Renny stepped out of the booth and slammed his fist against the hood of his car.
How could he have been such a jerk? The cardinal rule in this sort of crime was to put the first heat on the people closest to the victim. The esteemed Father Ryan had been the closest but Renny had allowed himself to be lulled by the Roman collar, by the fact that he'd come out of St. Francis himself. He'd let that bastard priest sucker him in and squeeze him for all he was worth.
I'm so fucking stupid!
Well, no more. Ryan wasn't getting out of this city tonight. It was New Year's Eve and the shift was spread a little thin, plus the usual bunch of cops was tied up doing crowd control at Times Square, but Ryan wasn't getting away. Not if Renny had a damn thing to say about it. The priest had made him look like a jerk, but Renny realized that wasn't what really mattered, what really burned him. It was how he'd started thinking of the priest as a friend, someone he wanted to hang around with. And Renny didn't offer his friendship easily.
He was hurt, dammit.
Something cold and wet landed on his cheek. He looked around. It was beginning to snow. He smiled. The weatherman had predicted a snowstorm tonight. That was good. It would slow traffic, make it easier to spot a guy and a sick kid trying to leave the city.
We're gonna meet again real soon, Father fucking Ryan. And when we do you'll wish you'd never been born.
St. Ann's Cemetery was small and old and crowded, some of the headstones dating back to the early years of the last century. Bill had chosen St. Ann's because it was out of the way and it was consecrated ground.
… bury me… in holy ground…
Now as he drove the deserted street running along the cemetery's north wall he wondered if it mattered.
Consecrated ground, he thought. What does that mean?
A week ago he'd have had no trouble answering the question. Now the whole concept struck him as senseless.
But then, nothing made sense anymore. His whole world had been turned upside down and ripped inside out during the past week. He could smell the rot in the very foundations of his faith, could feel them crumbling beneath him.
Where are you, Lord? There's evil afoot here, pure distilled evil that can't be explained away by happenstance or coincidence or
natural causes. This isn't fair. Lord. Give me a hand, will you?
Only one other time in his life had he come across anything even remotely resembling what had happened to Danny. That derelict… Spano… had reminded him. Almost twenty years ago, in a Victorian mansion on Long Island Sound, he'd seen Emma Stevens die not ten feet in front of him with an ax in her brain. He'd watched her lie in front of him, as lifeless as the rug that soaked up her blood. And then he'd seen her rise and walk and kill two people before slumping into death once again.
He'd explained that away by telling himself that if doctors had had a chance to examine Emma while she was lying on the rug with the ax protruding from her skull, they would have found that she only appeared dead, and that whatever spark of life was left in her had flared long enough to allow her to finish what she'd started just before she was killed.
But an entire medical center staff had had a week with Danny. They all said he should be dead, but somehow he wouldn't die.
Just like Emma Stevens. Except that Emma had hung on for only a few minutes. Danny had been going for a week and showed no signs of weakening. He might possibly go on forever… it won't stop… till you bury me…
Bill wondered if there could be a link between what had happened to Emma and what was happening to Danny. Spano the wino seemed to have hinted at that in the parking lot.
He shook himself. No. How could there be? He was grasping at straws here.
He pulled to a stop in the deep shadows under a dead street lamp. Dead because he'd killed it. He'd bought a CO2 pellet gun yesterday, come out here last night, and shot the bulb out. Took him a whole cartridge before he finally scored a bull's-eye.
And earlier tonight, shortly after dark, he'd returned to this spot with a pick and a shovel.
Bill leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Tired. So tired. When was the last time he'd had two consecutive hours of sleep? Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a little while here he could—
No! He jerked his head up. He couldn't hide from this. It had to be done and he was the only one to do it, the only one to realize that this was the only thing anyone could do for Danny. There were no other options. This was it.
He'd heard it from Danny's own lips.
With that thought to bolster him, Bill put the wagon in gear and drove up the curb and across the sidewalk until the passenger side of the wagon was hugging the eight-foot wall under an oak that leaned over from the far side. He got out, opened the rear door, and lifted Danny out of the back seat. With the boy's swaddled form in his arms, he stepped up on the bumper, then the hood, then up to the roof. From there it was a short hop to the top of the wall. He swiveled around on his buttocks until his legs were dangling over the inside edge, then dropped to the ground on the other side.
Okay. He was inside. It was dark. The glow from the streetlights didn't reach in here, but he knew where he was going. Just a few paces to the left, against the wall. That was where he had spent a couple of hours tonight after darkfall… hours… with a pick and shovel…
Oh, God, he didn't want to do this, would have given anything to pass this cup. But there was no one in the wings to take it from him.
Bill paused an instant at the edge of the oblong hole in the ground, then jumped in. When he straightened, the frozen grass on ground level was even with his lower ribs. He would have liked the hole to have been deeper, six feet at least, but he'd exhausted himself here earlier getting it this deep, and there was no time left now. This would have to do.
He knelt and stretched Danny's form out on the floor of the hole. He couldn't see the boy's face in the darkness, so he released his writhing body, and pulled back the folds of blanket. He administered the final sacrament, called Extreme Unction when he was in the seminary, now called the Anointing of the Sick. During the past week he had administered it on a daily basis to Danny, and each time it had lost an increment of its meaning. It was little more than a collection of empty words and gestures now.
Empty… like everything else in his life. All the rules he had lived by, all the beliefs on which he had based his life were falling away. The God he'd placed his trust in had not lifted a finger against the force that gripped Danny.
But he went through the motions. And when he was done, he placed a hand on each side of Danny's head, cupping his wasted cheeks.
"Danny?" he whispered. "Danny, will this work for you? I know you told me once that it would, but please tell me again. I'm going against everything I've ever believed in to do this for you. I need to hear it again."
Danny said nothing. He remained lost in agony, giving no sign that he had even heard him.
Bill pressed his forehead against Danny's.
"I hope you can hear me, hope you can understand me. I'm doing this for you, Danny, because it's the only way to end it all for you. All the pain, all the torture will be over in a few minutes. I don't know how much of you is left in there, Danny, but I know some of you still remains. I see it in your eyes sometimes. I don't want you to… to die without knowing that I'm doing this to release you from whatever monstrous evil is torturing you. I'm doing it to stop the pain, and to protect you from those doctors making you into some sort of sideshow freak. You know if there was any other way, I'd find it. You know that, don't you?" He leaned over and kissed Danny's forehead. "I love you, kid. You know that too, don't you?"