Slowly, one by one at first, then in groups, the crosses and crucifixes were placed behind backs or tucked out of sight within coats.
To his left, the undead hissed their relief and the Vichy cheered. The sound was like hot needles being forced under Joe's fingernails. Above, Palmeri turned his face to Joe and smiled.
"That's better."
"What do you want?" Joe asked, knowing with a sick crawling in his gut exactly what the answer would be.
"A trade," Palmeri said.
"Me for him, I suppose?" Joe said.
Palmeri's smile broadened. "Of course."
"No, Joe! "Zev cried.
Palmeri shook the old man roughly. Joe heard him say, "Quiet, Jew, or I'll snap your spine!" Then he looked down at Joe again. "The other thing is to tell your rabble to let my people go." He laughed and shook Zev again. "Hear that, Jew? A Biblical reference—Old Testament, no less!"
"All right," Joe said without hesitation.
The parishioners on his right gasped as one and cries of "No!" and "You can't!" filled St. Anthony's. A particularly loud voice nearby shouted, "He's only a lousy kike!"
Joe wheeled on the man and recognized Gene Harrington, a carpenter. He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the undead and their servants.
"You sound like you'd be more at home with them, Gene."
Harrington backed up a step and looked at his feet.
"Sorry, Father," he said in a voice that hovered on the verge of a sob. "But we just got you back!"
I'll be all right," Joe said softly.
And he meant it. Deep inside he had a feeling that he would come through this, that if he could trade himself for Zev and face Palmeri one-on-one, he could come out the victor, or at least battle him to a draw. Now that he was no longer tied up like some sacrificial lamb, now that he was free, with full use of his arms and legs again, he could not imagine dying at the hands of the likes of Palmeri.
Besides, one of the parishioners had given him a tiny crucifix. He had it closed in the palm of his hand.
But he had to get Zev out of danger first. That above all else. He looked up at Palmeri.
"All right, Alberto. I'm on my way up."
"Wait!" Palmeri said. "Someone search him."
Joe gritted his teeth as one of the Vichy, a blubbery, unwashed slob, came forward and searched his pockets. Joe thought he might get away with the crucifix but at the last moment he was made to open his hands. The Vichy grinned in Joe's face as he snatched the tiny cross from his palm and shoved it into his pocket.
"He's clean now!" the slob said and gave Joe a shove toward the vestibule.
Joe hesitated. He was walking into the snake pit unarmed. A glance at his parishioners told him he couldn't very well turn back now.
He continued on his way, clenching and unclenching his tense, sweaty fists as he walked. He still had a chance of coming out of this alive. He was too angry to die. He prayed that when he got within reach of the ex-priest the smoldering rage at how he had framed him when he'd been pastor, at what he'd done to St. Anthony's since then, would explode and give him the strength to tear Palmeri to pieces.
"No!" Zev shouted from above. "Forget about me! You've started something here and you've got to see it through!"
Joe ignored his friend.
"Coming, Alberto."
Father Joe's coming, Alberto. And he's pissed. Royally pissed.
ZEV . . .
Zev craned his neck, watching Joe disappear beneath the balcony.
"Joe! Comeback!"
Palmeri shook him again.
"Give it up, old Jew. Joseph never listened to anyone and he's not listening to you. He still believes in faith and virtue and honesty, in the power of goodness and truth over what he perceives as evil. He'll come up here ready to sacrifice himself for you, yet sure in his heart that he's going to win in the end. But he's wrong."
"No!" Zev said.
But in his heart he knew that Palmeri was right. How could Joe stand up against a creature with Palmeri's strength, who could hold Zev in the air like this for so long? Didn't his arms ever tire?
"Yes!" Palmeri hissed. "He's going to lose and we're going to win. We'll win for the same reason we always win. We don't let anything as silly and transient as sentiment stand in our way. If we'd been winning below and situations were reversed—if Joseph were holding one of my nest brothers over that wooden spike below—do you think I'd pause for a moment? For a second? Never! That's why this whole exercise by Joseph and these people is futile."
Futile. . . Zev thought. Like much of his life, it seemed. Like all of his future. Joe would die tonight and Zev might live on ... as what? A cross-wearing Jew, with the traditions of his past sacked and in flames, and nothing in his future but a vast, empty, limitless plain to wander alone.
Footfalls sounded on the balcony stairs and Palmeri turned his head.
"Ah,Joseph," he said.
Zev couldn't see the priest but he shouted anyway.
"Go back, Joe! Don't let him trick you!"
"Speaking of tricks," Palmeri said, leaning further over the balcony rail as an extra warning to Joe, "I hope you're not going to try anything foolish."
"No," said Joe's tired voice from somewhere behind Palmeri. "No tricks. Pull him in and let him go."
Zev could not let this happen. And suddenly he knew what he had to do. He twisted his body and grabbed the front of Palmeri's cassock while bringing his legs up and bracing his feet against one of the uprights of the brass balcony rail. As Palmeri turned his startled face toward him, Zev put all his strength into his legs for one convulsive backward push against the railing, pulling Palmeri with him. The undead priest was overbalanced. Even his enormous strength could not help him once his feet came free of the floor. Zev saw his undead eyes widen with terror when his lower body slipped over the railing. As they fell free, Zev wrapped his arms around Palmeri and clutched his cold and surprisingly thin body tight against him.
"What goes through this old Jew goes through you!" he shouted into the vampire's ear.
For an instant he saw Joe's horrified face appear over the balcony's receding edge, heard his faraway shout of "No!" mingle with Palmeri's nearer, lengthier scream of the same word, then came a spine-cracking jar and in his chest a tearing, wrenching pain beyond all comprehension. In an eyeblink he felt the sharp spire of wood rip through him and into Palmeri.
And then he felt no more.
As roaring blackness closed in he wondered if he'd done it, if this last desperate, foolish act had succeeded. He didn't want to die without finding out. He wanted to know—