"He wanted the priest feeding on his followers, not random strangers. That defeats the whole purpose of this little exercise."
Olivia couldn't help smiling. "I believe it's looking more and more like I may get my full-scale attack on the church after all."
"What you'll get," Artemis shouted, "is your lazy cowardly ass out of this hole in the ground and out there looking for him!"
Olivia backed up a step. "It's too late now. Dawn's almost here."
Artemis pounded a fist against his thigh. "All right then. First thing after sunset. Me, you, and all your get on the street, looking. We need to find him before he goes feral. If we're too late he won't be able to tell us anything about his vigilantes."
Olivia slumped on the edge of her bed and wrung her hands. Outside? Searching? She'd never thought she'd be afraid of the night, but she was.
LACEY . . .
"What was it like being dead?"
Lacey couldn't help it. She had to ask.
After bandaging her thumb, they'd sat around for hours and hours telling their stories: what had happened to Joe after he'd been abducted, Carole telling how she'd escaped the vampire who'd been after her, and Lacey skimming over her gang rape that she couldn't remember too well anyway but describing in detail the odd events in the Post Office. No one had any explanation for what had gone down there.
Then they discussed how Joe might best wield himself against the enemy.
With all the talk, Lacey had found herself gradually getting used to the unthinkable: that her uncle had somehow died and risen from the grave without becoming one of the undead—not quite one of them, at least. He didn't look like himself, not with that unrecognizable, disfigured face, but the more he'd talked, the easier it became to accept that, though horribly changed, he was still his old self. The undead had changed his body, but the man within remained untouched.
And with that acceptance, the death question had grown in her mind. Now, with steely predawn light turning the black of the ocean to slate gray, the conversation had lagged. So .. .
Joe shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Are you sure? Think. Wasn't there a light or a voice or a presence or some indication that there's something out there?"
"Sorry, Lacey. I remember that feral biting and tearing at me, and the next thing I knew I was wrapped in a sheet under the sand. That's all. Nothing in between."
"Well, I guess that proves it then: this is it. There's no hereafter."
"Oh, but there is," Joe told her.
"You were dead and experienced nothing transcendental, so how can you say that?"
"Because I believe."
As much as she loved him—and even in the strange state he was in, Lacey still loved him—she found his resistance to reason exasperating.
"After all that's just happened to you, how can you possibly still believe in a provident god?"
Joe glanced at Carole. "Tell her, Carole."
Carole's brown eyes looked infinitely sad. "I don't think I can. God seems terribly far away these days."
The simple statement, delivered so matter-of-factly, seemed to shock Joe. He stared at Carole a moment, then sighed. "Yeah, He does, doesn't He. Almost as if He's forgotten about us. But we can't let ourselves think that way. It only leads to despair. We've got to believe that there's a purpose to all—"
"A purpose?" Lacey wanted to throw something. "What possible purpose could there be to all this worldwide death and misery?"
"Only God knows," Joe said.
Lacey snorted derisively. "Which means nobody knows."
Joe was looking at her. "Why did you ask me in the first place?"
"You mean, about what it was like being dead? Well, think about it: how many times do you get a chance to talk to someone who's been dead—someone who's not trying to rip out your throat, I mean?"
"Just idle curiosity?"
"Not idle. You're my uncle and I just. . . wanted to know."
"Would you have believed me if I told you I saw a light, or a golden stairway, or a glowing tunnel? Or how about pearly gates and St. Peter with the Book of Life in his hands?"
"Probably not."
"Then why ask at all?"
"I don't know."
"I think you do. I think you're in the market for a little transcendence yourself, just like everyone else. Am I right?"
Joe's scrutiny was making her uncomfortable.
"Just because I don't believe doesn't mean I don't want to. Don't you think I'd love to feel that a little spark of me will continue on into eternity after this body is gone? But I can't get past the idea that it's only wishful thinking, something we, as a sentient species, have yearned for so deeply and for so long that we've surrounded that need with all manner of myths to convince ourselves that it's real."
Joe picked up the knife Lacey had used to cut her thumb, and idly ran his finger along the edge.
"All myths have a spark of truth at their core. Look at it this way: doesn't the existence of transcendent Evil indicate that there must be a counterbalancing transcendent Good?"
"You mean the undead? I'll grant you they're evil, but they hardly strike me as transcendent."
"No?" He was staring at his finger. "I just cut myself. Take a look."
He laid his hand, palm up, on the table. His palm hadn't been exposed to the sun so it was unscarred. Lacey saw a deep slice in the pad of his index finger, but no blood.
"I don't seem to have any blood."
Lacey gasped as he jabbed the point of the blade into the center of his palm.
"Father Joe!" Carol cried.
"Uh-uh," he said, removing the knife and waving it at her. "Just Joe, remember? I'm not a priest anymore."
"Doesn't it hurt?" Lacey said.
"Not really. I feel it; it's not comfortable, but I can't call it pain." He held up his hand. "Still no blood. And yet..." He placed the hand over his heart. "My heart is beating. Very slowly, but beating. Why? If there's no blood to pump, why have a beating heart?" He leaned back and shook his head. "Will I ever understand this?"
"You have a better chance than anyone else," Lacey said. "Obviously something else is powering your cells, something working outside the laws of nature."
"Which would make it supernatural. And since there's no question that it's evil..."
"Are we back to that again?"
Carole cleared her throat. "I hate to drag this conversation back to current reality, but there is something very important we need to discuss."
Lacey looked at her and noticed that she seemed upset. Her hands were locked together before her on the table.
"What is it, Carole?"
She stared at her hands. "Blood."
Lacey heard Joe groan. She glanced over and saw him lower his ruined face into his hands.
"What blood?" Lacey said.
Carole lifted her eyes. "The blood he needs to survive."
"Oh, that." Lacey shrugged. "He can have some of mine whenever—"
Joe slammed his hands on the table. "No!"
"Why the hell not? You had—what?—three or four drops and that was all you needed. Big deal."
"The amount is not the point! A drop, a gallon, what difference does it make? It's all the same! I'm acting like one of them—becoming a bloodsucking parasite!"
"They take it by force. I'm giving this to you. You don't see the difference? It's my blood and I have a right to do whatever I want with it. If I were giving a pint at a time to the Red Cross to save lives you'd say what a fine and noble thing to do. But giving a few drops to my own uncle—a blood relative, don't you know—is wrong?"
"Your giving isn't the issue. My taking—that's the problem."
"What problem? Since I'm volunteering, there's no ethical problem. So if it's not ethics, what is it? Esthetics?"
He stared at her. "What are you? A Jesuit?"
"I'm your niece and I care about you and I want to get the sons of bitches who did this to you. With you as you are—part undead, part human—we might have a chance to do real damage. But if you're going to let a little squea-mishness get in the way—"