F Paul Wilson - Novel 03

by Virgin (as Mary Elizabeth Murphy) (v2. 1)

Then he began pulling the trigger and firing at the Virgin.

  The reports sounded sharp and rather pitiful against the towering roar from outside. Dan didn't know where the bullets went. Emilio was firing madly, the empty brass casings flying through the air and bouncing along the floor, but the Virgin didn't even flinch. No holes appeared in her robes, and Dan saw no breakage in the area behind her. The bullets just seemed to disappear after they left the muzzle.

  Finally the hammer clinked on an empty chamber. Emilio lowered the pistol and stood staring at his untouched target. With a a feral whine he cocked his arm to throw it at her.

  That was when the light went out.

  Not the electricity—the light. An instant blackness, darker than a tomb, darker than the back end of a cave in the deepest crevasse of the Marianas Trench. Such an absolute absence of light that for an instant Dan panicked, unsure of up or down.

  And then a scream—Emilio's voice, filled with unbearable agony as it rose to a soul-tearing crescendo, and then faded slowly, as if he were falling away through space.

  The blackness, too, faded, allowing meager cloud-filtered daylight to reenter the room. And when Dan could once again make out the details of the room, he saw that Emilio was gone. His pistol lay on the rug, but there was no trace of the man who owned it.

  Dan staggered back and slumped against a support column. He leaned there, feeling weak. So fast . . . one moment a man in frenzied motion, the next he was gone, swallowed screaming by impenetrable blackness.

  But gone where?

  "Oh, please!" the senator cried, dropping to his knees and thrusting his clasped hands toward the Virgin. "Please! I meant you no harm, I meant no one any harm in bringing you here. I only wanted to help my son. You can understand that, can't you? You had a son yourself. I'd give anything to make mine well again."

  "Anything."

  "Absolutely anything."

  "Then you must give up everything," she told him. "All your possessions—money, property—and all your power and ambitions. Give everything away to whomever you wish, but give it up, all of it, get it out of your life, out of your control, and your son will live."

  "Charlie will live?" he said in a hushed voice as he struggled to his feet.

  "Only if you do what I have said."

  "I will," Senator Crenshaw said. "I swear I will!"

  "We shall see," the Virgin said.

  Dan had gathered enough of his wits and strength to dare to address her.

  "Why are you here?" he said, then glanced at Carrie. "Is it our fault? Did we cause all this?"

  "It was time," the Virgin said. "Time for Him to return and speak to His children. And what I say now shall be heard by all His children."

  25

  Kiryat Bialik, Israel

  Customs Inspector Dov Sidel sat before the TV in his apartment sipping tea while his wife Chaya did the dishes. He was half dozing, half watching a special on the Holocaust when the picture dissolved into the face of a woman.

  Dov stared at her and she stared back. Something familiar about her face. He felt he knew her, and yet he couldn't quite place her.

  Oh, well . . .

  He reached forward and turned the channel knob. The same face. He turned again and again and it was the same on every channel, even the unused frequencies. This woman's face, in perfect reception.

  And then it struck him. That relic, that body that had been slipped past him as a sculpture, the one he'd reported as being on display in New York. This woman resembled a younger version of that mummified body. In fact, the longer he stared at her the more convinced he became.

  He was reaching for the phone when Chaya screamed from the kitchen.

  Manhattan

  Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio was just finishing his lunch alone in the dining room of the Vatican Mission when he heard a scream from the kitchen, followed by the crash of breaking china. Then another scream. He set down his coffee cup and hurried along the hall to see what was wrong.

  The cook was standing by the sink, her hands pressed against her tear-streaked cheeks as she stared at the soapy water. She was praying in her native Italian.

  "Gina?" Vincenzo said, approaching. "What's wrong?"

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with fear and wonder, and pointed to the water.

  "Maria!"

  Vincenzo stepped closer and saw a woman's face reflected in the surface of the water. Not Gina's face. Another's. And immediately he knew who she was. He felt lighthearted, giddy. He swung around, looking for someone, anyone to tell, to call over and share this wondrous moment. But then he saw the same face in the gleaming surface of Gina's stainless steel mixing bowl, in the shiny side of the pots stacked next to the sink.

  She was everywhere, in every reflective surface in the kitchen.

  He ran back to the dining room and there was her face again, this time in the mirror over the hutch, and in the silver side of the coffee service.

  He ran into the next room where two of his fellow priests crouched before the television, pressing the channel button on the remote, but on every channel, broadcast and cable, was the same face.

  Vincenzo shakily lowered himself to the edge of a chair, and sat and waited.

  Cashelbanagh, Ireland

  Seamus O'Halloran paused on his front stoop and sniffed the clean coolness of the early evening air. He looked about his empty yard. After word spread that the monsignor from the Vatican had found a perfectly natural explanation for the tears, the crowds of faithful no longer flocked to Cashelbanagh to see the Weeping Virgin. In some ways he missed the throngs on his side lawn waiting breathlessly for the next tear, and in other ways he did not. It was nice to be able to work around the yard without clusters of strangers watching over your shoulder. And he no longer had those reporter folks asking him the same questions over and over again.

  Life was back to normal again. Which meant it was time for him to head down to Blaney's for a pint. But first he decided he'd take a look at the side lawn and see how it was coming along. He strolled around the corner of the house and admired the grass. Without the constant trampling of the crowds, it was filling in smooth and green again. As he turned to go, he glanced up at his grandfather Danny's painting of the Blessed Mother and froze.

  The painting was changing. He watched, rooted to the ground by terror, as her skin tones darkened while her features ran and rearranged themselves into a different face.

  When she smiled at him, Seamus uprooted himself and ran shouting for his wife.

  Everywhere . . .

  In the streets of Manhattan there is gridlock. The ever-swirling schools of cars, trucks, taxies, and buses screech to a halt as a face appears in their side- and rearview mirrors. It is seen dimly on the surface of every windowpane and brightly in every puddle. It is the same across the country, in the towns, in the cities, in the fields, in schools, barrooms, and on the computer screens of corporate offices.

  And across the world, in Sydney, Beijing, Luzon, New Delhi, Baghdad, Tunis, Johannesburg, Bosnia, Quito, and Rome, it is the same. Every surface capable of reflecting an image is filled with the same face.

  For a moment a fascinated world stops, gathers together, and watches.

  As she begins to speak, the billions of watchers, even the deaf, hear her words and understand.

  "I bring you word from our Creator. The words I say are His, not mine, and He wishes all of you to listen. I shall call Him 'He' simply because that is how we traditionally think of the Creator, but He is neither 'He' nor 'She.' What can those words mean when there is only one? And He is the One.

  "I was one of you, and for a short time, He was part of me. We have touched, and for that reason I am allowed to be His voice. Listen:

  "Today marks the end of the two-thousandth year since the Creator allowed an infinitesimal fragment of Himself to gestate in my womb and become human. He dwelt among a subjugated people who believed in a single God and He planted his message of kinship among all humans there.
r />   "I feel your shock and puzzlement as you wonder about Christmas, about December twenty-fifth, still months away. Your dating of the Coming is wrong, wrong as to the year as well as the month, wrong as are so many things in your Gospels and traditions.

  "One thing is true: He said He would return and now He has, but He is not pleased with the way His message has been distorted and manipulated and prostituted and profiteered during the intervening millennia. You all have the same Parent, therefore you are all kin. He did not create you so you could divide up into warring factions. Yet you have done just that.

  "You, His children, who have so recently come through a century-long crisis of nations that threatened your continued existence, now have a chance for a glorious future if you can but learn to see past the walls that divide you. There is peace between many nations now, and a chance for peace between all nations soon. But after that there must be peace between people. One to one. You must learn to recognize the walls that divide you and break them down. One by one.

  "Tear down your walls, children, and find Harmony.

  "You have become masters of your world. You have struggled to the apex of your corner of Creation. You rule it now. But with mastery comes obligation. The rulers of Creation become responsible for it.

  "Remember this: every living thing, animal, reptile, vegetable, contains a spark of the Creator. You hold within yourselves the brightest spark, but not the only spark. It is arrogant of you to think that all other living things were put here merely to be disposed of at your whim. They were not. A balance must be struck. It is a law of Creation that one thing must die that another may live, a law that holds true for all things, for the plants as well as the animals. But you fail in your responsibility when you wantonly lay waste to the land. You dim the spark within when you kill for sport and not for sustenance, when you kill for mere vanity to steal another creature's beauty to wear as your own, or cause a creature pain to test the paints and scents you daub on your bodies. All life has value. Yes, there is a hierarchy in that value, but nothing that lives is without it.

  "And if you must respect the place of the lower life-forms in the world around you, certainly you must cherish the life-right of your fellow humans a thousand-fold more. You must not diminish, must not damage, must not shorten the lives around you, for in doing so you also smother His spark within yourself. And nothing dims that spark, nothing hardens the human heart to the value of human life more than the ghastly slaughter of war. You must halt all war, children, especially the unseen war: Never shall there be true peace around you while you wage war on the unborn lives within you.

  "Respect all life, children, and find Harmony.

  "Abolish your ceremonies, your communions, your sacrifices, real and symbolic; discard your dietary laws, cast off your clerical vestments, disband your sects, cease calling yourselves Catholic or Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist, for these customs, these identifications, these sects, these labels serve only to set you apart from your kin.

  "Silence your prayers. He will not answer because He will not listen while you call out from within walls that separate you from your kin. Cease your worship, your kneeling, your bowing, your prostrating, your fasts, self-denials, and self-inflicted injuries. You demean not only yourselves but your Creator when you believe that such obeisances please Him. Harmony is the only prayer He heeds.

  "Abandon your rituals, children, and find Harmony.

  "Do not look to Him for guidance or relief; look instead to each other.

  "Close your churches, your temples, your mosques, for these are the most tangible and obvious walls between you. Gather instead in the streets and parks and squares where there are no walls. Try to reach Him by reaching each other.

  "Discard your Bible, your Koran, your Torah, for each is only partly true, and they lead you into the belief that you have found the One True Path to God, or the One True Voice that will catch His ear. You have not. And that delusion raises another wall, a wall of exclusivity. He did not create you to be divided.

  "Forsake your beliefs, children, and find Harmony.

  "I say again, use your own lives well, and respect each life around you. You are all kin. Touch one another. You are all living this life together. And so you must all work together toward creating Heaven. It is possible. You have the power. You need only find it and use it.

  "If you do not, if you continue along the same path you have trod these thousands of years, you will create a hell for yourselves and your children.

  "Look not for a Third Coming. And act not in fear of eternal reward or punishment. Your reward or punishment is here. This is your world, these are your lives. He has given them to you. Use them well, make the most of them, make them mean something, make them count. For this is your Heaven or Hell. You have the power to make it either. The choice is yours.

  "Do not wait for the Rapture of the faithful, or for the Tribulation of the unbeliever. They will not come from on high. Your rapture arises from each other, as do all your tribulations. Heaven or hell will be of your own making. You have but to choose.

  "This then is the whole of the law:

  "Find Harmony, children, and you will find Love."

  26

  Paraiso

  Dan had listened raptly. She'd been speaking to the world, he knew, to all of humankind, but he'd felt as if she were speaking only to him. For what she'd said reflected exactly his innermost thoughts and feelings. Because of his vows, his membership in the priesthood, he'd been afraid to vocalize them, even to himself. But now that she had said them, he could acknowledge what he'd sensed, known all along.

  He wondered if that was why he was here, in this house, in her presence—in His presence—why he'd been with her all along.

  As the Virgin finished speaking she touched Carrie's bowed head and said, "Come, my devoted one."

  Carrie rose to her feet. The Virgin held out her hand and Carrie took it.

  The Virgin said, "Our time here is done."

  Our time is done. What did she mean by that?

  Dan swallowed and addressed her again.

  "Wait . . . please. Can't you . . . bring her back? Make her live again? You can do that, can't you?"

  The Virgin shook her head. "Her time here is through. She is coming with me."

  "With you? You're taking her away? Where?" Dan felt a sob building in his chest. He still hadn't come to terms with Carrie's death. "Oh, please. I've only just begun to know her. You can't take her away from me now."

  "I haven't taken her away. One of your brothers did that."

  And then Carrie and the Virgin began to rise.

  When they were floating half a dozen feet above the floor, they began to drift toward the ruined windows, toward the sea, toward the towering column of water that waited for them.

  "Wait!" cried another voice. It was the man who called himself Kesev, whom the Mother called Iscariot. "Mother, please wait!"

  Their seaward drift slowed.

  "Yes, Judas?"

  "What of me?"

  "What of you, Judas?"

  "Am I to be left here alone? Haven't I suffered enough? Two thousand years, Mother! Haven't I earned forgiveness?"

  "Forgiveness does not come from me, Judas. You know that."

  "Then intercede for me, Mother. He listens to you. Don't leave me here alone. Everyone I've ever known has left me. Please . . . I do not deserve this anymore."

  The Virgin paused, as if listening, then extended her free hand toward Judas.

  "Come."

  Judas rushed forward, leaped to catch her hand, and when their fingers touched, he floated up to join her, clutching her hand in both of his.

  Dan saw tears in Judas's eyes, and felt them well up in his own. Carrie . . . Carrie was leaving.

  He fought the urge to call her back, knowing she wouldn't, couldn't respond. He'd lost her—not now, not today, but yesterday, when Emilio had put a 9mm hole in her heart.

  The three of them drifted through the ruined
window frames, out into the storm, toward the gargantuan swirling, roaring column of water that loomed outside.

  Dan ran to the frames, clung to one, leaning over the precipice that fell away to the pounding surf below. He sobbed unashamedly and let the tears flow down his cheeks.

  He watched longingly as their progress accelerated and their retreating forms shrank.

  Soon they were lost in the mist.

  Moments later, the cyclopean waterspout began to retreat, shrinking as it moved off into the Pacific. Gradually it thinned from a thousand yards across to a slender tornado-like funnel, and then it was gone.

  The storm, too, was gone. Magically, the encircling winds died, the fog melted away, the clouds dispersed. Midday sunlight burst free and flooded the sky, warming Dan's face and spirit.

  He clung there a few moments longer, wiping his eyes, gathering his wits, girding himself to face a world without Carrie. Finally, when he turned away, he saw Senator Crenshaw leaning over the hospital bed, whispering to his unconscious son.

  "Did you hear that, Charlie? You're going to be well again. All I've got to do is give away everything I own. But that's no problem, Charlie. I'll set up trusts for everything, even for Paraiso. That way all my assets will be out of my control, but we can still live here. And I'll put my nomination bid on hold. I won't do anything until you're better, Charlie. After that, you'll see the goddamndest campaign you ever saw in your life. You just wait and see, Charlie."

  As Dan walked past he couldn't resist saying, "You just don't get it, do you."

  "What?" Crenshaw said, straightening. "What do you mean?"

  "Weren't you listening?"

  "Of course, I—"

  "Then think about what you heard, fool."

  Dan could spare not any more time here. There was a new world outside. He could feel it.

  He hurried up the stairs and burst out into the new fresh air. He had no idea what he'd find when he got back to civilization, but he knew the events of the past few moments had changed it forever.