Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
Cleveland, Ohio
11:30 p.m., Dec. 24
“No!” Lester screamed. “It’s too soon!”
Dana rolled to the side as the heavens tore apart above her. She scrambled up again, closer to Lester, forcing her full attention on him as the Possessed roared around her. She saw his body go rigid, his eyes wild, and she forced herself to ignore the melee around her.
Time seemed to stop. All she needed to do was focus on Lester, on getting her mother safe. The list didn’t matter. The Possessed didn’t matter. All that mattered was the woman in front of her, paralyzed with fear. A human. In that moment, all humans, held against their will by forces that would seek to control and punish them simply for being what they were.
No.
“Lester,” Dana called, her voice sharp, demanding. “I’m here. Let Mom go.”
“No,” Lester turned on Dana and his face was contorted in rage. “The list is consecrated for the sword of God alone, and I have chosen Bartholomew to wield it as his sword. It must be him. You see what’s around us! No servants of Satan must claim it for their own.”
“So we’ll give it to him,” Dana said, edging closer, her voice pitched to calm him. “We’ll give him the list, and you’ll let your sister go. Can you promise me that?”
He watched her, his eyes going crafty. “He’ll make me a general of the new army,” he said, and Dana nodded.
“Absolutely. You’re giving him what they want, what you prepared me for all these years.”
“You understand.” Lester’s eyes burned with a fever, and she looked into them, seeing the madness that was kept barely at bay by the man’s overriding passion. He believed, truly believed that he would lead the Dawn Children to save humanity. Nothing was more important than that, and Dana swallowed. Religious zealotry was perhaps the strongest motivator of all.
“I understand,” Dana said. She took another step toward him. “So you can let your sister go.”
“Not yet!” Lester howled, looking skyward again, but for only a moment, not giving Dana time to spring. Claire was dangerously close to the precipice and looked on the verge of swooning. “When the gates of heaven open at midnight, Bartholomew will have the power to summon his army to him. An army he alone can lead. And then—only then will I give him the Children to fight by his side.”
“And how will that work, exactly?” Dana asked. “You’ve got a chip reader up here or something?”
“You will see. You all will see.”
Lester had started rocking, even with Claire in his grip, and Dana sucked in a breath. “I guess we’ll see, then,” she muttered.
Lester’s eyes swept the carnage behind them, and his chin came up, his eyes wide. “It’s time,” he said softly.
The mist around the church turned to fire.
The newest thunderclap that came from the heavens was so strong that Dana was dropped flat on the rooftop, the noise rattling her bones. Lester remained frozen, seeming not to hear it. The battle around her intensified, but as she tried to make sense of the chaos, she knew something was different. Smoke billowed out all around them, and an unmistakable heat was building in the air. But heat from what?
None of the others seemed to notice, and Dana swallowed, even as Lester’s smile grew beatific, his gun hand starting to quiver against Claire’s temple.
“The time has come, as Bartholomew promised. God will hear his cry, and you’ll be forged in the fires of his Holy War!” Lester declared, and the wind roared even higher, as if goaded by his words.
Dana stumbled forward toward the edge of the roof and looked down. Surrounding the church, below the thin layer of streets and cars and people, lurked a pit of molten fire that apparently, no one else could see. It roiled below an increasingly busier street as a few people who, Good Catholics that they were, escaped the church before the mass was well and truly complete. They bustled to their cars, clearly unaware, but there was no mistaking the fiery pit beneath them. She felt its pull, drawing her down.
This was where she would be forged as a weapon, Lester said. A place of fire and desolation. Was that what her future held? All her tomorrows? Could God really be so cruel?
But what was her alternative? To lie down before Bartholomew and let him strike her—strike them all—dead?
She swung her head back, her gaze skittering wildly over the roaring Possessed that chanted around Finn and Bartholemew, apparently locked in, well, immortal combat.
She couldn’t let Bartholomew win. Hers was one life, but within her, she held fifteen hundred souls. They knew only a hundred names so far, but Max would find more. He’d know what to do. Maybe Finn could help too. She thought he would, for her.
But she couldn’t risk Bartholomew—or anyone—taking this list from her to do with it what they would. The Dawn Children deserved to be more than fodder for Bartholomew and his Possessed, and they deserved more than what the Society of Orion had in store for them. They deserved a chance, no matter the cost.
“Lester, you’re right. It’s time,” Dana said, forcing a smile to her face as she moved toward him. “I can hear God’s call.”
“You can?” Lester gasped, whirling around. “I will be a general in his army. And you will be his sword!”
“That’s right,” she said, stepping toward him. “I can see Him, his fiery angels, ready to reclaim his creation. There!” She lifted a hand, pointing, and Lester turned excitedly.
Dana bounded forward the last few steps, her arm swinging in a roundhouse that connected with the side of her uncle’s skull. He went reeling in one direction, while she threw Claire down to another, her mother now passed out cold.
The list was still inside her, though. The list that needed to be kept from Bartholomew and his demon horde above all else.
The bells of Christmas began to ring, and Dana leapt toward the edge of the roof.