She must be aware that I am here. Why is she toying with me?
“Repent, brothers and sisters,” Preacher said. “Repent and take Jesus as your Lord. For the dark End Times are soon upon us, followed by the dawn of the Second Coming of the Lord!”
“Listen to him!” the little sidekick said. “Listen!”
But the half-dozen people who had paused a moment to listen to the raggedy man had heard it all before, so they moved on. And with no audience, the man called Preacher and his lone disciple moved on as well.
Leaving Kesev and a thin, sickly-looking old man sharing the bench.
Good riddance, Kesev thought.
‡
Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio shifted his weight on the bench as he watched the Preacher shuffle off. His wasted buttocks offered no padding against the hard, rough planked surface. He wanted to get up and continue his search for the vision, but he didn’t know which way to go in the fading light.
Fading like my body, he thought. Like my life. Slowly, steadily, inexorably.
He was beginning to think his chance to see the vision again would never come. He’d been traveling down from the Vatican mission to the Lower East Side night after night, hoping, praying, beseeching God and Jesus and Mary herself to honor him with the vision once more, just once more before the cancer took him. It had become a contest of sorts, a race between the tumor and his determination to last until he saw her again.
He glanced at the bearded man a few feet to his right.
“Do you think he’s right?” he said.
The bearded man started, as if surprised that someone would speak to him. Most New Yorkers were shocked initially when a stranger like Vincenzo opened a conversation with them.
“Sorry. Do I think who is right?”
A strange accent. Middle Eastern, certainly, but where? The features framed by the beard and dark hair were Semitic. A Palestinian?
“That preacher. Do you think we’re headed for the Second Coming?”
“You mean, the Second Coming of the Master?”
Vincenzo wondered at this fellow’s use of the term, “the Master.” Surely he was referring to Christ. Who else could be expected at the Second Coming. But it was such an archaic reference, the way the early church referred to Jesus.
“The Second Coming of Jesus, yes. Do you—?”
The bearded man shot to his feet. “Good-bye. I must be going.”
“If you must. Perhaps we’ll meet some other time.”
“I do not think so.”
He walked off.
Vincenzo wondered if he was another “Mary-hunter,” as one of the local papers had dubbed the hordes of faithful roaming the Lower East Side streets in search of the Blessed Virgin.
Perhaps, perhaps not, Vincenzo thought as he pushed himself to his feet. But certainly something strange about that fellow. Not very friendly, which he supposed was to be expected in New York, but this fellow was almost furtive.
As he crossed Pearl Street, a man ran out of an alley, frantically waving his arms in the dusk.
“OhmyGod! OhmyGod! I think I saw her! I think it’s her!”
Vincenzo’s heart leapt. “Where?”
As the fellow pointed toward the black maw of the alley behind him, Vincenzo tried in vain to make out his features in the dusky light.
“Back there! She was just standing there, glowing.”
“Show me,” Vincenzo said. “Please show me!”
“Sure,” the fellow said, waving him to follow. “Come on!”
An alarm clanged faintly in a corner of Vincenzo’s brain, but his mind was too suffused with glorious anticipation to pay it proper heed.
The darkness of the alley swallowed him. He saw nothing.
“Where?”
He was shoved roughly from behind and fell to his knees on the garbage strewn pavement. Fear pounded through Vincenzo as he realized he was being mugged. He’d heard about the predators who’d begun stalking the defenseless Mary-hunters. The papers had dubbed them “Holies-rollers.” He began shouting for help until a heavy boot slammed into his ribs and drove the wind out of him.
“Shuddup, asshole, an’ gimme your wallet!”
Vincenzo shouted again and was kicked again. The mugger grabbed his wrist and pulled off his watch.
“Where’s your wallet? Gimme your fuckin’ wallet or I cut you!”
Vincenzo was reaching for his back pocket when he heard a groan above him. He heard scuffling feet, and then a heavy weight slammed onto the pavement next to him.
“Did he stab you? Do you need a hospital?”
Vincenzo recognized the accent—the little bearded fellow who’d been sitting on the bench with him moments ago.
“No. I’m only bruised. Could you help me up, perhaps?”
He raised his hand and felt another grasp it and pull him to his feet.
Immediately the man began to move off.
“Wait. I haven’t thanked you. There must be something—”
“You can say nothing of this,” the fellow said, stopping and turning. “That will be thanks enough.”
“But people should know! You’re a hero!”
“That man behind you will be dead before help arrives. I am a stranger in this country. I do not wish to be arrested.”
“What did you do to him?”
“My knife did to him what his knife was going to do to you.”
“But why?”
“I needed to.”
Weak and trembling, Vincenzo leaned against a wall and silently watched the stranger hurry off. The parting words turned over in his mind. I needed to. Something about the way he’d said that...
Needed to what? Help somebody...or stab somebody?
He turned for one final look into the alley that might have been his grave and saw her.
She was only a few feet away, moving closer...flowing toward him...her faint glow a beacon in the black hole of the alley. Her robes were the same as in Cork, only now he was close enough to make out some of her features. The tears in his eyes blurred them but he thought he detected a hint of a smile as she looked at him.
“It’s you!” he sobbed, overcome by an unplumbed longing within. “I’ve been searching for you. I knew I’d find you again!”
She flowed closer without slowing...closer...
Vincenzo backed up a step but she never slowed her approach. It was as if she didn’t see him. When she was within inches he cried, “Stop!” but she continued her irresistible course, pressing against him—but he felt nothing. She had no substance. And then his vision was filled with light that blotted out the alley and the street and the city, light all around, light within him...
Within him...
The apparition had merged with him. Was he within her or was she within him?
He froze, he sizzled, dazzling spots flashed and swelled and danced before his eyes, he floated, he plummeted...
And then the light faded and the city night filled his eyes again. He whirled and saw the apparition directly behind him, flowing away.
She walked...right...through...me!
And then she began to fade. Within seconds Vincenzo was alone again. The wonder that filled him also began to fade as the pain began, searing bolts of agony lancing through his chest and abdomen, doubling him over, driving him to his knees.
IN THE PACIFIC
7o N, 150o W
The clouds and wind have organized into a pocket of turbulence with sharply demarcated borders. The pocket begins to drift eastward, drawing warm moist air up from the ocean surface into its high, cool center where the moisture condenses into droplets. Thunder rumbles and lightning flashes as rain and wind whip the churning ocean surface to a froth. The storm swells as it accelerates its eastward course.
EIGHTEEN
Manhattan
“Okay, Monsignor. Another deep breath, and hold this one.”
Vincenzo Riccio filled his lungs while Dr. Karras’s fingers probed his abdomen under the lower right edge of his rib cage. The young oncologist’s normally tanned-looking skin was relatively pale today. The overhead fluorescents of the examining room reflected off the fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead.