JOE . . .
Joe shouted incoherently as he hung over the rail and watched Zev's fall, gagged as he saw the bloody point of the pew remnant burst through the back of Palmeri's cassock directly below him. He saw Palmeri squirm and flop around like a beached fish, then go limp atop Zev's already inert form.
As cheers mixed with cries of horror and the sounds of renewed battle rose from the nave, Joe turned away from the balcony rail and dropped to his knees.
"Zev!" he cried aloud. "Good God, Zev!"
Forcing himself to his feet, he stumbled down the back stairs, through the vestibule, and into the nave. The undead and the Vichy were on the run, as cowed and demoralized by their leader's death as the parishioners were buoyed by it. Slowly, steadily, they were falling before the relentless onslaught.
But Joe paid them scant attention. He fought his way to where Zev lay impaled beneath Palmeri's already decomposing corpse. He looked for a sign of life in his old friend's glazing eyes, a hint of a pulse in his throat under his beard, but found nothing.
"Zev, Zev, Zev, you shouldn't have. You shouldn't have."
He stiffened as he felt a pair of arms go around him, then saw it was Lacey. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she leaned against him and sobbed. She reached out and touched Zev's forehead.
"Oh, Uncle Joe... Uncle Joe..."
Suddenly they were surrounded by a cheering throng of St. Anthony's parishioners.
"We did it, Fadda Joe!" Carl cried, his face and hands splattered with blood. "We killed 'em all! We got our church back!"
"Thanks to this man here," Joe said, pointing to Zev.
"No!" someone shouted. "Thanks to you!"
Amid the cheers, Joe shook his head and said nothing. Let them celebrate. They deserved it. They'd reclaimed a tiny piece of the world as their own, a toehold and nothing more. A small victory of minimal significance in the war, but a victory nonetheless. They had their church back, at least for tonight. And they intended to keep it.
Good. But there would be one change. If they wanted their Father Joe to stick around they were going to have to agree to rename the church.
St. Zev's.
Joe liked the sound of that.
GREGOR . . .
"I was wrong, wasn't I!" Olivia raged, waving her arms and she stormed back and forth across the main floor of the Post office. Her get-guards flanked her, watching the windows, trying to cover her as she moved. Gregor's guards clustered near him, warily watching the others. "Yesterday, when I heard that more than one of your serfs had been killed in a single night, I thought it couldn't get any worse. But now this! This!"
Gregor, still too numb with shock, said nothing.
He and his guards had been on the other side of town, roaming the streets, hunting the vigilantes, when he'd heard the news. He'd rushed back to the church, not believing it could be true. But it was. He'd found St. Anthony's aflame with searing light, too bright to look at. Crosses blazed from every window and door, the corpses of his cowboys and his get lay in a tangled pile on the front steps, and from within ... the voices of the cattle raised in hymns.
Olivia stopped her pacing and glared at him. "You allowed this to happen, didn't you, Gregor. You're trying to humiliate me, aren't you."
That did it.
"You bitch!" Gregor shouted.
He raised his fist and took a step toward her. Her guards reacted by reaching for their machetes, and Gregor's guards followed suit. As much as he wanted his hands around her throat, crushing it, twisting until her head ripped free, this was not the time or place for a pointless melee. Gregor opened his fist and stabbed a finger at Olivia.
"You conniving, self-centered bitch! Humiliate you? I'm the one whose local get has been virtually wiped out! If anyone's pride has been damaged tonight it is mine!"
"And you've nobody to blame but yourself," she snarled. "Your serfs and your get failed you, failed all of us. They deserved what they got. I see only one solution. I will have to bring in my own serfs and get to clean up your mess."
"This is what you've wanted all along, isn't it. For all I know you engineered this yourself!"
"Don't talk like a fool! I—" She stopped, held up a hand, and closed her eyes. "Wait. Wait." She opened her eyes and stared at him. "Do you see what is happening? A few of the cattle make a move against us and what do we do? We turn on each other. This is not the way."
Realizing she was right, Gregor stepped back. But he said nothing. The sting of her words remained. His get had not deserved to die.
"We have a situation," Olivia said. "One that must be kept quiet and crushed immediately. If word of what happened here tonight gets around, insurrections like this could spread like wildfire."
Gregor watched her. He didn't trust this suddenly reasonable Olivia.
"The thing to do is retake the church," he said. "Immediately."
"But we can't, Gregor. The slow attrition of your serfs to these vigilantes over the past weeks plus their wholesale slaughter tonight leaves us short of manpower. Of the ones we have left, half are ready to bolt. We'd better hope these vigilantes are so happy to have their church back that they'll stay there tomorrow, because we now have barely enough serfs to guard us during the sunlit hours. If these vigilantes should decide to put together a hunting party..."
Gregor suppressed a shudder. "They won't. They're not the vigilantes."
"You so dearly wish. Then the blame would not be on you for allowing them to roam free for so long. In fact, as I remember, you were supposed to solve the vigilante problem before this coming sunrise."
Did she have to bring that up? He'd been searching since sundown.
"It seems we've had a slight, unanticipated distraction."
She waved her hand, brushing him off. "Unlike you, I am not going to sit on my hands. I've already contacted Franco."
The word bitch rose to Gregor's lips again but he bit it back. Pointless to call names now.
"I'm sure you gave him a scrupulously evenhanded account of the night's events."
She offered him a tight smile. "Certainly. I requested a detachment of ferals and a group of tough, seasoned serfs. The plan is simple: tomorrow night they will firebomb the church and let the parishioners run out into the arms of the ferals."
Gregor had to admit it was a good plan: simple, direct. It would work.
"And what did Franco say?"
Her smile faltered. "He said he'd take it under consideration."
Gregor's mind reeled in shock. Franco is hanging me out to dry! Is this what I get for my loyalty, my efforts?
"Is he telling us to clean up our own mess?"
Olivia's eyebrows shot up. "Our mess?"
"Yes, Olivia. You were here when it happened. No matter how you spin it to Franco, he's still going to see it as our mess."