The flash was noonday bright, the blast deafening as the shock wave knocked Gregor to the ground. His first instinct was to leap to his feet again, but he realized he couldn't see. The bright flash had fogged his night vision with a purple, amebic afterimage. He lay quiet until he could see again, then rose to his feet.
He heard wailing sounds. The woman crouched beside the car, screaming hysterically; the cowboy who had climbed the pole lay somewhere in the bushes, crying out about his back, how badly it hurt and how he couldn't move his legs. But the other two—Stan and the murdered Al—were nowhere to be seen.
His get-guards were struggling to their feet, enclosing him in a tight, four-man circle. "Are you all right, Gregor?" one said.
"Of course I'm all right," he snapped. "You wouldn't be asking that question if I weren't."
Gregor shook his head. He tried to choose carefully for his get, emphasizing intelligence. Sometimes they fell short.
Gregor began to brush off his clothes as he looked around, then froze. He was wet, covered with blood and torn flesh. The entire street glistened, littered with bits of bone, muscle, skin, and fingernail-size pieces of internal organs, leaving no way of telling what had belonged to whom.
Gregor shuddered at the prospect of explaining this to Olivia.
His fury exploded. The first killing tonight had been embarrassing enough by itself. But now another cowboy had been taken out, and still another crippled to the point where he'd have to be put down—all right in front of him. This had passed beyond embarrassment into humiliation.
When he caught these vigilantes he'd deal with them personally. And see that it took them days to die.
CAROLE . . .
Sister Carole saw the flash and heard the explosion through the window over the sink in the darkened kitchen of the Bennett house. No joy, no elation. This wasn't fun. But she did find a certain grim satisfaction in learning that her potassium chlorate plastique had worked.
The gasoline had evaporated from the latest batch and she was working with that now. The moon provided sufficient illumination for the final stage. Once she had the right amount measured out, she didn't need much light to pack the plastique into soup cans. All she had to do was make sure she maintained the proper loading density.
That done, she stuck a number-three blasting cap in the end of each cylinder and dipped it into the pot of melted wax she had on the stove. And that did it. She now had waterproof block charges with a detonation velocity comparable to forty-percent-ammonia dynamite.
"All right," she said aloud to the night through her kitchen window.
"You've made my life a living hell. Now it's your time to be afraid."
GREGOR . . .
"Three in one night!"
Olivia's eyes seemed to glow with red fire in the gloom of the Post Office basement. She'd taken up temporary residence in the old granite building.
"They booby-trapped the body." Gregor knew it sounded lame but it was the truth.
Olivia's voice was barely a whisper as she pierced him with her stare. "You've disappointed me, Gregor."
"It is a temporary situation, I assure you."
"So you keep saying, but it has lasted far too long already. The dead serfs total seven now. Seven! Wait till Franco hears!"
Gregor quailed at the thought. "He doesn't have to hear. Not yet."
"You're losing control, Gregor. You don't seem to realize that besides our strength and our special powers, we have two weapons: fear and hopelessness. We cannot control the cattle by love and loyalty, so if we are to maintain our rule, it must be through the terror we inspire in them and the seeming impossibility of ever defeating us. What have the cattle witnessed in your territory, Gregor?"
Gregor knew where this was headed. "Olivia, please, I—"
"I'll tell you what they've witnessed," she said, her voice rising. "They've witnessed your inability to protect the serfs we've induced to herd the cattle and guard the daylight hours for us. And trust me, Gregor, the success of one vigilante group will give rise to a second, and then a third, and before long it will be open season on our serfs. And then you'll have no control. Because the cattle herders are cowardly swine, Gregor. The lowest of the low. They work for us only because they see us as the victors and they want to be on the winning side at any cost. But if we can't protect them, if they get a sense that we might be vulnerable and that our continued dominance might not be guaranteed, they'll turn on us in a flash."
"I know that, and I'm—"
"Fix it, Gregor." Her voice sank to a whisper again. "I will give you till dawn Friday to remedy this. If not, you'll awaken Friday night to find yourself heading back to New York to face Franco. Is that clear?"
Dawn Friday? Gregor could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Here it was Thursday morning with only a few hours until dawn—too late to take any action now. That left him one night to catch these marauding swine. And to think he'd just made her a gift of the pregnant cow's baby. The ungrateful—
He swallowed his anger.
"Very clear."
"Good. I expect you to have a plan by sundown."
"I will."
"Leave me now."
As Gregor turned and hurried up the steps he heard a newborn begin to cry in the darkness. The sound made him hungry.
- 4 -
JOE . . .
Joe yawned and stretched his limbs in the morning light. He'd stayed up most of the night and let Zev sleep. The old guy needed his rest. Sleep would have been impossible for Joe anyway. He was too wired. So he'd sat up, staring at the back of St. Anthony's.
The undead had left before first light, dark shapes drifting out the doors and across the grass like parishioners leaving a predawn service. Joe had felt his teeth grind as he scanned the group for Palmeri, but he couldn't make him out in the dimness. He might have gone out the front. By the time the sun had begun to peek over the rooftops and through the trees to the east, the streets outside were deserted.
He woke Zev and together they walked around to the front of the church.
The heavy oak and iron doors, each forming half of a pointed arch, were closed. Joe pulled them open and fastened the hooks to hold them back. Then, taking a breath, he walked through the vestibule and into the nave.
Even though he was ready for it, the stench backed him up a few steps. When his stomach settled, he forced himself ahead, treading a path between the two piles of shattered and splintered pews. Zev walked beside him, a handkerchief pressed over his mouth.
Last night he had thought the place a shambles. He saw now that it was worse. The light of day poked into all the corners, revealing everything that had been hidden by the warm glow of the candles. Half a dozen rotting corpses hung from the ceiling—he hadn't noticed them last night—and others were sprawled on the floor against the walls. Some of the bodies lay in pieces. Behind the chancel rail a headless female torso was draped over the front of the pulpit. To the left stood the statue of Mary. Someone had fitted her with foam rubber breasts and a huge dildo. And at the rear of the sanctuary was the armless Christ hanging head down on the upright of his cross.
"My church," he whispered as he moved along the path that had once been the center aisle, the aisle once walked by daily communicants and brides with their proud fathers. "Look what they've done to my church!"
Joe approached the huge block of the altar. When he'd first arrived at St. Anthony's it had been backed against the far wall of the sanctuary, but he'd had it moved to the front so that he could celebrate Mass facing his parishioners. Solid Carrara marble, but you'd never know it now. So caked with dried blood, semen, and feces it could have been made of styrofoam.
His revulsion was fading, melting away in the growing heat of his rage, drawing the nausea with it. He had intended to clean up the place but there was too much to be done, too much for two men. It was hopeless.
"Fadda Joe?"
He spun at the sound of the strange voice. A thin figure stood uncertainly in the open doorway. A timid-looking man of about fifty edged forward.
"Fadda Joe, that you?"