F Wilson - Midnight Mass

Joe wasn't following. Her speech was so disjointed. This wasn't like Carole. He'd always known her as a woman of quiet intelligence, with a sharp, organized mind. Everyone left alive had suffered, but what had she experienced to leave her so shattered?

"Where have you been staying?"

She looked away. "Here and there."

"Well, you're staying here now." He took her arm. "Come inside. We've got-"

She pulled away. "I can't. I've too many sins."

"We're all sinners, Carole."

"But these are terrible sins. Mortal sins. So many mortal sins."

"This is where sins are forgiven. I'm going to try to say mass later."

"Mass?" Her lip quivered. "Oh, that would be wonderful. But I can't. Even though it's a Holy Day, I—"

"What Holy—?" And then he remembered. With all that had been going on, it had slipped his mind. "Oh, God, it's Ascension Thursday, isn't it."

Sister Carole nodded. "But I'll just have to add missing Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation to my list of sins."

"Come inside, Carole. Please. I'll hear your confession."

"No." She paused, as if she were listening for something. "To receive absolution I must be sorry for my sins and promise to sin no more." She shook her head and something flashed in her eyes, something hard and dangerous. "I'm not. And I won't."

Joe stared at her, trying to fathom . . .

"I don't follow you, Carole."

"Please don't, Father. It's not a path you want to tread." She bent and grabbed the handle of her little red wagon, then turned and started away. "God bless you, Father Cahill."

Joe hurried after her. He couldn't let her go. It was too dangerous, but more than that, he wanted her near, where he could talk to her, be with her. He grabbed her arm.

"I can't let you go."

She snatched her arm free and kept moving. "You can't make me stay. Don't try. I won't. I can't." The last word was couched in a sob that damn near broke his heart.

"Carole, please!"

But she hurried on into the shadows without looking back. Joe started after her again, then stopped. Short of picking her up and carrying her back to the church—and he couldn't see himself doing that—what could he do?

Suddenly weary, he turned and climbed the steps. As he finished closing the front doors, he took one last longing look at the night.

Carole . .. what's happened to you? Please be safe.

He closed the door and wished the lock hadn't been smashed. He turned and found Lacey and Zev standing in the vestibule.

"We were getting worried about you," Lacey said.

"I ran into one of the nuns who used to teach in St. Anthony's school."

Zev's eyebrows arched. "And you didn't let her in?"

"Wouldn't come in. But she reminded me that this is a Holy Day: Ascension Thursday."

Zev shrugged. "Which means?"

"Supposedly," Lacey said, "forty days after Easter, Jesus ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God." She smiled. "An ingenious way to dodge all those inconvenient questions about the state and whereabouts of the remains of the 'Son of God.' "

Joe looked at her. "Lacey, you can't still be an atheist."

She shrugged. "I never really was. I call myself that because it's such an in-your-face term. Like dyke. But atheism implies that you consider the question of a provident god important enough to take seriously. I don't. At heart I'm simply a devout agnostic."

Joe was glad Carl wasn't here to hear this. He wouldn't understand or appreciate Lacey's outspokenness. But that was Lacey. No excuses, no sugar coating: Here I am, here's what I think, take it or leave it. Through the years she'd made him angry at times, but then she'd smile and he'd see his sister Cathy in her face and his anger would fade away.

He pointed to the gold crucifix hanging from her neck. "But you wear a cross. Didn't you once tell me you'd die before wearing anything like that?"

"I damn near did die because I wasn't wearing one. So now I wear one for perfectly pragmatic reasons. I've never been one for fashion accessories, but if it chases vampires, I want one."

"But you've got to take the next step, Lacey. You've got to ask why the undead fear it, why it sears their flesh. There's something there. When you face that reality, you won't be an atheist or agnostic anymore."

Lacey smiled. "Did I mention I'm a devout empiricist too?"

"Like a worm, she wiggles," Zev said. "Too many philosophy courses."

Lacey turned to him. "That's not exactly a mezuzah hanging from your neck, rabbi."

"I know," Zev said, fingering his cross. "Like you, I wear it because it works. That is undeniable. Where its power comes from, I don't know. Maybe from God, maybe from somewhere else. The how and the why I'll figure out later. I've been too busy trying to stay alive to give it my full attention." He held up his hands. "Talk of intangibles we should save for the daylight. Now we should ready ourselves. I believe we'll soon have uninvited and unsavory company. We should be prepared."

Looking unhappy, Zev wandered away. But Joe didn't want to let this drop. He sensed a chance to break through his niece's wall of disbelief. By doing so he might save her soul.

He lowered his voice. "If the power of the cross is not from God, Lacy, then who?"

"Might not be a who," she said with a shrug. "Might be a what. I don't know. I'm just going with it for now."

" 'There are none so blind as those who will not see,' " Joe said.

"It's not blindness to not see something that won't show itself. Where's your god now?" She jutted her chin at Zev's retreating figure. "His god and yours—where's he been? This is Ascension Thursday, right? Think about that. Maybe Jesus ascended and kept on going. Turned his back on this planet and forgot about it. After the way he was treated here, who could blame him?"

Joe shook his head, feeling a growing anger mixed with dismay. He hated to hear his niece talk like this. "Are you still an anarchist too?"

"Damn betcha."

"Well now, it looks like you've got what you wanted—a world without religion, without government, without law—what do you think?"

Joe could tell by the set of her jaw and the flash of fire in her eyes that he'd struck a nerve.

"This is not at all what I was talking about! This undead empire is more repressive than any regime in human history. It makes Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia look like Sunday school!"

"And they're here to stay," Joe said, wondering if all today's plans and preparations weren't an exercise in futility.

He wondered where Palmeri was and how long before he got here.

PALMERI . . .

He wore the night like a tuxedo.

Dressed in a fresh cassock, Father Alberto Palmeri turned off County Line Road and strolled toward St. Anthony's. He loved the night, felt at one with it, attuned to its harmonies and its discords. The darkness made him feel so alive. Strange to have to lose your life before you could really feel alive. But this was it. He'd found his niche, his me'tier.

Such a shame it had taken him so long. All those years trying to deny his appetites, trying to be a member of the other side, cursing himself when he allowed his appetites to win, as he had with increasing frequency toward the end of his mortal life. He should have given in to them long ago.

It had taken undeath to free him.

And to think he had been afraid of undeath, had cowered in fear that night in the cellar of the church, surrounded by crosses. But he had not been as safe as he'd thought. A posse of Serfs had torn him from his hiding place and brought him to kneel before Gregor. He'd cried out and begged with this undead master to spare his life. Fortunately Gregor had ignored his pleas. All he had lost by that encounter was his blood.

And in trade, he'd gained a world.

For now it was his world, at least this little corner of it, one in which he was completely free to indulge himself in any way he wished. Except for the blood. He had no choice about the blood. That was a new appetite, stronger than all the rest, one that would not be denied. But he did not mind the new appetite in the least. He'd found interesting ways to sate it.