In the hallway, Mas pulled her ear away from the door, wincing in pain from the anguished howl. She had no idea who it was, but it surely wasn’t Eden. She’d been listening to the entire exchange through the door, but the man with Eden kept moving around the room. She had no clear idea until these last few moments exactly where he was. But now it seemed like he was finally standing still and venting his rage.
She took a breath to steady herself and silently turned the doorknob.
Devlin began circling Eden again, glaring at him and seething in anger. Eden could hear his footsteps.
“How can you not be...?” Devlin wondered aloud, still aghast at his blunder.
“I don’t understand!” Eden wailed. He was frightened and confused, and in crippling pain. “Please, leave this place!” he begged Devlin. “I have nothing for you!”
Devlin stopped before him, and responded by simply backhanding Eden across the room. The priest slammed against the wall and fell in a heap, as Mas burst into the room directly behind Devlin.
He turned to her, snarling, but she stood firm, her weapon leveled at him. After all these years, she was finally face-to-face with the Branding Killer. She was amazed how young and healthy he looked; not much over forty. He had aged incredibly well, or he started his killing spree as a young teen. She had always visualized him as an ugly man, but he was a handsome devil.
“Move away from him!” she ordered, her weapon trained on him with two steady hands.
One wrong move and she was going to drop him with a shot to the femur. Or one to each thigh, if that’s what it took. If that didn’t work, she’d kneecap him as well, but there was no way in Hell that she was going to let him walk out of the room unless she handcuffed him first. His career was over.
Devlin, however, had other plans, and waved his hand. Her weapon turned toward her own temple, completely against her will. She struggled against the invisible force with all her might, and managed to somehow turn the weapon back on him.
He waved again, more forcefully this time, and the weapon suddenly jerked of its own accord, trying to fly out of her hand. Her grip instantly tightened in reaction, and as it did her finger depressed the match-grade trigger.
The 10mm hollow-point grazed his scalp. That was all it took for the slug to tumble, and as it did it began to expand, plowing a ragged trench through the top of Devlin’s skull.
An instant later, the gun left her hand and slammed against the stone wall. The slide flew off and the pistol dropped to the floor. The clip and a dozen little pieces of the firing mechanism spilled out.
Mas watched him, breathless. Her ears were ringing from the gunshot, amplified by the dense walls and floor of the sparsely furnished room. She knew she hit him in the head, and worried that it would kill him or turn him into a vegetable. She wanted to stop him, but she wanted him alive. She waited for him to drop. But the wound simply closed up and healed before her eyes.
Devlin grinned at her and thrust his hand forward. The door behind her slammed shut. He swiped his hand once again and she went flying across the room.
Mas slammed against the wall and dropped to the floor beside Eden. She was stunned and bleeding from the impact, and for a moment she lost consciousness. Then she groaned and rolled over, struggling to sit up in a corner formed by the wall and the armoire. Eden was slumped against the wall near her, still wrapped in the bedsheet and weeping tears of blood.
Devlin came closer to them, still furious. He wasn’t nearly finished. He reached into his greatcoat and took out the crucifix dagger.
Mas was slowly regaining control over her mind and body, and was dimly aware that her life was in danger.
Devlin stood over them, but his attention was on Eden. He gripped the shaft of the crucifix and unsheathed the weapon with his other hand. Mas came fully alert, seeing the oiled dagger blade glinting in the lamplight.
“First, I’m going to deal with you!” Devlin told Eden, and pivoted the haft of the dagger as it lay in his palm. He grasped the handle and raised his clenched fist above his shoulder, preparing to stab downwards.
A faint humming began to fill the room, and swelled with each passing moment. Neither Mas nor Eden knew what it was, but Devlin did. It was his fallen angels. They had been watching over their master, anticipating the discovery and death of the returned Christ.
Mas saw Devlin raise the dagger high. “Too bad you can’t see this coming,” he was saying to Eden.
Adrenalin shot through Mas’s body as a cascade of images flashed in her mind.
She was pressed against the car window, her father’s jacket on the other side of the glass, her scream as loud as a gunshot; Fareed Younis’s swollen face was eclipsed by the two halves of his body bag being zipped closed; the dismembered nuns lay in a pool of blood before the altar; Sister Nancy’s severed head stared at her with hollow eye sockets, as Mas heard her own voice, strong and clear, telling the Captain, “The gloves come off, right here and now. So help me God.”
She was fully alert now. She was ready. So help me God.
She anchored the instep of her boot against the foot of the heavy armoire, and launched herself into the air between Devlin and Eden just as the dagger came down.
The blade plunged deep into her abdomen, entering through the birthmark on her right side, the odd two-inch-long blemish that never seemed to make any sense. Until now.
None of this had ever made sense until now.
She collapsed in Eden’s arms and dropped into his lap, her back arched over his thighs. He instinctively brought up his hands to support her weight, fumbling a bit until he was holding her by the shoulders and under her knees. Her head fell back and she stared at the ceiling in shock as blood gushed from her wound. The tip of the blade had severed her iliac artery, and life was quickly flowing out of her. Eden tilted his face down toward the woman in his arms, as if he could see her. He was already blind when she rushed into the room, but lying in his arms now he somehow knew exactly who she was. She was the young woman who told him about the massacre, who said she had come to save him.
He could feel her breathing, weak and shallow, and he could hear a soft moan escaping from her with each exhalation. Her warm blood was draining onto his lap from the wound in her right side, washing over him. He felt his own pain quenched with each pulse of her heart.
Devlin stared at them. With Eden cloaked in the bedsheet sitting against the wall, and with Mas dying in his lap, they were a perfect image of the Pieta.
He dropped the dagger and its sheath, staring at the vision. They clattered on the stone floor, forgotten, the blade’s true purpose accomplished after so long. The humming dropped away to an awful silence as the dark angels fled.
Devlin sniffed at the air, smelling her blood. His search was at an end, but it was the last thing he expected to find. This was a complete surprise to him. She was The One. All this time he had been hunting The One, while He – SHE! – had been hunting him.
Eden began to weep silent, healing tears, and they fell on Mas’s brow. She looked up at him in wonder.
“I feel...” she whispered, “I feel...”
Johnson and Francine quietly entered the room, their weapons in hand, and they stood still, not daring to breathe. Johnson knew exactly what he was witnessing and made the sign of the cross. Francine sensed that it was a blessed event and did the same, just in case. She glanced at Devlin, and instantly saw that whoever he was, he was harmless. He was standing slumped against the wall, utterly numb, staring at Mas and Eden.
Johnson thought back to his time in the library, earlier that evening, remembering the hospital report that accompanied Mas’s birth certificate. “Acadia Dupuy, a licensed midwife practitioner, presented the abandoned child to the Church orphanage... birth date uncertain... official registration date December 26, 1976...”
He gazed at the woman who lay dying in Eden’s arms. Born of a virgin, he thought, and you didn’t answer me: Do you believe in God?
He remembered toying with her name in the adoption certificate file on the library computer, deleting “INE” and the space between her first and last name, so that a click of his mouse formed one revealing word: Christmas.
Johnson began to weep silently, but he was finally at peace. He could see the badge on her belt, and it reminded him of his list of Bible code clues. He refrained that evening from dwelling on the last two items, but his leap of faith was complete now. He had landed on solid ground; now he could let himself fully believe.
3553. Mas’s license plate. “Mystery of God, source of eternal salvation.”
1184. Mas’s badge. “After His resurrection, He comes back in a different form.”
Johnson’s shoulders were heaving as he crossed himself and whispered a prayer, over and over again. Francine stepped back and tried to make a call, but she couldn’t get a signal through the thick stone walls.
“I’m going downstairs to use the land line,” she whispered to him, and he nodded, his eyes locked on Mas. She took a hard look at the man against the wall, but he was in no shape to do much of anything but stare at Mas just like Johnson was. Besides, Johnson knew he was there, and she had to call for a medevac. Francine slipped out the door.
Mas was breathing quietly in Eden’s lap. Something wondrous was happening to her.
She gazed at the palms of her bloody hands. The stigmata had appeared, the wounds from the Crucifixion. There were holes in the top of her boots as well. Blood was oozing from them. Her birthmark made sense to her now. It all fit together seamlessly now, and she remembered everything as if it were only yesterday...
Offering herself to the Pharisees and the angry, jeering crowds; the steel-tipped lashes from the Roman soldiers and the weight of the cross; the long walk to Calvary; the mallet and the nails; Mother Mary keeping vigil; the soldier’s lance; feeling empty and forsaken, finally crying out in despair; the thunder and lightning; a break in the clouds, and at long last, speaking to God the Father in Heaven.
“It is finished.”
Mas closed her eyes, and died.
Eden opened his eyes and gazed down at Mas lying in his arms. He could see again. Johnson dropped to his knees, his hands folded in prayer and his head bent low.
Devlin was wandering the room, astounded to discover that his head wound had returned and blood was pouring from it. He stared at his bloody hand, but it was still utterly incomprehensible to him.
“I’m bleeding? ” he gasped, and looked around at the stone walls in mounting horror as the implications sunk in.
Humans bleed.
He stumbled around the room, mystified by his surroundings and holding his head. “What is this place? Where am I?”
There was no response. He stopped before the mirror and stared at his image. It was utterly unfamiliar to him.
“Who am I?” he whispered, but no answer came.
“Oh, God...!” he wailed in despair, but his plea went unheeded. Utterly bewildered, he looked at the others, gathered together in a state of grace, but the light that entered their lives was unavailable to him. He stood alone in darkness.
Johnson finally realized that he was weeping from both eyes, and pinched out his contact lens. He could see clearly now, and gazed at Eden, who was rapidly blinking the blood out of his own eyes. They smiled at each other and looked down at Mas’s body, still gently cradled in Eden’s arms.
They suddenly sensed a warm new presence, and knew it wasn’t coming from Devlin. They looked up and saw to their utter astonishment that Michael the Archangel was standing beside them. They were transfixed at the sight, but they weren’t afraid.
Michael took Mas’s body in his arms and turned to face Devlin, who was trembling in mortal fear. A radiance from above filled the room with golden light and Devlin heard a clear, gentle voice reverberating in his head.
“They are all my children, Lucifer. Any one of them is capable of what she has done. That is the lesson you were too proud to learn.”
Devlin looked around wildly for the source of the Voice. It was nowhere to be found, and yet it was everywhere at once.
“No!” he cried in despair, but the Voice was gone. He was on his own now.
The radiance streamed down into Michael and Mas, filling them with an inner light. Johnson and Eden watched in wide-eyed wonder, but Devlin threw his hands up over his eyes, sure that he would go blind. The light swelled and filled the entire room, and then drew up through the ceiling, taking Michael and Mas to be with the Father.
Slowly, the room returned to normal. Johnson and Eden bowed their heads and made the sign of the cross.
Devlin lurched through the door and into the hallway, clutching his wound and moaning piteously, but no one was listening to him. For the first time in his long existence, he was of no importance. He was utterly alone.
Devlin stumbled out of the kitchen door below Eden’s window, wailing in agony, a bloody hand to his head. Behind him in the kitchen, the terrified missionaries watched him go while Lomani raced up the stairs.
Devlin wandered into the darkness as a stream of silver dust swept into the night sky above him.
Isaac La Croix was sitting at the wheel of his G550, parked on the lawn by the other vehicles. He was thankful that someone had finally widened the donkey path, because he didn’t want to wait until dawn to get up here. He was watching a silvery glimmer rise from the Citadel and stream into the clear, moonlit sky. It hung like stardust in the cold night air over the Citadel. He had no idea exactly what it was, but surely it was a miracle, and La Croix made the sign of the cross.
Lomani came out the kitchen door with something cradled in his hands. The glowing sky above caught his attention, and he craned his neck up to see what it was as he approached La Croix’s vehicle. He slowed his pace, looking up to the sky. It was so clear that he could see the Milky Way, and yet something delicate was falling on him, like ashes. Perhaps there was a wildfire, he thought. But no, it was cold, whatever it was. Cold and wet.
He suddenly stood still, awestruck, as he realized what was happening. It was impossible, but there it was. La Croix stepped out of his Mercedes to better witness the miraculous event.
Fat, lazy snowflakes drifted down all around them and clung to the warm ground, refusing to melt away.
The Rosicrucian and the bishop exchanged delighted smiles, and stood side by side, enjoying the snow flurry.
Lomani sighed in wonderment, and handed La Croix the crucifix dagger. Their eyes met, snowflakes on their lashes. Nothing needed to be said.
La Croix simply nodded his head in thanks, and extended his right hand. Lomani grasped his hand in thanks, and then bent his head and kissed La Croix’s gold Rosicrucian ring.
La Croix got back in his vehicle, started the engine, and drove away. He didn’t turn on his headlights; the full moon illuminated the way, but he did turn on his wipers to clear away the Haitian snowstorm.
Bishop Lomani watched him go, and then walked over to Francine’s SUV. She was standing by her Jeep, staring wide-eyed at the miracle drifting down from the clear night sky. The Haitian suspect was still handcuffed to her front bumper. He was on his knees praying, marveling at the snow and catching what he could on his tongue, savoring its clean taste. It was all entirely real. Every bit of it.
Lomani smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then she brushed away a tear and dug a small key out of her pocket.
She knelt down by the front bumper and unlocked the handcuffs, freeing the Haitian man. He stayed on his knees and hugged Lomani’s legs in repentance and thanks. Lomani placed a tender hand on his head and blessed him as the snow continued to fall all around them.