F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (43 page)

 
          
"Ah!"
Franco said with a grin. "That's what I've been waiting for. That look of
doomed horror, the realization that your darkest nightmare is about to come
true. Where is your arrogance now, priest?"

 
          
"No,"
Joe whispered as he found his voice. "God, no, please!"

 
          
"That's
right. Pray to your god. Beg him like so many before you. But He's not going to
help you. In less than two weeks you'll be just like Devlin, only a little less
intelligent, a little more bestial. Won't that be an inspiration to your
parishioners? But before you're too far gone, you'll have a talk with the
charming undead woman I've placed in charge of your area. You'll fill Olivia in
on all the details of your little vigilante operation, and then you'll be sent
back to prey upon your parishioners." I won t!

 
          
"Oh,
but you will. And you'll take the most trusting, the most devoted first,
because they'll be the easiest. Isn't this a coup? Isn't this so much better
than killing you? If you simply died, you'd be a martyr, a rallying point. But
this way, you're still around, and you've turned against them. You are feeding
on them! Imagine how they'll feel. If you're lucky you won't survive long. I'm
suspecting they'll gather together and stake you—for your own good. And theirs,
of course. And then where will that leave them besides sick at heart and
demoralized? Where will they be after killing their beloved Father Joe? Why,
they'll go back to where they were before you came. Hiding, waiting for the
inevitable."

 
          
"No!
What's been started is bigger than one man! They know now they can fight you,
and they'll keep on fighting you!"

 
          
Franco
put his hand on the door handle. "Well, we'll just have to see about that,
won't we."

 
          
He
pushed the lever down and shoved the door inward. "Bon appetit,
Devlin."

 
          
Joe
turned and ran, sprinting down the hall, looking for an unlocked door. He heard
a howl behind him as he tried the first one he came to—locked. Without looking
back he leaped across the hall to the next. The knob turned, the door swung
inward—a chance!—and then he was struck from behind with unimaginable force. It
drove him through the doorway and into the room where he went down under a
growling fury made flesh. He tried to fight back but the savagery of the claws
and fangs tearing at his flesh, ripping at his throat overcame him. He felt his
skin tear, felt hot fluid gush over his chin and chest, heard an awful
guzzling, lapping noise as something fed off him. He tried to rise, to throw it
off but he had no strength. He felt his mind growing cold, the world growing
distant, life becoming a dream, a receding memory. Joe saw one last flash of
light, intolerably bright and then all was darkness and nothingness . . .

 
          
CAROLE
. . .

 
          
Unable
to sleep, Carole sat at the window, watching the night, waiting for the dawn
that was still hours away. Returning to the convent, to this room, her room,
the room where she'd had to kill Bernadette . .. sleep was unthinkable. Even if
it weren't, her bed was occupied.

 
          
Lacey,
poor thing, had collapsed when she'd heard that Father Joe was missing. A
couple of the male parishioners had helped carry her here—Carole had emptied
her wagon and carried her duffel and her personal items herself, afraid to let
anyone else near them.

 
          
They'd
placed her on Carole's bed. What an ordeal Lacey had suffered tonight. Carole
had gleaned a few details from her jumbled jabber on the way to the church and
had shut her ears to the rest. And then to learn that her uncle had disappeared
while searching for her. It was more than anyone should have to bear.

 
          
When
was it going to end?

 
          
She
waited, expecting to hear Bernadette's voice shout an answer, but the voice was
silent. Carole hadn't heard from it since she'd reentered the convent.

 
          
She
looked at Lacey, curled into a fetal position under the blanket. Father Joe's
niece. She hadn't quite believed her, but the way she'd been greeted by the
parishioners had left little doubt. Some of them had even recognized Carole.
She'd been uncomfortable with their joy at knowing she was still alive,
especially uncomfortable with their earnest questions about how she had managed
to survive and how she'd been spending her time. She couldn't tell them,
couldn't tell anyone.

 
          
A
little while ago Carole had left Lacey and made a quick trip back to the church
to see if Father Joe had been found. He hadn't. But one of the parties
searching for him had returned with his large silver cross. He'd had it with
him when he'd gone out earlier this evening. They'd found it on the roof of a
nearby office building.

 
          
Carole
had asked if she might take the cross back to Lacey and let her keep it until
her uncle returned. Because Father Joe would return. He was too good, too
strong, too faithful a man of God to fall victim to the undead. He— only a
small part of her believed that. She'd seen too much . . . too much. . . . Yet
she forced herself to hope. She placed the cross on the windowsill, as a
guardian, as a beacon, calling him home.

 
          
She
closed her eyes and listened. Silence. The convent was virtually empty. The
rooms were available to the parishioners but most of them felt safer in the
church—in its basement, in the choir loft, anywhere so long as they were within
those walls. Carole could understand that from their perspective, but for her
the convent was home. Though she felt orphaned now, it would always be home.

 
          
She
turned back to the window and gripped the upright of his cross, thinking, Come
back, Father Joe. We need you. I need you. We—

 
          
What
was that? By the rectory. .. something taking to the air from the roof. . .
something large . . . man-size . . .

 
          
Terror
gripped Carole's heart in an icy, mailed fist. A vampire, one of the winged
kind, flying away from the rectory ...

 
          
Somehow
she knew in that instant that they'd done something terrible to Father Joe.

 
          
"Oh,
no!" she whispered. "No! Not him!"

 
          
She
grabbed the silver cross, pulled a flashlight from her duffel, and ran for the
hall. She hurried down the stairs and out into the night. Holding the cross
before her as a shield, she ran across the little graveyard, trampling the
fresh-turned earth of graves that hadn't been there before, and arrived at the
rectory.

 
          
A
small building, holding only three bedrooms and two offices, it stood dark and
empty. This was priest territory and would be the last place the parishioners
would think to occupy.

 
          
Carole
turned the knob and the door swung open. She flicked on her flash and directed
the beam up and down and around before stepping inside.

 
          
"Father
Joe?" she called, knowing that if her worst fears were true he wouldn't be
able to answer. "Father Joe, are you here?"

 
          
No
response. No sound except for the crickets cheeping in the lawn behind her. She
moved through the rectory, checking the two downstairs offices first, then the
upstairs bedrooms. Empty, just as she'd expected.

 
          
Only
one place left: the basement.

 
          
Knowing
what she was almost certain to find, Carole feared to go there. But she had to.
Too much depended on this.

 
          
She
opened the door. Light in one hand, cross in the other, she started down. No
blood on the steps. That was good. Maybe it had just been a flyer looking over
the church complex, doing reconnaissance for the undead or hunting for
stragglers. Carole prayed that was so, but expected that prayer to go
unanswered like all her others.

 
          
She
reached the floor and flashed her light around. She allowed her hopes to rise
when she saw nothing on her first pass. But then as she moved to the rear of
the space, where old suitcases and cracked mirrors and warped bureaus were sent
to die, she spotted something protruding from beneath an old mattress. A step
closer and she realized what it was: a bare foot, its toes pointing
ceilingward. Too big for a woman's... a man's foot.

 
          
"Please,
God," she said again, whispering this time. "Please, oh, please. Let
it not be him."

 
          
She
pressed the cross against the foot. No flash of light, no sizzle of flesh.
Whoever it was hadn't turned yet. She leaned the cross against the wall,
gripped the edge of the mattress. . . and hesitated. Her mouth felt full of
sand, her heart pounded in her chest like a trapped animal. She didn't want to
do this. Why her? Why did it always seem to fall to her?

 
          
Taking
a breath and clenching her teeth, Carole tilted the mattress back and aimed her
light at the shape beneath it. She found herself staring into the glazed dead
eyes of Father Joseph Cahill.

 
          
Images
leaped at her like a frantic slide show— —his slack, blood-spattered face—

 
          
—the
wild ruin of his throat—

 
          
—his
blood-matted chest—

 
          
With
a cry torn from some deep lost corner of her soul, Carole dropped to her knees
beside him. Her arms took on a life of their own and, for some reason her
numbed brain couldn't fathom, began pounding her fists on his chest. She heard
a voice screaming incoherently. Her own.

 
          
After
a while, she didn't know how long, she stilled her hands and slumped forward,
letting her forehead rest on his bare shoulder, moaning, "God, dear God,
why must this be?"

 
          
And
for a fleeting moment, even as she spoke, she wondered how she could still
believe in God, or stay true to a god who could allow this to happen to the
finest man she'd ever known. This was it, this was the end of everything. Where
could she go from here? She'd only hung on this long in the hope that he'd
return. He had, but only for a few days before this—this!

 
          
She
straightened and looked at Father Joe again, averting her eyes from his
genitals. To kill him was bad enough, but to leave him like this: naked, torn,
bloodied, with not a shred of dignity . . .

 
          
Well,
what did she expect from vermin?

 
          
And
yet, look at his face—ignore the severed arterial stumps protruding from his
throat and focus on the face. It seemed at peace, and still held a quiet
dignity no one could steal.

 
          
Carole
lost more time sobbing. Then, from somewhere, she found the strength to rise.
She wanted to stay by his side, never leave him, never let anyone else near
him, but she knew that couldn't be. She couldn't stay here and neither could
he. She knew what had to be done. She had work to do. The Lord's work.

 
          
She
wandered the basement until she found a dusty old sheet draped over a chair.
She pulled it off and, with infinite care, wrapped it around Father Joe . ..
her Father Joe. She tried to lift him but he was too heavy. She needed help ...

 
          
OLIVIA
. . .

 
          
"Someone
is here. From Franco."

 
          
Olivia
lifted her mouth from the bloody throat of the spindly old man strapped to the
table in the feeding room.

 
          
"Who
is it?"

 
          
Jules,
the unofficial leader of her get-guards, shrugged. "I've never seen him
before. All I know is that he says his name is Artemis and his eye—"

 
          
"I
know about his eye."

 
          
Artemis
. . . one of Franco's closest get. This must be important if he'd sent Artemis.
It had to be about Gregor. Damn that fool.

 
          
She
looked down at the quivering old man, still alive but in shock and not too much
longer for this world. His blood was as thin as his scrawny body. She
remembered
India
. She had been with the first wave through the
Middle East
, through
Riyadh
and
Baghdad
and
Cairo
and
Jerusalem
. Lots of blood there, but then they'd moved
on to
India
, lovely, overcrowded
India
. . . she had quite literally bathed in
blood in
Bombay
.

 
          
But
here, good cattle were hard to come by of late. She wasn't sure whether that
was a result of a thinning of the herd or a thinning of the number of serfs at
her disposal. Franco was either going to have to send her more serfs or widen
her territory.

 
          
Olivia
would have much preferred another territory altogether, a peaceful one with no
foment. But, thanks to Gregor's demise, she'd inherited this one and was stuck with
it, at least until it was tamed.

 
          
She
pointed to the old man as she rose. "You can finish him after you bring
Artemis to the sleeping room. I wish to meet with him alone."

 
          
Jules
frowned. "Do you think that's wise? Everything is so unsettled."

 
          
"We
have nothing to fear from Artemis."

 
          
Jules
turned and headed back upstairs.

 
          
Olivia
paced the feeding room. She was going stir crazy down here. She hadn't left the
Post Office once throughout this long, long night. She'd been about to go out
earlier but Gregor's death changed that. She'd been sequestered in the basement
ever since. Only half a night, but she felt humiliated. She was supposed to be
the predator, the fox, the wolf, but here she was, cowering like a frightened
hare in its burrow.

 
          
Yes,
she was here at the insistence of her get, but she hadn't put up much of a
fight. Gregor was foolish but he'd been tough. If the vigilantes had managed to
kill him, they could kill her, and she might well be their next target.