CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Christine saw it all from her hiding place behind the altar.

Already terrified, she numbly watched Jericho prepare himself for battle. She saw him lift his head, deep-set eyes scanning the chapel, his expression radiant with some strange energy. Then he did something that speared her with raw horror.

Jericho threw his weapon to the ground.

A peaceful silence settled over the chapel.

At that instant all hell erupted. The stained-glass windows exploded, pew benches flew up like toothpicks, the chandelier crashed to the floor, and boiling darkness closed in.

Christine covered her head as stone and glass pelted the trembling altar. A foul odor fumed through the chaos, flooding her throat with nausea.

Suddenly it was quiet.

Dazed, Christine slowly emerged from behind the altar. Her nausea dissolved and she felt a faint sense of exhilaration. As her eyes adjusted to the dim, dusty light, she saw Jericho’s lifeless body splayed against a pillar.

Christine glanced around the ominous darkness, then hurried to Jericho’s side. She knelt beside him, fingers hovering uncertainly above his bruised face.

“Jericho!” she moaned urgently. “Jer!”

His eyes blinked open.

“You okay?” Christine asked, breathless with relief. “What happened?”

A slow, sweet smile spread across his stony features. “It’s over,” he told her. “We won.”

Christine pulled him into her arms, holding him tight. “Thank God,” she said with hushed fervor. “Thank God.”

Jericho pulled away and got to his feet. “Let’s go,” he said softly, extending his hand. She stood up and started toward the door.

Firmly—too firmly—Jericho stopped her.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

Without answering, he started dragging her to the altar.

“Jericho!” she screamed, feet digging into the ground.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured, pulling her closer to the altar. “Everything’s how it should be…”

Christine heard something chilling in his droning voice. It wasn’t Jericho. Still struggling, she peered into his face. It had changed somehow. Shifted. The deep-set features were shadowed with depravity.

The earth dissolved as Christine realized what had happened.

“Oh God,” she rasped. “Oh no. No…”

Jericho was possessed.

Desperately struggling to resist his savage strength, Christine felt herself being dragged to the altar, inch by terrifying inch. Past the statue of St. Michael, his Sword of Faith pointed at the ruined ceiling.

Jericho’s sweating face steamed with unholy lust as he hauled her to the altar. Triumphantly, he forced her down in front of the crucifix.

“Jericho, no,” Christine pleaded. “You’ve got to fight him. Please.”

He ripped away her blouse, raw violence glazing his eyes as he pawed her pinknippled breasts. “I know you,” Christine pleaded. “You’re stronger than him … That’s why you came back for me. Don’t let him win!”

Jericho’s face came close to hers, careening between confusion and hate. Rage knotted his jaw and he squeezed Christine’s soft neck. Muscles trembling, he battled the impulse to crush her throat. In stunned horror, Christine watched his face shift and ripple as if underwater. His features stretched into an obscene leer, then began to thicken into something loathsome … something unhuman. A sickening stench came from his clammy mouth as he tried to kiss her.

Her body shuddered with revulsion and she scratched and kicked wildly. “Fight him Jericho!” she screamed. “Don’t let him win!”

For an instant the beast’s hideous face melted back to human and Christine glimpsed Jericho’s blurred features.

Abruptly Jericho wrenched back, eyes rolling madly toward the statue of St. Michael, then at Christine.

“Run!” Jericho groaned, mouth curling in an ugly grin.

Christine felt the ground drop away when Jericho’s fingers released her.

Barely aware of what was happening, Christine saw Jericho turn, stagger, and jump. Her stunned brain was unable to process what happened.

Jericho took a stumbling leap and dove headlong onto St. Michael’s marble sword—impaling himself. Oily with blood, the sword protruded obscenely from a gouging wound in his back.

Bellowing in demonic agony, he wriggled in midair like a huge insect.

Christine gaped uncomprehendingly, her emotions crashing like waves against rocks as she watched Jericho writhing in his death throes. Suddenly he went limp, arms flung back.

Sobbing, Christine staggered closer. Jericho’s head sagged to one side, eyes closed, expression almost peaceful.

His eyes clicked open. With a bestial grin, he lunged free from the sword—and grabbed her arm. As he pulled her closer, the blood gushing from his wound become an oily black ooze. Whimpering with terror, Christine saw the ragged wound begin to heal.

And an unholy hunger pulsed through her belly.

A low rumbling bubbled up from beneath the church, swelling deeper and louder until it broke in a titanic wave, shaking the walls. As the rumbling flooded the church, a colossal thunderbolt cracked her consciousness—and Christine collapsed.

Dimly, from a great distance, chimes began to ring.

Then a faint chorus of human voices floated up in a familiar chant.

“NINE … EIGHT…”

Christine felt Jericho’s weight pressing down on her. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw his glazed, demonic features.

“… SEVEN … SIX…”

His ragged chest wound had nearly healed and Christine could feel his brutal strength pouring back as he pushed between her thighs.

“… FIVE … FOUR…”

Struggling, Christine heard his breath coming in quick, exhausted gasps and looked up. Jericho’s face loomed over her, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut.

“… THREE.… TWO…”

Jericho opened his eyes and smiled.

“… ONE!”

“Arrrggghhhh,” Jericho convulsed as the life force slid from his flesh like a hand being pulled from a glove.

A foul haze misted from beneath his skin, the fumes twisting into a grotesquely bestial form. It uttered an inhuman howl as the ground shattered open, erupting with flaming claws that tore the hideous presence to screeching shreds.

The pit opened wider as the fiery claws pulled their prey down into the great, sweltering maw. In that moment Christine glimpsed the yawning horror of lost souls. And knew the sorrow of God.

Suddenly a joyous noise broke through the discordant moans boiling through the chapel. Bells rang, whistles blew, and millions of voices came together in a single wish for humanity.

“Happy New Year!”

The next thousand years had begun.…

As if a dream, the swirling chaos evaporated into total silence. Except for the cheers drifting from Times Square and the wail of a distant siren, the chapel was quiet.

But for Christine, the lifeless body beside her was no dream. It was a living nightmare. “Jer! Jer!” she whimpered urgently, pawing at his bloody flesh. “Oh God, Jer … Oh God, please, no!”

Tears streamed down her face, falling on Jericho’s cheek like salty rain.

A few glistening drops moistened his lips and his mouth moved.

Jericho’s eyes opened, then closed again.

“Happy New Year…,” he murmured weakly.

Trembling, Chrstine ripped open his blood-soaked shirt. A jagged scar slashed his skin where St. Michael’s sword had pierced his chest.

But the wound had healed.

Jericho lifted his head and looked at the scar creasing his chest. “The priest was right,” he said quietly. “It was a test of faith.”

“You would have given your life for me,” Christine whispered.

Jericho grinned. “I thought I had.”

She smiled, eyes smoldering with something deeply primal as she helped him stand. He put his arm around her and they began walking to the door.

It was then Christine saw the devastation around them: broken statues, shattered glass, splintered pews, and a thickening haze of smoke from a number of small fires. One confessional was blazing, igniting a large velvet wall hanging. And a cluster of hungry orange flames chewed at the altar.

By the time they pushed through the doors, the smoke had become a choking fog.

Outside it was New Year’s Eve and beautifully snowing.

As Jericho and Christine staggered down the steps, fire sirens and revolving lights converged on the street below. Day-Glo-clad firemen rushed up the stairs past them and disappeared into the smoke billowing from the church.

“What happened?” one of the firemen asked.

Jericho cradled Christine in his arms and glanced down the street. A few blocks away in Times Square, the roaring crowds celebrated the turn of the century.

“There was a fire,” he said tersely, walking past. “But I put it out,” Jericho added, as he and Christine stumbled into the clear, snow-cooled night—and entered a new millennium.