F Wilson - Midnight Mass

"We don't know that we will be. That's why we're here now. To see if it's feasible."

"Don't get me wrong, but do you get the feeling that no matter what we find, somehow Joe's going to think it's feasible?"

Carole turned and stared at her. "I don't think I understand."

"I think you do. My uncle's got a major hard on for this Franco."

Lacey—

"It's true and you know it. That's all he's talked about since we did the Post Office: Franco, Franco, Franco. Here we are, possibly the only three humans in the world with firsthand knowledge of the vampires' secret—how the death of one reverberates through the progeny, wiping out all his or her get down the line—and we're all together in New York instead of splitting up and trying to make it into the unoccupied areas of the country to spread the news."

"We've been through that."

"Yeah, I know, but..."

It was easier to move around within the occupied zone than to get out of it. Vichy were stacked at the Delaware River crossings waiting to pick off anyone who tried. Joe's theory was that if they could knock off Franco and his get, the Vichy network would collapse in disarray—at least for a while—and they could waltz across.

Maybe.

"And remember," Carole said, "one of the parishioners has a shortwave and is probably broadcasting the news to the world right now."

"We don't know that. And who'd believe him?"

"Exactly. That's why we agreed it will be much better to be able to show than simply tell."

Another idea of Joe's: use the building's security system to videotape the deaths of Franco and his get. Then they'd have proof.

"Look, Carole, I know Franco is the head honcho and taking him down will put a serious crimp in the undead master plan, but do you get the feeling that there's more to it, that if Joe could demonstrate this get-death on another undead of equal stature, he'd bypass the opportunity and remain fixed on Franco?"

Carole's tone took on a definite chill. "You're saying that Joseph would jeopardize our lives and what we know just to get revenge on Franco?"

"You're not answering the question."

Carole looked away.

Was it simple revenge? That had to be part of it, Lacey knew, and she had her own score to settle with this monster for what he had done to her Uncle Joe. But she sensed something more than revenge driving Joe to this showdown, something she was missing.

That worried her.

"Look, Carole, you've got to admit that Joe isn't exactly the same guy he was a week ago. He was dead, and now he's not. What brought him back to life? It wasn't your God, so what was it?"

"God intervened. Joseph was supposed to become one of the undead, but he did not. God has turned the Devil's own work back on him, making Joseph an instrument of His divine vengeance."

"Buy into that if you want, Carole. I don't. I can't. And I'm a little worried about that weird dream he's been having. We know Joe's been to hell and back. I just hope he didn't bring a little of that hell back with him."

- 14 -

CAROLE . . .

By Sunday evening they were ready to make their move.

Fifty-three minutes before sundown, as soon as Joe was up and fed—Lacey's turn tonight—he got behind the wheel of the Navigator and drove down Broadway. Lacey sat up front next to her uncle; Carole had the rear to herself.

"Are we ready for this?" he said as they approached Thirty-fourth Street.

Carole wasn't sure. She hoped so.

They'd learned through three days and three nights of steady surveillance that the Vichy—the more time she spent with Joseph and Lacey, the more Carole found herself using that designation—stuck to a fairly rigid schedule of two shifts: a large contingent of perhaps twenty-five or thirty worked the days, while only a half dozen or so manned the entrance at night.

They'd taken over Houlihan's and turned the bar-restaurant into a cafeteria of sorts. It served two meals a day—breakfast and dinner—at change of shift. Using binoculars, Carole and Lacey had watched from their perch across the street as the Vichy attacked heaps of scrambled eggs every morning—the cook had to be using the powdered kind—and pots of some sort of stew every evening.

All three agreed that the meal break at shift change was the time to strike. All the Vichy were concentrated in Houlihan's then. They'd settled on dawn, Monday, for their assault.

But assault how?

Joseph and Lacey had wanted to find a way to use the napalm, rig it somehow to explode and turn the restaurant into an inferno while the Vichy were eating their breakfast. But the "somehow" eluded them. And even if they did manage to come up with a way to explode it, the napalm presented too many chances for something to go wrong. If they were only partially successful—if they killed some but not all of the Vichy—they'd have to abandon all hope of success. They couldn't win a fire fight with them, and from then on the Vichy would be warned and on full alert.

Carole had had a better idea. This was why she'd brought along the canister of sodium fluorosilicate. She'd had a feeling they might need a more silent form of death than bullets and napalm. She'd found canisters of the chemical at one of the local municipal utility authorities where it was used to purify the water supply. At a few parts per million, sodium fluorosilicate was harmless. But ingestion of half a gram of the odorless and tasteless powder interfered with cellular metabolism, making you deathly ill. A gram caused convulsions and death. Not a pretty way to go, but probably better than being burned alive by napalm.

Carole wished there were another way, one that could be delivered by someone else and not multiply the number of lives she'd already taken. But there was nothing and no one. It was her idea, her responsibility. She couldn't shirk it off on someone else.

The question was, how to get it into the Vichy? Obviously via their food. This evening's sortie would accomplish that—they hoped.

Joseph turned the big SUV onto Thirty-fourth and said, "Let's pray that those technicians I've been watching don't eat with the rest of them tomorrow. We need them. And besides, they appear to be innocent. The three of them seem older than the typical Vichy, they're unarmed, and dress like middle managers. They arrive in a group every morning, flanked by two Vichy.

They're not tied or manacled, but I get the impression they're prisoners of some sort."

"But they could wind up sick or dead," Lacey said. "Then what do we do?"

"Please, God, don't let them," Carole said. She had blood on her hands, she was crimson to her elbows, but so far none of it was innocent.

"But what if they do?" Lacey persisted.

Joseph shook his head. "I've been watching three dawns in a row and not once have they eaten with the others. In fact, by the time they're brought in, breakfast is just about done, and they're taken directly inside. Let's hope tomorrow is no exception."

Halfway between Sixth and Fifth Avenues, Joseph slowed the car to a crawl. Carole leaned forward, peering ahead between Joseph and Lacey toward the lighted windows of Houlihan's, glowing like a beacon in the fading light. She searched for signs of stray Vichy who'd wandered away from the Fifth Avenue entrance around the corner where they usually hung out. But nothing was moving on the street except their car.

"Damn!" Joseph said. "The earring. Would somebody do the honor?"

Lacey fished the Vichy earring off the dashboard and punched it through his earlobe.