Zev took another big bite of the stew. Time to break down all the walls between people . . . while there was still enough time and people left alive to make it matter.
"You okay, Zev?" Joe asked.
Zev nodded silently, afraid to speak for fear of sobbing. Despite all its anachronisms, he missed his life in the good old days of a few months ago. Gone. It was all gone. The rich traditions, the culture, the friends, the prayers. He felt adrift—in time and in space. Nowhere was home.
And then there was the matter of the cross ... the power of the cross over the undead . . .
He'd sneaked a copy of Dracula to read when he was a boy, and he'd caught snatches of vampire movies on TV. The undead were always portrayed as afraid of crosses. But that had been fiction. Vampires weren't real—or so he'd thought—and so he'd never examined the broader implications of that fear of the cross. Now...
"You sure?" Joe seemed genuinely concerned.
"Yes, I'm okay. As okay as you could expect me to feel after spending the better part of the day repairing a crucifix and eating non-kosher food. And let me tell you, that's not so okay."
He put his bowl aside and straightened from his chair.
"Come on, already. Let's get back to work. There's much yet to do."
JOE . . .
"Almost sunset," Carl said.
Joe straightened from scrubbing the marble altar and stared west through one of the smashed windows. The sun was out of sight behind the houses there.
"You can go now, Carl," he said to the little man. "Thanks for your help." "Where you gonna go, Fadda?"
"I'll be staying right here."
Carl's prominent Adam's apple bobbed convulsively as he swallowed.
"Yeah? Well then, I'm staying too. I told you I'd make it up to ya, didn't I? An' besides, I don't think the suckers'U like the new, improved St. Ant'ny's too much when they come back tonight. I don't think they'll even get through the doors."
Joe smiled at the man, then looked around. Luckily it was May and the days were growing longer. They'd had time to make a difference here. The floors were clean, the crucifix was restored and back in its proper position, as were most of the Stations of the Cross plaques. Zev had found them under the pews and had taken the ones not shattered beyond recognition and rehung them on the walls. Lots of new crosses littered those walls. Carl had found a hammer and nails and had made dozens of them from the remains of the pews.
"You're right. I don't think they'll like the new decor one bit. But there's something you can get us if you can, Carl. Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, anything that shoots."
Carl nodded slowly. "I know a few guys who can help in that department."
"And some wine. A little red wine if anybody's saved some."
"You got it."
He hurried off.
"You're planning Custer's last stand, maybe?" Zev said from where he was tacking the last of Carl's crude crosses to the east wall.
"More like the Alamo."
"Same result," Zev said with one of his shrugs.
"I've got a gun," Lacey said.
Joe stared at her. She'd been helping him scrub the altar. "You do? Why didn't you say something?"
"It's only got two bullets left."
"Where are the rest?"
She met his gaze evenly. "I had to leave them behind in a couple of people who tried to stop me. It was a tough trip getting here."
"Are you okay with that?"
She nodded. "Better than I thought I'd be. You do what you have to do."
What an amazing young woman, he thought. Who'd have thought Cathy's little girl could turn out so tough and resilient.
He remembered Lacey as a teen. She'd always been a little different from her peers. On the surface she seemed like a typical high-school kid—she dated, though she had no serious crushes, played soccer and field hockey with abandon—but on holidays and family gatherings, she'd stay in the background. Joe would make a point of sitting down with her; he'd draw her out, and then another Lacey would emerge.
The other Lacey was a thinker, a questioner. She had doubts about religion, about government. She burned with an iconoclastic fire that urged her to question traditions and break with them whenever possible. She was fascinated by the old anarchists and dug up all their works. He remembered her favorite was No Treason by someone named Lysander Spooner. Instead of hanging posters of the latest teenage heartthrob boy band in her room, Lacey had pictures of Emma Goldman and Madelyn Murray O'Hare.
Joe's sister and her husband tolerated her views with a mixture of humor and apprehension. If this was the shape and scope of Lacey's teenage rebellion, they'd live with it. It was just a phase, they'd say. She'll grow out of it. Better than drunk driving or drugs or getting pregnant.
But it wasn't a phase. It was Lacey. And later, when she came out as a lesbian, they turned their backs on her. Joe had tried to talk them out of slamming the family door, but this was more than they could take.
"Who taught you to shoot?" he asked.
"A friend." She smiled. "A guy friend, believe it or not. It was a self-defense thing. He took me out to the range until I got comfortable with pulling the trigger. I'm not a great shot, but if you're within ten feet of me and you're looking for trouble, you're gone."
Joe had to smile. "Never let it be said you're not full of surprises, Lacey."
She laughed softly. "No one's ever said that."
They turned back to scrubbing the altar. They'd been at it for over an hour now. Joe was drenched with sweat and figured he smelled like a bear, but he couldn't stop until it was clean.
But it wouldn't come clean.
"What did they do to this altar?" Lacey asked.
"I don't know. This crud ... it seems part of the marble now."
The undead must have done something to the blood and foulness to make the mixture seep into the surface as it had.
"Let's take a break."
He turned sat on the floor with his back against the altar and rested. He didn't like resting because it gave him time to think. And when he started to think he realized that the odds were pretty high against his seeing tomorrow morning.
At least he'd die well fed. Their secret supplier had left them a dinner of fresh fried chicken by the front doors. Even the memory of it made his mouth water. Apparently someone was really glad he was back.
Lacey settled next to him. She'd shed her leather jacket hours ago. Her bare arms were sheened with perspiration.
"That talk about Custer's last stand and the Alamo," she said. "You're not planning to die here, are you?"
To tell the truth, as miserable as he'd been, he wasn't ready to die. Not tonight, not any night.
"Not if I can help it."
"Good. Because as much as I can appreciate self-immolating gestures, I don't think I'm ready to take part in a Jersey Shore version of the Alamo or Little Big Horn."
"Well, the cry of 'Remember the Alamo!' did spur a lot of people to action, but I agree. Going down fighting here will not solve anything."
"Then what's the plan? We should have some sort of plan."
Good question. Did he have a plan?
"All I want to do is hold off the undead till dawn. Keep them out of St. Anthony's for one night. That's all. That will be a statement—my statement. Our statement if you want to stay on."
And if he found an opportunity to ram a stake through Palmeri's rotten heart, so much the better. But he wasn't counting on that.
"That's it?" Lacey said. "One night?"
"One night. Just to let them know they can't have their way everywhere with everybody whenever they feel like it. We've got surprise on our side tonight, so maybe it will work." One night. Then he'd be on his way. "You shouldn't feel you have to stay just because you're my niece."