Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
Cleveland, Ohio
11:00 p.m., Dec. 24
Finn pulled the key out of his pocket, forcing his hand to steady as he pushed it into the lock. Every step away from Dana had been excruciating, every step toward the cathedral maddening. But he had gotten here in time.
He fell into the corridor, his entry scattering a small group of white-gowned children. “I need Father Franks,” he managed, pulling himself up. He couldn’t help their fright at his appearance. The aura around the church had intensified, as it did on any major holy day. But this was no ordinary holy day. If the archangel was to be believed, a portal straight to heaven would open up at the apex of Christmas Eve, a mere hour away.
“Finn.” In full vestments, Father Franks stepped toward him, then looked hard at the children surrounding them. “Tell Father Andrews that I’m dealing with a matter of church business, Jamie. I won’t be in line with you all.”
“But the bishop is here!” the boy said, his eyes round. He couldn’t be more than ten years old, his shock at the priest’s change in plans written in his red-flushed cheeks.
“The bishop will understand most of all, Jamie,” Father Franks said with a smile that had the boy nodding. “So move along and let him know, then get yourself in line.”
“Yes, Father,” the boy said, turning away at a run.
Franks gestured Finn up the corridor. “Three hundred and sixty-five days in a year and you have to choose this one for your showdown,” he muttered, and despite himself, Finn laughed. Franks passed him, then led him to a small corridor off the main area, turning a key inside the lock. As if recalling himself, he peered up at Finn as he let him in the room.
“If Dana gave you the key to the church, she knows you’re here, I take it?”
Finn moved inside, peering around the small room. “She doesn’t know I’m here. She doesn’t know where I am.” He turned and stared at Franks. “It has to stay that way, for her sake.”
“Where is she?” Franks asked sharply. “Bartholomew can’t be following her, can he?”
“No,” Finn said. “I left her specific instructions to stay where she was—Flannery’s Pub. She’ll be safe there, no matter what may befall me.”
“You’re not going back to her,” Father Franks said.
“No. What’s coming will come, but it isn’t my battle, no matter how much I want it to be.” His heart ached with the admission.
“‘And I will make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.’” Father Franks said quietly. “What will you do?” Finn shook his head, glaring at him, and Franks pressed him. “What does your heart cry out for you to do?”
“Emotion is a human failing, Father,” Finn said. “Your race has ever condemned itself by acting out of passion and pride, not logic.”
“Yet we’re still here, toiling along after all these thousands of years,” Franks said, unperturbed. “You can’t discount that we’re trying to right our many wrongs.”
Finn sighed, sensing the waves of quiet pain rolling off the priest now more than ever, as if Christmas Eve merely magnified the priest’s suffering. “Father,” he said, not unkindly. “How long has it been since you lost hope?”
Franks stiffened beside him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he retorted, and Finn shook his head.
“Yes, you do. You couldn’t speak with such compassion to your flock unless you knew the depths of their doubt, fighting against it yourself. You couldn’t hold Dana so closely in your heart. You couldn’t have been a friend to Walter and rested easily with the paradox that Dana’s very existence brought into your life. Even I—especially I—do not fit within your worldview.”
He waited, knowing the many paths the priest could take. But Father Franks was first and foremost a man of truth. “Walter was a shining light in the darkness. A gift of angels. You would have seen it were he alive today. He was my friend. Dana, by her nature, was darker, quieter.” He laughed, his eyes widening. “And so she should have been, given her biological parents’ gift of heritage to her.”
“Walter knew?”
“A little,” Franks said. “Enough. But Walter… If any man was sent from God, he was it. When he died so senselessly, so stupidly, I told my congregation that God had readied heaven to take him early. But I couldn’t believe that. God wouldn’t have left us so bereft, not when the need was so great.”
“Fifteen years is a long time to harbor doubt and continue your service to the church.”
“My service grew more sharply defined after that,” Franks said. “Administrative work, caretaking of the cathedral.”
“Exorcisms.”
Franks looked at his large, worn hands, calloused and creased from a lifetime of service to his fellow man. “I seemed to retain the capacity for that, which should have given me solace.” His lips twisted. “It didn’t.”
He turned to Finn, but as Finn looked up, Franks blanched and took a step back.
It had started, apparently. Though Franks was a devout man, he couldn’t have expected the change in Finn. Angels in heaven were different from what people thought they were, Fallen included, when they were close enough to the sacred realm. There was a reason for all that white light people reported in their near-death experiences.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Finn said as Franks struggled to adjust to the change in his eyes, his skin. “There’s a portal opening at midnight, and I—for the moment—am a Fallen. To be this close, that I might reach out and touch the hand of God…” He shook his head, smiling grimly. “As a Fallen, I change.”
“Then I will pray for you and stand with you, Finn. Now and ever.”
“I…thank you.” Finn swallowed. Humans never ceased to amaze him, and once again he was laid low by their spirit, their generosity of nature. Their innate desire to save, not squander, the gift that had been given to them.
They turned as lights flashed into the parking lot, raking across the room. Finn felt his heart surge, the proximity of the portal opening making him hyperaware of one other of his kind drawing near. He growled deep in his throat, and Franks moved to him. “Bartholomew is here,” he said. “I don’t expect him to be alone.”
Franks stiffened. “He would bring his Possessed to a house of God on Christmas Eve?”
“There’s no end to what he would do,” Finn said. “Where is there access to the roof?”
“Up the hallway, there’s a door to the parking lot. It’ll be locked—” Finn’s look cut him off. “Then that’s the way he’ll get up there. There’s no external fire escape.”
“Then that’s where I’ll be. Bartholomew will likely send men up before and after him. If I can get to him in the stairwell, stop him from whatever he is seeking to do…it will be enough.” He looked at the priest. “You have a choice here as well. I’m not sure what good you can do following me, but you have a huge congregation to protect in the main part of the church.”
“Should I get them evacuated?” Franks said.
“There’s no need,” he said. “No harm will befall them from what happens tonight, not directly. Whatever is done will be undone to the eyes of mortals.” He gave Franks a lopsided smile. “And who knows, perhaps their prayers will help.”
“Then I’ll make sure none of them come into this building.” Franks held up his keys. “That, at least, I can do.”
They headed out, parting outside Franks’s study. Finn waited until the priest strode out of sight before he turned, slipping like a wraith toward the back of the building.
He would wait in the shadows for Bartholomew to arrive…then the Fallen would be his.