Evil Eternal (23 page)

With supernatural speed, Father Michael rushed at Cain, colliding with and quickly passing through the open vortex to hell to embrace Cain. The demon was visibly startled. They both knew what such an act could mean for them both and it was now quite obvious that the defender of the faith had no intention of it coming between him and his nemesis. Using his brute strength, Father Michael tore Cain’s arm that held Aimee from its socket and pried the still-flexing fingers from her throat. He chucked the severed limb into the vortex and it flopped end over end into infinity. Next, he reared back and hammered Cain’s hip with a massive kick. Cain howled in pain and anger.

“Fool! You’re willing to kill yourself for a worthless mortal! All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.”

Father Michael smashed his foot into Cain’s hip again, hoping to jar loose the leg that held Aimee’s leg captive. The wailing from the open gate began to echo throughout the convention hall. The back half of his body was bathed in the otherworldly chill of the vortex. It felt like being stabbed with millions of sharp, poison-tipped icicles.

Many of the dazed attendees were now on their feet and staring open-mouthed at the display on the stage. It was a sight none of them would ever forget, try as they might.

And it was just what Cain had hoped.

The rendered molecules within the vortex were eating away at Father Michael from the inside out. He felt his physical body weaken as it was being broken down and consumed by the portal. The longer he stayed in it, the more he would be eaten away until he ceased to exist in the physical world. With a tremendous grunt, he wheeled his leg back one more time and connected with Cain’s hip, finally demolishing it and breaking Aimee free. Cain’s other foot planted itself firmly in the floor like a desperate, gnarled tree root so he could remain upright.

“Run!” he shouted at her.

She clumsily staggered off the stage, one foot still encased in a manacle of inhuman flesh and bone, and collapsed next to an unconscious Shane. She scooped his head into her hands and watched her hot tears spatter onto his bloodied face.

His eyelids slowly twitched, and he looked at her as if she was a vision in the distance, a mirage, a temptation that simply could not be there.

“Am I dreaming?” he croaked, reaching out to touch her face.

“Oh, Shane,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

A fierce bolt of pain set every nerve in Father Michael’s body on fire. He started to wilt but Cain grabbed him before he could stumble from the grip of the vortex. Cain’s fingers transformed into thorny vines that wrapped themselves over and over around the priest’s neck.

“Oh no, Michael, you’re not going anywhere. Not until you’ve had a chance to be eaten up and out of the picture forever!”

Father Michael’s insides were a bonfire of agony. His flesh started to split open as he roasted. The gray shades of banished souls had taken on density and he felt their hands scrape and claw at him, hungry to drag him into their nightmare.

One of the onlookers threw a wine glass at Cain, nailing him in the head. A malignant look from Cain stopped anyone else from considering doing the same.

“Be happy, you’re a man of the people right to the bitter end,” he spat at Father Michael.

He was losing consciousness. Even for him, there were limits to the amount of punishment his body could take. He tried to yank the thorny vines from his neck but he barely had the strength to budge them. All he had ever wanted was the chance to die. He would finally get his wish, but at the cost of eternal damnation.

“Somebody call for an ass kicking with extra cheese?”

Cain’s head swiveled around 180 degrees to face the source of the voice.

Shane stood behind him, slightly stooped from pain.

He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

“Says here you ordered one large whupping with extra cheese and, oh, sausage and peppers. You gonna pay the bill or what?”

“Insolent whoreson. You’ll be joining your friend soon enough.”

Shane scratched what remained of his singed hair. Everyone who looked at him wondered how he could even stand.

“So I guess this means you’re gonna stiff me on the bill. Sorry, buddy, my boss’ll kill me if I don’t come back with the money.”

He dropped the sheet of paper to reveal the dagger that he had been holding behind it. He tossed it before Cain could reply, burying it to the hilt in the small of the demon’s back.

With a wild scream, he rushed Cain as fast as he could. Just before he slammed into him, Shane’s protective powers came into brute contact with the demon. Cain’s foot was uprooted from the stage and he staggered. Shane advanced another step, pushing Cain farther until he fell on his back.

Father Michael was released and falling backwards into the void’s grip. Fire-blackened arms reached out to gain their purchase on his body.

“Gotcha, big guy,” Shane said as he grabbed at his coat. He pulled him from the vortex’s deathly embrace. Father Michael landed on his hands and knees, his body shrouded in hell smoke.

Cain was momentarily stunned by Shane’s attack. Careful not to come in contact with the shimmering vortex, Shane limped around the stage until he was once again behind Cain.

Father Michael shuddered as he rose to one knee. He spotted Shane and said, barely above a whisper, “Drive him into the gate.”

Shane began his forward approach. Just as Cain was about to leap over the boy, Father Michael grabbed his leg to keep him grounded.

“No, no!” Cain screamed.

Shane was one step away. “Consider your bill paid in full.” He took the last step and Cain was propelled towards the vortex. Father Michael helped aim his trajectory so he landed straight at its center. It immediately began to close, the source of its power now thrust into its grip.

“Run, everyone, run!” Cain screeched as he held tenuously on to its diminishing edges. Only the top half of his shoulders and head remained visible. He spoke to the dazed onlookers. “He’s going to kill you all. You have the truth now! Run before he kills you like all those around you!”

Father Michael crawled to the vortex to face Cain one last time. “Go home, Cain. Find peace.”

He smashed his fist into Cain’s head, shattering it to tatters of bone and viscera. Cain’s fingers released their hold and he plunged into darkness, closing the gate behind him. A tremendous rush of air exploded from the epicenter, sending everyone onto their asses.

Silence descended on the convention hall, only broken by the sound of bits of plaster pelting the floor as more of the ceiling came apart.

Shane regained his footing and knelt before Father Michael. “Are you really supposed to kill everyone?” He spied Aimee as she hesitantly made her way to them.

“Yes,” Father Michael answered. “They have seen, so they must die.”

Shane grabbed Aimee’s hand.

“But not today,” the priest continued. “They will die in their own time. This day was foreseen. It is time for mortals to bear witness to the truth. Come, help me up.”

Shane winced as he got Father Michael to his feet.

The priest hooked one arm around Shane and another around Aimee. “What are you doing?” Aimee asked, panicked.

“
Mortals
must bear witness. I am not mortal.”

Holding tightly to his passengers, Father Michael squatted and bounded straight up, through the opening in the roof, past the decapitated bodies and into the Hudson River where they splashed down like a guided missile and were never spotted resurfacing.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The entire west side of Manhattan had become a giant police zone. Traffic had been blocked from accessing the West Side Highway all along Eleventh Avenue from Forty-Eighth Street on down. The southbound lanes of the highway were closed all the way from the tollbooth by the Cloisters. Helicopters dotted the sky like gnats on a humid summer night and the flashing glare of a thousand red lights could be seen for miles.

The surviving, stunned mayors and their entourages were escorted out of the wrecked Javits Center, shuffling into waiting warm blankets like zombies. They would all be carted to hospitals and evaluated. Some were badly injured from falling debris or having been stepped on by the deformed beasts while they lay unconscious. Others were bruised, while some had only gotten a few minor scratches. Every single person was in shock, a mental paralysis that for some would be temporary, while for others would lead to a lifetime of madness.

National guardsmen lined the entire perimeter of the convention center with their rifles at the ready. Early reports indicated a massive terrorist attack had befallen the city once again. A police lieutenant could be heard shouting above the bedlam that there had to be at least thirty dead bodies inside, including one that had been nailed to a wall; not to mention the dozen headless cops on the roof. Men were inside at that very moment collecting the heads in black plastic bags.

Those who’d survived had an incredible story to tell.

And when the lunacy of the night loosened its purchase on their minds, they would reveal it.

Father Michael broke the Hudson River’s surface and swam ashore at the unmanned lighthouse in Tarrytown, almost thirty miles from the city. Shane and Aimee were dead weight in his arms. Their skin was blue from oxygen deprivation as well as from their immersion in the icy cold river. He couldn’t risk being seen until he was as far away as he could get in his physically depleted state. Because of that, Shane and Aimee had perished in the churning black depths of the river.

He carried them one by one into the empty lighthouse. The occasional siren wailed in the heavy night air as police from all nearby suburbs were called into action. No doubt the coast guard would soon be there, patrolling the waters for a getaway boat. Spectators outside the Javits Center reported seeing something shoot up through the roof and into the water. Just what it was, they couldn’t be sure, but some people swore it was a large man or a couple of men. If they had made their escape into the river, there must have been a boat nearby to cart them to safety.

In all certainty, they would not be on the lookout for a pallid priest and a dead man and woman.

Father Michael laid Shane and Aimee side by side and dropped to his knees between them. Placing his hands on their chests, he began to mumble an inaudible prayer. He gave a great push on their chests and fountains of water cascaded from their mouths. Continuing his prayer, his hands emitted a dull golden glow. The blue tinge began to fade from their faces as it was leached away by the priest’s power. Their hearts, once stagnant and almost frozen, started to beat, pushing blood that had turned to ice through their veins once again.

Shane was the first to move, if only slightly. Seconds later, a small moan escaped Aimee’s lips.

Father Michael, weary beyond measure, toppled next to them.

Pope Pius XIII watched the story unfold on the bank of televisions in the Vatican’s newsroom. He had asked everyone to leave so he could take in the events, as replayed by news agencies from around the world. He spoke six languages and was rapidly translating in his head as an endless barrage of horror unfolded on the dozen flat screens.

He clutched the rosary his mother had given to him as a gift for graduating from seminary. The worn, wooden beads brought little comfort to him.

“What have we done, Michael?” he whispered through trembling lips.

He would allow himself this moment of fear and doubt.

But it could not last long.

The world had changed in a single night, and there was much work to do.

Shane had been awakened by the sun’s filtered rays as they pierced the circular observatory of the lighthouse. It took him a long while to shake his disorientation. When he saw Aimee asleep next to Father Michael, he rushed to her. His touch on her forehead woke her up and she almost leaped into his arms.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Shane nodded towards an unmoving Father Michael.

“For one, I’d say we’re alive. I got nothing after that. I think we’re going to have to wait for the big guy to come out of it.”

Aimee broke from her embrace and started to pull Shane’s jacket down.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he protested.

“You were shot last night. I want to check you out.”

Shane looked confused. “I was? I sure don’t feel like a guy that was shot. I feel like crap cubed, but not like I took a bullet.”

Aimee removed his coat and saw the charred hole in his shirt. She tugged the neck of his shirt down to inspect the wound but only found unblemished skin. Even the horrible burn marks inflicted by the demon’s acid had been healed.

“How is that possible?”

Shane shifted and there was a tiny
clink
. He looked down and picked up the dented bullet that must have been sitting in his shirt.

Shane replied, “Anything’s possible, as long as God wants it to be.”

It was almost sunset when the priest stirred. Shane and Aimee had sat wordlessly by his side, unsure whether he was alive or dead. Shane tried to assure her that Father Michael could not be killed, but in the light of a new day, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Neither had ventured out of the lighthouse and they were both dizzy from exhaustion and starvation.