The Seventh Stone (63 page)

She lowered the window, despite the raw chill, but heard only sirens, an occasional wailing, and the wind whining though the streets, whipping the detritus of the riots with the acrid stench of burning tires. “How many dead?”

“
Too many.”

“
But Daniel is alive,” she said. “That text Daniel sent me, telling me to meet him here. It’s not some Machiavellian move from the grave by Contreras.”

“
You said it, not me,” he said. “But Contreras didn’t plan for this one, not this time. I would have liked some back-up, and a fully loaded P-90, but at least we got use of the Humvee.”

“
You don’t need an automatic weapon.” She had earned a degree in weapons talk in the past few days. “We’re meeting Daniel.”

“
That is a non sequitur.”

Braydon was as stubborn as he was spent. She could tell by the glaze in his eyes that he was barely lucid through the constant pain of his wounds. They had both collapsed with sheer exhaustion on the military jet back to New York from Colombia, but it was like a drop of water to a man dying of thirst. It only gave them enough to survive through the next ordeal, maybe. She wasn’t thinking straight, and he wasn’t either. Except he was armed with a pistol. “When we get to Saint Patrick’s, I should go in alone,” she said. “If he is affected by the poison, you might spook him.”

One steady look from Braydon told her it wasn’t even worth pursuing that argument. “You mean I might shoot him,” he said. “I told you I won’t unless he gives me no choice. You are not going in alone. End of argument.”

The Humvee blasted aside a big screen television that looters had abandoned in the street. She braced her hand against the dashboard as Braydon ran the Humvee up over the curb onto the wide sidewalk in front of the cathedral and threw it into park. Across Fifth, the statue of Atlas relentlessly shouldered the burden of the armillary sphere. Graffiti had been spraypainted on his magnificent marble base. It read, “REPENT OR DIE!”

Braydon slipped his handgun from its holster, checked the bullets in the clip, and chambered one. He nodded his chin towards the graffiti. “We’re not going to,” he said.

“
Repent?” she asked. “Or die?”

“
Neither,” he said. “Not here, not now, and not at the hands of Daniel Dubler.” He thrust open the door and leaped down.

She followed, rushing to catch him as he bound up the steps to Saint Patrick’s massive bronze doors. “Daniel didn’t betray us,” she said. “If he went to Contreras, he risked his life to help us. Now we have to help him.” She grabbed his shoulder. “Daniel won’t hurt me,” she pressed. She didn’t want to say these next words, for a lot of reasons. “He loves me.”

Braydon hesitated. He, too, had trouble forcing the words. “Another non sequitur,” he said finally. He heaved open the door and entered the cathedral, gun first.

She heard a distant voice lofting through the stone cathedral walls as they crept from the vestibule into the massive nave. “Latin,” she whispered to Braydon. They crouched behind the bank of red votive lights, all of them lit, all still flickering, prayers being sent to God on wisps of smoke and hope. The overwhelming love and joy she had felt in the temple chamber in the presence of the restored Breastplate felt much further than half a world away.

They approached the Lady Chapel. Daniel had texted her to meet him there. At first, she was thrilled that he was alive. Now it scared her. In a crouching run, Braydon made his way quickly down the length of the nave, stopping at the Pieta, the last bend before the Lady Chapel at the far end of the cathedral.

She could only make out the language, the intonations, not all the words, but enough. “It’s Daniel. I think he’s saying a mass,” she said, crouching next to Braydon, “a requiem.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “A mass for the dead.”

“
Come!” the voice called out in English, shouting from the altar of the Lady Chapel, the word echoing down the rows of empty pews.

“
Don’t do it, Braydon!” A second male voice. “Get out of here!” Followed by a scream of agony.

Braydon hunched his shoulders. His face turned ashen. “Damn it. That’s O’Malley. Dubler’s got him.”

One look at Braydon’s eyes was all it took. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill Daniel. She pushed away from him. He grabbed for her, called her name in an urgent whisper. She sprinted the distance to the Lady Chapel. She stopped at the far end of the pews. Father O’Malley lay unconscious on the floor in front of the altar, his cassock torn from one shoulder. His bloody handprint streaked across the mosaic on the front of the altar, smearing the angel announcing to Mary that she would bear the son of God.

She didn’t know what that creature was standing behind the altar of the Lady Chapel, but it was not Daniel Dubler. He was wearing Daniel’s jeans and tweed sport coat, but he was covered in dark, loamy soil and smelled of decaying leaves. She had to take the chance that his inner core, his soul, could still be in there, buried, not yet dead. “I’m glad you’re alive, Daniel,” she tried lamely. O’Malley groaned, tried to lift himself, and collapsed. She rushed to the fallen priest. She crouched by his side.

A sudden force yanked her back and upwards. The press of an arm against her neck choked out a scream. She elbowed the fleshy part of Daniel’s gut and kicked the unyielding marble of the altar. Daniel was preternaturally strong, with poison, with madness. “Daniel, stop!” she yelled. Daniel swatted her, hard, on the side of her head. She felt her arms being pulled upwards, then cold steel around her wrists, and an ominous clicking sound.

Daniel’s dirt and sweat-streaked face closed in on hers. “You won’t leave me again,” he said.

Her arms
were cruelly stretched, wrists handcuffed to a chain. The chain was coiled like a snake around the feet of the ivory Mary statue.
“Daniel, what have they done to you?”

“
God willed it,” he said, his voice powerful. His eyes focused on hers, softened a moment. “Contreras’s men were burying me alive. I called out to Our Lord. They laughed. Like demons they laughed as the storm raged through the forest around us.”

“
I got the antidote, Daniel,” she said. “I’ve got a vial here, for you, in my pocket.” She pointed with her chin.

“
God smote them, Christa. Even as they flung the earth on me, God flung a lightning bolt from heaven. It castrated the oak that was to be my tombstone, crashing it to the ground. One of the men was crushed. The other fled. God saved me, Christa. For this.” He spread his hands outward, looking down upon the altar. A laptop computer, not a silver chalice, sat on it. He opened it. The screen glowed blue on his face as it hummed to life.

He was too far gone. She had to try another tack. Braydon, in her peripheral vision, was flanking the altar. “God saved you,” she said, “and me. We need to work together on this, Daniel.” Whatever this was. “Let me go. I won’t leave you.”

He bent down to the right to reach something from the shelf below the top of the altar. He pulled it out, pointed it at her forehead. It was a frigging P-90, that automatic machine gun that Braydon had tried to coerce from that National Guardsman with the Humvee. Daniel smiled wryly. “It belonged to that killer crushed by the oak,” he said. “Fox!” he yelled now. “I know you’re out there. Show yourself. Hands up. Or Christa will help me save mankind from Heaven.” He kept the gun pointed at her, but turned bodily towards the altar. With his right hand, he typed frantically on the keyboard.

God help her. Those words took on new meaning. The barrel of the machine gun loomed in her vision. She could see the damn bullet, poised to kill. “Daniel, Baltasar Contreras is dead,” she said. “It’s over.”

“
Contreras is dead,” he said, “but the Prophet lives, in me. You think I’m insane, but I’ve never seen anything more clearly. Contreras set up a worldwide network of followers, but they’ve never seen him. They are waiting, praying for the Prophet to speak to them. I will be that voice. You and me, Christa. We can bring world peace. We can use our power to create the ultimate empire, one that saves the people, one that will not fall.”

“
The Breastplate of Aaron is destroyed, buried.” She tugged at the chain, tried to move away from the gun. He was focused on the computer screen, not her.

“
You must believe, Christa.” He tapped awkwardly, covering the whole keyboard with one hand. “This computer is my Breastplate. After God saved me, he led me to it, bade me to take it from Contreras’s library. God showed me the password. In one keystroke, my followers will release their poison in the water supplies of the major cities of the world. All will know God’s power, manifested through me. I only need to press Send to cross the threshold into the genesis of a new world.”

“
Give it up, Dubler,” Braydon said. He had circled back to the nave end of the Lady Chapel. Just as she first saw him in the Arizona desert, he emerged from the shadows, the dim light glinting on his gun. Rather than a cottonwood tree, he braced himself against a marble column, across a river of pews. He stood
pistol first, right arm straight out in front of him, his forearm steadied with his left hand.
He was positioning himself to get Daniel to shift his target from her, to him. “Donohue’s spooks hacked into Contreras’s network,” he said. “They’ve already launched a covert operation to neutralize his followers.”

“
You’re lying,” Daniel yelled. He swung the machine gun toward Braydon. With a bloody scream, he pulled the trigger. Bullets spat out of the barrel in a fury of noise and smoke.

Christa kicked at Daniel’s legs as the deafening bangs exploded around her. Spent shells rained down, hot and hard. Braydon didn’t stand a chance. And he could have been bluffing. Donohue might not have succeeded in hacking into the Prophet’s network. If Daniel pressed Send, thousands more would die. They’d never be able to create and distribute the antidote in time to save them all. She yanked at the chains. The Mary statue shifted. She yanked again, bullet casings gouging Mary’s marble feet with metallic clangs. Her wrists hurt like hell. Warm trickles of blood seeped down her forearms. She twisted her hands to wrap the chain around them and gripped the links in her fists. In one mighty pull, she heaved with every bit of strength from within, and without.

As if in slow motion, Mary toppled forward, her expression placid, accepting. Daniel turned, raising his arm to shield himself. She ducked towards the side. The statue fell upon Daniel, smashing onto his forearm and temple. He dropped the machine gun at her feet. Now free from the statue, she snatched up the gun, pointed it at him. He staggered, one hand to his head, blood flowing down his cheek. He poised the other hand above the keyboard, his finger above the Send key. Christa pulled the trigger.

DAY
7

CHAPTER
70

Christa awoke to the muted, staccato voice of Braydon’s boss in the FBI, a petite Korean woman who made up in spunk what she lacked in physical stature. The woman’s heels clicked down the length of the nave, fading into the dark. Christa raised her head from the wooden pew. O’Malley had given her a velveteen kneeler as a pillow, and did a bang-up job bandaging her wrists. The both of them had refused to call the paramedics. Plenty of people were hurt worse than they were.

Her back stiffened as she pushed upwards. She had aged years in these past few days. Braydon sat next to O’Malley on the steps leading up to the main altar. The Bureau had spirited away Daniel’s body in the night. A crime scene investigation was deemed unfeasible and unnecessary in this state of emergency. Like her own guilt and self-psychoanalysis of her part in Daniel’s death.

She pushed up her aching body, walked stiffly towards Braydon and sat next to him. “Gabriella called me,” she said, “before I conked out on the pew last night. They took Liam home. He’s going to be okay. Percival, too.”

Braydon nodded. The first light of dawn filtered into the nave through the stained glass windows. “They’ve lifted the curfew in the city. Got a lot of mopping up to do.”

The door from the Fifth Avenue side of the nave opened. The three of them stiffened. Hesitantly, they stood to see beyond the rows of pews. Braydon’s hand went to the butt of his gun. An old lady tottered in, feathered hat, hunched shoulders, leading a flock dressed like her, in dark, wool coats, warm hats, and the occasional cane.

O’Malley placed his hand on Braydon’s arm. “It’s Mrs. Pennington,” he said. “She comes to morning mass every day.”

“
Sunrise is a tad early for mass,” he said, “even for old ladies.”

“
Braydon,” O’Malley adjusted his cassock to hide the rip and smoothed back his mop of red hair, “it’s Christmas.”

The three of them watched as the old birds tottered down the center aisle to their perches in the front pews. Then something more remarkable. Others followed them into the nave. A group of teens decked out in black leather. Three women, in platform heels and hot pants, who were decidedly not nuns. Parents with young children, their eyes full of wonder and latent fear.

A ringtone chirped Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. O’Malley fished his phone from his pocket. “It’s my rabbi friend, Ezekial Feinstein,” he said.

Christa and Braydon watched as the people poured in, silent, shell-shocked, filling the pews, helping those who needed help, the injured, the infirm.

“
Ezekial says he has opened his temple doors. The crowds are jamming in, people he has never seen before,” said O’Malley. “He says it’s happening all over the city.”