“Then how did you know that ‘miracles’ crap!?”
“I’m not stupid! That was the most logical reason to have him there!” Daniel had trouble keeping his thoughts straight. Waves of pain crashed over him, scrambling his thinking. “I’ve told you everything I know. Please, believe me.”
Ortiz plugged in the one-element hot-plate Dan used to perk coffee. Within a minute, he held a neonlike orange sworl in his hand. “Now, that looks nice and toasty, doesn’t it?”
“Please…” said Daniel, unable to take his eyes off the glowing heating element.
“It is said that the tips of our fingers have more nerve endings than anywhere else in the body. Do you believe that?”
“Yes,” he heard himself saying insanely.
“Now, I’m going to ask you—where is your friend, Peter Carenza?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know…”
“Yes, you do. You must.”
The man held Dan’s left hand in a viselike grip, forcing his fingers back and up. With deliberate slowness he pressed the hot-plate against the tip of Dan’s middle finger. With a loud, steaming hiss white-hot pain flashed and popped through Dan like a broken high voltage wire. Pain shorted out all sensation. Dimly, Dan felt pressure as the element was pushed harder against his finger. There was a crackling sound, followed by a pop, and the smell of charred meat.
Daniel screamed weakly, exhausted from pain, driven beyond sound. Sweat dripped into his eyes, mixing with tears to form a burning acid under his clenched lids. His stomach heaved and lurched. A hot column of vomit and bile surged up and down his throat, threatening to choke him. Suddenly a warm stream of urine burst from him, staining the chair and running down his leg.
“So messy,” said his tormentor.
“Please…No more, please.”
“Where is Peter Carenza?”
“I don’t know!”
“Does he have any other close friends?”
“I don’t know…”
Ortiz pressed the hot-plate against Dan’s index finger. Skin burned and steaming capillaries burst. The pain novaed-out his thoughts. He was going to pass out…
Cold water stung his face, shocking him into wakefulness.
“Is there anyone else he might go to?”
“No, no. I don’t know.” He was weeping.
“I think you do,” said the man. He put down the hot-plate, reached for the ice pick.
TWENTY-ONE
Brooklyn, New York—Carenza
* * *
August 28, 1998
When he woke, he felt as though he’d risen from the dead.
Peter smiled. Maybe that wasn’t the best colloquialism to employ just now. Shaking his head, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t even sure what day it was, much less the time. The evening on the couch, the wine, the conversation with Marion Windsor seemed a very long time ago.
He staggered into the bathroom, only half-noticing the incredible panoply of female cosmetics covering the vanity countertop. He peed like he’d never had the chance in all his life, then moved to the sink to splash some water on his face. More awake, he looked in the mirror. He felt as if his face were changing somehow. His familiar boyish features were hardening, fading away, and it bothered him. The suggestion of lines and creases around his eyes and mouth. He wanted to chalk it up to fatigue, or even the good old aging process, but he knew the events of the last week had catalyzed any differences he now noticed in his appearance.
When he reentered the bedroom he noticed the Westclox on the dresser ticking past 4:17. The hazy light coming through the chenille-curtained windows meant afternoon sun. Could that be right? Had he really slept through the night and half the next day?
He shook his head, sat on the edge of the bed, and slipped into jeans and a cotton shirt. Guess that’s what jet lag and a good fight with a couple of killers can do for you…
When he descended to the kitchen, he found a note from Marion. Since it was Friday, she wrote, she would be working the evening news slot and would be finished around 8:30 PM. She would call him then! Peter smiled as he crumpled up the note and dropped it in the trash. He hardly knew the woman, yet he felt like she’d been his friend all his life.
The bizarre events of the last week had thrown them together, and after the scene at the airport, they seemed almost fated to be close to each other. You don’t save each other’s lives and maintain a casual attitude, he thought with a smile.
Of course, you don’t tell someone you’re the Son of God every day, either.
The Son of God.
Peter remembered the previous evening, when he vaporized the guy’s arm. Although he’d been trying to avoid thinking about it, his subconscious wouldn’t let it go. Thinking back to the precise instant, Peter reflected that he’d felt almost able to make the blue fire appear. He couldn’t actually control it, but he thought he might be able to bring it on when he needed it. Extreme stress or danger apparently was the trigger.
If that was true, then maybe he could learn to really control it. He’d read, in Charles Fort’s Wild Talents, about bizarre cases of spontaneous human combustion—people who suddenly burst into flames so intense that their bodies were carbonized within seconds—and wondered if his own “ability” was part of the phenomenon.
He shook his head, sighing with exasperation. Why was he still grasping for rational or even quasirational explanations for who and what he was? The Vatican had offered him the cleanest possible exegesis; he just didn’t want to accept it. He was getting sick of all the mental gymnastics.
Peter walked into the kitchen, rummaged through the refrigerator and found some juice and seven-grain bread. A two-slice toaster stood on a nearby counter.
There had to be some basic flaw in the Vatican gang’s argument. Perhaps their procedures had produced only another test-tube baby. He certainly didn’t feel like God. Not even His Son.
He smiled as the toast popped up. His thoughts were so absurd. And yet—the physical evidence, and the testimony of very serious men and women, couldn’t be easily dismissed.
As he buttered the toast, poured a glass of orange juice, he wondered how long he would be plagued with thoughts like this. Maybe for the rest of his life…
He hoped it wouldn’t drive him crazy.
Marion’s support had been the only real thing in the last week of his life. Daniel Ellington was the only other person he could trust. His closest friend deserved to know what had happened—and Peter would certainly welcome his input. Peter reached for the phone, punched in the number for the Fordham English department, and hoped he’d remembered it accurately.
When Dan’s receptionist answered, Peter smiled. Good. This is what I need. We’ll meet for lunch or something.
“Daniel Ellington, please…” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but Father Ellington’s off today. Would you like to leave a message?”
“He’s not coming in at all today?”
“Well, we’re not expecting him.”
“So he wouldn’t get my message till tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so,” said the young woman.
“All right,” said Peter. “Thank you very much.”
Holding the receiver, he dialed Dan’s apartment number.
He let it ring twenty times before hanging up. Figuring his friend might be in the shower, he finished his meager breakfast, cleaned up the mess, and called again. Still no answer.
He decided to wait until Marion contacted him. Maybe they would ride up to the Fordham campus together.
“Did you watch me on the news?” she asked with a reproving, somewhat flirtatious smile.
“I forgot, honest,” he said. “I’ve never been a real news-addict. I watch once in a while, but everything is too politically oriented for me. Politics is boring.”
“That’s okay, I was just kidding,” she said, as she turned her Mazda east on Atlantic Avenue. “It was a terrible show anyway. Nothing really going on tonight.”
“Peter, are you trying to be snide?”
He smiled. “Had to resort to a second-rate warehouse fire for good video, I’ll bet.”
Marion sighed as she dodged the slower traffic in the right lane. “Are you that cynical? Are we that predictable?”
He shrugged. “There does seem to be a pattern to TV news. The producers have stumbled onto a formula that works, something the average viewer’s comfortable with. I can understand that. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right?”
“I guess so,” she said, almost sadly.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to bring you down,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Marion, pushing a lock of her auburn hair away from her face. “It’s just that I really like my work, and I want to think I’m doing something meaningful. I guess I get caught up in the glitz that comes with the territory, and I forget what it’s like on the other side of the screen.”
“Marion,” he said, touching her arm for the briefest of moments. “I’m sorry I made that remark. It was uncalled for, and you don’t have to defend yourself to me.”
“Peter…”
“I mean it. Look, you’ve helped me through some unbelievable stuff already. I want you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done. I don’t know why I was talking like that.”
She looked at him for an instant before returning her attention to the traffic. Her green eyes were as deep as the sea; Peter was fascinated by the effect on him of a single glance from her. The last time he’d let himself admit to such feelings about a female, he was still in prep school. Of course, an adolescent boy’s glands generate a lot more than just feelings…
“Thank you, Peter,” she said. “But you shouldn’t apologize for making me think.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, headed north on the Van Wyck Expressway. There was no easy way to get from the heart of Brooklyn to the heart of the Bronx. This late in the evening traffic was fairly thin as they approached the lights of the Whitestone Bridge. Peter wondered aloud why he couldn’t reach Dan. “I hope everything’s okay,” he said.
“You said it’s his day off. Maybe he left town, visited his relatives, something like that.”
“Nah, they’re all in the Midwest,” said Peter. “I don’t know—I just have a weird feeling.”
She reached out and touched his hand, letting her long-nailed fingers entwine with his. “Hey, your friend’s fine. You’ll see.”
“Thanks,” he said, squeezing her fingers, then purposely breaking the contact. Her closeness made him uncomfortable; her touch made his pulse pound.
They drove on in silence, over the Whitestone, along the Cross Bronx Expressway and Bronx River Parkway, then through the park to Fordham Road. As the campus appeared on the right, Peter felt inexplicably apprehensive.
“Where am I going?” asked Marion as she pulled into the campus.
“Follow this road around to the right. The apartments are down behind that row of big buildings. Off on the left—see them?”
Marion nodded, turning the steering wheel, accelerated toward several rows of faculty housing. Peter directed her to the parking lot in front of Dan’s building.
“That’s his car,” he said, pointing to a low-slung Pontiac.
“Are you sure?”
“Almost positive. I remember him calling the color ‘midnight blue’—‘the color of the notes from a jazz trumpet, if they could have any color at all,’ is the way he’d described it.”
“Sounds like your friend Dan has a bit of the poet in his soul.” Marion smiled as she killed the ignition.
Peter shrugged. “He’s a Jesuit. He thinks he’s got a bit of everything in him!”
She laughed nervously as she opened her car door and got out. Peter exited on his side and walked over to look into Dan Ellington’s car. Empty. The hood was cool.
While Peter checked the car, Marion had been studying the small two-story building, which had two apartments on each floor. Together, she and Peter approached the blank, steel door of Dan’s flat. Peter felt a slight tingling sensation throughout his body. He was sensing something, but he didn’t recognize what his awareness was trying to tell him. The upper landing was hot and humid, and quiet as a grave.
He knocked several times, waited, knocked again.
Marion stood beside him, but said nothing.
He knocked again. “Dan!” he said loudly. “It’s Peter! Are you in there?!”
“He’s not there,” said Marion. “Let’s—”
“No, wait!” The tingling increased. The sensation was mesmerizing. “No, he’s in there! I can feel it!”
He began pounding on the door, screaming Dan’s name.
Then they heard the single, choked sound from behind the door. A muffled, strangled utterance. Not really a word, just a solitary syllable.
“Did you hear that?” shouted Peter. He threw himself at the door, but it remained firm. “He’s in there! I knew it!”
“Oh my God…” Marion’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Dan, it’s Peter! I’m coming in!”
“Peter, be careful. Maybe we should get some help…?”
“No! He needs us! We’ve got to get in now.”
Peter placed his hands on the doorknob and the tumbler for the deadbolt. He tried to relax, to push all extraneous thoughts from his mind and just think about the locks on the door and how they were in his way, how they need to be removed. He tried to recall the fleeting sensation he’d had that morning, when he’d been thinking about his “talent.” The power lay within him; he just needed to learn to harness it, to use it.
But how!
He pressed himself against the door, futilely. Trying to will the energy out wasn’t working. He had to let go somehow, to be subsumed into the energy-flow. Somehow, before, his mind had cut loose from time—and at those moments his talent surfaced.
“Come on!” cried Marion. “We’ve got to get some help. We’ll never get in!”
“No!” he screamed. “No!”
Another single cry for help seeped through the frigid metal barrier.
Suddenly he was angry with Marion for not believing, for wanting to abandon Dan at the moment of his need. Angry because the damned door was keeping him out of there. The urge to grab her by the throat and shake sense into her shot through him but instead he leaned into the door.
A flash of blue-light radiated off the metal as the knob and tumblers and one whole side of the steel slab blew inward in a superheated explosion. The rest of the door swung violently on its hinges, sending Peter sprawling into the room. Heavy smoke hung about like laundry on a line; as he struggled to his feet he could see nothing.
Dan’s muffled voice cut through the mist like a warning beacon. Peter moved into the smoke, dissipating it with waves of his hands.
Like some grotesque monster materializing out of the fog, the grossly altered figure of Daniel Ellington appeared to him. Peter’s gaze locked into his friend’s, and for an instant the eye contact held them as one. Behind him, Marion stumbled into the room, fighting off the smoke.
Peter heard her scream as he surveyed what had been done to his friend, who sat slumped and bound, naked, to a kitchen chair. The slow rise and fall of Dan’s chest, his occasional moans were the only way to know he yet lived. One arm had been sliced open like a deboned slab of meat; his hands and fingers were cauterized, burned down to nubs; his lips were stapled together, his eyelids razored off and the corneas crusted over; an ice pick had been pushed up his urethra.
The bastards!
Tears streamed from his eyes; he felt Marion’s hands on his shoulders. She was shaking and sobbing with a combination of fear and pain and disgust.
“Help me,” he said softly. “We’ve got to get him out of that chair. Come on, now!”
Marion clung to him, shivering, wracked with sobs. “Oh my God…Oh my God…” she kept repeating. “What ha
ppened to him?”
“They’re looking for me, Marion. This is how they think they’ll find me.” Peter pulled the phone cord from Dan’s legs, carefully unbound his wrists. He looked at his friend’s face, the muscles and skin slack and bruised, his eyes rolled back into his skull.
“Is he…”
“Yes, he’s still alive. Help me lay him on the rug.” Peter’s tears ran hotly down his cheeks as he spoke. “Dear God, Dan, who did this to you?”
His friend forced a moan through his stapled lips, flicked his eyes from side to side. Marion helped ease him to the floor, obviously fighting an urge to give in to hysteria. Just looking at the poor man in front of her must have taken all her strength.
“I’ll call for an ambulance,” she said hesitantly.
Peter nodded. She moved away quickly, looking for the phone.
“We’re going to help you, Dan,” he whispered to his friend, as he cradled him in his arms. Though he managed to keep from openly sobbing, tears still flooded down his face. “It’s going to be okay, everything’s going to be okay.”
“The phone’s been yanked out!” said Marion, getting panicky. Peter was about to tell her to try another apartment when several teardrops fell from his cheeks and splashed upon the ruined flesh of Dan Ellington’s arm. Peter was stunned by what happened next.
“I said the phone’s dead!” cried Marion, hurrying back into the room.
“Marion, look!” he cried.
She knelt down next to him to see the flayed muscle and bone of Dan’s arm bathed in a soft blue aura.
“What’s happening?”
Peter touched his cheek, then pressed his wet fingers to her own cheek. “My tears…they touched him there.”
“Oh Peter—My God, what’s happening!?”
Peter slowly stroked his damp fingers along Dan Ellington’s arm. The intensity of the aura increased with his touch and as he slowly traversed the length of the ravaged flesh it began to heal.
“Oh…” he heard himself whisper. “I don’t believe this…”
Marion began whimpering. Within seconds, Dan Ellington’s arm had become whole again, the flesh pink and new like a baby’s ass. Peter rubbed his fingers across his own face, trying to pick up the remaining moisture from his tears. He grabbed the stubby, charred remains of Dan’s fingers, caressing them gently as the blue aura again burst into life and the healing began anew.
The Blood of the Lamb Page 15
