Today was no different. He addressed the sea of faces about the virtues of friendship, of love in its purest sense. He incorporated the myth of Damon and Pythias, the epic adventure of Roland and Oliver, and the legendary bond of Arthur and Lancelot into his sermon, so that it seemed less a preachy lecture than a wonderful narrative. Weaving various mythic and literary elements throughout his message created a marvelously rich tapestry for his audience—a story full of compassion and love and human understanding. When he closed with the words of the Lord about there being “no greater love than that of the man who would lay down his life for his friend,” he sensed an undercurrent in the crowd, a just-barely-suppressed urge in them to stand up, en masse, in spontaneous applause.
Peter had moved them with his words, with his resonant, modulated voice. He had transfixed them, every one of them, with his special gift. As he stood there, basking in that briefest of moments in which he could actually feel the power he held over them, he knew he enjoyed it. If this was pride, if it was a sin to feel this way, he could not help himself. Later he would ask God for forgiveness.
After serving Holy Communion, he completed the Mass and stood by the door for the time-honored tradition of shaking hands with his parishioners. Many of them queued up to say a word or two instead of just rushing home. It was another small but obvious indication of his popularity at Saint Sebastian’s. As the line finally thinned out, an attractive woman approached him, gently shook his hand, then held on.
“Excuse me, Father Carenza,” said Margaret Murphy. He knew her from her attendance at the elementary school PTA meetings. Something about the way she wore her yellow and white cotton dress, the way she applied her cosmetics, imparted to her a very sad, very helpless aspect. Or perhaps it was her eyes that gave her away—she looked disheartened, even fearful, like a small bird that had fallen from its nest.
“I was wondering,” she continued, “if I could have a small talk with you…”
He looked at his watch automatically. He hoped it didn’t seem rude. “Right now?”
“I don’t want to impose, Father, but if you have a few minutes…? I just don’t have the time during the week, and it’s so important…”
He could not ignore the subtle note of pain in her voice. Though he wanted to go back to the rectory, kick up his feet, drink a cold beer, and just suspend his thinking for a few hours with a movie on Cinemax, he knew his first obligation was to this woman who sought his help.
“It’s no problem, Mrs. Murphy,” Peter said. “Why don’t you meet me over at the rectory? Just give me a few minutes to change out of my vestments.”
A small smile, weak and fragile, illuminated her face. “Oh, thank you, Father Carenza. I’ll be waiting for you there. Thank you.”
Time passed quickly as he sat with Mrs. Murphy in the first-floor study. It was a small room, lined with bookcases. Several soft-bulb lamps and two well-padded chairs in front of the desk in the corner made it a comfortable room. It was a good place to conduct one-on-one counseling sessions with parishioners, and Peter did not think he intimidated Mrs. Murphy as he relaxed behind the desk and listened, without comment, to her tale.
It was a not-uncommon domestic scenario: hard-working blue-collar husband; overburdened wife trying to keep a clean house, supervise four children, and still be the passionate whore in bed. The demands of modern living were often more than many couples could bear, and Peter knew people sought release from the pressure in most of the standard ways.
Rod Murphy had selected a neighborhood bar as his ally against all the hassles in his world, and was spending more and more of his free time pounding Budweiser at the hardwood. He was a big man who worked as a journeyman electrician for a contractor. His drinking wasn’t a problem on the job yet, but it was sending fault-lines through the foundation of his marriage, and Margaret was getting very scared. She told a teary story of late-night arguments fueled by an unstaunched flow of alcohol.
Peter had listened to semi-hysterical parishioners many times as they cried out under the impossible weight of their lives. In almost every instance, he found it best to remain as silent as possible while they uncapped the lid of their emotions and pain. Only after the demons were revealed could he successfully deal with them.
After almost an hour, Mrs. Murphy’s tale was exhausted. Peter looked at her lean face, now puffy and red about her eyes, and reached across the table to her. She let him grasp her hands like a child might seek the comfort of a parent.
“Oh, Father, I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed. I had no idea I would get like this.”
He smiled softly, shook his head easily. “Like what? Margaret, please realize that you’re just letting yourself be human. We all feel pain, just as we feel joy—that’s what sets us apart from the rest of God’s creatures.”
Peter tried to imbue his mellow voice with a semi-hypnotic suggestion that everything was going to be fine. Almost instantly the lines of tension in Margaret Murphy’s face softened and began to vanish. Although Peter, an orphan raised by the Church, was admittedly not an expert in the dynamics of families, he possessed a keen sense of understanding of the human psyche. And it was not as if he’d never had any affairs of the heart. His interest and involvements with young women before he answered his calling to God had been educational as well as enjoyable. Peter had not grown up in a bubble of parochial glass.
His compassion was an intuitive ability. Coupled with his knack of saying precisely the right thing to a troubled soul, it made him an extremely successful counselor.
He spoke calmly and without the austere tones of a lecture. By asking subtle questions, exercising the gentle, probing skills of a veteran therapist, Peter was able to slowly lead Mrs. Murphy toward her own particular conclusions. If allowed to discover for herself insights into her complex problems, he knew, she would be more willing to attempt solutions. It’s always easier to act on your own beliefs than what others try to force upon you.
“Father Carenza, I don’t know how to thank you,” said Mrs. Murphy when she stood up to leave.
“You already have,” he said.
“So much wisdom for someone so young. It’s hard to believe.” She looked at him with glistening, doe’s eyes. It was a gaze that combined the elements of respectful child, infatuated girl, and lustful woman. Peter sensed this conflux of emotions emanating from the woman and was confused by the feelings stirred within himself.
He blinked, then looked away for a moment and broke the mini-spell which had formed between them. Margaret Murphy must have sensed it too, because she also blinked before flushing slightly and raising a delicate finger to her temple.
“Please stay in touch, Margaret,” Peter said. “And remember that you’re welcome here anytime.”
“I will, Father. You don’t know how much better you’ve made me feel. I think I understand what’s going wrong, and I think I can see some ways to make it better.”
“Good. Good,” said Peter as he glided out from behind the desk and escorted her to the door.
After he’d watched her walk slowly down the shrubbery-lined path to the sidewalk, Peter closed the front door slowly. He was feeling good about himself, aglow with the knowledge that he’d helped another person desperately in need. Turning into the main hall, he headed for the kitchen. Despite the gradual setting of the sun, it was still muggy and hot, and a cold beer sounded very good just about then.
When he opened the refrigerator and found nothing but a few cans of Diet Pepsi, he could only shake his head and smile. Wasn’t that always the way? How many times had he looked in the Frigidaire for something else, reaching around six or seven bottles of Beck’s Dark or Michelob, ignoring them?
But now, tonight, nothing but a cold, dark beer was going to do it for him. Checking his watch, he saw he still had enough time to run up to the deli on 90th Street and get a six-pack before the nine o’clock movie started. Peter quickly changed into shorts, T-shirt, and his high-topped Reeboks, and headed for the store.
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br /> Shadows along the side streets grew longer and deeper as he walked toward the main intersection at Fourth Avenue. With no large pockets in his shorts, Peter carried his keys and several ten-dollar bills in a small, zippered waist-pouch. Summer sounds of rock music, crying babies, and blaring televisions poured forth from open windows. The heavy rectangles of air conditioners droned and sweated into the streets. Everything blended together in a pleasant mix, a vital, living neighborhood. Peter ran a hand through his dark brown hair, pushing the damp strands away from his eyes. So damned humid. That beer was going to taste good—no question.
He’d just passed a narrow alley when he heard the voice at his back. “Okay, hold it right there, you yuppie-muthahfuckah…” Nasal, whiny, young. Peter kept on walking, pretending not to have heard anything.
Suddenly, long bony fingers were digging into his left shoulder. A vicious tug spun him around so quickly, he almost lost his balance.
“Hey, you deaf or sumpin’?! I’m talkin’-a you, asshole!”
In the half light of the fast-approaching dusk, Peter came face-to-face with a black boy of perhaps sixteen. He wore a bandanna around his head like a samurai warrior. A gold tooth accented his inappropriate smile. A scraggly green tank top revealed the muscles of his power-forward torso; the knees were ripped out of his jeans. The oven-glazed look in his eyes suggested a mind racing out of control on some kind of drug.
Slowly the boy raised his right hand and pointed a small-caliber gun at Peter’s face. “Back up, man,” he said. “This way…”
He indicated that Peter slip into the alley, into the narrow shadows and the smells of garbage baking in plastic trash bags.
“What do you want?” asked Peter as he complied, carefully moving off the main sidewalk, feeling the alley wall against his back.
“Now give it up, chump…” the kid said, still smiling. He was twitchy, jittery. All his movements were sharp and tight. He looked unstable as all hell.
Peter felt his heart begin to pump harder than he’d thought possible. Even in the gathering darkness he could see the gun clearly, and though it had a small-bore barrel, its muzzle seemed as wide as a well and twice as black. It was like staring into a bottomless pit, a place where, once you fell in, only death survived.
Reaching into his waist-pouch, Peter produced the keys and the two bills. “That’s all I’ve got, man,” he said softly. “Here, take it. You’re welcome to it…”
With feline quickness the boy moved, snatching the money from Peter in an eye-flash. The gun bobbed and weaved in the kid’s hand but was still pointed at Peter. He wanted to do something—jump, roll, run—anything, but he was rooted to the sidewalk. He felt paralyzed and helpless. It was a terrifying feeling with which his normally analytical mind could not cope.
“Hey, man, what the fuck is this!” The boy’s smile flowed into an angry scowl. “Twenny bucks?! That ain’ shit, man! Where’s the rest of your money?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s all I have. Honest.”
“Bullshit! You gots money in your shoe, man. Take off them shoes.”
“Please, really,” said Peter. “I really don’t. Why don’t you just—”
“Take ’em off, you asshole!” The kid almost screamed out the words.
Peter slowly began unlacing his high-tops. Couldn’t anybody hear this clown? Couldn’t anybody see what was happening?
“Okay, dump ’em out!” said his attacker once he’d taken off both white leather shoes.
“There’s nothing in them,” said Peter. “Look…”
“Goddammit! Take off you fuckin’ socks! That’s where you got it!”
Peter pulled off the white cotton gym-socks, trying to keep an eye on the obviously very frustrated boy. His plan was not going well and he was confused and angry. When he saw no extra cash concealed in the socks, his whole body went rigid with rage.
“You just fuckin’ wiff me, man. I’m gonna shoot your chump-ass!”
Pressing himself against the wall, Peter felt the heat of its rough brick through his T-shirt. “Please,” he said. “Look, take the money, please…”
The boy scowled and raised the gun, his arm rigidly outstretched. “Man, fuck you! You dead!”
Peter heard a voice cry out, uttering a single, piercing syllable—“No!” In a timeless instant, he realized it was his voice, shrieking into the darkness, surrendering to some atavistic impulse. He heard the sound as though in a vast tunnel, and the rolling echo of his scream was as terrifying as the empty eye of the gun.
He saw the ropy muscles tensing in the boy’s thick forearm, and powerful fingers. In another instant, the gun’s trigger would click back and the hammer would trip.
Instinctively, he raised his hands to his face.
A brilliant flash of light, like the furious blue explosion of a high-voltage discharge, filled the alley. Like a photograph, the image of the boy’s face—blue-black flesh shiny with sweat, eyes swollen with a primeval fear—sizzled and popped in Peter’s mind.
The gun dropped from the boy’s charred hand, clattering to the asphalt. The air was charged with the foul scent of ozone and seared flesh. What had, moments before, been a human being was now a smoking column of greasy charcoal.
Stunned, Peter watched the thing totter slowly from side to side before falling forward at his feet.
His lungs filled with the heavy stench of burned fat; he gagged. Backing away from the burned lump, Peter tried to rationalize what he’d seen.
Lightning.
The mugger had been struck by lightning.
But the bolt had come from Peter Carenza’s hands…
TWO
Rome, Italy—Sister Etienne
* * *
August 15, 1998
It was a typically warm, summer morning in the cloistered Convent of the Sisters of Poor Clares. After a meager breakfast, the nuns were allowed a half hour of private meditation in the convent gardens. Sister Etienne, a slender, healthy woman of almost fifty, exited the dining hall and crossed under the Roman stone arch that marked the entrance to the central atrium of the convent.
The very large quadrangle was formed by the walls of four separate buildings. It overflowed with shady oaks and dogwoods in late blossom. The garden was crisscrossed with many brick-laden paths, all lined by mulched flower and shrubbery beds. The dusty smell of boxwood and pachysandra commingled with the sweet scent of begonias, snapdragons, and honeysuckle. Sister Etienne loved this garden and felt especially at peace during her morning walks through its summery greenery.
Glory be to God, she thought, as she passed beneath a thick-bowed oak. That poem by the American, Kilmer, was perfectly true. She had lived in the Convent almost all of her life, had left it only twice since coming to the Sisters of Poor Clares at the age of twelve, but Sister Etienne knew that no other part of the world could be as beautiful as the convent garden. She had been born Angelina Pettinaro, daughter of a Calabrian fisherman who had been too poor to provide for his seven children after his wife died of cancer. To make things easier, her older brother joined the Italian National Guard and Angelina entered the sisterhood.
Since she’d always been a deeply spiritual girl, she found the life of a nun much to her liking. She preferred the convent’s order and discipline to the uncharted chaos of the modern world, and she absolutely loved the almost perfect opportunity to serve her Lord God in any fashion He deemed. Sister Etienne believed she had demonstrated her absolute loyalty to the Church and her faith in the wishes of God many times in her life—especially when Abbess Victorianna had selected her to work with Father Francesco and Cardinal Lareggia.
The Abbess had always been so proud of her! Etienne once overheard her superior speaking to a group of visitors; the Abbess had singled Etienne out as one of the most devout members of the entire Order.
Now, now, she thought. You’re woolgathering again! This time is supposed to be spent in meditation and private prayer. To waste it upon prideful thoughts was sinful at least.
Etienne paused before a bed of roses, lifting a soft yellow bud from amidst thorny stems and leaves. Unexpectedly, the flower broke loose, as if it had been waiting to fall into her hand. Holding it up to the soft, morning light, she could see the bud’s intricate structure through its translucent petals. The beauty of a rose held all the proof she needed to verify the miraculous power and majesty of the Lord. Etienne often used such examples from nature to inspire her private devotions and prayers.
Staring into the depths of the rose, trying to follow the convolutions of each whorled petal, she perceived a new complexity in its design. It was like staring into the center of a figure-ground illustration, a deliberately conceived pattern of optical illusion. The image swam before her eyes as though trying to change into something else. She felt a wave of nausea crash over her in the next instant, a sensation of hideous sickness worse than she’d ever thought possible. Something burned and clawed at the inside of her stomach; her skull felt as though it were expanding, like a balloon about to rupture. She felt herself falling but the pain of the impact was far away, detached, as though it belonged to someone else.
What was happening to her?
She tried to stand up straight, but disequilibrium kept her pinned to the ground, weaving on her knees. A low keening sounded deep within her skull, growing louder, changing into a dull buzz—a hypnotic sound that blotted out all other sensation. Etienne stared trancelike into the depths of the rose. The buzzing reached a new height—nothing existed in the world other than the rose and the buzzing in her head. Surely the bones of her skull would soon fracture, exploding like a grenade and spraying the gray-white mucus of her brain everywhere. Etienne waited for the image to become real.
The Blood of the Lamb Page 2
