For a moment he felt disoriented, like someone peering out the window of a Brooklyn apartment and seeing the rolling hills of a Kansas farm. This could not be the interior of St. Anthony's.
In the flickering light of dozens of sacramental candles he saw that the walls were bare, stripped of all their ornaments, including the plaques for the Stations of the Cross; the dark wood was scarred and gouged wherever there had been anything remotely resembling a cross. The floor too was mostly bare, the pews ripped from their neat rows and hacked to pieces, their splintered remains piled high at the rear under the choir balcony.
And the giant crucifix that had dominated the space behind the altar— only a portion remained. The cross pieces on each side had been sawed off so that an armless, life-size Christ now hung upside down against the rear wall of the sanctuary.
Joe took in all that in a flash; then his attention gravitated to the unholy congregation that peopled St. Anthony's this night. The collaborators—the Vichy humans—made up the periphery of the group. Some looked like bikers and trailer-park white trash, but others looked like normal, everyday people. What bonded them was the crescent-moon earring dangling from every right earlobe.
But the rest, the group gathered in the sanctuary—Joe felt his hackles rise at the sight of them. They surrounded the altar in a tight knot. He recognized some of them: Mayor Davis, Reverend Dalton, and others, their pale, bestial faces, bereft of the slightest trace of human warmth, compassion, or decency, turned upward. His gorge rose when he saw the object of their rapt attention.
A naked teenage boy—his hands tied behind his back, was suspended over the altar by his ankles. He was sobbing and choking, his eyes wide and vacant with shock, his mind all but gone. The skin had been flayed from his forehead—apparently the Vichy had found an expedient solution to the cross tattoo—and blood ran in a slow stream across his abdomen and chest from his freshly truncated genitals. And beside him, standing atop the altar, a bloody-mouthed creature dressed in a long cassock. Joe recognized the thin shoulders, the graying hair trailing from the balding crown, but was shocked at the crimson vulpine grin he flashed to the things clustered below him.
"Now," said the creature in a lightly accented voice Joe had heard a thousand times from St. Anthony's pulpit.
Father Alberto Palmeri.
From the group a hand reached up with a straight razor and drew it across the boy's throat. As the blood sprang from the vessels and flowed down over his face, those below squeezed and struggled forward like hatchling vultures to catch the falling drops and scarlet trickles in their open mouths.
Joe fell away from the window and vomited. He felt Zev grab his arm and lead him away. He was vaguely aware of crossing the street and heading back toward the ruined legal office.
ZEV . . .
"Why in God's name did you want me to see that?"
Zev looked across the office toward the source of the words. He could make out a vague outline where Father Joe sat on the floor, his back against the wall, the open bottle of Scotch in his hand. The priest had taken one drink since their return, no more.
"I thought you should know what they were doing to your church." He felt bad about the immediate effect on Joe, but he was hoping the long-term consequences would benefit him and others.
"So you've said. But what's the reason behind that one?"
Zev shrugged in the darkness. "I'd gathered you weren't doing well, that even before everything else began falling apart, you had already fallen apart. So when this woman who saved me urged me to find you, I took up the quest and came to see you. Just as I expected, I found a man who was angry at everything and letting it eat up his guderim. I thought maybe it would be good to give that man something very specific to be angry at."
"You bastard!" Father Joe whispered. "Who gave you the right?"
"Friendship gave me the right, Joe. I should know that you are rotting away and do nothing? I have no congregation of my own anymore so I turned my attention on you. Always I was a somewhat meddlesome rabbi."
"Still are. Out to save my soul, ay?"
"We rabbis don't save souls. Guide them maybe, hopefully give them direction. But only you can save your soul, Joe."
Silence hung in the air for a while. Suddenly the crescent-moon earring Zev had given Father Joe landed in the puddle of moonlight on the floor between them. He noticed a speck of crimson on the post.
"Why do they do it?" the priest said. "The Vichy—why do they collaborate?"
"The first ones are quite unwilling, believe me. They cooperate because their wives and children are held hostage by the undead. But before too long the dregs of humanity begin to slither out from under their rocks and offer their services in exchange for the immortality of vampirism."
"Why bother working for them? Why not just bare your throat to the nearest bloodsucker?"
"That's what I thought at first," Zev said. "But as I witnessed the Lakewood holocaust I detected their pattern. After the immediate onslaught—and the burning of the bodies of their first victims—they change tactics. They can choose who joins their ranks, so after they've fully infiltrated a population, they start to employ a different style of killing. For only when the undead draws the life's blood from the throat with its fangs does the victim become one of them. Anyone drained as in the manner of that boy in the church tonight dies a true death. He's as dead now as someone run over by a truck. He will not rise tomorrow night."
"So the Vichy work for them for the opportunity of getting their blood sucked the old-fashioned way."
"And joining the undead ranks."
Zev heard no humor in the soft laugh that echoed across the room from Father Joe.
"Great. Just great. I never cease to be amazed at our fellow human beings. Their capacity for good is exceeded only by their ability to debase themselves."
"Hopelessness does strange things, Joe. The undead know that. So they rob us of hope. That's how they beat us. They transform our friends and neighbors and leaders into their own, leaving us feeling alone, completely cut off. Some can't take the despair and kill themselves."
"Hopelessness," Joe said. "A potent weapon."
After a long silence, Zev said, "So what are you going to do now, Father Joe?"
Another bitter laugh from across the room.
"I suppose this is the place where I declare that I've found new purpose in life and will now go forth into the world as a fearless vampire killer."
"Such a thing would be nice."
"Well screw that. I'm only going as far as across the street."
"To St. Anthony's?"
Zev saw Father Joe take a swig from the Scotch bottle and then screw the cap on tight.
"Yeah. To see if there's anything I can do over there."
"Father Palmeri and his nest might not like that."
"I told you, don't call him Father. And screw him. Nobody can do what he's done and get away with it. I'm taking my church back."
In the dark, behind his beard, Zev smiled.
COWBOYS . . .
Al had the car out on his own. He wasn't supposed to, gas being hard to come by and all, but he needed to be alone, or at least away from Kenny. Yeah, sure, they'd been friends forever but they'd never been together 24-7. Usually the four of them played cards and did some drinking before turning in. But Jackie was out of commission and Stan was still pissed and wasn't playing cards with nobody, so that left Al with just Kenny.
They all lived together in one of the big mansions off Hope Road. Stan liked to brag that one of the Mets used to live there. Big deal. The place had all the comforts of home: electricity from a generator, videotapes and DVDs—with a good selection of porn—and a fridge full of beer. But sometimes Kenny could wear you out, man. Big time. Like tonight.