by Hunter Shea
“This moment was foretold almost a century ago to three small children, Jacinta, Lucia and Francisco, in Portugal. Of the three, only Lucia was to live to adulthood. She became a nun and shared the details of her vision and the message that had been left in her care. The first secret prophesied the end of the First World War and the start of World War II. The second told of the coming of an evil superpower, Russia, and its eventual downfall which would lead to a temporary world peace. Details of the third are known only to the pope and myself.”
Shane hadn’t drawn a breath, until he said, “And?”
“In several days, the third secret will become part of the fabric of known world history. There is no other way afforded to us.”
Father Michael hefted the gunnysack onto his shoulder as easily as if it contained feathers. Shane crashed onto the couch and replayed the game plan over and over in his mind, not to mention the riddle of the third secret. Was he talking about the Fatima prophecies? That had to be it. He remembered enough from documentaries on TV to put the pieces together. At the time, he’d thought it was all a load of bull. Mass hysteria that had bloomed into religious revelation. He grew hot with anger.
“Just because some kids think they saw the Virgin Mary and got a few messages doesn’t mean innocent people have to die now!”
“You could never understand,” Father Michael said sharply. Shane flinched, and the priest’s shoulders sagged slightly. He continued in a more measured tone. “If you want to think of it strategically, we must wait until Cain and his demons are all in one place.”
“I want to think of it in terms of saving lives,” Shane said, the hard edge of his anger blunted.
Father Michael inhaled deeply as if to reply, then exhaled and walked away.
If he didn’t know better, which he wasn’t sure he did, this Father Michael seemed as sinister as Cain. What he was proposing to do was pure insanity. If even half of it was true, Shane wasn’t sure his heart would be able to withstand it.
Maybe there was a way out of it. What if he didn’t show up at Saint Luke’s to meet the priest? He could just grab Aimee and hop on Metro North and ride a train to the end of the line, spend a few days in Putnam County and hope this was nothing more than the ravings of a couple of cracked-up priests. And even if it was partially true, because he couldn’t begin to wrap his brain around the thought of it all being factual, who the hell was he to get stuck in the middle of some holy war? Until a week ago, God was just dog spelled backwards. Now he didn’t know what to think. The only thing he did know was that he did not want to be in the slaughterhouse when Father Michael went to battle.
Chapter Nineteen
Monsignor Stanton stood in the doorway, looking exhausted and worried. An arthritic hand gripped the doorframe to keep him from slumping forward. Father Michael noted a greater sagging of the skin, a glaze of deep sorrow and sadness in the man’s eyes. Death was hovering over him like an industrial cloud of smog. The old man’s health had been precarious on the best of days before his arrival. It appeared that the knot of dread over what was to become of his beloved city had metastasized, eating away at what little strength was left in Monsignor Stanton’s body.
Unlike all of the vestiges of humanity lost to Father Michael over the centuries in his service to God, envy was still as strong as ever.
And he envied the frail monsignor.
“Have you discovered the whereabouts of Cain?” Monsignor Stanton was out of breath from the walk to answer the door. Night had blanketed the city but it was still bright outside, in large part because of the moon’s pale reflection on the blanket of fresh snow that covered every square inch of the metropolis.
“Yes.”
“And his plan? If he’s here, he must have something in mind. That is, of course, if the demon can possess a mind.”
“You must rest, Monsignor. I would like to use your church tonight,” he answered, steering the subject away from the foulness of Cain.
Monsignor Stanton was tempted to press the priest for more information, but a quick look in his alabaster eyes assured him that no amount of pressure would elicit information he wasn’t prepared to share. Ignorance could be bliss, just as sure as knowing could be torment.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Let me get the keys.” He slowly hobbled into his office to retrieve a ring of over twenty keys. The keys to the kingdom of God, he’d called them over the years.
Once they were inside the church, he built up the courage to ask, “Father Michael, I’d like to know what you’re about to face. If there is any way I can help, I want to be there.”
Father Michael gently laid his bag onto a pew. The old man was trembling and looked close to collapsing.
“You have done enough,” he answered.
“I want to know,” the monsignor shot back with as much authority in his voice as he could muster.
Father Michael stepped close to him, his heavy footsteps echoing throughout the empty church. He reached his hand and touched the top of the monsignor’s head. “You have done well. Sleep and bring serenity to your thoughts.”
Monsignor Stanton’s knees buckled and he was caught before his body could crash to the floor. Father Michael carried him to the rectory and laid him onto the small bed in his room.
“Good-bye, Monsignor.”
Aimee broke the news to Shane as they were getting ready for dinner. She thought for sure he’d have a million questions when she came back made up to the nines, but he’d seemed lost in his own thoughts. She even made it a point to drop the Saks Fifth Avenue bag containing her new dress next to him on the couch but he never even glanced at it. He just stared into space and twirled a lock of his hair. The TV was on, but only as a source of background noise. If this were an episode of The Twilight Zone, she would have sworn that he had been hypnotized by some subliminal message being broadcast within the airwaves.
After an hour of the virtual silent treatment, her blood started to boil. She would be damned if she would be ignored in her own house. If he were a drug user, she could almost understand his torpor. No, he was just tuning her out, lost in his own world. So, she did the one thing she knew would shake him from his trance. Sitting on the coffee table, face-to-face, knees touching, she blurted out the mayor’s personal invitation to the convention and her decision to go.
“He…what?” His face had turned ghostly white and he yanked the strands of hair he had wrapped around his finger right out of his scalp without any hint of pain.
Aimee’s anger was quickly replaced by uncertainty. She’d never seen Shane look so scared. But why?
“He asked me and other members of his staff to attend the mayoral convention at the Javits Center tomorrow. It’s a really big deal, Shane. This could mean a lot for my career.”
“And you’re going?” Shane asked.
“Yes. That’s why I went out with Patty today. To get ready.”
Shane slumped onto the couch and put his head in his hands. Neither of them spoke. Aimee was expecting anger, his usual flash of outrage whenever she mentioned Mayor Spinelli’s name, but this was coming from left field. She didn’t know what to do or say.
“Don’t go,” he said, barely above a whisper. His back was hunched and he never took his eyes off the floor.
“What?”
“I said don’t go,” he reiterated, only louder. “Do anything else you want tomorrow. Hell, leave me and run off to marry some guy you just met in a bar but, please, don’t go.”
Aimee started to pace. “You’re talking crazy. That doesn’t even make any sense. Do you realize how insane you sound? I know you don’t like the mayor, but don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”
Shane rose from the bed, walked over and held her arms in his hands. Their eyes locked and she was unsettled by what she saw.
“You’re going no matter what I say, aren’t you?”
The entire scene was too weird, even for Aimee. She had been very understanding of Shane. There weren’t too
many professional women who would hitch their heart to a homeless artist, especially one who looked like the lost son of Sid Vicious. For all she knew, this was his latest ploy at getting back at her for working with the mayor. Shane was never one for convention and she had proven to him many times in the past that his Mayor Spinelli tantrums had no effect on her. Perhaps he’d cooked up a new way to spoil her news and this frightened-rabbit routine was nothing more than an act. For once, she was going to go with her head and not her heart, no matter how much it pained her to look at Shane. She had a career to consider. Shane would have to be a man and get over it.
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
His face betrayed a momentary flush of anger and Aimee was sure he’d start yelling. Instead, he grabbed his coat, stormed from the room and slammed the front door.
Chapter Twenty
Cain had left the confines of the mayor’s house to seek solitude in the cordoned-off area that had been the site of the World Trade Center. The abomination of 9/11 seemed to some New Yorkers a million years in the past as they resumed the natural ebb and flow of life. For others, the pain was as real and raw as yesterday. Everyone’s scars were different.
Unbeknownst to most was the power that hung over the site like an unseen nebula, teeming with lightning. Such delectable evil. It still reverberated in the air. And oh, the souls. Not just the malevolent shades of the beasts that had committed the atrocities, but the lost and wailing echoes of thousands of spirits that were still suffering the tortures of being burned and buried alive. It was pure chaos and Cain found it irresistible. In a place of such utter madness, Cain felt truly at peace.
Construction had begun during the spring on an entirely new complex of buildings. It was long overdue, lost in the miasma of politics and money. The newly paved stretch of barren land played host to the curious and mourning during the day and the damned at night. Cain sat in the shadows and drank in the filth and violence that would forever mar the very fibers of the death zone. Here he would find strength. Here he would convey his commands to his vile apostles while they slept in bed next to unaware husbands, wives and lovers. Here, of all places, in this city of broken faith and hypocrisy, Cain would summon the might needed to unleash a nightmare on the entire world. This time tomorrow, the people of this planet, no matter their beliefs, would know that carnal evil was real, that good no longer held the monopoly on victory.
Hell would be so pleased.
Closing his eyes, Cain cast his wretched plans into the warped minds of his converted, demonic warriors. Back in their homes, they remained still as corpses, but deep inside they chomped at the bit to be let loose. Their time was fast approaching and their master was promising them supremacy.
It was so simple. Now he knew why he had been awakened. The world, once a vast plain of lands and millions of unconnected people, had literally become a small community thanks to man’s advances in technology. Every country was linked by televisions, radios, satellites, cell phones and the Internet. All one had to do was set events in motion on one continent and watch its ripples wash over every corner of the globe.
The Christian fundamentalists would say it was the end-times as predicted in the Book of Revelation. Their thoughts and cries and actions alone would bring about Armageddon. All Cain had to do was light the match. The world would take care of destroying itself, leaving him and his minions to feed on the flesh and souls of the billions left in the wake of the Apocalypse.
“I’m in.” Shane’s words bounced off the walls and dark corners of Saint Luke’s Church.
Father Michael was on his knees at the foot of the altar. If he had heard Shane speak, he gave no indication. Shane had a strong feeling the priest would be here. Breaking in was easy, as churches were notoriously low on security systems. For the most part, they still believed in the goodness of man and the sanctity of the house of God. Forget the fact that every year they were robbed by the dozens. Small parish churches like Saint Luke’s still thought that a single lock on the door and latches on the windows would suffice, not that they would have the money required to install an antitheft system should they have decided to stop turning the other cheek.
Faint illumination from the two stands of electric candles on either side of the altar cast eerie shadows on the walls. The design of Saint Luke’s was made beautiful by its modesty. It had the requisite tall, stained-glass windows representing various saints and martyrs, and marvelous three-dimensional wood cuts of the Stations of the Cross on either side of the rows of pews. A statue of Mary, one hand over her heart, the other raised and seeming to bless the congregation before her, rested at the left of the altar while a bust of John the Baptist sat on a shelf above the baptismal font to the right. There was nothing ostentatious about Saint Luke’s. It appeared to Shane as if it had been designed that way with the intention of limiting distractions and offering quiet contemplation.
Shane remembered coming to Mass with his grandmother when he was a small boy and lighting real candles with very long wicks after putting a donation in the tiny metal box at the base of the candle stand. There were always dozens of illuminated candles and it was his job to point out a new, unlit one for his grandmother. She would stay silent for a moment and then usher him back to their pew so they could have a prime seat before the organ came to life and Mass started. She died when he was seven and he’d never returned to church. His parents were confirmed agnostics and never once forced the issue of religion on him. He had been grateful for that fact, until tonight.
He slowly, almost reverently, walked down the aisle and stopped by the second pew. Father Michael hadn’t moved since his arrival. Shane assumed he was in some sort of trance or meditating or whatever an undead person did at night. He slid into the pew and sat down.
“Come,” Father Michael said, startling him.
“I said I’m in,” Shane said. “Cain has Aimee involved now. She’s determined to be there tomorrow as his guest. If I can’t convince her not to go, I have to be there to protect her.”
Father Michael remained on his knees, silent as the grave.
“To tell you the truth,” Shane continued, “I was thinking of a way to convince her to just leave the city with me. I had no intention of going one step farther with you. I’m scared. I mean, you’ve laid a lot of heavy shit on me and that Cain thing, well, I just didn’t know if I could stand up to it and whatever else will be waiting for us. And then she drops this in my lap and I’m beginning to wonder if fate is actually a real thing. Like, no matter what I decide to do, I’m always going to end up with you, tomorrow, facing hell, saving Aimee.”
He leaned forward, resting his forehead on the back of the pew. The confession left him drained, resigned.
“I can protect her, right? If I keep her close to me, she’ll be guarded against Cain and his demons by whatever it is that’ll keep them from killing me. Isn’t that so?”
“Pray.”
Shane rose from the pew. “All I want is a simple answer. Will she be safe if I stay next to her?”
He was answered by silence. If Father Michael wasn’t so damn terrifying, he would have rushed the altar and spun him around to force a damn reply from the priest or whatever he actually was. Instead, Shane nervously pulled at his hair. He stood staring at Father Michael for a long time, stifling his questions and refusing to pray.
Ages seemed to go by before Father Michael finally rose and made the sign of the cross. He was sans hat and sunglasses and his pale, angular face started Shane’s heart pounding. He regarded Shane with bleached, featureless eyes that betrayed no emotion.
“You must pray.”
Shane’s fight-or-flight response was on sensory overload. His right leg twitched, ready to buckle or take wing on a moment’s notice.
“I wouldn’t even know how to pray,” he murmured.
Father Michael approached him with outstretched hands. He looked like a combination of Frankenstein and a zombie from Night of the Living Dead, and even though Shane
had spent a week around him, something about being in a deserted church in the black of night with the undead warrior priest made him regret breaking in to announce his intentions. If he couldn’t face the man he would be fighting with, how could he possibly stand up to Cain’s hellions?
“You can think and speak. You can pray.”
Father Michael was only a footstep from him, his fingertips aiming for Shane’s head.
“What if I don’t want to pray? Maybe I…”
The words stopped in Shane’s throat as the priest touched his temples with unexpected lightness. Instantly, his fears were expelled. A soothing feeling, like warm milk being poured down his body, enveloped him. His muscles relaxed and his head felt light.
“Pray and you will find your answers.”
Shane approached the altar on legs that felt lighter than air. Kneeling before it, he felt a presence drift into the space to his left. He looked over and saw his grandmother, her head bowed in contemplative silence. She reached over and held his hand. He never once questioned how she could be there. It didn’t matter if she was real or just an impossibly lifelike projection from his memory. All that mattered was that she was here. Feeling her hand in his was the most exhilarating moment he had ever experienced, and together they prayed.
Aimee had woken up alone, angry, concerned, and a twinge of something else that she couldn’t quite define. So, Shane was mad at her and he’d spent the night on the street. He’d stormed out on her before and he slept in the great outdoors that was the city way more than he did in her bed. He was fine, she told herself. Just being a stubborn man. For someone so atypical, he was playing the part of the macho jerk pretty well.
It was Tuesday, but she had been given the day off by the mayor. He said there’d be no sense coming in, only to leave early so she could get ready for the convention. Instead, she accessed her computer from home, answered her e-mails, responded to all of her voice mails and prepared some documents that would need to be printed up and distributed tomorrow. She took a break after a couple of hours, watched a little TV, but kept thinking about Shane. He’d looked so sad last night before he left. At the time she’d thought it was a well-played mind game but now, the moment separated by a restless night’s sleep, she was no longer so sure.
