whispered a silent prayer to his mother, seeking some spiritual guidance before entering the Church of St. Peter.

What used to be the Church of St. Peter.

The interior of the century-old building cast away most natural light, except for that filtering through the stained-glass windows in the vaulted ceiling; with the church sandwiched between two buildings, the windows running along both sides depicting the events leading to the birth of Jesus had never seen any daylight.

Dim lights gleamed in from the altar. He stood at the vestibule, fixing his gaze on the two industrial spots at the forefront of the church. For a fleeting second he wondered why the crews had left these on, but realized given the ungodly circumstances, that nothing should come as a surprise.

He shivered upon sighting the marble holy-water basin at the entrance to the nave, coated in sawdust and plaster chips. He walked to it, slid his fingers through the grit, and crossed himself with it. He frowned.

There was no usual bountiful feeling, no impassioned touch of God.

Dear Lord, I pray for your strength.

He pinched his dry lips, and advanced into the church.

The gothic architecture was nothing as he remembered it. Without the yellow glow of the dome-shaped fixtures above, the columnar supports and vaulted stained-glass ceilings that had always suggested a heavenly presence lay shrouded in darkness. Half the pews were gone, the only evidence of their existence the rectangular shreds of wood and glue on the marble floor where they once stood.

Strangely, the altar remained untouched. He admired the power it demonstrated, even now despite the destruction surrounding it, its marble solidity somehow equalized by the delicacy of its contents: a half-dozen blessed statues draped in drop-cloths and shadows, still undelivered to the various parishes who'd requested them as donations.

Seeing the statues made him think of the conversation he'd had with the foreman, Henry Miller…

Our crews are not insured for moving such valuables, Father. I strongly suggest you hire, immediately, a moving company. We won't be able to move them out unless you sign a damage waiver…but I advise against that. Our men aren't quite trained to be delicate, if ya know what I mean…

Pilazzo looked up. Gracing the wall behind the altar, the great crucifix remained exposed to the elements: twelve feet high, intricately carved in wood, its extraordinary detail still visible despite the film of dust and dark shadows enveloping it. Gazing upon it, Pilazzo could almost feel the pain carved and painted upon the face of the crucified Jesus: the thorned head; the tortured eyes searching the heavens for an answer to this disgrace of God; the mouth contorted so passionately that Pilazzo could almost hear echoes of its pained suffering.

It looks different…

He cleared his throat and paced farther down the aisle, footfalls gritty in the sediment, crunching hollowly. He ran his hands along a rank of untouched pews as he kept his sights upon the wooden Jesus. The blood…it looks more real, unscathed by the degenerating environment.

He heard a noise ahead. Footsteps, shuffling across the dusty floor.

He stopped, looked.

From the shadows at the left of the altar emerged a dark figure.

Moving in a stopped position, it staggered up the three steps to the altar, and disappeared behind the statues.

A gust of wind rose up from out of nowhere and sent a whirl of dust about Pilazzo. He squeezed his eyes shut, hiding his face beneath his hands. The wind, howling amid the exposed beams and stained glass windows, seized the inner doors of the church and slammed them shut with a forceful bang.

Heart pounding furiously, Pilazzo pulled his hands away from his face and cowered alongside the side-rail, keeping himself in this position until the wind died down and the echo of the slamming doors faded.

He looked back toward the closed doors. Saw nothing there.

Nothing he could see.

He faced the altar again.

Despite the dim glare of the spots, he could see the shadowy figure standing before a shrouded statue, face diverted from the priest. It bobbed up and down for a few moments, as if praying, then limped to the great crucifix, where it gazed up toward Jesus's face and began bobbing again.

Pilazzo took a step forward, then another.

"Hey…" he called out weakly, thinking, this is no construction worker.

He took another step, now a foot away from the altar steps.

Without warning, the inner doors to the church slammed back open. Pilazzo staggered around and watched as the doors slammed shut again with the same tempestuous ferocity. A cloud of dust billowed up and out over the pews, revealing nothing.

He reminded himself that with all he'd seen and heard today, all he'd dreamed and experienced, nothing should come as a surprise.

It didn't.

It scared him to death.

He faced the altar again.

The shadowy figure was still there, standing beneath the crucifix.

A little more loudly, Pilazzo called out: "Hello? Can you hear me?"

No answer. No movement.

The hunched figure sidestepped to the left and stood before another covered statue, this one at the very front of the altar.

Pilazzo went to the foot of the altar steps. He tilted his head sideways, seeing the figure's hands now. They were moving fervently over what appeared to be a necklace or charm.

Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

"What are you doing?" Pilazzo called out, voice cracking. A mystifying tingle ran along his spine, causing the hair on his neck to stand.

The figure ignored Pilazzo…or was wholly ignorant of the priest's presence. Or, Pilazzo thought, he's one of them. A worker…

He could see the figure's fingers moving, conducting some manner of intense prayer about the charm he held. He stepped to the left, finally escaping the glow of the construction spots.

Without the glare in his eyes, he could see that the figure was a man, and that he was not a worker but a vagrant. His clothes were doused with filth and…and dark stains. They were piled atop his body like rags. He carried a stench nearly impossible to tolerate.

Pilazzo stepped closer. He could hear fervent but unintelligible whispers coming from the man's mouth, and also noticed a twisted mass of scar tissue where his ear should have been. "What are you doing?"

The homeless man kept to his prayers.

Pilazzo stepped up onto the altar…and heard something oddly familiar in the vagrant's mumblings. I've heard this before…

Despite the mask of unruly hair hiding the vagrant's face, Pilazzo could see his hands clearly now, and in them was a large rosary, made up of what appeared to be unpolished wood. He was running it through his grimy fingers, grappling at the marble-sized beads, the cross, and other oddly-shaped charms.

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

As the vagrant increased the energy of his prayer, Pilazzo was able to distinguish a word or two amidst his foreign mumblings.

And it struck him. How can this be? he thought. This man's language is Latin.

"Are you okay?" Pilazzo asked. In the past, as homeless people made their way inside the warmth of the church on cold winter days, he or another working member of the parish would contact the city shelter three blocks south, who would then send two or three volunteers over with food or even a coat and escort them out, either back on the street, or most preferably, to the shelter.

Pilazzo sighed, feeling a strange and brief sense of relief knowing that this was a vagrant. The homeless seem responsible for delivering fateful messages from a trusted source.

Turn away! his mind shouted, defiant of what his heart told him.

Pilazzo came to within inches of the praying man…and that was when he saw the blood, a dark splotch of it on the white drop-cloth covering the statue. Pilazzo staggered, gazing at the stain with fear and loathe, not only with the presence of it, but because it was also seeping across the pallid whiteness of the drop-cloth, bleeding out from all sides, a circular shape with jagged edges halfway up the height of the statue.

Pilazzo tried to expel a shout. Unanticipated fear knotted his tongue. He threw a glance toward the praying man and planted a trembling right hand on his grimy shoulder.

"Are…you…okay?" he managed to blurt.

The homeless man stopped his prayers. In the damning silence that followed, Pilazzo could hear the wet, squelchy distribution of the blood as it continued to saturate the drop-cloth, thin rivulets now trickling down.

He was about to grab the bum by his shirt and pull him away, when the vagrant, eyes still diverted to the ground, muttered stridently, "This is the end of days...priest."

Chapter 21

Jyro stood at the door, waiting. He heard nothing and when he peered into the hallway, saw Timothy's shadow hovering about ten feet away.

"What are ya doin', kid?"

"It's too dark…I can't see anything."

"Did you go to the end of the hall? Did you look in the church?"

A brief pause. Then, "No."

"You need to go there and see what's happening."

Jyro felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned.

Wrath looked down at him. He nodded once and turned his eyes toward the steps. "In the bedroom…I will look for a flashlight to help guide the boy. It's safe there now."

Jyro nodded. Indeed, the level of threat seemed diminished without Larry up there. He peered back through the door at Timothy. "Wait right there, kid. We're gonna find you a flashlight."

Wrath alerted the men to what he was doing and Wilson offered to go with him. Like a dark shadow, the hippie followed the big man up the stairs. Both of them disappeared around the bend.

The seconds felt like minutes as the small group waited in the center of the room. They all looked up at the ceiling and listened as the pair's footfalls made their way into the bedroom. Jyro could then hear them rummaging through the closet: feet shuffling and the errant clanging of tools. Moments later, their footfalls traveled the length of the upstairs hallway and the carpeted steps coming back downstairs.

They appeared around the turn like angels in the mist, Wrath in the lead holding a flashlight and a hacksaw. Wilson followed right behind him with an awl, a screwdriver, and a claw hammer in his hands. For a moment Jyro considered the group of them, and then himself, and he wondered, We were useless beings, sickly and pained. Wanderers waiting for our tickets into heaven to be punched. Now we are warriors, seemingly strong, our troubles and ills no longer obstacles in this life. We are being healed…

"There's a level and a ruler up there too, but that's it." Wrath handed the flashlight to Jyro, who turned it on and returned to the hallway door.

"Here ya go, kid. Keep it aimed to the floor so no one will see you coming."

Timothy reached his hand through the gap and took the flashlight. Jyro could feel a slight charge of electricity as the exchange was made.

"Thanks." Timothy aimed the flashlight's beam toward his feet, then walked off into the shadows. Jyro and Wrath watched as the beam wavered across the dark floor like a searchlight.

From behind them came a loud tearing noise, like the sound Velcro makes, only bigger. It came again. Jyro whipped his hands through his hair and spun around. He caught Marcus's eyes, big and drooping. There was a delayed chorus of groans from the men as they all saw what the thin, raspy-voiced vagrant was up to.

Marcus had a broom in his hand. He was using it to roll Weston's corpse against the wall alongside the crucified man's body. As his body rolled over, his burnt arm—quite well stuck to the carpet—tore off at the elbow, making that noise, thrrrip! Black stuff oozed out from both ends of it onto the carpet.

He shrugged stupidly. "Just gettin 'em out of the way."

Jyro shook his head, unsure of what to say or make of the man's decision. He decided it wasn't worth his energy and turned his attention back to the hallway, where he saw only darkness beyond the slight gap.

The flashlight was out.

"Timothy," he whispered. "You still there?"

No answer.

A moment later, someone screamed.

Chapter 22

The praying vagrant twisted his neck and faced Pilazzo.

The priest screamed, looking not just at the vagrant's bloody eyes, but at the rest of his face: cheeks, stripped of their skin, wet and glistening beneath the shadows. Nose, a running channel of gore joining bleeding lips.

The vagrant uttered one word, "Priest…", then grabbed the bottom of the bloody drop-cloth, and yanked it off the statue.

It flew away like a ghost in a haunted house, landing on the altar alongside the pulpit. Pilazzo shrunk back as dust assaulted his face. He coughed, rubbing his eyes of the dirt.

Again, low and guttural: "Priest…"

He returned his gaze to the beaten vagrant, who was still raking him with those bloody eyes…

…and then to the exposed statue.

Sickness struck him like a sudden charge of volts, his mind refusing to accept what he was seeing—it wasn't logically explainable, in his eyes or in the eyes of God. And yet here it was, the statue of the Virgin Mary, she, cradling a porcelain baby Jesus in her arms.

She was bleeding…

…and in his mind, he sees a shadow on a wall, and it is in the shape of this statue, and at the same place where the blood taints the statue, there is a stain on the wall that mimics this horrific desecration…

The blood ran from the statue's groin, down across its base and onto the floor between it and the injured vagrant. Pilazzo could see a hole in the altar floor...

oh my God…

…and within the hole existed a…a thing like nothing he'd ever known to exist before…a wide patch of gnarled flesh that...that…oh dear Jesus…looked exactly like the vagrant's knotted ear.

It was moving.

The fleshy thing was fused to the hole's jagged edges: splinters of wood assimilating with tangled lumps of soft tissue. It pulsated like a slow-moving heart, sickly rhythmic. The canal at its crux opened and closed hungrily.

A jet of blood spouted out of it, spattering the statue.

Pilazzo attempted another scream, but could not so much as murmur beyond the panicked wheeze escaping his burning lungs. He felt a terrible tension seizing his insides. Gazing upon the befouled immorality before him—this true incidence of evil thriving amidst the skeletal remains of St Peter's Church—he realized that he was grossly overmatched. How can this be? his mind struggled to comprehend, his entire being wholly troubled with the thought of having to confront such an incomprehensible thing.

Is this, dear God, truly the end of days?

The vagrant started sobbing. Pilazzo's gaze fell upon him, and then the wooden rosary in the man's hands. It was glowing slightly, a reddish illumination dousing the vagrant's crust-laden fingers. Tiny flames fluttered across his exposed arms like hummingbirds. His neck swelled out like a balloon and erupted with yellow pustules that oozed down his chest in rivulets.

And his ear, that knotted hunk of flesh…

While Pilazzo gazed in disbelief at the wounded vagrant, the thing in the hole bulged. He could see that it was undeniably alive, sentient in its own right, expanding to show that it had dark jagged teeth inside its rapacious orifice. They were wet with blood, grinding up and down to create the wickedest of sounds.

Pilazzo broke away and backpedaled down the steps leading away from the altar. With a muffled thump, he landed on his rear. Sawdust rose about him in a cloud. He shot his hands up signed the cross over the hellish scene before him.

A deep, strident chortle surfaced from the creature. Blood erupted from it in intermittent spouts, spattering both the statue and the vagrant. It opened wide and from within its organic depths swelled a bulbous membrane—a great blister bursting with pus—swelling nearly three feet up and out.

Pilazzo could see something writhing beneath the membrane's pinkish surface.

With a slick, wet burst, the membrane popped. Pilazzo flinched back, seeing something hideous birthing from its bloody overflow: two reptilian claws covered in greasy scales, swaying and writhing back and forth like entranced cobras. They reached a height of perhaps two feet and unfurled three curved talons that latched onto its fleshy foundation.

The vagrant fell helplessly forward, face and arms searing as they came in contact with the carpet. Dark puffs of smoke rose around him.

Pilazzo struggled to his feet, watching as the vagrant's heavy, trembling hand extended toward him. In it was the rosary. The vagrant twisted his sightless gaze up, eye sockets gushing thick, oily fluid. Tiny flames swarmed on his face as he made an attempt to speak. The words were broken, but intelligible:

"Take it…"

The wooden rosary fell from his grasp onto the steps, a few feet from Pilazzo.

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

In a response that was more instinct than bravado, Pilazzo dove forward and grabbed the charm.

He cried out; it was extremely hot in his hands. He nearly dropped it, but managed to hold on despite it searing his skin. He crossed himself, then held the charm up and began reciting the Hail Mary. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from it like incense.

The vagrant made a vain attempt to crawl away, arms and legs clawing at the bloody carpet. With a horrible gushing sound, the reptile-arms lunged from their fleshy womb and seized his head.

"Kill it!" the vagrant cried, his words nearly unintelligible. He then began to scream with amazing force.

Pilazzo looked on, feeling an intense wave of brutal fear and hatred toward the thing.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

The claws squeezed the homeless man's head. The vagrant jerked and writhed, arms pistoning frantically. Blood gushed out from between the constricting talons. The vagrant's face took on a horrible reddish-purple look as it attempted to absorb the horrible pressure it was under. He let out a long shrilly wail that was cut off with a terrible bone-crushing sound. The vagrant's legs swept weakly across the dusty floor in spasms, and then fell deadly still.

Blood poured from his eyes, and then from his ears. His neck bulged, turning purple with pressure. The talons remained hideously still as they continued squeezing, like vice grips under some unimaginable force.  What followed was a pop like a firecracker. Pilazzo flinched, squeezed his eyes shut, feeling warm pieces of the vagrant's head pepper him. When he opened his eyes he saw a shocking spray of blood fountaining upwards from the vagrant's neck stump. The body fell to the altar. The claws clutched and clasped, rubbing the blood about as if it were lotion.

Clutching the rosary tightly, Pilazzo screamed hoarsely and shambled back down the aisle to the closed doors at the rear of the church. His footfalls were wet and tacky, and he imagined a long line of bloody footprints trailing behind him.

He grabbed the door handles, but hadn't a second to pull on them before a blue flame rose up out of nowhere and buried his hands in agony. He howled out and backpedaled, then fell to his knees and gazed at the white blisters rising up on his skin like milk bubbles blown through a straw. The rosary, still wrapped around his fingers, glowed faintly red, appearing undamaged by the otherworldly attack.

"Help me!" he screamed out, eyes searching the heavens. "Help me! Is there anybody here?" A tremendous pain shot from his burnt hands to his spine. He could hear his labored breaths inside his head.

And then came a string of bone-crushing fractures from the front of the church.

Wide-eyed, Pilazzo turned and faced the wicked scene. The beast in the floor was devouring the vagrant, claws operating like the pincers on a crab, grabbing the headless body, puncturing the waist as it pulled it down to feed itself. The body was gone to the hips, legs in the air, spreading out further and further until they cracked into a gruesome ballet split. The arms were still twisted back, still out of the hole. But the thing surged, chewing and eating, the vagrant's legs jutting and jerking, cutting through the air like batons.

Pilazzo tried to look away, tried not to hear the wet, crunching sounds, tried only to concentrate on the painful burns on his hands. But then came a new set of cracking sounds, like tree branches splintering in the wind. The thing had swallowed the body to the knees, claws grabbing thighs, guiding it in. The body's arms, outside of the hole's periphery, popped off like twigs and landed on the altar with wet, muffled thumps. Thick, viscous grunts emerged from somewhere deep inside the thing, and Pilazzo wondered for a sickening moment if the vagrant had produced them. The vagrant's legs from the calves down swelled into shapeless tumors and hemorrhaged as they were at last sucked in like strings of spaghetti.

He was gone.

Pilazzo could hear the man's bones crunching—it sounded like hard candy in someone's mouth. The thing's fleshy exterior swelled as it chewed. It turned purple, with dark winding tendrils expanding beyond the confines of the its splintered edges. Blood gushed everywhere, and dime-sized drops of gore spattered the altar as far as twenty feet away.

Pilazzo whispered a desperate prayer before crawling into the rearmost pew. He sat on the floor, trembling, listening to the beast's croaky breaths as they filled his ears like shots of venom.

Over the top of the pew, he looked to the crucified Jesus, and shuddered.

Its heavenward eyes were crying tears of sorrow.

Chapter 23

Jyro stood a few feet from the open door, making every effort to peer into the hallway. They'd all heard Larry's screams and were stricken with terror. He tried desperately not to imagine what was happening.

Looking into the dark hallway, Jyro called out, "Kid? You all right?"

"Yeah." Timothy's voice emerged from the darkness a notch above a whisper, and not too far away. Jyro felt a great wave of relief. "Did you hear that?"

"We all heard it," Jyro answered despondently. The low rumbling growl of the beast still resonated in his ears.

"It's the beast. I think it got Larry."

"You hear anything else?"

"A man. He was screaming, but…but not anymore."

"Can you tell if he's still out there?"

"I don't hear him."

Jyro knew: this unseen man might very well be the sinless one they were supposed to find.

"Kid…listen to me. You have to go out there. You have to draw attention to this man. If he's the sinless one we're supposed to find, then…then he's our only hope." He paused, adding, "But be careful. If he's not the sinless one…"

A moment of distressing silence followed.

In a weak but determined voice, the boy answered, "Okay."

Chapter 24

Endless seconds passed. Many thoughts came and went, but all that really mattered were his only clear choices: remain in place and pray that everything would return to normal, or confront the thing in a do-or-die attempt to…to what? Kill it? Exorcise it?

Is this what I'm supposed to do? Exorcise the demon? Answer me!

Then it hit him suddenly, as though a powerful light had ignited the dark shadows of his mind.

Rosary…rosary…rosary.

He squeezed the charm tightly, praying for an answer. Dear God please! I implore you!

Nothing.

After a minute, he stood up from his place in the pew. Unable to face the monstrosity on the altar, he turned and stared at the rear doors of the church. For a moment he expected them to open and slam shut again as they did earlier, but they remained unmoving and silent.

He wondered if the possessed workers were out there right now, waiting for him.

An ancient war has begun, a battle to be waged between good and evil. I have been chosen to play a role. I am the sinless one…

Seeing no choice in the matter, he turned and peered despondently at the altar. Tears formed in his eyes and he wiped them away with his dirty hands.

He shuddered. My God…how am I to face such a monster?

He looked at the rosary in his hands…and shuddered.

How is this possible?

The burns on his hands were gone. Healed. The pain of his injuries, it had been so instant, so intense, that the suddenness of their healing had come with similar unexpectedness. And the rosary was no longer glowing red. Despite its size, it looked as unremarkable as the healed skin on his hands.

He told himself: This rosary is a work of God. He is watching over me now, giving me the strength to carry on with the task that is expected of me.

With this in mind, he took a deep breath and slowly paced back up the aisle, right hand clutching the rosary tightly, left hand seeking the remaining pews for balance. He kept his gaze upon the unnamable beast as it continued to writhe and pulse in its position before the statue, again wondering how in God's name he might confront such a monster.

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

As he neared the altar, he held up the rosary, and uttered a prayer. His mind spoke English, but the words falling out from between his lips were Latin: "Castigo laudible, corpus meum…"

At once could see tiny lumps rising up and down on the beast's bloody surface, as if the rosary itself had cast upon it waves of extreme heat. The flesh shrunk into itself like a bug turning its armor. It changed color, from deep purple to black, and all of a sudden no longer resembled the gruesome ear on the departed vagrant's head as it did a rotten plum fallen from some dying tree.

Pilazzo swallowed past the dryness in his throat, feeling his legs tremble as he moved even closer to it. The rosary swayed back and forth in his hand.

A tearing sound cut into the silence.

Pilazzo could see the thing severing itself from the floor. Black oily stuff oozed from it as it slid away from the splintered hole. It jerked flaccidly, like a landed fish, clinging grimly to its fleshy foundation until it plunked down onto the steps, where it remained utterly motionless—a roadside possum amidst a fresh puddle of blood, devoid of life. A ghostly hiss geysered from the hole, tapering down into a sickly wheeze before completely dying out.

Pilazzo shuffled forward, feet sliding in the sawdust and blood, feeling terrified. He stared disbelievingly at the lifeless hunk of flesh on the steps…then at the dark hole where it had taken up residence.

Still holding the rosary out, he uttered another prayer, gazing at the slaughterhouse the altar had become.

In my hands, with my prayer, this rosary is a powerful weapon against evil.

The rosary moved slightly in his hands. Gooseflesh marbled across his arms.

He held it close and placed his wounded gaze upon it.

And at once felt something…a triggering inside him, a form of debate that coerced him to shun the scene before him and toy with the rosary instead, as if it were a puzzle of some sort.

Of their own accord, his fingers began looping in and out of the marble-sized beads and the intermittent charms that dangled curiously over his eager palms. He felt helplessly mesmerized, retaining no other option but to analyze the beads and charms—to seek a rationale in their intricate structure. Soon, he lost a sense of all time passing. His fingers grew hot as they picked and prodded at the beads. Tunnel-vision set in. He grew deaf and blind to the wounded environment, feeling completely lured into the beaded heart of the rosary, his perceptions meticulously alert to the sudden task at hand. He became convinced that some sort of systematic trick existed within the rosary, one that would provide answers to the existing evil should he unravel its objective.

I see something in them, he thought. And…it…is…good.

"Father…"

A light shined in his eyes.

Pilazzo fell away from his reverie, distressed as he regained his lucidity, the feel of the slithering rosary in his hands returning to something utterly ordinary. The priest pulled his eyes away from the invading light and once again beheld the butchery on the church's altar—the same altar he'd performed mass on for seventeen years.

The light cut away from his face. He looked back and saw a young man, visible as a gray shape behind the flashlight he held. Only now did Pilazzo realize that the construction spots had gone out—dust motes floating beneath the wake of light filtering in through the stained glass windows above.

As surreptitiously as possible, he shoved the rosary into his pocket.

"This is your house," the boy said, voice echoing hollowly.

Pilazzo took a step forward.

He pointed the light back into Pilazzo's face. "Stay where you are."

Pilazzo, blocking his eyes from the light, nodded, the stench from the altar luring his gorge into his throat.

After a moment of silence, the boy pulled the flashlight's beam away again. He stepped forward into a golden shaft of light, enabling Pilazzo to see him more clearly now. He was perhaps six feet tall, but no more than sixteen years of age. He'd seen some abuse recently, right eye nearly swelled shut, a dark purple bruise encircling it like a damaged halo. A fresh wound festered on his cheek, lips cracked and bleeding. His face lay coated in dirt. He wore jeans and a filthy yellow shirt that hung slackly on a thin, angular frame.

He looked familiar.

Pilazzo nodded, slowly, tentatively.

"I recognize you," the boy slurred. "Father Pilazzo."

The priest remained silent at first, observing the boy's injuries with both concern and distrust. "You're injured," he remarked, keeping his place against the first pew. He looped his fingers through the rosary in his pocket. It felt warm to the touch, and appeared to have stolen his pain away—suddenly he felt stronger, more alert.

It's a miracle.

"I'll live, for now." The boy stepped forward and Pilazzo could see a spot of fresh blood oozing from his earlobe. "You don't remember me, do you?"

Despite seeing a bit of familiarity with the boy, Pilazzo remained decidedly self-protective, prepared to kick him in the shins or lunge at his throat should he go for the beads.

My God, am I losing my mind? I must be…with all I've seen today, it only stands to reason that I tempt such thoughts of violence. What normal man could withstand the horrors I've seen?

But…I am no normal man. I am the sinless one…

"Timothy Stafford. I am…was a member of the parish. An altar boy under Father D'auria for Saturday evening mass. We met once, when you filled in for him."

He shows the same fear that runs through me. But…can he be trusted? The priest held Timothy's gaze. The boy's tortured eyes seemed to read his thoughts. "You feel the pain that is here, don't you?" Pilazzo asked.

"I've seen much during the last three days."

"Three days?"

Timothy peered down at his blood-encrusted hands, then motioned to the altar with the flashlight, his voice a string of fragile monotones as he spoke: "I'd had it in my hands, and used it against the beast...but…but it wasn't meant for me. Then L-Larry took it…he was different than the rest of us. We thought he might be the one, but we were wrong. Something had him…something good…and then something bad too." Timothy paused, head shaking back and forth as if trying to see the logic of what he just said. "The beast was in him, using his sins to gather strength…but there was some goodness inside of him too…and it was fighting the will of the beast in order to deliver the rosary." He lifted his heavy gaze back to Pilazzo.

Pilazzo nodded, unable to make sense of the boy's rambling. Still, his mind reeled at something the boy just said: there was goodness inside of him fighting the will of the beast to deliver the rosary.

To me? The sinless one?

"What is this rosary you speak of?" Pilazzo asked slowly, fingers secretively massaging them as he spoke.

He said, "It is a powerful charm. Without them, the beast cannot be defeated. But in the hands of the sinless one…then perhaps it can be brought down." The vapid manner in which Timothy spoke led Pilazzo to believe the boy didn't fully comprehend his own words. But…he did seem to believe in what he was saying, and that was half the battle won.

Sinless one…

Pilazzo remained silent. His mind spun crazily: if not for the evil event he'd just bore witness to, he would have written this poor boy off to insanity. But the miracle he spoke of…it existed, didn't it? Pilazzo held it in his pocket, where it presumably waited to be utilized for its only benevolent purpose. I can feel its goodness. It's protecting me. Healing me…

"That thing I saw on the altar…is this the beast you speak of?"

Timothy nodded, eyebrows downcast as he stared at the bloody scene. "The beast takes on many forms. I have seen it. Fought it. Its threat is diverse."

Pilazzo's mistrust faded beneath the directive of the calming beads in his pocket. They told him to trust the boy, and he followed their guidance. "I feel no choice but to believe you."

"It is clear to me now that you are the sinless one, Father." His wide-open eye scanned the priest with obvious admiration. A thin smile appeared on his filthy face.

Pilazzo shuddered at the words. Sinless one.

"Come with me," Timothy said, looking back toward the open door alongside the altar. "We have much to inform you of…"

"Who are you here with?"

The boy looked back at the priest. "Please…you must come with me now."

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.

Chapter 25

"The 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.

Chapter 26

The 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.

Chapter 27

With 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.

The vagrant grabbed Pilazzo hard against the collar and shook him, the awl sending bullets of pain into the priest's neck and head. "I said what's…your…name?" He punctuated each word by slamming the priest back against the wall.

"Jyro!" Timothy yelled. "Don't! He's a priest, for Christ sakes!"

The vagrant pulled Pilazzo forward until their noses were almost touching. "Name," he said in a low, gravely whisper.

"Father Anthony Pilazzo. Please…please don't hurt me." For a quick moment he wondered crazily how he could end up surviving a throng of possessed construction workers and an otherworldly beast, only to be taken down by some raving bum with hideous breath.

"Have you sinned in your lifetime, Father?"

"Huh? What? What's this about?" He didn't think he'd get any sort of logical answer out of the bum Timothy had called Jyro, but it was all he could drum up to save his hide.

"Answer me!" Jyro spat, pushing the priest against the wall again.

Timothy shouted, "Jyro! Stop!"

"No," Pilazzo sobbed. "I have not sinned. I've only forgiven the sins of others." And allowed my mother—the bride of Christ!—to die alone because of my faith to God."

The vagrant examined Pilazzo suspiciously. He leaned close to the priest so that his beard brushed up against Pilazzo's cheek, then pointed toward two corpses on the floor beneath a bloodstained wall at the opposite end of the room. "You see those men? You see what remains of them? That's what'll happen to you—to us—if there's any sin in your priestly blood. So, tell me again father, have you sinned?"

Pilazzo shook his head vigorously, staring at the dead men.

Jyro grinned, grime-filled lines gouging his face like cracked asphalt. The foul stench of him turned forth in a near-visible wave.

An elderly vagrant covered in tattoos asked, "Does he have the rosary?"

Jyro approached Pilazzo, a fresh gleam of alarm in his eyes. "If he does, then for sure we have our man." With no warning, the vagrant started sifting through the priest's clothing.

Pilazzo didn't think twice—he had to protect the rosary. God is telling me to. He shoved Jyro back. The bum backpedaled, arms pinwheeling. The awl dropped to the littered carpet with a near-silent thump.

"I am the sinless one!" Pilazzo shouted, looking back and forth amongst the small group of men standing before him.

Jyro caught his balance and turned his eyes up toward the priest, now glimmering with shock and perhaps a bit of fear.

Pilazzo swallowed a hard, dry lump of fear in his throat. It burned all the way down to his stomach. "I am the sinless one," he repeated quietly, his mind adding, and the son of the bride of Christ.

"Leave him alone, Jyro. We have our man.  Now it's time to let him do his job. He isn't going anywhere."

Jyro shot Timothy a hard glance. Pilazzo slumped and blew out a long, nervous mouthful of air. Timothy grabbed the priest by the sleeve and led him away to the reception area.

"Water…please…" Pilazzo said as he collapsed into a chair, bewildered. His headache returned, sharp and pounding. He felt weak, not well at all.

Timothy looked at him curiously. "We don't have any."

"Look in the closet." He motioned with his chin toward the wall on the other side of the desk.

Timothy stepped to it and opened the door. Sitting on a shelf inside, like an oasis in the desert, were three cases of dust coated water bottles. They were huddled alongside a few bundles of paper towels and a small box of plastic cutlery. The boy tore open the plastic coating on a case of water and handed a bottle to the trembling priest. The vagrants quickly followed suit, the urgency of the moment taking a back seat as they gulped the warm water.

Wiping his lips, Timothy said, "Jyro and I have something to show you."

"Jyro," Pilazzo repeated, eyebrows bound with concern. He gazed up at the aggressive drifter.

"That's me, father…" Jyro marched over to the priest, eyeing him guardedly. "I used to be an altar boy, you know," he exclaimed, demeanor morphing from defensive to respectful.

Pilazzo nodded, trembling all over. In his pocket, he could feel the rosary moving slightly.

Jyro pointed to the eldest of the homeless men, whose clothing was as threadbare as he was stinking. "And so was Dallas." He then pointed to the two dead men tucked against the wall. "Weston over there was a minister for over ten years. Didn't do him much good." He leaned down close to Pilazzo, offering up another serving of hot, stinking breath. "So tell me father, sinless one, what are we to do next?"

Your church awaits you…

Pilazzo shrugged his shoulders. He let his empty water bottle fall to the floor. He could feel a welling of tears in his eyes. He looked up at the vagrant called Jyro and at once developed a strange empathy for him, as if they'd known each other in some past life, or would become very close in the life that would follow. He gazed about the room and asked, "Who are you people, and what in God's name is happening here?"

Timothy quickly introduced all the men to Pilazzo (each man went by a single name that was more befitting to some imaginative nom de plume than a drifter), then filled him in on the events that occurred inside the rectory, starting with his own arrival. He briefly recalled his clash with the beast in the bathroom, the incidents with Larry, the crucified man, and the fires rising from the doors. He then told Jyro and the others of the priest's confrontation with the beast in the church—Pilazzo added no further details other than saying it was 'horrible', mentioning nothing of what he saw out in the streets, the subway, or in the Church of Holy Innocents. He didn't have the will in him to relive it all.

Wrath stepped forward, bald head glistening with sweat beneath the dim splay of the emergency beacon overhead. His shirt was torn, and his pants were burned away to the knees. He spoke to Pilazzo with authority, voice deep and focused. "It is assumed that with every instance of evil, goodness is with us struggling to keep it from fully exposing itself."

Yes, this is true… Pilazzo thought.

"We can only guess that it is what has kept us alive so far," Wrath went on. "But time is passing and the beast is growing more powerful. I can feel it. We can feel it. This goodness that guides us…it cannot continue to provide us with its strength." He spread his hands in a pleading manner and added, "We must find the chalice. It is the only way."

"Or?"

"Or we will witness first hand the end of days."

The end of days…

Pilazzo gazed around his former home. It had seen quite a battle already. But it still stood strong, providing a shelter of protection from the horrific developments in the outside world. But how long would this protection last? The men claimed to have been here for two weeks, sleeping alongside the clamor of the construction crews as they'd worked to tear down its walls. Battling the beast in its many forms. Pilazzo felt a wave of lethargy wash over him, compounding his weakness. He felt an urge to simply stay put and allow the events to unfold unhindered with a hope they would leave everything as it had been.

Monsignor Sanchez's voice broke through his thoughts like a hot prod through warm flesh: We are being summoned. Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

Pilazzo could feel the rosary writhing in his pocket, a constant reminder that he had work to do. He said, "Tell me more about this chalice you speak of…"

Chapter 28

"Jyro! Jyro!" From the hallway leading to the recreation room, the bum with the beard and dreadlocks Timothy had introduced as Wilson shambled into the room. He was holding an old transistor radio with an analog dial that controlled a small red bar beneath a worn plastic window. "I found it in one of the lockers. It still works…" Holding the radio by its handle, he finagled the antenna until the signal came in clearly. All the men—Pilazzo counted seven, not including Timothy—crowded around Wilson and listened to the fairly panicked voice of a male newscaster relaying a series of events that were allegedly occurring outside the walls of St. Peter's Church.

Having witnessed the very beginnings of it all, Pilazzo listened with fear and awe to the sobering report:

"…right now there are multiple incidences of violence taking to the streets of the city. We have reports, and I know this all sounds difficult to believe…but it is reported that an entire construction crew working on an Upper East Side building project has seized a homeless shelter on Eighth Avenue, two blocks from their jobsite.

"That just a few blocks from here," Pilazzo said. It was the same shelter the priests used to call for aid in escorting the homeless from St Peter's on cold winter days.

Jyro held a hand up, and the men listened in silence as the announcer droned on…

…witness testimonies are vague, but from what we can gather so far is that at least thirty men entered the shelter armed with power drills and nailguns. The information we have here states that…that soon after the workers went inside the shelter, screams erupted and… this is as disturbing to report as it is to believe, but…they, the construction workers, are purported to have, for no apparent reason, murdered a number of the people inside the shelter. Police are at the scene now, and although not much else is clear, we do know that gunshots have been fired. A news crew has also just arrived, and they've informed us that a man is on the roof of the shelter right now hurling body parts out onto the street. My god, this is truly shocking…and it is with much regret that I must inform you that this is not the only occurrence of intense violence being reported in the city. It appears that…and I know this makes no sense, but according to the reports coming in, there are random acts of extreme violence being committed all over the city by what appears to be city construction crews. I…uh…please excuse me, but something else has just come in…it says here…it says here that the parish members of three city churches of St Michael's church on 59th Street are reporting multiple assassinations taking place inside the churches, during this morning's mass. The transgressors—oh my goodness—numbering in the dozens, have also set the church on fire. Numerous witnesses are claiming that those committing the crimes are males, and that they are armed with boxcutters, screwdrivers, knives, and other hand-held tools. It also says here that others are purported to be committing murders with gas-powered tools. Folks…this is all very sudden, and extremely disconcerting. Police have requested that if you are inside, stay inside. Do not leave your home or your workplace, as there is panic in the streets at this time…

There was a pause of silence where they could hear the reporter shuffling papers. The men continued looking at the radio, as if it would offer them answers to their dilemma. All it gave them was more hell:

There are now reports of looting going on near another midtown site where six men working on a water-main break near the United Homeless Organization's main offices have…have set the building on fire. Witnesses report that the men, armed with blowtorches, entered the building and began firing them at the people inside. Numerous deaths are being reported. Witnesses say that there are bodies littering the streets…

"Enough!" Pilazzo reached out and abruptly off turned the radio. Tears filled his eyes. "We do not need any more proof! I have witnessed the beginnings of all this before arriving here." And saw the end result in my dream. "We must find a way to put an end to this chaos now. There must be a way before it is too late!"

Marcus shouted, "Jeezus Christ! How the hell are we supposed to do that?" He folded his arms across his chest and picked at his lower lip with one finger.

"The Chalice!" Jyro yelled. "We find the Chalice!"

Seymour said, "Yeah, and where should we look next? Huh? Where?"

Jyro shrugged his shoulders irresolutely. "There's a way into the church now…"

"I don't think it's there," Timothy replied.

Rollo pointed his gaze to the ceiling and yelled, "We will beseech the good Lord for his guidance! He will tell us where to look."

Wrath said, "No…" He walked over to Pilazzo, fixed the priest's gaze, and said, "The sinless one will tell us."

All the men, and Timothy, turned and looked at Pilazzo.

Pilazzo's mind whirled. He still didn't know what to make of all the horrific events, or this talk of a chalice. And now he was being considered a savoir, the one to go to for answers. I need answers myself! He threw a panicky glance at the homeless men occupying the space that not two months ago had been a protected haven for priests and deacons, but was now a retreat for God's supposed army. Are we at war? Are we the army of tattered men I saw in my vision?

"Timothy…Wrath…" Jyro said. "I think we should bring the priest to the hole."

A sudden panic ripped through Pilazzo at the mention of being taken to a 'hole'. He moved to separate himself from the group with images of being tossed into some pit ablaze with fire and brimstone. He made it to the foot of the steps where Marcus and Wilson grabbed him forcefully and kept him at bay.

"Don't go up there, man," Wilson said.

"Father! Please!" Timothy shouted, approaching the priest. "You have to trust us. We've received messages."

As have I, Pilazzo thought, pulling away from the men. And they're not telling me what to do now. Dear God, tell me what's next. I've arrived at my church. Should I wait for another message? Or…should I follow the lead of this mangy bunch of derelicts?

"Where's the rosary?" Jyro asked Pilazzo. "You say you have it. Show it to us."

"Look in his pockets," Seymour said. Wrath, Marcus, Wilson, and Jyro formed a loose circle around the priest. A few feet behind them, Pilazzo saw Rollo looking back at him, tapping the tattered bible he held against his heart.

Pilazzo shoved his right hand into his pocket and grasped the bulky rosary. It circled protectively around his fingers like a snake on a tree branch. Jyro grabbed the priest's elbow, and Pilazzo pulled away in a defensive twist, shouting, "I have it! I have it!" He broke through the circle of men and staggered into the rec-room hallway.

Ever so slowly, he pulled the rosary from his pocket and displayed it to the men.

The small crowd gasped.

Pilazzo leaned against the lockers, thoughts raging like wildfire. The rosary…it offered not only strength and resilience, but an intimidating power as well. The evidence was unmistakable. He himself had used it to drive the beast out from its place on the altar. Timothy had used it to defend himself and Jyro against another of the beast's incarnations. Indeed, it was a powerful charm—one that controlled men and monsters alike. He could feel its unparalleled command.

Still, his mind burned with questions: how did it convey such power? Where did it come from and why was it here at St. Peter's? He squeezed the beads tightly, quickly concluding that there would be no time for logical answers; as a holy man, he'd learned to acknowledge a world full of achievable miracles, and thus accepted the rosary as an object with divine intentions.

He peered at the gathering of homeless men. They stared back at him, swollen faces and droopy eyes filled with awe. Even Jyro now seemed to accept Pilazzo as the all-powerful sinless one they'd been waiting for.

A loud explosion outside shook the church walls. Dust rained down on the men. Pilazzo jolted and stood upright, feeling the reassuring power in the beads as it seeped through the skin of his hand, into his blood, his heart.

Jyro screamed razors at one of the other bums, something about 'gathering the troops'. His tone of voice rattled Pilazzo, and by the looks of it, everyone else too.

Pilazzo shoved the charm back into his pocket and asked, "What do you need me to do?"

Timothy separated from the small crowd. "Come to the hole."

Chapter 29

Following Timothy, Jyro, and Wrath, Pilazzo walked unsteadily down the hall. He took a series of deep breaths in attempt to calm his harassing fear, watching Timothy's moving shadow against the wall. A mess of splintered wood jutted across his path as they approached the entrance to the rec room.

"I'm gonna warn you father," Timothy said. "It ain't pretty."

Pilazzo nodded, fearful as to what additional horrors lay in his path. He turned and stood before the open doors to the rec room, seeing no choice but to allow fate to carry him forward under the watchful guidance of God. He told himself that as long as he kept the rosary with him, he'd remain safe.

He hoped.

"Let's go."

They entered the recreation center. Pilazzo placed a supporting hand against Timothy's shoulder. A chill of dismay invaded his body as he took in the scene, stunned with disbelief.

Illuminated by a pair of halogen lights over the entrance, he could see that the small gymnasium was practically gone. A few months ago the place had been alive with parish members gathering with their children to organize fundraisers, playing games of ping-pong and pool and socializing amongst themselves in prayer and song, coffee and cupcakes. Now in the center of the room existed a hole that swallowed up nearly half the wooden floor space. The edges were jagged and splintered upwards, as if something huge had burst out from below. An accrual of deep brown stains, irregular in shape, coursed along the floor around the hole like a grisly aura.

Pilazzo slowly stepped to the edge of the hole. At once the hot pissy stench of the city's subway tunnels rose up to fill his nostrils. He looked down into the hole and gasped at what he saw.

A wasteland of bones: femurs, ribs, and skulls, the ancient remains of what might have been a dozen or more people partially exposed in the dark surface.

He pulled his gaze from the bones and ran it up along the exposed walls where twisted pipes and severed cables jutted from hunks of brown soil and cement. Then, sensing much more than the inanimate presence of the bones and soil, his eyes were drawn to what appeared to be a wooden crate at the hole's bottom. Gazing at it, he could estimate it to be about four feet long and three feet wide, with odd writing burned into its rutted surface. Its depth remained partially buried in shadows.

The crate was open. He peered into its dark depths…

…and in his mind saw the forefathers of the church shrouding the bodies of their innocents in a sacrifice to the beast, so that they may continue to thrive with no threat. Pilazzo could see the rosary and a glossy black chalice being wrapped in burlap and placed into the crate—goodness working against evil to keep it from emerging unfettered into the world.

And then, he could see the beast. It loomed behind the men, a dark shapeless form with huge red eyes like exposed organs in a freshly eviscerated gut, glaring at its bloodied offerings. Lambs to the slaughter, Pilazzo thought as the shadowed beast thrust itself forward, the burlap shrouds whisking free, the corpses beneath quartered and decapitated, parts flanking torsos like rotten vegetables fallen from the vine.

Pilazzo looked up from the hole, shuddered. The rosary was performing a mad dance about his trembling fingers, and he had to ball his fist up good and tight to keep it from leaping out of his pocket.

Timothy walked up beside him, his one good eye swollen with tears, the other springing its water in a damp smatter.

With the eerie image still fresh in his mind, Pilazzo said, "That's the Ark of the Covenant…isn't it?" He twisted around and saw Jyro and the other half dozen wide-eyed vagrants standing behind him.

"It is something that perhaps the bible never told us about," Jyro replied, his demeanor now calm and cooperative. In an unexpected display, the vagrant performed the sign of the cross, then folded his hands together and aimed his shuttering gaze to the heavens.

Beyond the walls of the rectory, another explosion occurred. This one could be heard and felt. The floor beneath Pilazzo's feet shot painful vibrations into his gut. The homeless men looked around precariously, as if expecting the ceiling to come crashing down upon them, but it didn't.

A nervous cramp hit Pilazzo's stomach. Making an effort to ignore the signs of disaster taking place in the outside world, he said, "What happened here?" His eyes scanned the bones, his mind trying desperately to justify some righteousness in their presence.

Timothy did his best to explain what he'd seen the night before: how the workers had been disemboweling and dismembering a group of homeless men beneath the floating chalice, how the chalice seemed to be drawing their blood in, drinking it.

"Where are the bodies?" Pilazzo asked, stepping back to look at the bloodstains on the floor around the hole. Something painful burned at the core of his fear, upon the inescapable doom that had seized him the moment he saw those painted eyes on the nightlight shift position.

Quivering, Timothy replied, "The beast took them."

Hearing Timothy's story, Pilazzo recalled the news report of the worker hurling body parts off the roof of a building, and then his mind's eye replayed the scene he witnessed on the altar, of the beast devouring the homeless man. These horrific images brought about a startling revelation in him: that the bones visible before him were not those of the bodies Timothy described. No, these bones have been here for years, since the days this church was erected. Oh my dear god…

And it was at this moment he realized with unequivocal certainty that the horror he was dealing with was far above and beyond anything supernatural; it was something all-knowing and all-powerful, an immortal presence that could never be fully brought down.

It could only be incarcerated, and that seemed to be their only option.

Timothy went on, pulling Pilazzo away from his fearful reverie. "There were growls coming from the hole. Father…" He began to sob, then blurted, "There was blood everywhere! The chalice…it was expanding, getting bigger and redder. I-I couldn't take my eyes off it. I remember wanting to touch it and how I couldn't control the urge to just leap out over the hole and grab it!"

He cried, tried to wipe his eye but only smeared dirt around on his face. "I'd stepped forward and was at the very edge of the hole when I heard a whisper inside my head. Over and over it called: rosary, rosary, rosary, and it distracted me enough to make me realize where I was, what I was going to do. I panicked, seeing how close I was to the workers, who like in the church were ignoring me as if I wasn't there at all. I staggered out of the room and ran back down the hall and considered leaving though the church but remembered that there were workers out there, and if they were anything like the ones I'd just seen, then I couldn't take a chance having them see me. It was then I decided to go upstairs, and that was when I saw Jyro holding the rosary."

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

"At the very moment I laid my eyes on it, nothing else seemed to matter. The workers, the chalice, the bodies, they were all a distant dream to me. The word…it kept whispering around in my head, over and over, rosary, rosary, rosary, and it somehow gave me the strength to explore the rooms. I'd found the homeless men sleeping in the bedroom, and for some reason, despite my initial disgust, I knew that their presence in the rectory was somehow right." He halted here as if gathering his memories and said, "Eventually I got my hands on the rosary, and it ended up saving my life—and Jyro's life—from the beast."

Pilazzo nodded and peered over Timothy's shoulder toward Jyro; the vagrant's scraggly beard was littered with filth, face scarred and pimpled, eyes sagging from the weight of their experiences. He looked like a living dead man.

And Pilazzo thought, This is your doing, isn't it?

Jyro looked the priest in the eyes, and as if reading his mind, confessed, "Forgive me father, for I have sinned."

Chapter 30

They moved back into the hallway, Pilazzo now leading the group, the rosary adding to his resilience a sense of authority now.

"I opened the crate," Jyro said, leaning against the wall. His voice took on a clear and articulate tone, despite the rawness of his appearance and the pained look on his face. His eyes marked Pilazzo with guilt. "At first I'd thought the workers were just disassembling the church. But then I realized they were also in the rec room, jack-hammering the floor."

"Did you see them?" Pilazzo asked, wondering if they were 'possessed' like those he'd confronted in the streets and subway.

Jyro shook his head. "No."

"Then how did you know where they were, and what they were doing?"

Jyro grinned thinly, the lines in his face cracking like dry desert sand. "Father…when you're living out in the wilds, you learn very quickly how to survive. It heightens your senses, makes you hear things and see things the average man might pass off as ordinary."

Pilazzo nodded. "What made you come here?"

Jyro coughed. "I knew the church was going to be shut down; for months it had been posted on the bulletin board outside. After it closed, I'd kept my eye on the place, on the comings and goings of the workers. About a month ago, I snuck in through an air duct and hid upstairs in one of the rectory bedrooms—imagine my surprise when I discovered there were still beds here. Of course, no good secret lasts forever. Word got around, and soon enough there were more than a dozen of us living here."

He rubbed his eyes and carried on. "Of course we immediately thought it odd that the workers never came up. They were making a helluva racket below, a week's worth that eventually got the best of some of the men. One night, after the crews left, I came down here to check it all out. And that's when I found the hole."

Pilazzo's tongue struggled to find a response, but failed. The real world, common only a day ago, had been extinguished permanently. His lips trembled silently to convey his dread, the slithering rosary doing its best to combat it.

Jyro continued, "I went to the edge. It was dark and I lost my footing. I fell in. I wasn't hurt badly, but had hit something real hard against my hip that's still hurting me something fierce. I'd had a flashlight and dropped it, but it was pointed toward sharp edge sticking out of the ground. In a few minutes, after digging around it with my fingers and hands, I uncovered the crate."

Pilazzo, feeling the rosary beads slowing down against his seeking fingers, said, "And you opened it."

Jyro nodded grimly. "And released all Hell on earth." He gazed about the room. Pale, frightened faces stared back at him. "But…I didn't mean to…and if it hadn't been me, then the workers would have done it—I'm certain of this. The evil in the crate was calling to them…just as something good had been calling to me."

Something is calling me, and I must follow…

He paused, defeated, then added more quietly but no less seriously, "Something good has us under its control." He motioned a hand toward the others in the room. "It has a purpose for all of us. I believe mine was to retrieve the rosary from the crate, and find its rightful carrier. Father, it's no coincidence that all of us, at one point in our lives, had been altar boys and ministers."

Pilazzo asked in a low hoarse voice, "What happened when you opened the crate?"

Jyro blew out a nervous gush of foul breath. "It'd taken me a while…there was a layer of cement a foot or so deep just above the top. I dug around it until it eventually fell free from the earth. When I opened it I found two crumbling burlap cloths. I unwrapped the first one and found the rosary. I put it in my pocket and reached for the second cloth. Inside was the chalice."

Pilazzo looked around and noticed the homeless men listening to Jyro's rehashing of the events. Apparently this was the first time they'd heard all this too. Their eyes were like barrels, faces drawn with alarm.

"The chalice was hot to the touch. I let go of it, but it didn't fall to the floor. It floated up to a spot just above the center of the hole, where it remained. I was stunned. There was no way I could get to it.

"What about the rosary?" Pilazzo asked. Upon mentioning it, they became warm to the touch against his clenching hand.

"It'd started moving around in my pocket…I could feel it. I climbed out of the hole. The chalice…it had started spinning and from within it a bright light filled the room. I felt dizzy and heard what sounded like raging fires. I remember the sound filling my ears with a pressure that hurt like hell. A hot wind sprung up that stunk of something awful, and I could do nothing but stagger out into the hallway, fearing for my life. Eventually I found my way back upstairs with the rosary. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hallway, the rosary clutched in my hands. I went into the bathroom to examine it, and when I came out, Timothy was there."

Pilazzo made no comment; it seemed he now had the entire account that went down while he was out in the streets. He glanced back at the unmoving crowd. All eyes were upon him. He grinned uncomfortably.

Suddenly, Pilazzo felt a sudden need to examine the charm alone, to seek an answer in its beads and tiny dangling charms. They called to him, just as they had earlier in the church. An inexplicable feeling of impending achievement filled him, converse to the events at hand. Could victory really be found in the beads?

"How much time do you think we have?" he asked Jyro.

The vagrant shrugged, stepped closer to the priest and spoke quietly, "Father…the workers are growing stronger; the beast has them in his command. You heard the radio reports. It is using them to spread chaos throughout the city. I fear what they are truly capable of."

Another explosion outside rocked the building. The exposed lamps in the ceiling swayed gently in its wake. Wrath and Dallas staggered against the wall to avoid falling down, chests heaving.

"What is going to happen to us?" Wilson shouted. "I don't want to fuckin' die, man."

"We will wait for the priest's command," Timothy answered.

A series of grunts and protests emerged from the frail group.

Timothy spread his arms out in question. "If anyone has another suggestion, I'm all ears."

"How?" Pilazzo uttered, gripping the rosary, feeling a sudden surge of power, of strength. Of command…

Timothy said, "You are the sinless one and we are here to support and defend you. God has called upon you to lead his army against evil. Come…we must prepare for the battle ahead."

Chapter 31

They went upstairs to the bedroom, where they milled about in a loose group, Rollo and Marcus at the door, Dallas and Seymour leaning against the wall. Wilson and Wrath stood out in the hallway, respectively armed with a hacksaw and a screwdriver. Jyro and Timothy led Pilazzo to one of the beds and told him to sit and rest. "Spend some time in prayer," Timothy said. "Try to find out what we should do next."

"Tell us where to find the Chalice," Jyro added.

Pilazzo shuddered as he sat down on what used to be his own bed. He placed a hand on the soiled mattress, feeling immediate waves of dismay. At one time the room had smelled of incense and soap; now it reeked of body odor, urine, spoiled food.

He performed the sign of the cross and searched the room for an unblemished feature of his past. Nothing proved itself memorable, putting aside the silver crucifix that sat crookedly on the wall like a wounded soldier.

Jyro said, "Pray, father. You must be clean of mind and soul in order to confront the beast."

Pilazzo peered up at the vagrant, stricken with panic. "Confront the beast?"

Jyro nodded.

"How do you know this is what I am—?"

"The rosary," he said. "The rosary."

Pilazzo nodded. He felt the warmth of the charm in his pocket, and knew. Both Jyro and Timothy had had it in their possession at one point, and were given a slice of knowledge to the dilemma at hand. With it he saw things and felt things all too powerful to be ignored. Shall my possession of the charm lend me the wisdom to defeat what is now wrong in the world?

Pilazzo thought back to his first moments with the rosary, recalling again how the rosary had triggered some form of determination in him—a want to unearth an answer in its network of beads and charms. These feelings had been powerful, indisputable, could not be ignored.

Will this happen again?

Timothy said, "The rosary contains the power of God. You need only to seek one answer in it: the means to fetter the beast once again. This I know because…because God has told me."

Pilazzo gazed at Timothy with awe. His thoughts moved back to his moments in the rectory of Holy Innocents and how his experience there had transformed his lifelong image of God from an iconic, spiritual essence to real, a sentient, omnipotent being watching over him—that had delivered a message of appeal to him.

"You spoke with God?" The once senseless question seemed all too vital now, all too valid.

Fixing the priest's gaze, Timothy said, "God has delivered to me a message, and I have followed it."

Pilazzo nodded, trembling hands folded insecurely in his lap. "If I had not seen His message with my very own eyes…"

Your church awaits you…

Timothy nodded fervently, eyes rolling about the room with no intended direction, as if following ghosts. "Evil is running rampant outside...God knows what atrocities the beast has in store for mankind. Father…it is your game now. Seek an answer in the rosary. When you are prepared to confront the beast, call us, and we shall support you."

Pilazzo nodded in understanding despite the flood of denial consuming him. How do I prepare for this?

Again Monsignor Sanchez's voice answered: Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

Jyro limped from the room, Timothy and the others following in silence.

"Where are you going?" Pilazzo asked, anxious and concerned.

Timothy said, "We will be right here in the hallway, waiting for you."

They shut the door behind them, leaving Father Anthony Pilazzo alone, sitting on the edge of his moldy bed, the remedy for the world's malady shifting soothingly in his pocket.

Chapter 32

Pilazzo stood and stretched. His bones popped loudly, his muscles twitched painfully. He reached into his pocket, carefully removed the rosary, then held it up in front of his face and stared at it curiously. It was spectacular, much larger than your average dime-store beads, hand carved of raw wood that should have deteriorated years ago. There were five charms dangling from the circular procession, small wooden stars and a single cross meticulously carved about the fine metal wire interconnecting the entire array. He toyed with it slightly, just as he had at the altar upon first examining it.

Immediately he felt its magnetism, a fresh attraction of irrefutable significance; its purpose, Pilazzo suddenly knew, would be revealed now that it was in the seeking hands of the sinless one.

He let the rosary rain down through his fingers, his palms. The beads danced of their own accord, as though seeking a comfortable position in which to settle before commencing with the daunting task at hand. It grew warm to the touch, glowing faintly crimson. His hands became translucent, their inner workings visible to his disbelieving eyes: he could see the flow of blood rushing fervently through his veins; the tight striation of his flexing muscles and tendons as his fingers blindly massaged the beads. Alone at last with God's ultimate weapon against evil, the utmost in goodness, he found himself making sudden progress toward his undisclosed fate. His vision blurred…but his driving instincts heightened to previously unfelt levels, allowing him to further his progress. The beads slithered quickly against his grasp now, as if they sought to assist in the release of their very own purpose. Pilazzo felt wholly encouraged by his immediate progress, working harder against the smooth grain of wood, feelings of imminent triumph alighting upon his eager soul.

His mind's eye began to imagine the rosary as something sentient, and in doing so he was able to obey its direct command to sit back down on the bed. Tiny sparks of electricity danced along the surface of the glowing beads, igniting in flashes as they grew more distinct, more colorful. Pinpoint lights emerged, seeping redly out from the grain of the wood onto his fingers like drops of rain, guiding them to move upon the relic with determined precision. The redness enveloped his translucent hands, all the way to his wrists were he could see the tiny bones there triggering in their decisive movements.

He could hear the pounding rush of blood in his body, the exploding surge as it escaped his heart and bulleted into his brain. Yes he sensed. I am the Sinless One, and I am mastering God's all powerful weapon. He has chosen me to be His army of one. I shall carry the world away from judgment day. He gazed hard at the rosary. It pressed and pulled at his willing fingers, caressing the charms against his skin. The red light spread to his elbows, his hands now completely buried in the aural glow. He peered deeply into it…and saw something that wasn't his hands.

Fires…I see fires rising.

His heart beat out an anxious rhythm against his chest. He prayed aloud, but could not hear himself, the pounding now making its way into his head, deafening him. A sudden force of wind sprung up from his clasped hands and whipped harshly against his ears. He expressed his instant fear with a failed attempt to scream. The air felt dense, thick like smoke that stifled his ability to breath. His bewildered eyes sprouted acid tears.

I can feel the fires…they're burning me! And I can see them, and they are burning down all that I know, all that I have ever known…

…and in the surge of agony consuming him, the ruined landscape reappears around him and his mother stands before the open entrance to the Church of St Peter. She is naked and charred amid a blossom of flames rising about her, her skin sloughing off in blistering slabs, her blood pooling out onto the ashes, winding about the charcoal ground in vein-like branches, flowing toward him, twisting up his legs like tentacles and amassing into pools at the center of his open palms.

He gazes to his mother and watches as she pleads with him, her eyes melting from their sockets over her skinless face. "Antonio, he needs you. Do as He says…"

From out of the ashes, a rabid Doberman appears, muzzle spraying thick white foam as it barks furiously. Behind the dog, the Manhattan skyline appears in the distant, its buildings buried in red flames and billows of black smoke.

And the dog keeps on barking, growing stronger, fiercer, and more confident…

Vicious pain rips through his hands and feet as though heavy iron spikes are being driven through them. His mother's form is no more than a pile of ash and bones on the ground.

In agony, he raises his face to the blackened skies and screams toward the fires rising high over the ruined buildings of New York City…

The door to the room slammed open, the wood splintering upon impact.

Everything disappeared: the landscape, the wind, the pain. He peered up through eyes damp with tears, his sights still blurred, the real world returning slowly and clumsily. Jyro and Timothy appeared in the doorway, Wrath immediately behind them.

"Father? Are you okay?"

Heart racing, Pilazzo looked down at his hands and saw: blood pooled in the center of his palms, dripping through his fingers onto the floor, the rosary squirming eerily about his bloody grasp like a worm in a rain puddle.

"He's coming," he said, mind nearly paralyzed from the vision he'd just glimpsed. "And he's bringing his army."

Chapter 33

Pilazzo gripped the rosary tightly; the others in the room cowered at the mere sight of it, now doused in the priest's own blood. Timothy kneeled before the priest, hands clasped in uncertain prayer. "What can you tell us? How do we prepare ourselves?" The boy's good eye triggered back and forth between the bloody rosary and the priest's face.

Pilazzo took a deep breath and expelled it in a nervous gush. "I'm not certain there is any way to prepare for the horrors I just saw."

"What did you see?" Timothy's wounded gaze pinned Jyro as if the two had discussed the probability of this uncertainty coming to pass.

"Fires…tremendous flames rising high above the city."

"You saw the future," Wrath said, holding the transistor radio in a swollen, scabby hand. "A future you must stop."

"Father," Timothy said. "We knew we had to find you—the sinless one. It is equally imperative that we locate the chalice."

Pilazzo shook his head, a cold bullet of pain lancing into his brain like a stab from an icy needle. "I do not know where it is. All I know is that the beast is coming." He gazed suspiciously around the room, images of the dog from his mind's nightmare haunting him. It had grown stronger from his first vision, more vicious, more powerful. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair. His heart beat heavily in his tightening chest. "I need some water, please."

In seconds Seymour appeared with a bottle, which he handed to the priest.

"What happened, Father?" Timothy asked. "Did you sleep?"

"Sleep? No. But I dreamed. And I saw."

There was a pause of uncomfortable silence. Jyro said, "It is growing dark outside. The city is in bedlam."

Pilazzo shot the vagrant an intense glare. "Dark? Is it night?"

Jyro's eyes narrowed. "It's getting close..."

"How long was I in here for?"

"You've been in here for hours. We stood outside the door the entire time, listening to you praying. We left you alone until you started screaming."

"Screaming?"

"Yes, in Latin."

Pilazzo peered at the rosary, still in his bloody grasp. "I do not speak Latin." The images from his dream lingered like some terrible document of war.

Fires…huge flames rising over the city.

"God's power is in you," Timothy said. "He works in mysterious ways."

Pilazzo nodded. And he works quietly and suddenly too. He took a deep breath, listening to his heart and the rush of blood pumping through his veins. "I do feel…something in me. But I cannot explain it."

He checked his memories and again saw the dreamlike vista of apocalyptic fires burning the city down. He'd seen some buildings on fire upon his return to St Peter's. The activity surrounding them seemed to warn of unmanageable chaos. "How bad are the fires?"

"Show him Wrath," Jyro said.

The large black man flipped the switch on the radio. The announcer from earlier, sounding once concerned but lucid, now spoke over a thin wave of static in a staggering, fearful tone, pausing five to ten seconds between sentences:

"…authorities are insisting that you stay in your homes, to make certain that all doors and windows are locked. It is also recommended that you arm yourself should a transgressor find his way into your home…as reported earlier, rampant violence has made its way as far north as the Bronx. At this time, there seems not to be any violence reported outside the city of Manhattan…again, it appears that most of the violence is being committed by employees by the city's construction units…I know this does not make any sense, but those individuals under this inexplicably bizarre influence appear to have no purpose other than to destroy those seeming to be a threat to them, these being two oddly diverse groups: the cities' homeless, and those active in the clergy. The city has brought in their entire police force. This has resulted in gunfire and bloodshed, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of deaths, some officers and many more offenders. The President has declared a state of national emergency, calling upon the National Guard to intervene. Troops have been dispatched to the city and are now poised at the entrances and exits of all the city's tunnels and bridges, while shelters have been set up to provide safety to those whom appear to be under immediate threat. The offenders, seemingly numbering in the thousands, are reportedly fighting back by starting random fires throughout the Metropolitan area. Recent reports claim at least twenty fires burning out of control at this time in the city. Hundreds of firefighters have been brought in from seventeen counties, but so far are unable to keep many of them under control. This sudden wave of inexplicable violence in the city is being watched by the world, and although other cities are showing scattered reports of copycat activity, nowhere is there evidence of a similar wave of inexplicable and most bizarre disorder. As the fires in the city rage out of control…"

"I've heard enough," Pilazzo said.

Jyro said, "Turn it off…" and Wrath complied.

The priest gazed up at the growing crowd in the room, thoughts of his visions haunting his mind over and over. He motioned toward the radio in Wrath's hands and said, "I have seen the dire results of this. The city will burn to the ground. Millions will die."

Pilazzo stood, the rosary gripped tightly in his bloody hands.

As if in response to his meager actions, an explosion sounded in the building. Everyone in the room yelled out. Rollo shouted a prayer. Wrath and Marcus raced away to investigate. Jyro and Timothy caugt the priest in their exhausted gazes, seeking a desperate answer.

Pilazzo nodded. "It's time."

Chapter 34

Pilazzo went downstairs into the lobby of the rectory, flanked by Jyro and Wrath, with Timothy leading the short procession. The other vagrants staggered about aimlessly in the lobby, coughing and yelling and struggling to make sense of what had just occurred. Dallas appeared out of a cloud of dust emanating from the hall leading toward the recreation center. His shirt was gone and Pilazzo could see a landscape of homegrown tattoos on his scrawny chest and stomach.

"Something happened at the hole," he cried, baring a row of brown teeth. "I didn't go into the room, but there's a lot of smoke coming out."

"Anyone hurt?" Pilazzo asked.

Timothy looked around the room, counting the men. "Marcus is missing. Where is he?"

Dallas said, "He was with me. I told him not to go in there but he went anyway and then…and then something in the hole exploded. I shouted for him but the smoke got too thick and I had to get out of there."

"Is there else anyone in there?" Pilazzo asked, also trying to count the others despite forgetting how many of them there were.

Dallas shook his head. "I don't think so."

Pilazzo stepped into the rec room hallway. "I'm going in," he uttered, his voice a notch above a whisper. Timothy stepped alongside him but Pilazzo put a quick hand up.

The rosary dangled from it.

Timothy stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the priest's blood-encrusted hand…and the rosary that swayed back and forth from it.

"I am protected. Let me go."

No one countered Pilazzo any further as he separated himself from the group, save for one weak call of protest from Timothy, which he ignored. He stepped down the hallway, debris crunching beneath his feet, the thirty second walk feeling longer as he mined his way through the settling dust. He squinted against the invading grit, the reassuring rhythm of the rosary in his still-bleeding hands leading the way.

About halfway down the hall he beheld an odd red glow emerging from the rec room. He quickened his pace and upon reaching the open doorway, witnessed a bizarre spectacle.

The chalice—evil's chalice he instantly knew—was here, floating above the hole just as Timothy and Jyro had described it. It was spinning like a UFO in some mocked-up home video. Blood oozed over the rim, its flow unaffected by the chalice's rapid revolutions. A spectacular array of dark red beams emanated from the glistening blood, bounding and flickering about the room not unlike lasers on a concert stage, reflecting every which way from the floating clouds of smoke and dust. Pilazzo stepped into the room, entranced by the miraculous sight, the rosary in his pocket at once writhing crazily, warning him of his actions. He stopped and gripped the charm, seeking purposeful direction in its message.

Behind, a multitude of concerned voices called out: Father! Be careful!

Their voices sounded like distant whispers in a crowded room, barely making their way into his tumultuous world. He felt mesmerized, his consciousness hovering somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, burgeoning dreams of happiness suddenly tempting his mind. Yet, despite these unexpected and inexplicable feelings of bliss, he sensed the fervent approach of something else…something dark emerging from the hole: a gush of pungent subway air invading his nose, the distant moans of pained voices filtering into his ears.

He chose to ignore the warning signs. Somewhere in here is pure happiness. Heaven and peace on earth. He stepped forward, arms now outstretched in an attempt to gather these remarkable offers of welcome.

From behind: "Father! Come back!"

Ahead in the storm of light and dust he could hear the persistent scuffle of eager feet against grainy cement, of tools punching into hard soil.

In his mind the swift promise of comfort came to him, and he suddenly saw himself as a young boy again, smelling the sweet aromas of his mother's cooking as he settled down to do homework in his kitchen.

No…they're both gone. Dead and gone. This cannot be!

The rosary shifted in his hands, and although his body was not in contact with it, he could feel the pressure of its message against his chest, his heart. He shook away the reverie. Suddenly he was no longer feeling any comforts, but instead fear as he gazed ahead at the construction workers climbing from the hole, emerging from the red light and smoke like apparitions, men whose tortured faces were coated with grime and blood, crazed eyes upturned showing only whites, teeth clenched to combat the painful efforts of their ascent.

The chalice was spinning faster now, the blood beginning to loose itself upon the men as they used the grappling hooks in their hands to pull their injured bodies onto the unyielding wooden floor of the room.

Still, Pilazzo stepped forward.

He squeezed the rosary. Fear engrossed him, and he made every pained attempt to pull away from the threat now only a few yards away. He peered down at his feet, feet that were no longer there, but buried beneath a twisted pile of rubble.

Ahead, as the smoke cleared, he could see the tail end of a subway car sticking out of the bottom of the hole, construction workers covered in blood and dust and tattered clothing, crawling out from the door at the end, onto the splintered floor of the rec room.

Pilazzo's lungs heaved, taking in the dirt and dust with every painful gasp. A moment's time passed when no additional workers emerged. Then, with the subway car jostling slightly, two very large men climbed out.

They were carrying the ancient crate between them.

With a crooked lunge they heaved it up upon the soiled steel of the subway car and passed it along to three other workers kneeling on the edge of the hole. It hit the floor with a weighty thud, attracting the remaining workers out of the hole like wounded jackals to a carcass.

The men moved with lumbering ferocity, hiking from the hole on all fours, some of them utilizing hooks and screwdrivers to gain purchase on the hard soil, others simply using their bloody hands to assist themselves. The filthy men were all over the hole's edge, like maggots on meat, and Pilazzo imagined more of them down there, making their way up.

In a move that was more instinctual than decisive, Pilazzo held the rosary out before him and recited an ancient biblical passage:

"Be gone, befouled spirit, and take thy demons with you! Return to the depths of hell and wallow in Satan's wasteland! God of heaven, God of earth, God of all creation, I implore you. The power of the Lord, Jesus Christ commands you! No power to the enemy! Lord, hear my prayer!"

The room went silent, the workers suddenly unmoving, eyes wide and white and peering up at him—hundreds of eyes he could see, glimmering in the darkness like the eyes of the workers in the subway, like those of the painter perched in the rafters at Holy Innocents. The moment was a defining one, the silence thick in its unknowable tension, the priest holding his rightful charm forward in a vulnerable attempt to challenge the minions of the beast whose sole purpose was to take down the very man before them—to retrieve the talisman in his wavering hand, and conquer mankind.

A sudden, deafening roar tore through the silence: the howl of a lion with its leg snared in the steel jaws of a trap. It struck Pilazzo's ears like daggers, hot and stabbing. His teeth vibrated in their gum-sockets. His face went numb and his skull ached. And with these sensations, his lucidity seeped back into him. He saw his arm extended out before him, the rosary dangling listlessly from his trembling fingers, the smoky air parting to reveal the true terror of the scene before him. Nausea beset him, resulting not of the present horrors, but of his sheer foolishness, of his near-willingness to hand over the fate of the world in a moment of lost perception.

He hurriedly pulled the rosary down and shoved it into his pocket…and at the same harried moment the minions echoed the evil roar emanating from somewhere deep within the pit with high-pitched screeches of their own. White eyes rolling, they rose up from their crouches and began advancing toward the priest in mad herky-jerk staggers, some of them awkwardly pursuing the bloody halo around the hole as if it were a trail of breadcrumbs, others hiking up out of the subway car, arms and legs pistoning with quick, shocking thrusts. Two of the men dragged a dead vagrant with them.

Marcus.

Oh God no…

Without warning, agitated hands and fingers grasped his ankles. Pilazzo startled and screamed. The hands dug his feet out of the peculiar hold of rubble, thin arms defying their apparent weakness and dragging him away from the immediate threat that was seconds away from pouncing.

He tripped back and landed on his rear. The air in his lungs fled with a painful rush. He flailed only slightly, focusing his efforts toward protecting the rosary, one hand pressed tightly against the writhing lump in his pocket.

The hellish screams filling the room were deafening, the horrid image of the men coming at him with their arms outstretched and their red mouths gaping, their tattered denims and construction vests spattered in blood truly startling: a pent-up slaughter making every desperate attempt to reign him in.

He felt himself moving backwards, not of his own doing, but that of the men who aimed to protect him: the homeless and one sole altar boy who got caught up in the mix. He saw himself being dragged out of the rec room, the anxious hands that held him immediately slamming the doors closed.

He gazed up at the doors, terror ripping through his body like a tangible force. He shoved a hand into his pocket and yanked the rosary out; it dangled in his hand, the tiny cross and two of its stars glowing red. Gazing at it, he prayed for assistance. The charm grew warm, then hot. He heard a loud popping sound, and could see the golden glimmer of the deadbolt's bar locking the minions inside the rec room.

From behind the doors a wicked chorus of howls ensued, heavy poundings now exploding against the polished wood, dust raining down from the ceiling. They will break through in moments, Pilazzo thought. He shoved the rosary back into his pocket and yanked his hand away from the burning hot beads. The stench of cooking flesh and blood stung his nose, wrenching his gut. The strength in his body waned, seeping out of him like water in a sieve. In the gloom he saw Timothy staring down at him.

God's power is in you, Timothy had said. He works in mysterious ways.

Heart pounding, Pilazzo closed his eyes and listened to the incessant banging of the workers against the twin doors of the rec room.

Indeed he does…

Chapter 35

Like a drill sergeant, Jyro shouted for everyone to arm themselves. Pilazzo struggled to his feet, watching the six vagrants taking up arms with their meager arsenal of screwdrivers, hammers, and awls. Wrath, Seymour, and Dallas stood poised by the twin doors, while Jyro, Rollo, and Wilson moved in alongside the priest.

Brothers in arms.

"Come Father," Timothy shouted, pulling him by the arm. Holding a flashlight in his left hand, the boy led Pilazzo into the lobby, where they paused for a moment to gather their wits. A sick quiver tickled Pilazzo's stomach and sent a hot spray into his throat as he jerked his gaze back and forth between the pounding door and group of homeless men fixing to protect him.

He looked at Timothy. The boy's face looked even more battered and bruised, pale white and greasy above the dim beam of the flashlight.

"You are badly hurt."

"The world outside is badly hurt—it is what you must seek to protect." There was something eerily detached about his voice, as if he wasn't actually 'all there'.

Pilazzo nodded slightly with a sickly kind of resignation, squeezing his eyes shut like a child struggling to block out a particularly scary scene in a movie. "Dear God…how can I defeat such a threat?"

"The beast…it must have a weakness."

"Perhaps, yes." The rosary shifted in Pilazzo's pocket as if reaffirming Timothy's sudden revelation. "An Achilles heel…"

The boy stood unmoving. Unanswering. His eyes seemed to stare through the priest.

"But how do we find out what it is?"

"Ask God," Timothy replied. "He will tell you." God told me…

In this instant, shadows shifted, as did the rosary in his pocket…and then the men closest to them began to scream. Pilazzo saw Jyro leap sideways and grab Timothy and then he latched onto the priest, but with no success.

Something else had him: the same cold dead grasp that had seized Rollo and Wilson and had them screaming for their lives. Wilson's mangy dreadlocks flew up like flags and then he went down, the unforgiving grasp of Weston's dead-fish hands burrowing deeply into his neck.

Before Pilazzo came to the horrible realization that the larger of the two dead men lying against the wall had somehow come back to life, something else lunged out of the gloom, impossible to believe but clearly real: the once-crucified albino, also back from the dead, and on an urgent quest for murder.

Pilazzo screamed. He grabbed at the first thing he saw: the flexing wrist of the albino. The pale, dead man latched his raw-boned fingers onto the priest's billowing robe and wrenched it violently. In the sudden chaos and jerking beam of Timothy's flashlight, Pilazzo could see Weston's hulking body falling down on top of Wilson, his burly hands (one of them burnt into a charcoal crisp) tearing into the hippie's throat. Blood spurted onto the floor from the gaping wound. A terrible wheeze emerged that seized Pilazzo's nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

The albino met Pilazzo face-on, eyes reddish-purple, oozing yellow stuff. He kept a weak hold on Pilazzo, from which the priest was able to break away with a single powerful jerk. Having lost his first pick, the albino settled for second-best and honed in on Rollo, who was flailing his fat arms and shouting verses from the Old Testament, despite having dropped his bible.

"Get back!" Jyro shouted, a hand on Timothy's bicep. Pilazzo complied and backpedaled into Jyro's waiting grasp, the rosary painfully hot in his pocket. They pressed themselves against the wall. Dallas, Seymour, and Wrath, under the earsplitting assault of hammers by the rec room doors—leaped into the fray with their tools raised high.

Wrath was the first to strike. Apparently realizing there would be no saving Wilson (the bottom half of his dreadlocks and beard were saturated with blood), he raised the hammer in his hand as calmly as a man on a driving course and buried the claw deep into the back of the albino's skull, producing a sharp cracking sound like a bat on a baseball.

Proving itself vulnerable to physical attack, the albino released Rollo, bellowed a great scream, and fell sideways to the floor into a twisted, motionless knot.

The Weston-ghoul, having finished his business with Wilson, lurched up and made a move for the now unarmed Wrath. The big black man's face, running with sweat, screamed something unintelligible, "Gah!", and threw his arms up in a defensive twist. The Weston ghoul—face painted green, a runner of black-sticky blood purling from his yawning mouth—made a play for Wrath's throat. They tussled harshly and went bumping into the bloodstained wall where the crucified albino first came to be. Wrath leaned a beefy shoulder against the ghoul and heaved it back. It tripped over its own legs and tumbled down into the puddle of thick blood oozing from the albino's punctured skull.

This gave the waiting vagrants a window of opportunity: both Dallas and Seymour, each respectively armed with an awl and chisel, bounded forward and impaled the Weston-ghoul. Seymour punched the chisel through its sternum, and Dallas the awl into its forehead. There was a striking one-two pop and then black blood burst from the wounds. The ghoul made a terrible growling sound, so loud and deep it could be felt more than heard. It thrashed about frantically, its struggle ensuing into a convulsing dance of death, filmy eyes marking the priest in its final seconds.

Pilazzo remained against the wall, held there by Jyro's clenching grasp. Terrified faces looked back at him. He tore his sights from the living and fixed them on the two dead souls. His head quivered with terror, the truth of the situation grasping his nervous system like poison: with Wilson now dead, there were only five vagrants left, plus Timothy. And himself.

Wrath leaned against the wall, huge chest heaving. His shirt was glued to his muscles, doused with sweat. Seymour stood panting, glasses gone and crushed on the floor, while Dallas—who may have just committed his very first murder—paced in a sprawling circle, the spattered blood on his face glistening wetly.

Rollo, trembling madly, located his tattered bible and whispered a quiet prayer, and it was here that Pilazzo realized the workers behind the rec room doors had stopped slamming into it.

Terrible, eerie silence filled the room.

He stepped away from Jyro—footsteps crunching loudly and clearly as they had in the church—and peered down the dark rec-room hallway.

Timothy stepped in alongside him. Soon all the men were huddled together, clearly wondering the same thing.

"What happened to them?" Dallas whispered hoarsely.

From behind came a low, metallic screech. The men startled and spun, tools drawn despite the subtleness of the sound.

The hallway door leading into the church was now wide open.

Tentatively and quietly, Pilazzo stepped toward it. He peered down the dark hall. He could see the dim outline of the exit at the other end of the hall, but that was it.

The church beyond lay in darkness.

He whispered, "I don't see any—"

An explosion ripped through the rectory. The twin doors of the rec room burst outward into the hallway, adding to the piles of debris already there. Screams erupted, from both the homeless men and the marauding workers who'd apparently set off the explosion. A rush of smoky air filled the hallway and rectory. Pilazzo and Timothy spun away from it.

Into the church hallway.

"How…" Pilazzo cried out, staring into the darkness ahead. A chorus of agony-filled screams saturated the rectory behind them. Thin clouds of dust filled the threshold. They turned and saw a smokescreen billowing through the rectory…and then the quick flash of an orange vest spattered with dripping-wet blood. Gray shadows moved in the white smoke. Horrible thumping noises spilled out. Slashing noises. Tearing noises.

In one terror-provoking moment, the smoke parted and from within its clamoring murk Jyro appeared, his face strangely composed despite the horrors suddenly taking place. He stretched his arm out toward Pilazzo and Timothy, fist clenched but opening slightly to reveal something to them…but then something behind him seemed to move, a dark shadow in all the gray smoke. Jyro grimaced and closed his fist tightly as a pair of bloody hands grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him back into the billowing smoke.

Pilazzo remained frozen, frowning, his mind telling him, He had something to show you. Something…good.

"God is showing you the way!" Timothy shouted, jerking on Pilazzo's arm. The boy pointed the flashlight toward the dark church. "Let's go!"

Chapter 36

They staggered into the church, the priest's body seeming to pitch forward as though guided by some unseen force. With no warning, the hallway door slammed shut, closing them in darkness. Timothy aimed the flashlight back toward the door, fixing the beam on the doorknob. Behind the door, shrieks of murder and death ensued.

Pilazzo grabbed the boy's trembling wrist, and motioned toward the pitch-black church.

Slowly they turned to face the sea of darkness. The air was frigid; frozen plumes fled their lungs. Pilazzo shivered, from both cold and fear.

He took a step forward.

Like a blast of air from a furnace, the smell hit him: wet, organic, reeking of blood, feces, and burnt flesh. It filled all his senses, dulling the piercing sounds of bloodshed taking place not fifty feet behind them. Pilazzo continued forward, slowly, feeling the fluid remains of the man they'd called Larry beneath his pressing footsteps.

In the wandering beam of Timothy's flashlight, he could make out the hideous contents of the fallen Mary statue—what had become of Larry, he suddenly knew—tiding out before him, black and glistening, peppered with shards of porcelain.

Here in the darkness of The Church of St. Peter, death lived.

As the screams and wails and horrid thumps of weapons meeting flesh rang true from the rectory, he sucked in his nausea and told himself that the air here was too dense to be resultant of only one fatality.

No, here there were a multitude of deaths. But where?

"It's so dark," Pilazzo whispered. "I cannot see anything…"

The rosary began to twitch in his pocket. Having cooled off after the deaths of Weston and the crucified man, it began to grow warm again.

Timothy pointed the flashlight toward the altar. There was blood everywhere, on the carpet, drop cloths, and great Jesus statue. A desecration of God's home still present, thriving. In my home…

Timothy pulled the flashlight away from the altar. He turned and skimmed it across the dark the church.

"Oh…my…God…"

Pilazzo jerked around, half-expecting to see a worker hiding in the rafters like he had at Holy Innocents.

What he saw instead was far, far worse.

.    Bodies. Perhaps two dozen of them, slaughtered like pigs. Homeless men, religious men, all sitting upright in the remaining pews, heads bowed on collapsing necks into which deep gashes had been delivered. One by one, Timothy delivered the flashlight's beam over them, spotlighting their lifeless faces, frozen in their final moments of terror: swollen tongues hanging blackly from gaping mouths. Clotted blood oozing from slashed jugulars.

Pilazzo fought back his gorge, seeking an answer to this travesty.

None came. The rosary remained cool and motionless.

To the left, more bodies appeared, eight or nine of them charred black like forest-fire tree trunks, the whites of their rictus grins shimmering in the flashlight's beam. Farther along the gruesome procession, two additional bodies, wholly flayed of their skin, rib cages sawed away to reveal still-wet lungs and hearts.

"Take it away," Pilazzo demanded of Timothy, and when the boy didn't comply he shouted louder, "I said take it away!" Trembling, he pulled the beam to the floor, away from the butchery—away from the humanity that had been devoured like chum in shark-infested waters. Pilazzo could drum up no reaction to this mastery of death. No want for prayer, no urge to scream. His fear had risen to a point where only shock and numbness existed.

He could only muster enough willpower to beseech the charm that had been meant for him, and seek out its guidance. But it remained dark. Unresponsive.

"What has happened here?" he asked of God.

Timothy tensed up alongside him, answered, "The end of days."

The horrific sights had dulled their senses so much that it was only now that they took into account the burgeoning threat from inside the rectory. The shouts and screams there had slowed, replaced now with groans of weak, near-death agonies. Both Pilazzo and Timothy stood motionless, listening to the aftermath, and for a moment there was only total silence, save for a slow drip somewhere near the altar.

Timothy ran his free hand through his hair, uttered, "They are coming for us. Are you prepared for battle, Father?"

The priest looked at the boy, whose swollen eye twitched nervously. "No. But I will try—"

There was an explosion just outside the church. Two of the stained glass windows in the ceiling shattered and colorful shards coughed through the air. The windows' lead frames buckled and collapsed inward. Pilazzo pitched forward, feeling glass pieces spearing into his arms.

He shuttered his eyes, reached out both arms and caught hold of…of a body,

…a warm, slimy, wet, naked, corpse…

one neither he or Timothy had seen in the gloom. In the beam of light Timothy struggled to stabilize, Pilazzo saw that the body had been noosed with a thick rope leading up and away to a beam in the dark ceiling.

With dreadful silence, the flashlight abruptly went out.

The beams creaked and the body swayed and to keep from falling Pilazzo latched onto it with his right hand. His feet skidded in the puddle of blood beneath it as his groping nails sunk into the pliant nudeness. There was a wet tearing sound, squlap!, and he imagined the corpse's neck tearing beneath the grip of the noose and the extra burden of his weight. His feet slipped again. He groped the corpse with his left hand, fingernails boring into an open wound, scratching bone. In a panic he embraced the cadaver's entire bulk and squeezed. His cheek pressed against a wet patch. A flurry of dust rained down on him from the ceiling.

Lungs heaving, he called for Timothy—the boy had gone dishearteningly silent.

"Timothy?" he repeated, his voice a faint sob.

No answer.

Tears filled his eyes; he could feel his tortured mind crumbling into pieces. How many times had he offered the host in this very spot, drinking wine from a cup and reciting the Lord's Prayer under the joyful gazes of parish members? And now look at me, grasping death by the handfuls, my very soul and perhaps the souls of millions dependent on a set of petrified rosary beads.

His hands slipped. The body swayed. Above, the beams creaked. Fearful of breaking a bone of smashing his head against the hard floor, he tightened his hold on it.

"Timothy?" he cried out, a bit more loudly now.

No answer.

He began to hyperventilate, breaths spearing the darkness like desperate cries for help. His heart sunk into a black hole of pessimism, a tiny voice in the back of his head yammering, The boy is dead! The boy is dead! And then he thought, And what of the others? The rectory has fallen silent—not even the evil war cries of the workers remains. Dear god WHAT IS HAPPENING?

The rosary began to move.

Grunting, he cautiously loosed one hand from the cadaver. His body faltered a bit, but he still managed to reach into his pocket and grasp it. Its movements calmed as soon as he touched it. And so, for the moment, did his anxiety.

From behind, near the rear of the church, Pilazzo heard footsteps—they crunched debris, echoing in the strange silence like drops of water in a cave.

Feeling an offer of guidance from the rosary, Pilazzo was able to gather his head. He mustered a bit of strength and boldness, took a deep breath, and quickly pushed away from the cadaver. He tottered sideways, feet skidding in the blood, arms spread for balance, eyes desperately searching the all-encompassing darkness. Shards of stained glass crunched beneath his footsteps as he staggered into a pew. A jolt of pain ripped through his hip like a hammer-strike.

The cadaver pendulated. With a deafening crack the beam supporting it snapped. It plummeted to the floor with a sickening thud and Pilazzo could see the dark shine of its exposed cavity winking at him. A loud rain of wood followed it onto the floor.

He shouted out, "Timothy?" He lunged through the darkness toward the altar, breath speeding up, brain and heart preparing to confront the evils awaiting him in the bitter darkness. He skidded to a stop somewhere near the steps, suddenly aware of the sticky blood on his hands and face. He clawed at himself as if trying to brush away a sudden swarm of insects.

The footsteps he'd heard earlier grew louder, seeming to approach from every direction. He jerked his head around, but could not make out their source in the dark. Quickly, he removed the beads from his pocket. He held them out and spun around with the same hopeful resolve a vampire hunter might display while baring a crucifix.

He heard a loud creak.

He turned. Looked. Saw an emerging splay of dim yellow light.

The door to the rectory was opening.

Chapter 37

From amidst a gleam of yellow light, the workers emerged into the church. The first two were holding the ancient crate between them, those behind carrying—dear God—the severed heads of their vagrant victims. Pilazzo recognized the lifeless faces of the men he never got to know: Seymour, Dallas, Rollo, Wrath, plus the heads of the previously dead: Wilson, Weston, and the albino.

Where is Jyro? he thought, unable to locate the vagrant's head among the decapitated, thinking again of how he in his final moments tried to show the priest something in his hand. Has he been spared from death? If so, then how? And where is he now?

So many questions, and no time to consider the answers.

The workers shambled from the doorway in the same wicked frame-by-frame stagger as their outside-world brothers. Their injuries were painfully clear in spite of their jerking movements, many of them bleeding—or, doused in the blood of their victims—some devoid of an eye or limb. Judging from their actions, they appeared unfeeling of the pain tearing through their bodies.

They filled the transept at the left of the altar like a chorus of parishioners. There were at least twenty-five of them in all, those holding the heads standing in front, flanking the pair with the crate on both sides. There's so many of them, Pilazzo thought, realizing with dismay that there were many more wreaking havoc in the outside world. A whole damn city's worth. He trembled uncontrollably as he held the rosary out, fingers pawing at it furiously, instincts forcing him to shout, "Be gone foul demons!"

The workers laughed in response, voices deep and raucous.

Pilazzo swallowed a hard lump in his throat. He clutched the rosary tightly until his nails dug half-moons into his palm. It dangled back and forth like an ornament in an earthquake.

Amid their laughter, deep livid voices shouted out, "Bow to the beast priest! Bestow upon him the charm! The vagrants have lied to you! The rosary is a sham! A useless piece of junk!" On and on their hideous lies went.

A cold swash of air blew into his back, sending ghostly chills up and down his spine. He jerked around as if someone had shouted aloud, but saw only the dark church, its shuttered doors dim shadows in the splay of yellow light spilling from the rectory door. He arrowed his sights back toward the bloody mass of construction workers packing the transept…but…

…but they're staying away from the altar, Pilazzo thought with a cracking force of revelation. And I understand… His mind again went back to his meeting with Henry Miller, how during their conversation outside the church the foreman had said: Our…our crews are not insured for moving such valuables, Father. I strongly suggest you hire, immediately, a moving company to handle them…

And as Pilazzo stared at the mass of workers—who themselves seemed to be eyeing the altar as if it were a great hive packed with killer bees—that he came to read between the lines of Henry Miller's deliberate words.

That the Achilles' heel of the beast had become utterly clear.

The porcelain statues and the great wooden Jesus. The workers couldn't move them because they couldn't touch them. Miller had tried to ploy Pilazzo into getting someone else to move them—someone not under the influence of the beast—because should his workers even so much as attempt to touch them, they would suffer pain and death. And this would weaken the beast.

I can see this as clearly as the image of my dream remains in my head…

His memories quickly switched to his confrontation with the beast, how it had manifested itself upon the altar amid the circle of statues—and before the great crucifix. Pilazzo wondered: if indeed the workers—the minions of the beast—had been unable to approach the altar, then how did the beast manage to do the same without any suffering?

Pilazzo squeezed the rosary—now warm to the touch—and like magic an answer to this uncertainty bloomed in his mind.

The doomed vagrant Larry had made an attempt to utilize the rosary for its truly benign purpose. He had not been pure of heart however, a sinless one, and had consequently failed to bring God's power out, conversely opening a door for evil to emerge and gain strength.

And just as Larry had obtained the rosary, goodness had used him to intervene at the exact moment Pilazzo had entered the church. By doing so, Larry could deliver the rosary to the priest while the beast was exposed, and vulnerable to attack.

Yes, Pilazzo thought. It was divine intervention. Larry taking the rosary and being there upon my entrance into the church. Timothy being there for me soon thereafter. It's goodness combating evil, every stretch of the way.

The entire truth had been revealed, its pieces spread out before him: a knowledge gifted to him by the rosary. From God.

He saw no other choice but to use it to his advantage. Follow the message that God delivers to you. Heed His word and do your part to bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

"Father!"

Timothy. Pilazzo spun around. Saw the boy.

Trapped in the arms of Henry Miller.

Chapter 38

The foreman had one great arm wrapped forcefully around the Timothy's neck, his free hand clutching a fistful of the boy's hair. The boy's eyes bulged—even his swollen eyelid had managed to open a bit—as he pried furiously at Miller's beefy forearm in a bid for escape.

Pilazzo rubbed the rosary furiously, seeking immediate assistance. He felt the heated friction of his fingers against the wooden charms, but failed to unearth its support in this moment of dire need.

"Timothy…I'll get you out of this," the priest promised emptily. Please, God, I implore you, help me…

Miller grinned, mouth rife with thick brown teeth. As though reading Pilazzo's mind, he barked, "God can't help you now, priest," voice feral, barely recognizable as human.

Yet, the foreman wasn't all that threatening in his appearance. In passing he might've been just another balding semi-overweight man in his fifties, face red and pudgy, puffy bags sagging under deep-set eyes. He looked more unhealthy than evil.

Still, Pilazzo knew: the evil dwelling inside this man could move worlds.

In order to save all of mankind (In this do-or-die moment, it all sounded so b-movie in context, but damn if it wasn't the dire fact of the matter), Pilazzo needed to kill this man at once, cut him off from his command of the workers, his authority of the fires rising over the city.

He shuddered at the grave thought. How could he possibly succeed in doing this? He was a priest, a holy man, truly incapable of murder. He reminded himself that he wouldn't be killing a man so much as eliminating an evil entity, but he still couldn't find it within himself to enact such an aggression.

"Father!" Timothy shouted, squirming in Miller's tightening grasp. The tendons stuck out of his neck like cords. His feet slipped in the carpet of blood, drawing streaks into it like skid marks.

The foreman grinned. "Come and get him father. The boy for the rosary."

"What good is it to you?" Pilazzo felt his face go hot with anger, frustration.

"It is everything…so long as its rightful possessor surrenders it to me."

"The boy is doomed either way," Pilazzo muttered. "We all are." He contemplated Miller's words with a staggering level of insight: So long as its rightful possessor surrenders it to me. Which is why the beast needed me to come here, why it simply could not have taken the rosary for itself. It needed good to surrender it…to bow to the beast. It is just as the bible says: in order for evil to gain rule over man, it would need to abolish all that was good. The sinless one.

Miller laughed at the priest's pretense for logic. "So true." And then the foreman changed, becoming one with his workers by exposing the evil lying below its human surface. His face turned repulsively gray in the dim light, bloating slightly so that his features were partially disguised. His head jerked up and down and he produced a barking noise, gagging up clots of thick white foam that coated his swelling lips. When he looked back at Pilazzo, his nostrils widened and green stuff leaked out.

Pilazzo couldn't believe what he was seeing and smelling. He gripped his stomach as a wave of nausea filled him. Henry Miller's sudden change in appearance rose above all rational explanation, and his mind and body was unable to digest even the tiniest ingredients.

"Give me the boy, Miller…" he said, trying desperately to ignore the transformation he'd just seen. He drew his eyes away from the foreman and looked at the rosary in his hand.

He raised it in battle. Or am I preparing to trade it for Timothy?

One life for millions?

"No Father!" the boy shouted, squirming in the foreman's—the beast's—grasp.

Pilazzo jerked the rosary back.

The foreman grinned.

Then, with a similar flick of the wrist, grabbed Timothy by the chin…

"…NO!…"

…and with cruel and inhuman strength wrenched his head sideways and snapped his neck, producing a resounding crack that flew through the hollow church as if a small firecracker had gone off. Timothy's body went limp in Miller's arms. The foreman sniggered, and released the boy. Timothy dropped lifelessly to the bloody floor, a puddle of urine darkening the crotch of his jeans.

Miller's grin widened, teeth now black, pointed like daggers. "So then…I shall make you give it to me."

Shaking his head in disbelief and horror, Pilazzo backed away. He turned and ran toward the altar, for a moment forgetting about the mass of workers near the transept. He peered over at them. They were twitching and grimacing, glowering at him with their screwdrivers and boxcutters and awls drawn. One of them was jutting a crowbar in the air, Rollo's head impaled on it like a meatball on a toothpick.

Pilazzo stopped at the foot of the altar, staring at the workers.

They all remained at a watchful distance.

Holding the gently writhing beads close to his body, Pilazzo took a deep breath and stepped up onto the altar.

"Your divine inspiration is commendable." Miller's voice carried across the church, deeper and rougher than it was before. He kicked aside Timothy's corpse and stepped down the aisle toward the altar.

The rosary began to grow warmer, its reddish glow beginning to emerge. A tiny wave of relief filtered through him, despite the hideous circumstances. "I am safe as long as I remain here on the altar," he murmured, unconvinced of his desperate theory. But then what of the rest of the world?

Miller approached the altar, and in the pallid light Pilazzo could see his face had changed even further: the skin appallingly wrinkled, cut deep and sickly green. White gauzy hair sprouting from his previously bald head, like ancient webs. He appeared to have grown larger, round muscles defined beneath his bloody clothes.

"I've visited the altar once before. You remember, don't you? When we first met?"

In Pilazzo's mind, images of the hideous thing he saw on the altar returned to him. He remembered how the thing had emulated Larry's knotted ear—how it had birthed a pair of monstrous reptile claws and fed the doomed vagrant to itself. Pilazzo clenched his teeth, trying in vain to rid the horrific images from his mind.

Miller laughed loudly, guffaws that nearly shook the weakened beams of the church. He reached his arms out, flaunting hands that had somehow morphed into lizard's claws like those from on the altar. He swept them through the air, vile teeth gaping and stabbing forward, ancient-looking hair flowing down to his shoulders.

"Come to daddy!" the Miller-beast bellowed. "Let us play!" Its voice resonated, deeply intoned with a chorus of many. The workers began to rustle noisily, their bodies jostling together like rats in a cage.

Pilazzo stepped up onto the upper platform of the altar and backed into the semicircle of shrouded statues—directly beneath the twelve-foot crucified Jesus. Colored lights fell in from the stained glass windows above, igniting the altar with their ghostly luminescence, as if the sun had somehow found its way in through the darkness. When he gazed up to view their source, instead of sighting some mystical radiance breaking through the night, he saw the spires of flames grabbing the roof of the church.

Oh my God…

The roof of the church was on fire.

He at once initiated a systematic probe of the rosary, fingers guided about the beads by some unseen force. The rosary remained unmoving, now cold to the touch. He squeezed the rosary tightly, trying desperately to simply comprehend the soon-to-come events, but fear had him wound too tightly in its grip.

Behind him came a sharp cracking sound. He spun quickly, half-expecting a blow from one of the workers…but nothing was there.

Nothing except the bound feet of the great wooden Jesus.

Blood was seeping from its wounds.

Chapter 39

Dear God!

The beads began to move vigorously in his hands. When he looked at them he could see them glowing more brightly now, the red warmth shrouding his hands like gloves as it had earlier in the rectory. Pilazzo spun away from the great crucifix and saw Miller—no, the beast that had replaced Miller—now doused in moving shadows: dark specters racing over his still-changing form like sharks circling a chum ball. It stepped to the forefront of the altar…but advanced no further.

Because it cannot...

Even in the deceptive light, Pilazzo could see the hideous transformation still taking place within the man, muscular limbs now tearing through clothes, the skin beneath partly reptilian, riddled with patches of hair that swirled and coiled like fire. It jabbed its claws toward the priest, and Pilazzo could see yellow talons on them four inches long, sharp as razors.

And then its face: a visage of utter repulsiveness that swam out of the moving darkness like a moray from an ocean fissure. Its forehead was low and supine, covered with thick flaring scales. Its cheeks, swollen and wet, the eyes glowing onyx, filled with evil intellect. Its mouth opened impossibly wide and roared, beckoning the workers to mimic its inherent evil with howls of their own. It shook its newly malformed head with incomparable aggression, thick streams of foam spraying madly from huge bleeding lips. Pilazzo pressed himself back against the wooden Jesus.

Warmth emanated from the hard, carved surface.

Just like the rosary…

The workers continued jostling against one another, anxious to flee their imprisonment but appearing supernaturally confined, as though trapped in a fish tank. The two workers holding the crate dropped it, producing a loud crack that echoed about the church like the resounding blasts outside. They kneeled down alongside it, rubbing its dusty surface as if searching for a hidden message.

Terrified, Pilazzo continued to rub the rosary, searching for an answer in them while making every effort to rid his mind of the want for it to act as a tool for slaughter. He found nothing as the foretelling message delivered to him triggered back and forth in his mind: Follow the message that God delivers to you…bring down the evil that promises man the end of days…

But I am no murderer!

He looked at the charm in his hands. Its red glow had faded some, its ancient wooden surface beginning to re-emerge. No! In a panic, he shook it like one might jiggle a gadget in a hasty attempt to keep it functioning, wondering how it could further his chances of survival, much less save all of mankind from the fires of Hell.

The voice of Monsignor Sanchez filled his head with a previously unheard message: The beast is afraid of it, afraid of what you might do with it.

Thomas?

"Give…it…to…me…," the beast demanded, voice monstrous, booming, barely clinging to its humanity. Pilazzo set his eyes back upon the thing before him, gasping breathlessly at the mere sight of it, his terror widening to a previously unimaginable plane. He could feel his very sanity breaking down, his mind overloading with the plain reality of what Henry Miller had become in just seconds.

It stood seven feet tall, looking nothing like the man it had been moments earlier—a creature straight from the bowels of Hell, here and now riding the body of Henry Miller, who in the face of his hideous appearance, maintained only minute portions of his human features, now besieged by the beast's own atrocious characteristics: black scaly skin, a muscle-bound torso with a rattle-tipped tail that tore through the pants he wore. From its head, doused in thick cobwebs for hair, a series of serrated horns surfaced—not just a pair but a toadstool cluster of them—all four inches high with dark rounded ends. Although naked and glistening wetly, a few strips of Miller's clothing dangled from its shoulders and waist like strewn rags. It stared at Pilazzo in threatening silence, eyes glimmering angrily below thick flaring eyebrows that coiled up and disappeared into its white hair.

Pilazzo shuddered uncontrollably, urging his weakened mind to search the rosary for guidance in this moment of distress. If a time had come when he needed it most, then this was it.

"Be gone, foul demon," he whispered weakly, cowering, feeling foolish and afraid in this ridiculous effort. The rosary shifted and curved about his devoted fingers.

The beast bellowed a storm of hellish cries that shook the church, filling it with a palpable tension impenetrable in its promise for malevolence.

The rosary shifted again. It began to turn hot, a positive sign that help was on the way…he hoped and prayed.

And then, from out of nowhere, a foreign wave of anger and a want for retribution filled Pilazzo's mind. His muscles twitched and a surge of courage and bravery consumed him until he found himself shouting at the beast, "Do you think me such a weakling that I would hand my fate over to you as if it were a child's plaything?"

The beast, standing its ground, turned its huge head toward the priest. It snorted and a black craggy tongue emerged from its mouth, licking the dripping mucus from its huge lips. Pilazzo recoiled, inhaling the horrid stench of its breath, sulfuric and gassy and nearly unbearable. Its roar was a chorus of beasts: the growls of an angry bear reverberating above an orgy of squealing pigs and bleating of goats.

From above, something cracked loudly. Pilazzo diverted his gaze to the spreading flames beyond the stained glass windows in the ceiling. His trembling hands and fingers moved about the charms and beads with inexplicably adept precision. The rosary grew even hotter, settling composure into his racing blood, his rioting heart. He beheld violent images of the fires beyond the walls surrounding him, of the reaching spires that burned through the city like blowtorch blasts, making every hellish attempt to take down the safe haven of the Church of St Peter.

But something was thwarting the fires from doing just this, he realized, gazing back up toward the ceiling. A barrier of some sort around the church, one of an enigmatic nature, powerful and demanding, crafted of pure goodness.

Its source lay squirming in his very hands.

"Please, please," he urged the rosary, hands dexterously shepherding its miraculous power. The air in the church grew from cold to hot in seconds. Tiny wisps of smoke spiraled up from the rosary.

The swelling beast reached its claws forward toward Pilazzo, only to howl and pull them back quickly, as if scalded.

I am being protected…

Through his peripheral vision, Pilazzo could see the workers jostling, slamming together violently like atoms of kinetic energy. Blood appeared on their faces from the random collisions. They'd dropped their trophy heads and were trampling them underfoot. The worker holding the crowbar with Rollo's head shouted, "Surrender the rosary, priest!"

A loud hiss filled Pilazzo's ears. He looked and saw the beast suddenly distracted, jerking its gaze upward to a point just above its head. Its eyes were wide and glossy and it began swiping a taloned claw through the air like a cat pawing a dangling toy. Its jaws were bared, dripping yellow venom.

It seemed to perceive something in the air…something wholly disconcerting.

Something…good.

In this moment of diversion, Pilazzo continued to work his hands about the sliding, shifting, gliding rosary.

Finally, one of the workers—a thin, gray-haired man—broke free from the force that had had him bound. He staggered haphazardly toward the altar, arms swatting his battered body as though on fire. The beast shot the man a wary glance, then let loose an animalistic roar that sent razor-like vibrations throughout Pilazzo's body.

If the roar had been meant as a distraction to the man, it served no good. With nothing more than blind intent, he reached the periphery of the altar...and stepped onto it. A loud whump immediately sounded, followed by a blast of searing hot air. A bloom of red flames rose up from the worker's body to a height of nearly fifteen feet. The worker howled like a tortured dog, lurching aimlessly between the altar and first row of pews. The air again was filled with a reek of burning flesh. The worker collapsed down alongside the front-most pew where he curled up beneath the blistering blaze, thick plumes of black smoke wafting up through the hole in the ceiling.

The beast roared again, jerking its reptilian gaze about the altar, back and forth, back and forth. The base of the great Jesus grew even hotter, and then a loud fracture sounded. Pilazzo cowered, fearful of something dropping down on his head.

Yet despite his proximity to the beast and the terror clawing at his body, he stood his ground, massaging the rosary feverishly and making every attempt to keep his mind at ease—to breathe at a controlled pace and soothe his laboring heart. He saw his vision fade into a gray blur. Numbness raced down his spine and out his nerve endings like fire, and although he was highly distracted by the evil din filling the church—the rapid, vicious thunderstorm strikes sounding overhead, and the crackling flames eager to make their way inside—he allowed the dancing rosary to guide him and serve its divine purpose.

Another loud crack! rained down from above, hot dust and the hard aroma of burning wood soon trailing in its wake. The priest gazed at the beast. It was reaching through a veil of burning-flesh smoke into the protective domain of the altar, its grasp only inches from the priest's hands, and the rosary. Pilazzo could see its trespassing claws searing, blisters rising up and then bursting to release their thick yellow fluids. The beast howled in agony, its gusting force nearly knocking Pilazzo down. It pulled back, slamming its clawed feet in brutish frustration while snarling in a dozen braying voices.

Pilazzo pulled furiously upon the rosary, the beads now loose upon their string. Hot tears burst from his eyes, irritated from the smoke unfurling from the burning body. The red light emanating from the rosary exploded across his body, igniting the entire altar like a surge of rising water. A swelling heat filled his palms, and then his entire body as the rosary's beads seared his skin like embers. Still, he held on, praying, sweating profusely, the words of a previously unspoken language spilling from his lips. Never in his life had he felt such an overwhelming gush of emotions. He watched with awe as the drop-cloths on the statues began to billow beneath the churning blasts of hot air, then moved his gaze to the beast…the beast, now trembling like a sickly dog, barking and choking up a mess of ropy, green vomit, its piercing eyes darting furiously about the altar, at the drop-cloths that one by one flew off the statues like fleeing ghosts.

The beast roared and turned to its workers in a seeming panic (the flames on the burning man had tapered down into a molten heap of flesh), looking suddenly frail in the storm of wind and smoke slashing through the church. It barked something unintelligible, seemingly using up a great deal of its waning strength.

As if a cage door had been opened, the workers spilled forward, many of them tripping over themselves and falling down, free of their ghostly bonds. The pair at the front of the group lugged the crate over to the beast and dropped it at its feet.

While the beast used one muscled claw to wrench the crate open, the workers shambled over one another, looking like released rats, their faces bleeding and bruised purple, hands frantically searching the floor for their dropped weapons. Some of them succeeded. Others groped the floor like blind men, lost of their otherworldly guidance, the trophy heads of their victims rolling about like soccer balls.

Those that were armed stood and faced their master's command.

The beast reached into the crate and removed the burning chalice, flames and blood dancing across its glossy black-red surface, and over its yellow talons.

It stepped back and pointed the burning relic toward the altar. It roared with the voices of a thousand burning souls, green vomit still purling from its mouth, and shoved the raised chalice toward the altar: a fearful leader, sending its lambs to the slaughter.

In his spellbinding commitment to the rosary, Pilazzo hadn't noticed the movement from behind. But he'd sensed something else, a thin stretching vibration beating against the thin flesh of his eardrums. It seemed to have traveled down his spine and into his arms, until he realized that something hard was grasping him—something inhuman that despite its warmth, felt strikingly artificial to the touch.

He turned his face up and beheld a miraculous sight.

The red light had receded, the ceiling now an inescapably dark vista of smoke—a black hole that wrenched his mind and shoved forth the stunning reality of the circumstances. Pilazzo wanted to fall to his knees, to cover his eyes and wish away what he was seeing, but there would be no chance of that. He had become a prisoner to a new force, one he hoped fought beneath a luminosity of goodness, and not the omnipresent evil that had instantly flooded his life.

The statue next to him was grasping him on the bicep.

Carved in pure white porcelain, the statue's smooth surface remained inanimate. But its eyes were moving, streaked with cloudy blue spirit.

Pilazzo thought, it can see me…

He looked at the solid white arm grasping him, and the other which remained stiff and lifeless at the statue's side. He made a feeble attempt to pull away, but found it impossible to move. When he gazed back at the statue's face, he could see that the pallid features had gained a bit of hue, the eyes now showing fringes of red, its lips the slightest tint of pink. The corners of its mouth arched up into a delicate grin.

Have they come to revenge the death of their Mother? he thought crazily.

And then he was being pulled from the forefront of the crucifix, only the statue's arm moving, creaking hollowly as it performed the simple task. A hot breeze sprung up from the center of the altar, causing his robe to flap and flutter like sails in a storm. The statue released its iron grip. Pilazzo shrank down against the rear wall, eyes bulging, skin crawling, arms folded protectively across his trembling form, holding the glowing rosary close.

By this time, the workers had amassed before the altar, assembled in a ghastly pocket of death, a fuming mob poised for battle, flaunting their carpentry-weapons. Pilazzo gazed forlornly at them, sapped of all strength in his vulnerable position behind the moving statue. He felt as if something had sucked all the breath out of him.

And then he heard that scraping sound again, like dry fingers rubbing against plastic, and when he turned and looked he saw that all the statues were moving away from their positions that he himself had moved them to weeks earlier. St. Peter, St Michael, St Thomas, St Luke, and a second Virgin Mary, open-armed and devoid of baby. They bent and flexed ever so slightly, the creaking sounds of their joints supernaturally amplified, sounding like earth-tremors. They're alive, Pilazzo thought, allowing their very presence to fill his world with a sickly sort of dependence. Was this good fighting evil, or one evil challenging another?

The beast raised its arms high, displaying the burning chalice cockily, tiny flames spilling out and skittering down the length of its massive arm like fleeing roaches. It pulled its bulbous lips back showing teeth and blood-red gums that glinted with fire. It shook its malformed head and bellowed fiercely, pinning Pilazzo with huge, black eyes. Pilazzo felt the ground shudder beneath him. The hot stink of the monster's breath washed over him. The beast spun and swung its arms about maniacally, the sound of its massive claws dividing the air an unrelenting whisper. Flames spilled from the chalice now in splashes and burned the floor in oil-slick patches. Its free claw struck the nearest pew, sawing the polished wood into two wilting halves, the raw insides exploding into a smoldering shower of splinters. Its tail, now four feet long, rattled incessantly.

Slowly, the statues plodded forward, creaking noisily, descending the steps in uneven totters. Once off the altar, they became immediate targets for attack. The workers—screwdrivers and saws and drills raised high—advanced upon them.

With terror and awe and something else he couldn't put a shaky finger on, Pilazzo gazed in disbelief at the defending statues, two of them made of white porcelain, the others carved in wood and intricately hand-painted in perfect blues and reds and browns. They moved sluggishly, like b-movie zombies, way too slow to demonstrate any form of lethal defense. The collision of the workers and their tools against them emulated the roar of murderous thunder. This was quickly followed by the ear-splitting sounds of metal on porcelain, metal on wood, and the death-grip cries of those beaten workers too weak to challenge the otherworldly presences opposing them.

It seemed evident to Pilazzo that the five slow-moving statues were not intended by the spirit of the rosary to perform some ultimate battle against evil—the saints were not fighters. No, their combined purpose was one more cunning in nature: to act as a distraction.

The true adversary of the evil going down in St Peter's church was still rising from its post-ceremonial charms, a life bigger and more powerful than the five others combined. It just needs more time! a voice in Pilazzo's mind shouted. He choked on a small piece of wood that had found its way into his throat: a splinter that had come free from the tearing wood three feet to his right.

The five statues were now completely surrounded. The beast stood back from the fray, flaunting the chalice and watching with serious interest as its workers stabbed and chopped and sawed at the wood and porcelain figures. The saintly figures, now unmoving, tilted and rocked amidst the corral of attacking arms, their faces not resembling anything like saints anymore: dark, filthy chips pocking the porcelain pair, the wooden figures gouged deeply, the lumber inside their colorfully painted skins a stark, unblemished tan.

But the most inspiring of all sights was taking place right alongside Pilazzo.

The great, crucified Jesus...it was…

Father Anthony Pilazzo realized at this moment that he'd never been more afraid in his life, more than when he first beheld the beast possessing the floor before the statue of the Virgin Mary; more than just a moment ago when he beheld the hideous transformation of Henry Miller shifting into the beast. And more than a moment ago, as he watched the church statues come to life and sacrifice themselves in this battle of good versus evil.

A huge crack sounded, like a wooden bat to a baseball, and it nearly deafened him. He prayed that the sound was imagined, but then there was another more forceful sound: the ripping shriek of tortured wood. He crawled to his right along the rear wall of the church, and gazed at the incredible sight just feet away.

A ghostly red mist rose up from the base of the crucifix, winding tendrils traced with phosphorescent halos. He followed the vaporous strands up to the face of the wooden Jesus, no longer gazing toward the heavens in unanswered prayer, but staring at the beast opposing it, brow slightly downcast, eyes showing tinges of life.

Like the painted eyes on my nightlight…

Yellow smoke swelled from the rear of the Jesus figure's skull. The rank smell of burning wood overpowered the hideous stench of the beast. The floor beneath Pilazzo trembled forcefully and his stomach slammed up into his throat, damming his breaths.

With a piercing crunching sound, the Jesus figure's head tore away from the crucifix. Splinters of wood burst out and rained down across the altar, peppering the battling workers who were too busy routing the statues to notice their true threat. Pilazzo covered his face with his arms, shielding his eyes from the storm of wood. A few seconds later, as he uncovered himself, another crack of wood boomed through the church and he saw the wooden Jesus leaning farther away from its place on the cross, its back now rendered free, wisps of smoke rising up from the splintered wood on the cross.

Pilazzo looked back at the chaotic battle and saw the beast struggling to rekindle the sputtering fires in the chalice. Pilazzo presumed these fires represented the strength of the beast—just as the rosary offered power to the sinless one. The beast's downcast eyes were fixed upon the glossy chalice and the lack of fires within, arms and legs and tail flailing in noticeable anger and frustration.

There was another incredible cracking noise. A cloud of sawdust burst over Pilazzo's head like a blast of gunpowder. When he looked up he saw the Jesus figure's right arm now free of the cross, sticking straight out in its original pose, blood trickling from the wound in its hand and sizzling as it spattered the altar. There was another powerful crack. Pilazzo could see its left arm now unencumbered. It too remained stiff. Like the other, it bled from its wound.

It was a miraculous sight: both of Jesus Christ's arms free of the cross, stiff in their crucifixion position, the fingers flexing ever so slightly, like a newborn's newly discovered hands.

Another earth-shattering concussion sounded. It was here that the beast finally took notice of what was happening, its black eyes fixed with terror upon the twelve-foot wooden Jesus falling away from the crucifix, upper body unencumbered and leaning forward, blood seeping from the stigmata in its hands and feet. The workers gathered before their dark god, forming a wall of inhuman protection, bloodied from battle but still prepared to defend the beast to the death.

With a wood-splitting creak, the wooden Jesus's tortured eyes shifted and pinned the beast. The beast lowered the burning chalice, the fires within reduced to meager sparks.

There was another great cracking noise as the feet of the Jesus figure tore free of the cross. The massive statue thudded down onto the altar—arms still spread wide…and then it seemed to step forward. It was here, on the altar, where it stood on its own two legs, eyes aimed at the beast. Pilazzo's mouth gaped open as he stared at the twelve-foot statue with its arms spread wide, its head and neck wrenched in presumable agony, muscles and tendons stretched to snapping points. The feet, now torn apart. And its eyes, surrendering their gaze to the heavens for a contemplation of the enemy standing in before it.

The red mist enveloping the Jesus figure parted, leaving it ensconced in flickering shadows.

All of a sudden, one of the stained glass windows in the ceiling shattered, the flames outside finally fingering their way in. Colorful glass rained down on the altar, onto the standing wooden Jesus that seemed not to notice or care, and onto the workers and the beast, whom cowered like troops in a battlefield. Pilazzo recoiled and released a strangled gasp, choking on sawdust and smoke as he spit his dry labors on the floor. A surge of lightheadedness washed over him. He felt a gush of hot air, and then shrunk back even more as powerful flames leaped across the ceiling.

The wooden Jesus, still in its crucified pose, tilted forward.

The beast roared, the flames in the chalice sputtering, rising and falling, clearly unreliable in their promise for power. It shook the chalice hard with both hands, unable to revive it.

Thoroughly frustrated and pissed, the beast swiped the chalice through the collective of minions before it.

The bodies of perhaps ten workers went down, blood assaulting the air in ripples. Immediate wails filled the church as heads and arms were severed. The beast roared again, stomping its monstrous feet in fury, staggering crookedly over the fallen bodies, crushing them underfoot. The still-standing workers froze and watched with dreadful silence as those fallen minions still alive crawled broken-boned across the floor.

Without hesitation, the beast shrieked and brought the chalice back. Keeping its aim high, it lopped off the heads of another group of workers. Blood shot up in geysers as their bodies collapsed down alongside the splintered chunks of the statues and severed body parts. The beast's eyes rolled toward two stunned workers making a plea to escape. It lunged and snatched them both up with one claw and bashed their heads together in a fierce clap before casting their lifeless bodies aside like burlap bags.

Soon the scene was clear of the workers, many of them dead, others too injured to move.

The chalice, now rich with the blood of its sacrifants, began to burn again.

Pilazzo didn't need the support of the rosary to know that just as the workers had sacrificed the vagrants to feed strength and power into the chalice, the beast itself, in desperation, sacrificed its own minions in a do-or-die situation to gather the power needed to confront the goodness that stood before him.

The great wooden Jesus.

The beast spun around in a rambling circle, stomping on the bodies, swinging the chalice back and forth, spilling embers and sparks. It darted to the left, over a pew.

The Jesus Christ figure creaked…creaked…creaked…then slowly began to fall. Its arms remained outstretched, but its legs seemed to spread apart and hurdle the sanctuary in a single, wood-splitting motion.

It landed at the edge of the altar and fell across the slaughterhouse of workers, onto the marauding beast.

Somewhere in the darkness, Pilazzo heard bones crunching, and then a howl of pain and agony in the voices of a thousand creatures that shook every beam in the church and shattered every remaining stained-glass window.

The beast arched and thumped below the weight of the fallen statue, sawing into its chest with the talons of its free hand, intending it seemed, to claw out its wooden heart. The statue, perhaps a thousand pounds or more, didn't budge. But it did bleed, Pilazzo saw, thin streaks that glistened in the moving shadows like tiny rivers. The beast's head twisted sideways, its black, horrible eyes fixing Pilazzo, almost seeming to plead with him. Again it roared in a chorus of agonized voices, the unbearable stench of which traveled all the way up to the altar where Pilazzo clutched the rosary and ignored the deep wounds it burned into the palms of his hands.

Stigmata…

And from somewhere deep in the darkness ahead, a voice spoke, whispering but loud enough so Pilazzo could make out its words: "Drop my chalice, demon, and go back to hell from where you came."

And it was at this moment that Pilazzo struggled with the startling truth of the matter, as though these otherworldly words uttered, in combination with the moving beads in his hands, had sent an answer to all this madness directly into his mind: that the chalice, its power and mysticism, stolen by some chaotic demon in vain attempt to harvest its power, really belonged to Jesus Christ.

Countless theories and ideas flitted about Pilazzo's tormented mind, and he wondered: Is this the Holy Grail, used thousands of years ago to absorb the sins of Jesus's followers? Were those sins now being used by the beast to wreak havoc upon the world? Or was this an artifact once possessed by the beasts of Hell, only having been stolen by God in His attempt to sequester its dark powers?

Still gripping the burning chalice in its right hand, the beast raised its arm up and rammed it against the Jesus figure's head. Flames burst from it, charring the wood that made up the sculpture's crown of thorns and hair. The beast continued to pound out its fury, each strike against the statue like thunder in Pilazzo's ears. He shuttered his eyes tightly, vaguely aware of debris dropping down around him.

The Jesus figure remained on top of the beast, arms still spread wide, feet now fused back together through some unobserved magic. Tiny bands of fire spread across its head and body, each meandering five or six feet before withering away. Beneath it, the beast continued thumping and bucking and roaring. Torrential winds swept through the church, sending debris and dust everywhere. Chips of wood brushed by Pilazzo. He coughed and rubbed his eyes furiously, chest rising and falling. When he pulled his hands away from his eyes, he stared back at the battle and was relieved to see the beast succumbing beneath the oppressive weight of its adversary.

The fires on the wooden Jesus's head had spread across its back, sending dark spirals of smoke up to meet the spreading flames on the roof. The beast brought its heavy fists down on the Jesus figure's burning head, howling so loud that Pilazzo had to clap his hands over his ears. The fire consumed the entire upper half of the sculpture and was now spreading onto the beast. The beast shrieked in agony. Yellow liquids oozed from its face as the flames took to its thick hair and dry scales. Still, it maintained its desire for freedom, making every effort to fight back, arms flailing, body bucking. Its efforts were in vain, and soon its face was nothing more than a black and yellow pulp beneath the spreading flames, its movements tapered down to muscle-triggering contractions.

Clearly overmatched in both power and spirit, the beast tossed the chalice aside. The wooden Jesus, now completely on fire and charred black, cracked in half and rolled off the beast's body, burning embers writhing across it, looking like veins. The faceless demon rolled over and crawled away, scaly legs kicking up a cloud of dust and blood and glass.

Still on fire, still shrieking, it reached for the chalice.

A shadow emerged from the dark. Pilazzo's heart skipped a beat…until he saw the figure's face in the flickering firelight.

Jyro.

The vagrant grabbed the chalice. With a single lunge, he leapt at the beast, and slammed it into its burning head.

An unimaginable chorus of sounds filled the church, of men and women and children screaming for their very souls, of flesh tearing and wood sputtering beneath cracking flames and shaking beams, of terrible animalistic growls.

When the smoke cleared, Pilazzo saw the beast leap up and shove Jyro back, despite its head having been crushed. Tail rattling, it darted on all fours down the center aisle and leapt at the inner doors of the church. The doors exploded into a violent storm of wood.

Pilazzo scrambled up. He looked at the bloody pool of dead construction workers at the foot of the altar, and then beyond to the smoldering heap of wood that used to be a Jesus Christ figure nailed to the crucifix behind the altar.

He took a deep, painful breath and stepped forward.

He looked up.

The fires above had gone out, only glowing cinders and gray smoke evidence of their recent rage.

He stepped off the altar and worked his way across the battlefield of severed arms, legs, heads, and torsos, through tacky puddles of blood and glistening organs, shards of stained glass and fragments of porcelain, down the strangely silent aisle.

In a faint, dry whisper, he called out, "Jyro?"

From between the pews came a rustle. Then, a shadow.

The vagrant stood up, gripping a pew for support.

He looked at the priest, face soiled black. "Been a helluva day, eh father?"

Pilazzo nodded, just once. Then looked past Jyro toward the rear of the church.

The inner doors were gone, but the doors leading outside…they were open.

He limped down the aisle, looking again to the ceiling just to reaffirm to himself that the fires had indeed ceased.

He looked back to the doors. The open doors.

He peered at Jyro as he walked by, then to the floor where Timothy's body remained, head askew, blood seeping from his mouth. In silence, the vagrant joined Pilazzo and they both journeyed all the way to the vestibule.

Here they stopped. Stared.

Tears filled Pilazzo's eyes at what he saw.

Somewhere in the brief moment between ripping through the inner doors and reaching the large twin doors leading out into the injured world, the beast fled the human body it had possessed. What remained behind, laying motionless on the floor in the vestibule, was a bloody, misshapen lump of human flesh that just days ago used to be Henry Miller, foreman for Pale Horse Construction.

A single eye, wet and socketless, looked up at them.

It was moving.

He was still alive.

Two thin flaps of flesh separated in a spot four inches below the horrible staring eye. Pilazzo saw a dime-sized tooth in it. A harsh, faint whisper emerged, followed by a thin line of bloody saliva.

"I'm sorry…"

Pilazzo used the beads to cross himself, then closed his eyes and took Henry Miller out of his misery with a heavy slam of his foot on the foreman's deformed skull.

He nearly slipped down in the spray of blood and gristle. He gagged, paused to take a deep breath, then staggered to the open front doors of St Peter's church.

Father Anthony Pilazzo stepped outside.

He stood on the top step, looking at the smoke filling the street. He raised his head to the break of early morning sunlight and allowed the golden beams to rain down upon his eyes…eyes that had been buried in blood and darkness for the past twenty-four hours.

Jyro stepped in alongside him. "You did it. The fires…they're no longer burning."

Pilazzo remained silent for a minute or more, then looked at Jyro. The vagrant was a bloody mess, beaten and worn, but free of serious injury.

"How did you manage to survive?" Pilazzo asked.

Jyro held up his fist. It was clenched tightly. Pilazzo remembered how Jyro had held his hand out to him in the hallway before being pulled back into the fray in the rectory.

How he seemed to want to show something to him and Timothy.

He opened his hand and showed the priest how he lived through the slaughter.

In his palm was a single bead from the rosary. It was cracked in two. "When you've lived on the streets father, you find ways to survive."

And with that, Jyro walked down the steps of St. Peter's church, turning only once to say, "Thanks, Father," before disappearing around the corner of 78th Street.

Chapter 40

Two years later.

"May the lord be with you."

"And also with you."

"Go in peace," he instructed the parishioners, who immediately began filing out of the church of St Elizabeth. Father Anthony Pilazzo bowed to the assembly and quickly stepped off the altar into the rectory. Ignoring those milling about, drinking coffee and eating bagels, he hurriedly paced to his room, feeling tired and not in any particular mood to engage in conversation. He'd been unable to sleep last night. Father Hautala had snored up a hurricane, keeping the rest of the priests—Monsignor Reinhardt included—in the kitchen playing a friendly game of rummy until four A.M.

He entered his room. It was meagerly decorated: an aluminum-framed twin bed alongside a small end-table supporting a shaded lamp and telephone. On the opposite wall was an easy-chair and small television. Like the rest of the rectory, the floor was carpeted in dull blue, a cotton curtain in a near-matching color shading the room's only window.

Sheets of rain slashed the dark pane. He pulled the curtain aside and gazed outside, watching as the cars of those fortunate to be alive made their way home.

Things were much different here in the suburbs than in the city. Friendlier. Closer-knit. He liked it, but again wondered: could it happen here?

He kneeled down alongside his bed, folded his hands and recited a prayer, then opened the nightstand drawer, thinking back to the moment he stepped out of St Peter's church on 78th Street, two years ago. The sky…it had been painted gray by the smoke rising from the fires that had burned throughout Manhattan. Still, the sun's light had eaten its way through a hole in that dark tapestry, helping to guide him to safety. He'd still held the rosary of the Mother of God in his hands, and had used it to thank God for his survival, to say a prayer for those who had perished in the beast's game: Timothy and the others, brave souls who'd seen the threat of evil rising before their jaded eyes; who'd made every last effort to combat it; who'd eventually surrendered their very lives to the cause.

In the days that followed the events at St. Peter's, he'd kept tabs on the news, how the fires burning in the city had eventually been extinguished, and that those suffering from rage and hysteria had magically shaken their ills and returned to normal states of mind.

Those reporting the events had never mentioned that the fires had not been snuffed out beneath the brave hands of firefighters. The truth was that they had simply disappeared, leaving behind thick columns of smoke that lingered in the air for weeks, plus a wicked trail of destruction that to this day was still being rebuilt.

A month later—after The Calming, as the peaceful days that followed were fittingly referred—he joined the parish in upstate NY, taking part in the weekly services, but mostly hearing the confessions of those who'd felt tempted by inexplicable evils since the Rise Of Fires. Pilazzo explained time and time again that the influence of the beast was not only present, but it was strong, and that as God's children we must make every effort to avoid his ongoing temptations.

He shook away the thoughts, wondering how much time had passed. Without looking at the clock, he reached into the drawer and pulled aside a short stack of underwear and balled-up socks. Here was a lock box, made of gray steel with a small handle on top. He removed it, reached into his pocket, and shook out his keychain—a dozen or so keys ringed together with the brass cross Father Sangiovanni had given him upon his acceptance into the parish.

He fingered the smallest key. Slowly, he slid it into the lock on the box.

He turned it. There was an audible click.

He opened the box.

Looked at its contents.

He reached a hand inside and removed the rosary, now brown and chipped and charred, looking nothing like the miraculous charm it had been two years ago. Everyday he would repeat this routine: he'd take out the rosary and attempt to work his fingers about the beads and tiny charms, hoping for another sign from God…a sign that everything would be all right in the end.

But nothing came.

And he was beginning to realize why.

He wasn't pure of heart any more. Devoid of sin.

He was a murderer now.

He'd killed Henry Miller.

And he thought back to how he brought his weighty foot down on the head of the innocent man who was somehow alive in the jumbled mess of his body, how he'd taken away what little time remained of his life—the life of a man who was merely an innocent pawn in some great, diabolical game. And after that, he escaped the burning church, into the guiding rays of sunlight that broke through the veil of smoke in the skies. He'd shoved his free hand in his pocket and felt something there. Using two fingers, he pulled out the plastic card that Henry Miller had given him when he first arrived at the church, the word VISITOR emblazoned across the center, Pale Horse Construction printed in smaller letters above. He dropped the card onto the cement sidewalk, watching it tumble end over end and land face-down. He turned, gazed at the still-open doors of the church, then ran back up the stairs. He went back into the church, stepping over Miller's lumpy remains, sidestepping flames and holding his breath, eyeing the burning heap in front of him that used to be the wooden Jesus, looking for…

He placed the rosary back in the box.

And removed the chalice.

And realized with equal amounts of dismay and curiosity that as much as the rosary required someone pure of heart to work its magic, so did the chalice need a hostage of sin to realize its evil.

Perhaps, Pilazzo thought, someone who has committed murder?

He gazed deeply into the chalice, thinking back to the rush of power and strength he felt while under the influence of the rosary…and wondered what level of power he could summon with the chalice.

He looked at the rosary, sitting at the bottom of the steel box like a dead snake.

Then, back at the chalice.

He rubbed it gently. And smiled

It began glowing bright red...

Somewhere in the city, in a dark, cold, damp hole beneath the streets, a homeless man sleeps. His name is Jyro, and in his dreams he sees fires rising high into the sky. He startles awake, terrified, knowing that somewhere, someplace, it is beginning again…