But the Senador did not seem to hear. He stood by Charlie’s bed, staring out through the windows, a mix of awe and terror distorting his features.
Emilio followed his gaze and cringed against the stairway when he saw what was taking shape out over the Pacific and racing toward them.
“Madre!”
‡
Everything had happened so fast.
You murdered me.
Dan had been momentarily stunned by Carrie’s words. His mind whirled, adding a beard, hat, and glasses to the mustachioed face staring at Carrie in horrified disbelief, comparing this voice to the one he’d heard in the church, and then he was sure: Here was the motherless scum who had put a bullet in her heart.
Before he’d been able to react, the man had turned and dashed back to the hemi-dome behind him and vanished through a doorway. And then a Navy reconnaissance plane had swooshed overhead. He’d just started wondering what sort of idiot would be flying in this hellish storm when another sound captured his attention.
A dull roaring filled Dan’s ears. At first he assumed it was enraged blood shooting through his battered brain, then he glanced beyond the hemi-dome and saw something impossibly tall, incalculably huge looming out of the foggy distance and hurtling toward them.
“Oh, my God!”
Nearly half a mile wide and God knew how tall, it stretched—swirling, twisting, writhing—from the dim, misty heights to the sea where it terminated in an eruption of foam on the wave-wracked surface of the Pacific. Water...an angry towering column of spinning water...all water...yet bright lights flashed within it.
To call this thing a waterspout was to call Mount Rushmore a piece of sculpture. And it was coming here, zeroed in on this spot.
Dan spun around, looking for a place to hide, but saw none. The car—no...too vulnerable. The door in the hemi-dome—it had to lead below, to safety.
Pulling Carrie with him, he ran to it and tugged on the handle. The handle wouldn’t turn, the door wouldn’t budge. Kesev stood back, strangely detached as he watched death’s irresistible approach.
“Locked!” Dan shouted, and began pounding and kicking at the unyielding surface. “Let us in, damn you! Open up!”
And all around him the roaring of the approaching waterspout grew to a deafening crescendo.
This is it, he thought. We’re going to die right here. In a few minutes it’ll all be over. But God, I’m not ready to go yet!
And then Carrie laid a hand on his shoulder, reached past him and turned the knob.
The door swung open.
Dan swallowed his shock—no time to wonder how the door had become unlocked—and propelled Carrie through ahead of him. Kesev followed at a more leisurely pace, closing the door behind him.
Stairs ahead, leading downward toward light. Dan went to squeeze past Carrie but she’d already begun her descent. He followed her down the curved stairway into a huge, luxuriously furnished room. His hope of surviving this storm rose as he saw that it was carved out of the living rock of the cliff itself, and then that hope was dashed when he saw the huge glass front overhanging the ocean. The monstrous waterspout was out there, still headed directly for them, and no glass on earth would stop that thing.
He noticed two—no, three—other people in the room: a new face, unconscious in a hospital bed, the man who had shot Carrie, and...Senator Arthur Crenshaw. The killer and the senator stood transfixed before the onrushing doom.
And supine beside the bed...the Virgin.
Carrie must have spotted her, too, for she began moving toward the body—
—just as the windows exploded.
With a deafening crash every pane shattered into countless tiny daggers. Dan leaped upon Carrie to shield her—she was already dead, he remembered as he pushed her to the floor and covered her, yet his protective instincts prevailed. Instead of slashing everyone and everything in the room to ribbons, the glass shards blew outward, sucked into the swirl of the storm outside.
A thundering roar filled the room as warm seawater splashed against his back, soaking him. Dan squeezed his eyes shut, encircled Carrie with his arms, and held her cold body tight against him...one last embrace...
Any second now...
But nothing happened. The water continued to splatter him but the roar of the waterspout remained level. Dan lifted his head and risked a peek.
It had backed off to a quarter mile or so, but remained out there in the mist, dominating the panoramic view, lit by flashes within and around it, swirling, twisting, a thousand yards wide, snaking from the sea to the sky, but moving no closer.
Dan rose and studied it. For no reason he could explain, it occurred to Dan that it seemed to be...waiting.
Ahead of him, the senator and the murderer were struggling to their feet and staring at it through the empty window frames.
“What is that?” Senator Crenshaw cried.
“Not ‘what,’“ Carrie said as she rose to her feet behind Dan. “Who.”
The senator turned and stared at her a moment. He seemed about to ask her who she was, then decided that wasn’t important now.
“ ‘Who?’ “ He glanced back at the looming tower. “All right, then...who is it?”
“It’s Him,” Carrie said, beaming. She pointed to the Virgin. “He’s come for His mother.”
The senator glanced at the Virgin, gasped, and gripped the edge of the hospital bed for support. Dan looked to see what was wrong.
The Virgin was changing.
The seawater from the spout that had soaked into her robes, into her skin and hair was having a rejuvenating effect. The blue of the fabric deepened, her hair darkened and thickened, and her face...the cheeks were filling out, the wrinkles fading as color surged into her skin.
The murderer cringed back and murmured something in Spanish as the senator leaned more heavily against the bed. Carrie moved closer and dropped to her knees. Dan glanced to his right and saw that Kesev, even the imperturbable Kesev, was gaping in awe.
And then the Virgin moved.
In a single smooth motion she sat up, then stood and faced them.
Dan saw Kesev drop to his knees not far from Carrie, but Dan remained standing, too overwhelmed to move.
She was small framed, almost petite. Olive skin, deep, dark hair, Semitic features, not attractive by Dan’s tastes, but he sensed an inner beauty, and an undeniable strength radiating from her sharp brown eyes.
Those eyes were moving, finally fixing on Carrie, kneeling before her. Smiling like a mother gazing upon a beloved child, she reached out and touched Carrie’s head. “Dear one,” the Virgin said softly, her voice gentle, soothing. “Rise, both of you. I am not to be worshipped. We are almost through here.”
Kesev rose but Carrie remained on her knees.
The Virgin’s smile faded as she turned to Senator Crenshaw.
“Arthur,” she said. “The prayermaker.”
Crenshaw held her gaze, but with obvious difficulty
“Emilio,” she said, frowning at the murderer. “The killer.”
He turned away.
Then it was Dan’s turn.
A tiny smile curved her lips as she trapped his eyes with her own.
“Daniel. The hunger-feeder.”
Dan felt lifted, exalted. He sensed her approval and basked in it.
Finally she turned away and Dan felt the breath rush out of him. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. She could have called him vow-breaker, fornicator, doubter...so many things. But hunger-feeder...he’d take that any day.
Her expression was neutral as she faced Kesev.
“So, Iscariot...you broke another trust.”
Iscariot! Dan’s mind reeled. No...it couldn’t be!
“Mother, events conspired against me. I beg your forgiveness.”
“It is not my place to forgive.”
“Perhaps it is I who should forgive!” Iscariot cried. “Once again I have been used! Used!”
“You are not alone in that,” the Virgin said pointedly.
Iscariot’s head snapped back, as if he been struck, but he recovered quickly.