The Blessed (41 page)

“Step away from the girls,” Murphy ordered. “This will be your last warning.”

Jesse was freaking. He was sure he’d be caught in the crossfire, that they all would.

“Don’t shoot!” he stammered from the balcony, revealing himself. “Don’t shoot!”

Frey and the girls looked up at him in surprise.

“Call the police and tell them you are coming out,” Sebastian ordered Jesse. “With the girls.”

“We’re not leaving!” Cecilia screamed at him, holding him even tighter, more closely.

Jesse nodded nervously, but fumbled his phone as he dialed, dropping it to the aisle below.

“Shit,” he whined and raced for the staircase.

In that instant, the scene turned even more intense. Red and green lasers sliced through the acrid smoke, a spectacular light show unlike any they’d ever seen at any
concert. Tiny glowing dots searching for targets.

“Get down!” Sebastian screamed to Jesse as he reached the nave.

Jesse hit the floor and crawled between pews, out of view.

Sebastian turned to them. Even in the haze, they could see the farewell in his eyes.

“It’s time,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be this hard. But it is. Now that I know you. Now that I love you.”

“Sebastian, no!” Lucy cried. “Don’t do this.”

“We need you!” Cecilia screamed. “Please.”

“Don’t leave us!” Agnes wailed.

“I’ll never leave you,” he said. “If you believe nothing else, believe that.”

“Yes, you are leaving,” Frey said. “In handcuffs or a body bag.”

“They aren’t fooling around, Sebastian,” Lucy pleaded urgently. “Just surrender. We will fight for you whatever happens. Don’t let him win.”

Sebastian smiled sweetly. “Don’t you understand? He can’t win—not now. It’s up to the three of you.”

“The night isn’t over, Sebastian!” Frey exclaimed.

“I told you there would be others, Doctor,” Sebastian said defiantly. “The war goes on with or without me.”

“Collateral damage.”

Sebastian ripped his shirt off, revealing the brand, their brand on his heaving chest, spread his arms, and let out a loud yell.

“Brave,” Dr. Frey acknowledged with a modicum of respect for his adversary. “And foolish to the end.”

“It’s not the end,” Sebastian corrected. “It’s the beginning.”

At that, Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia jumped up and stepped in front of Sebastian, forming a human wall in his defense. Frey smiled. Chaos was his friend and the odds of a happy accident, from his perspective, was still possible.

“Hold your fire!” Murphy shouted into the snipers’ earpieces.

The tumult outside began to spill into the church with Jesse’s flash mob banging on doors and whatever was left of windows. Sneaking smartphone pictures and video that prompted a frenzy of posting to social media sites by the thousands. The three girls, standing defiantly, risking their lives for love and mercy, were suddenly famous. “Saints of Sackett Street” Jesse coined them.

“Shoot him!” someone screamed in random bloodlust.

The scene, inside and out, was getting completely out of hand.

“Captain, we can’t let this go any longer. The whole neighborhood will go up in flames,” the fire chief insisted. “You’ve got to end it.”

Sharpshooters had their itchy fingers poised on triggers, waiting for a clear shot. Any sudden moves and it was over. They all knew that.

“My heart is your heart,” Sebastian whispered to them,
kissing each gently good-bye on the cheek. “Remember what I said. Remember me.”

“Your choice,” Frey said, backing farther away from the altar and the smoke.

His words echoed powerfully. “There was never a choice.”

Before they could restrain him, Sebastian broke through the girls’ human shield and lunged for Dr. Frey, who fell backward in his cowardly haste to retreat.

“I’ve got a shot,” a sniper said into his mouthpiece.

Murphy issued the command. “Take it.”

A prolonged, guttural scream from the altar and gasps from the crowd outside filled the room. And then silence. Complete silence.

Five shots rang out and struck Sebastian. He stumbled to the tiled floor, mortally wounded.

Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia rushed to him, surrounding him, comforting him and themselves, mourning him in the few seconds they had left together, brushing his hair from his eyes and covering his wounds with their hands, professing their undying love.

He was beautiful.

Serene.

If it weren’t for the blood leaving him, he would have seemed an athlete resting from fatigue, catching his breath. A scent of clove and roses emanated from him. His gaze was distant, turned to heaven. With his last breaths he looked at them and recited from the prayer of the Sacred Heart:

“We’ll be waiting,” Agnes assured him through her sobs. “Always.”

He smiled and took one last breath.

Frey looked on at the wretched spectacle unsatisfied, having achieved only a partial victory.

“Ecce homo,”
Frey said to them mockingly. “What do you see? A man. Just a man.”

“We’ll see you again, Doctor,” Cecilia vowed through bitter tears.

“You will,” he concurred. “One way or another.”

Frey dusted himself off and walked toward the exit. He spied Jesse’s cell phone on the floor and stepped on it. Crushing it and the evidence. He picked it up casually and placed it in his pocket, beneath notice in the confusion. He turned to see Jesse, still hiding in the pew.

“Coming with me?” the doctor asked him.

“No,” Jesse said.

Frey accepted Jesse’s answer with an expression of derision and disgust and made his way out into the waiting throng of cops, EMTs, and reporters, quick to offer his story of the events that had just transpired for the record.

The police and firefighters crashed in, guns drawn and hand axes at the ready.

“It’s over,” the police captain assured them. “You’re safe now.”

He was chilled by the girls’ blank stares and quickly left this business to his underlings.

Swelling hoses blasted rivers of water onto the burning embers fuming all around them. The runoff filled the holy
water fonts, replenishing them, for the first time in years. One by one, the girls were helped up to their feet.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Agnes moaned, wiping the blood and cold sweat from his face with her garment.

“We’re not leaving him,” Lucy said, hugging her.

Lucy bent down and kissed his cheek and placed her hand on his.

“Rest easy,” she said. “No one will forget what you did here today. I will make sure of it.”

Finally, Cecilia bent down. She reached for his hand and noticed that he was holding a black rosary. It was small, like a child’s rosary, likely the one he received when he was an altar boy. The one he probably held on to in the psych ward all those years. He was gripping it so tight. She opened his hand and noticed that the crucifix was missing. Lost in the spray of gunshots. Cecilia took the rosary out of his hand and kissed it. She took out her earring and unfastened the charm that was dangling from it—miniature brass knuckles. She fastened it to the rosary where the crucifix was, put it around her neck, and kissed it again. Then she kissed him.

As they were escorted down the center aisle to the door, they stopped and looked back at Sebastian one last time.

And they saw it happen right in front of their eyes.

On his chest.

From each of the bullet holes.

One by one.

Arrows sprouted.

All doubt, all sorrow disappeared from them.

“Seeing is believing,” Lucy whispered.

“Saint Sebastian,” Cecilia said, awed by the vision.

Agnes ran back to him. And pulled Sebastian’s
Legenda
page from her pocket that she had taken from the chapel and left it next to him.

“My sacred heart,” she said, kissing him for the last time. “Pray for us.”

Agnes rejoined Lucy and Cecilia and headed toward the vestibule. Grief emptied from their hearts and they were filled with a sense of purpose. The black smoke inside was turning a grayish white. A decision had been made. The threat was over. But their fire inside was still burning.

They walked toward the church doors.

Jesse stood as they passed.

The unruly crowd was waiting outside. Restlessly. Whether to absolve or condemn them, what others would think of them, they didn’t know. And didn’t care. Perhaps for the first time in their lives.

Cecilia lifted her hoodie onto her head, sheltering her straight bangs and choppy bob.

Lucy veiled her head in a designer silk scarf, fixing it loosely over her blond locks.

Agnes placed the cowl of her lamb poncho over her long, auburn hair.

Heads covered, they joined hands and stood in the doorway.

Shouts and cheers rang out, cameras flashed, camcorders rolled, microphones were thrust toward them as they
silently descended the church steps, humbly victorious. The lights from the cameras illuminated them, causing auras around them. The sea of law enforcement, media, and onlookers parted reverently before them as they were ushered into a waiting police cruiser.

A few reached out. Some to touch them. Others to rebuke them. Praised, cursed, and everything in between.

They marched forward, unlikely icons, their purpose clear, as Cecilia said to Agnes and Lucy flanking her:

“Thy will be done.”

T
HANKS
to my husband, Michael Pagnotta, for his undying love and support. This book would not have been possible without you.

Heartfelt thanks to the extraordinary team at Simon & Schuster: Jon Anderson, Justin Chanda—for believing, Anne Zafian, Zareen Jaffery, Julia Maguire, Elke Villa, Chrissy Noh, Lizzy Bromley, Lucille Rettino, Paul Crichton, Lydia Finn, Mary Marotta, Christina Pecorale, Jim Conlin, Mary Faria, and Teresa Brumm.

Special thanks to the people I have been blessed with in my life: Isabelle Rose Pagnotta, Beverly Hurley, Tracy Hurley Martin, Oscar Martin, Angela and Tony DiTerlizzi, Vince Clarke, Martha and Anthony Kolencik, Mary and Salvatore Pagnotta, Mary Nemchik, Clementina and Bill Morton, Thomas J. Hurley, Thomas A. Hurley, Denise DeCarlo, Heidi Holmes, Lauren Nemchik, Tamara Pajic Lang, Mary-Jo Pane, Abbey Watkins, Paul Sych, Adriana Beltrán, Natalie Shau, Andy McNicol, Laura Bonner, Alicia Gordon, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, all at Aflaguara and William Morris Endeavor, and especially to my amazing publishers and readers around the world.

TONYA HURLEY

is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling ghostgirl series. She has worked in nearly every aspect of teen entertainment: creating, writing, and producing two hit TV series; and writing and directing several acclaimed independent films. Tonya lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter.
The Blessed
is the first in a trilogy of novels. Visit Tonya at
theblessed.com.

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