F. Paul Wilson - Reborn

Carol wanted to run but couldn't. The horrid fascination of it had rooted her to the spot. And now the pains began low in her pelvis, just like they had on Friday.

The piercing screech of a nail being ripped from dry wood drew her attention to her right again. Christ's right hand was free of the cross. With the bloody nail still protruding from his palm, he leveled his arm and pointed a finger directly at her eyes.

Would you release the Serpent? Pluck it out! Pluck it OUT!

"It's my baby! Jim's and mine!"

Another wave of pain caught her, doubling her over. And as she looked down she saw the snake coiled around her feet. With an undulating motion it wound itself around her leg and began to climb.

Carol screamed with terror and with the increasing pain ripping through her lower belly. It was happening again! Oh, God, she was going to miscarry! And this time no one was here to help her!

Suddenly a hand gripped her arm and another one pulled the snake off her leg and hurled it toward the altar. She turned and saw Jonah standing close beside her. She gasped at the sight of him. He seemed to be on fire—smoke streamed from his skin and clothes. He appeared to be suffering agonies of his own.

"Got to get you out of here!" he shouted hoarsely.

Carol had never dreamed she'd be glad to see that cold, hard, one-eyed face, but now she fell against him and clung to him, sobbing.

"Oh, Jonah! Help me! So weak! I think I'm going to faint."

He stooped, got one arm behind her knees, the other around her back, and then he was carrying her toward the vestibule.

Safe! She was going to be safe!

Just then the ceiling exploded downward in a blaze of crackling blue-white incandescence. Jonah paused a moment, then dashed for the doors. She looked over his shoulder and saw the iron cross from the church roof hurtling through the opening in the ceiling, driving downward amid the water and debris to smash into the very spot where she had been standing. It quivered there, spiked into the marble floor on a tilt, glowing and burning with green fire.

And then they were through the vestibule and out the front doors into the rain. The cool water felt good on her burning skin as Jonah carried her down the steps to his car. He helped her into the backseat.

"Lie down," he said. "Didn't the doctor tell you to stay off your feet?"

The barely repressed fury in his face frightened Carol. Besides, he was right. So she laid back and got her feet up as Jonah slid behind the wheel and began to drive.

4

"The phone line's cut," Martin said, brandishing the wire cutters in his bandaged hand as he sat dripping and shivering beside him in the front seat of the car.

Brother Robert noted the excitement in his eyes and the feverish glow on his cheeks. His rain-plastered hair only added to the effect, giving him a deranged look. He seemed to think he was playing James Bond.

"Good," he said absently.

Martin rolled down the window and looked at the sky. "The rain's letting up," he said.

Brother Robert looked at Grace and saw how pale and tense she was. "What do you think, Grace?"

"I think it's time we began," she said.

Brother Robert nodded. There didn't seem to be a reason to put it off any longer.

"Go ahead," he told Martin. "But be careful."

"Watch out for Jonah Stevens," Grace said. "He's big and strong. He's the only one who'll give you trouble."

Martin nodded and got out of the car. He signaled to the other two vehicles, and soon he was surrounded by the other half dozen men from the Chosen. Brother Robert felt a shade unmanly for not going with the men, but he could not risk tainting his vows or his order with even a hint of violence. He would take the women and the cars farther down the road and wait until the men had secured the house, breaking in if necessary, subduing anyone inside who resisted them. They would signal Brother Robert when everything was settled. Two of the men carried axes, and another carried a coil of nylon clothesline. They seemed prepared for everything.

Is this right ? he asked himself for the hundredth time since this morning. And each time he had asked, he looked at his punctured hands, as he did now, and the answer was always the same: How could one argue with the Stigmata?

He watched the group approach the open gate. He felt like a missile hurtling through space, nearing its target. It seemed that his entire life had been directed toward this moment.

5

Emma ran into the front hallway to answer the bell. She hadn't heard a car, so it could only be Carol.

Probably drenched, poor thing!

She reached for the knob but hesitated. A warning sounded somewhere in her brain. Something wasn't right. She peeked through one of the etched sidelights and was startled by the sight of the three men standing there. Where on earth had they come from?

"Who is it?"

"Mrs. Stevens?" said a voice. "We'd like to speak to you a moment."

"About what?"

"About your husband."

About Jonah? Something weird was going on here. Emma peeked again through the sidelight and studied the men more closely. She gasped when she recognized the thin, pale one—he had been outside the gate the day Jimmy died.

"I know who you are!" she shouted. "Get away from here before I call the police!"

But she had no intention of giving them a chance to leave. She was going to call the police right now. Sergeant Hall had said that if any one of those nuts showed his face around

Monroe again, she should call him and he'd pick them up right away. She lifted the receiver but there was no dial tone. Oh, no!

The storm must have— Just then one of the leaded stained-glass windows in the dining room shattered as an ax smashed through it.

6

Carol was almost hysterical. It took every ounce of restraint Jonah had within him to keep from reaching over the backrest and knocking her senseless. She more than deserved it for endangering the One this way, but he had to keep her confidence. If he was to protect her, she had to trust him, depend on him.

"I'm having Satan's child, aren't I? Isn't that what's happening? Isn't it? What else could explain what happened back there?"

"For the tenth time now, Carol," he said through clenched teeth, "you're havin' Jim's baby—my grandson. I don't know where you get this fool Satan idea. Satan's got nothin' to do with that baby."

He hoped the truth of that last statement came through in his voice. Of course, the real truth wouldn't have made her feel any better, maybe even worse, but he had to calm her. Her emotional state was threatening to cause the One to miscarry.

"Then how do you explain the statue of Christ coming alive?" she sobbed. "And Mary—and the snake ! You'd almost think they were trying to make me miscarry!"

And you would be right ! Jonah thought.

The other side had come close to succeeding today, playing through Carol's religious superstitions to fill her with guilt and terror. It had failed this time, but it would try again. Jonah would have to be ever vigilant against the next attempt. But right now, for the sake of the One, he had to calm this frantic young woman.

"I didn't see none of that, Carol," he said, lying easily. "The statues looked the same as ever to me."

"But the snake! You pulled it from my leg!"

"I'm sorry, Carol, but I didn't see no snake anywhere in the church. I just happened to stop in to get out of the hail and found you screaming like a banshee in the middle of the aisle."

She pulled herself up to a sitting position and stared at him with haunted eyes over the backrest.

"But it couldn't have been just my imagination! It was too real!"