by Adam Bender
“I’m here.” Eve’s voice was like a guide. “Keep going; the door is straight ahead. They can’t fire at us if they can’t see us.”
She was right. His ears were still ringing from the blast but the staccato bangs had ceased. They rode the brown cloud to the heavy wooden doors of the cathedral. Eve removed a pick from her pocket and went to work on the lock. Seven glanced back to see the dusty blur dissipating and the church grounds coming back into view. On the edge of the field he saw a black-robed man raising a gun in his direction. He was about to yell a warning to Eve when the door opened. They just about fell inside.
Seven pulled the heavy door shut as a bullet ricocheted off the surface. They were standing on a marble floor in a grand foyer, facing a grand and gilded sanctuary. Another hallway ran left to a door labeled, Stairs to Bell Tower.
“Turn off your radio,” whispered Eve.
When he did, she explained, “I didn’t want him listening in…”
“Shaan said the Headmaster should be right beyond the sanctuary.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Can you handle the Headmaster by yourself? I think we’re going to need to deal with Rodriguez, but we don’t want the Headmaster getting away in the meantime.”
“If he hasn’t gotten away already,” sighed Seven. “Okay, I’ll get the Headmaster and you take the bell tower. Just...”
She tilted her head in question.
In his head he could see the fire consuming the truck, could hear Shaan’s last scream before his voice was silenced forever. God, how was he going to tell Talia about what happened?
“Just be careful,” Seven told Eve at last. “I…I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she purred. She came in close and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. He reached for her cheek and held her face against his as long as he could.
It was over. He watched Eve until she disappeared into the stairwell. With a deep breath, Seven entered the sanctuary. A small surveillance camera just above the door swung clockwise to follow him.
Eve could hardly see her hands as she climbed the bell tower. The spatter of gunfire continued unabated outside, punctuated every so often by the heavy thunk of Rodriguez’s rocket launcher. The steps were tall and their tight spiral path upward was making Eve dizzy, but she refused to pause for even a second. Rodriguez had already killed Shaan, and–unless she stopped him–he was going to kill even more of the people who had unexpectedly become her allies.
That old adage flashed in her mind: PATRIOTS ARE THE TRUE. HERETICS ARE THE DAMNED.
And from her temporary imprisonment in Danny Young’s basement, Eve recalled the Underground’s edit to the expression: PATRIOTS ARE THE TRUE HERETICS.
The top of the tower wasn’t far now, and Eve had become increasingly aware of the clap of her footsteps against the polished stone steps. Fearing that Rodriquez might hear her coming, she slowed her ascent and took deep, deliberate breaths.
Her mind lingered briefly on Seven and the way he had looked at her before she left him in the foyer. She had seen a love in his eyes that was at once familiar and new. It had been difficult to leave him there, but it had to be done for the sake of the mission. There was too much at stake.
The truth was Eve was relieved to be going after Rodriguez instead of the Headmaster. Not because she didn’t want to be with Seven, but because she wasn’t sure she could face the leader of the Church. All her life, the Headmaster had seemed more than a man. He was the link between this world and God’s kingdom. But the events over the last several weeks had called all of that into question. She could see now that the Headmaster was a fraud, a run-of-the-mill despot who used the name of God for power and control. However, just because he was a bad man, did that mean everything she learned in church was also a lie? She wanted to believe that the Headmaster had exploited a good religion for evil, but a fear filled her that maybe the religion was never good to begin with. Maybe the Headmaster was just the latest product of a manipulative faith. Maybe, there wasn’t even a God.
Eve stopped as a terrifying groan reverberated through the tower. It was Rodriguez. It had to be. But what happened? Was he hit? More importantly, was he down?
Eve considered radioing Ana for information but decided it wasn’t worth the risk. If Rodriguez was still alive he would likely still be monitoring the radio. Contacting Ana could take away Eve’s element of surprise and probably get her killed.
She stood there, thinking and listening, with one foot higher than the other in a frozen climb. The shots outside continued unabated but she didn’t hear any more blasts from Rodriguez’s RPG launcher. One of the Underground agents could have shot him. It was a tough shot but it was possible. He could be down, but was he down for good? Then again, maybe Rodriguez was quiet because he had heard her coming up the stairs. He could even be on the way down this very instant to intercept her.
“God protect me,” whispered Eve, wondering if anyone was listening.
She drew her gun and took the steps two at a time. Up and up she went until finally she could see the dark outline of the church bell against the midnight blue sky. She came out in a square about twenty feet on each side. A still black body lay face up on the floor. As she drew closer, she could see Rodriguez’s shaved head. His eyes were closed and he didn’t appear to be breathing.
Eve let her gun drop and paced around the floor, thinking. The sides of the tower were largely open except for a railing and the eight tall columns supporting the steeple. Looking up, she could see the inside of that center point about fifteen to eighteen feet above her. Hanging from a heavy wood beam several inches below that was a bell that’s mouth consumed nearly a quarter of the room’s area. The bronze had greened with age but it still appeared to be in working order.
Eve switched off her radio. She walked toward the ledge nearest Rodriguez and felt a touch of vertigo as she stared down at the gun-blasted gardens below. The Underground agents and the Saints were still engaged in combat. From the tower it looked like a battle of ants.
“Ana,” she said over the radio, “I don’t know how you did it, but looks like your team got a shot on Rodriguez. He’s down.”
Ana, sounding out of breath, responded. “What? None of my men reported anything.”
With creeping fear, Eve turned back to check on Rodriguez. He was standing inches away with a jagged grin. She saw the knife just as a sharp, cold pain exploded her senses. Eve dropped her gun and fell back onto the cool stone ground.
A gilded altar drew Seven’s eyes as he entered the Sanctuary. The gold sparkled beneath the fire of a chandelier of tall red candles. The rest of the room was dark, and gazing at the single light source made the rest of the room seem to grow darker still. He floated down the center aisle like a moth to the flame.
The door slammed behind him. Someone had shut them. Someone was here.
He turned but couldn’t see a thing. Listening hard, Seven picked up only the muted pop-pop-pop of the gunfight blazing outside the stone walls.
He held his gun in front of him, ready to shoot the first monster that peeked out of the black. When nothing came, he turned back to the altar. There was a shadowy figure standing with a small flame in his hand. The fire lowered and a candle on the altar burst alive, revealing the gaunt face of the Headmaster.
“Welcome,” greeted the high priest, his black eyes searing into Seven’s.
“It’s over,” said Seven. “You’re coming with me.”
“Go with you?” the Headmaster asked incredulously. The wrinkles on his face grew harder. “I do not think this is God’s wish.”
Seven trained his gun on the Headmaster. “No, it’s mine.”
On Seven’s left, someone whispered, “Don’t.”
“We’re all around,” whispered a voice on the right.
He lowered his gun. There were at least two Saints and they had him surrounded.
The Headmaster cackled, revealing teeth that were yellow and stained with cabernet. “
This church is not a place for violence,” he said while lifting his arms into the air. “It is a place of learning. It is a place of enlightenment.”
“I assume that’s code for brainwashing?”
The Headmaster’s arms dropped and he looked patronizingly at Seven. “You believe you are already enlightened. You believe that you have been set free. But you are still Jonathan Wyle and your past will follow for eternity.”
With a long and pointed finger, the high priest pressed something on the altar. There was a click and then the walls lit up on all sides with black-and-white projections of men and women. The faces were familiar but Seven couldn’t place them. He spent a few seconds on each wall projection, trying to remember.
When Seven saw Joanna, he knew. He had watched all of them. They were faces of the dead.
The images came to life. Tears ran down Joanna’s cheeks. Disembodied hands tightened a thick noose around her neck. Her mouth widened into a silent scream and a black bag fell over her head. In ten seconds, she fell off screen. The video repeated. Seven turned sharply and saw the dishonored priest Paul Roland. His face had no expression as the bag fell over his head. But he shook violently when it did. Roland fell off screen and the video looped back to the beginning.
It was the same everywhere he looked. A familiar face. A horrible grimace. A rope, a black bag, and falling.
The Headmaster provided the soundtrack. “You pretend to be a man without burden. But you can never forget them, can you? They follow you. They haunt your dreams.”
Seven’s fingers left red marks as they slid tightly down the sides of his face. His mouth gaped and he breathed heavily. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. The Headmaster was right. He couldn’t escape his past. He…he had killed so many.
“Fifty-seven,” stated the Headmaster. “Your arrests led to the executions of fifty-seven. They are all dead and you killed them. You will carry this burden as long as you live.”
A whisper came from the left. “As long as you live.”
“You will carry this burden as long as you live,” repeated a low voice to the right.
The Headmaster continued. “You should know that the number doesn’t count all the men and women you killed in the line of duty. Nor does it include the ones who died because of you.”
Seven closed his eyes to shut out the images, but his mind soon took on the work of the projector. He saw his old friend Adrian standing on the stage. A red dot appeared on his forehead and in the next second he was falling, falling.
Seven was surprised to hear his own panicked voice. “What–what should I do?”
“You must repent,” boomed the Headmaster, droning out the whispers. “You must repent!”
“Repent,” echoed the whispers. “Repent. Repent. Repent.”
“H-how?” he stammered.
“The answer,” declared the Headmaster, “is in your hands.”
Blankly, Seven looked down at his gun.
The whispers grew louder. “Repent! Repent! Repent! Repent!”
The pain was excruciating and for a few frightening moments Eve thought she was dying. Then her training from the Elite Guard kicked in. She meditated, and in seconds the haze cleared. Now she could see the facts of the situation. One, Rodriguez had cut her arm–she would need to stop the bleeding, but for now it wasn’t fatal. Two, she was on her back at the top of the Head Church’s bell tower, sprawled out and vulnerable. Three, Rodriguez was standing over her and brandishing a bloody dagger–military grade.
“Eve?” squawked Ana over the radio. “Eve?”
Rodriguez bent over and plucked the device from Eve’s ear. He tossed it over her head and over the railing. Grimacing from the throw, Rodriguez shook out his right hand. Eve noticed an awful scar on the back. She felt a small rush of pleasure remembering where he had received it.
“A little stiff?” she asked.
He grabbed her cut arm and squeezed. Eve screamed in agony.
Pleasured by the sound, Rodriguez let go and laughed. “You will experience even more pain before we send you to Hell.”
Rodriguez had the knife in his left hand but had thrown with his right. That meant he was likely right-handed but couldn’t use it. Still, down on the floor and unarmed, she was still disadvantaged. The gun, she remembered. Where had she dropped her gun?
“Looking for this?” said Rodriguez, pointing to a black object on the ground a few feet from where he was standing. With a grin, he kicked it over to the far end of the tower. She didn’t have a hope of reaching it.
If only there was a way to distract Rodriguez, thought Eve, she might be able to get up and knock the knife out of his hand. She looked up past her attacker’s head to the mammoth bell hanging from a thick bar of wood over their heads. That might work, she thought, but how would she ring it? She couldn’t locate a rope to pull or a button to press. That meant it was either completely automated or the switch was located somewhere else in the church.
“We will be sad to lose you,” Rodriguez said with fake regret. “You had a promising career. The Headmaster always thought you could be a Saint. Top-notch record and the daughter of a priest. But then you lost your faith. You turned and began walking the trail to Hell. You gave up on God and now He hath given up on you.”
The pain in Eve’s arm seemed to intensify as he spoke. Was God punishing her? Or was there no God at all? She couldn’t decide which was worse.
And then, out of the corner of her eye, Eve thought she saw the bell shift.
There was a deep and bellowing clang from above. Acting on reflex, Rodriguez clapped his hands hard against his ears, pointing the knife behind him. Eve sprung to her feet and charged. The bell rang again as he swung the dagger back around, but the left-handed attack was slow and Eve dodged easily. She caught his wrist and squeezed; the weapon popped out as the bell rang a third time. On the fourth ring, she had him pinned against the railing of the tower, and on the fifth had him bent halfway over the side.
“Heretic!” Rodriguez yelled, but the sixth toll drowned out the cry.
Eve smiled. “Looks like God’s still on my side.”
Before he could reply, she pushed Rodriguez over the edge and watched him drop.
Eve checked her wristwatch. It had just turned 6:00 a.m. She thought it was a miracle.
Seven held the gun firmly against his head. All he could think about was how many people he had killed; whether it was as Seven or Jonathan made no difference. The Headmaster was right. He was Jonathan Wyle and no amount of rationalization could remove the fact that he had killed so many. He could not say how many had actually been “Heretics,” if there even was such a thing. It didn’t matter–he knew he had killed innocents, and even if it was just one it was far too many.
The voices chanted. “Repent! Repent! Repent!”
He didn’t deserve to live.
“What are you waiting for?” goaded the Headmaster. “You can escape your sins only through death. Pull the trigger. God Himself will illuminate the path to atonement.”
As Seven tightened his grip on the pistol, he heard another voice come from deep inside. “Remember your friends.”
He thought of Danny Young. Jonathan Wyle’s secret mission had resulted in the execution of Danny’s father. So why had Danny forgiven Seven? The leader of the Underground trusted him enough to make him his adviser and give him great responsibilities. He actually listened to Seven and respected his opinions. He had sent Seven here tonight to stop the Headmaster and save the nation.
Seven’s unwitting mission for the Guard had also gotten Ana arrested and nearly killed. And yet she still wanted to work with him afterward. “No matter who you may have been before, I don’t know how I could ever doubt your heart is now with the Underground,” she had said.
Then there was Shaan, who somehow found a way past the fact that Jonathan Wyle was responsible for the death of his beloved Joanna. “I can see you’re a different person,” he said. “Don’t feel guilty for anything you did
in the past.”
Suddenly he heard Talia’s voice giving him the straight advice he really needed. “Could you please stop being a stupid idiot?”
He had made it his mission to save the nation from division and self-decay. Together with the Underground he had exposed the government’s abuse of power. Now the rebels were on the precipice of taking down the Church. He couldn’t give up now. He owed it to his friends and to all the people he had killed to keep going, to stand up and unite the nation once and for all.
As he looked back now at the Headmaster, Seven thought the chandelier hanging over the minister’s head looked a bit like a crown of flames. Seven craned his head further back to a glowing ball on the ceiling. It was the machine projecting nightmares in 360 degrees.
In one quick motion, Seven lifted the gun from his temple and targeted the projector. It exploded and in a flash the visions of the dead disappeared from the wall. Bright sparks rained from the ceiling, washing the room with terrific white light. Seven turned left and trained his gun on a Saint entranced by the light show. He squeezed the trigger, ducked, and turned hard to his right to another black-robed soldier. Seven shot first and the Saint collapsed over a pew.
Not detecting any other threats in the room, Seven set his sights on the Headmaster. The pleasure that seconds ago had seemed to ooze from the high priest’s every orifice had dried up and been replaced by pure fright. He was crouching by the altar with arms flailing over his head.
As Seven approached, the old man whimpered pathetically. “You can’t destroy the Church!” he cried. “You can’t! The people won’t allow it! The people love me!”
“The people fear you,” Seven said, “but they won’t fear you anymore.”
“Then do it! Kill me for my sins.”
Seven took a small loop of rope from his belt and reached for the Headmaster’s wrists. “Nah…I think I’d rather you answer for them.”
