F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (43 page)

           
 
To call this thing a waterspout was to call
Mount Rushmore
a piece of sculpture.

           
 
And it was coming here, zeroed in on this
spot.

           
 
Dan spun around, looking for a place to hide,
but saw none. The car—no . . . too vulnerable. The door in the hemi-dome—it had
to lead below, to safety.

           
 
He ran to it, pulling Carrie with him, and
tugged on the handle. The handle wouldn't turn, the door wouldn't budge. Kesev
stood back, strangely detached as he watched death's irresistible approach.

           
 
"Locked!" Dan shouted, and began
pounding and kicking at the unyielding surface. "Let us in, damn you! Open
up!"

           
 
And all around him the roaring of the
approaching waterspout grew to a deafening crescendo.

           
 
This is it, he thought. We're going to die
right here. In a few minutes it'll all be over. But God, I'm not ready to go
yet!

           
 
And then Carrie laid a hand on his shoulder,
reached past him and turned the knob.

           
 
The door swung open.

           
 
Dan swallowed his shock—he had no time to
wonder how the door had become unlocked—and propelled Carrie through ahead of
him. Kesev followed at a more leisurely pace, closing the door behind him.

           
 
Stairs ahead, leading downward toward light.
Dan went to squeeze past Carrie but she'd already begun her descent.

           
 
He followed her down the curved stairway into
a huge, luxuriously furnished room. His hope of surviving this storm rose as he
saw that it was carved out of the living rock of the cliff itself, and then
that hope was dashed when he saw the huge glass front overhanging the ocean.
The monstrous waterspout was out there, still headed directly for them, and no
glass on earth would stop that thing.

           
 
He noticed two—no, three—other people in the
room: a new face, unconscious in a hospital bed, the man who had shot Carrie,
and . . . Senator Arthur Crenshaw. The killer and the senator stood transfixed
before the onrushing doom.

           
 
And supine beside the bed . . . the Virgin.

           
 
Carrie must have spotted her, too, for she
began moving toward the body . . .

           
 
Just as the windows exploded.

           
 
With a deafening crash every pane shattered
into countless tiny daggers. Dan leaped upon Carrie to shield her— she was
already dead, he remembered as he pushed her to the floor and covered her, yet
his instincts still propelled him to protect her. Instead of slashing everyone
and everything in the room to ribbons, the glass shards blew outward, sucked
into the swirl of the storm outside.

           
 
A thundering roar filled the room as warm sea
water splashed against his back, soaking him. Dan squeezed his eyes shut,
encircled Carrie with his arms, and held her cold body tight against him . . .
one last embrace . . .

           
 
Any
second now . . .

           
 
But nothing happened. The water continued to
splatter him but the roar of the waterspout remained level. Dan lifted his head
and risked a peek.

           
 
It had backed off to a quarter mile or so, but
still it was out there in the mist, dominating the panoramic view, lit by
flashes within and around it, swirling, twisting, a thousand yards wide,
snaking from the sea to the sky, but moving no closer.

           
 
Dan rose and studied it. For no reason he
could explain, it occurred to Dan that it seemed to be ... waiting.

           
 
Ahead of him, the senator and the murderer
were struggling to their feet and staring at it through the empty window
frames.

           
 
"What
is
that?" Senator Crenshaw cried.

           
 
"Not 'what,'" Carrie said as she
rose to her feet behind Dan.
"Who"

           
 
The senator turned and stared at her a moment.
He seemed about to ask her who
she
was,
then decided that wasn't important now.

           
 
" 'Who?'" He glanced back at the
looming tower. "All right, then . . .
who
is it?"

           
 
"It's Him," Carrie said, beaming.
She pointed to the Virgin. "He's come for His Mother."

           
 
The senator glanced at the Virgin, gasped, and
gripped the edge of the hospital bed for support. Dan looked to see what was
wrong.

           
 
The Virgin was changing.

           
 
The sea water from the spout that had soaked
into her robes, into her skin and hair, was having a rejuvenating effect. The
blue of the fabric deepened, her hair darkened and thickened, and her face . .
. the cheeks were filling out, the wrinkles fading as color surged into her
skin.

           
 
The murderer cringed back and murmured
something in Spanish as the senator leaned more heavily against the bed. Carrie
moved closer and dropped to her knees. Dan glanced to his right and saw that
Kesev, even the imperturbable Kesev, was gaping in awe.

           
 
And then the Virgin moved.

           
 
Moving so smoothly it seemed like a single
motion, she sat up, then stood and faced them.

           
 
Dan saw Kesev drop to his knees not far from
Carrie, but Dan remained standing, too overwhelmed to move.

           
 
She was small framed, almost petite. Olive
skin, deep, dark hair, Semitic features, not attractive by Dan's tastes, but he
sensed an inner beauty, and there was no denying the strength that radiated
from her sharp brown eyes.

           
 
And those eyes were moving, finally fixing on
Carrie, kneeling before her. Smiling like a mother gazing upon a beloved child,
she reached out and touched Carrie's head.

           
 
"Dear one," the Virgin said softly.
Her voice was gentle, soothing. "We're almost through here."

           
 
Her smile faded as she turned to Senator
Crenshaw.

           
 
"Arthur," she said. "The prayermaker."

           
 
Crenshaw held her gaze, but with obvious
difficulty.

           
 
"Emilio," she said, frowning at the
murderer. "The killer."

           
 
He turned away.

           
 
Then it was Dan's turn.

           
 
A tiny smile curved her lips as she trapped
his eyes with her own.

           
 
"Daniel. The hunger-feeder."

           
 
Dan felt lifted, exalted. He sensed her
approval and basked in it.

           
 
Finally she turned away and Dan felt the
breath rush out of him. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it. She could have
called him vow-breaker, fornicator, doubter . . . so many things. But
hunger-feeder . . . he'd take that any day.

           
 
Her expression was neutral as she faced Kesev.

           
 
"So, Iscariot . . . you broke another
trust."

           
 
Iscariot!
Dan's mind reeled. No . . . it couldn't be!

           
 
"Mother, events conspired against me. I
beg your forgiveness."

           
 
"It is not my place to forgive."

           
 
"Perhaps it is
I
who should forgive!" Iscariot said, rising to his feet.
"Once again I have been used!
Used!"

           
 
"You are not alone in that," the
Virgin said pointedly.

           
 
Iscariot's head snapped back, as if he been
struck, but he recovered quickly.

           
 
"Perhaps not. But it is I who have been
reviled throughout the Christian Era. And yet without me, there would
be
no Christian Era—no crucifixion, no
resurrection."

           
 
"You wish to be celebrated for betraying
Him?"

           
 
"No. Just understood. I believed in Him
more than the others—I was led to believe He was divine. I thought He would
destroy the Romans—all of them—as soon as they dared to lay a hand on Him. But
he didn't! He allowed them to torture and kill him!
I
was the one who was betrayed!

           
 
And I've spent nearly two thousand years
paying for it, most of them alone, all of them miserable. Haven't I suffered
enough?"

           
 
Her expression softened into sympathy. "I
decide nothing, Judas. You know that."

           
 
Judas Iscariot! Of course! It all fit.

           
 
The scroll's author had mentioned being
educated as a Pharisee, and of being an anti-Roman assassin, using a knife—they
were called
iscarii.
Judas Iscariot
had been all those things. And
Kesev
was
Hebrew for . . .
silver!

           
 
"But you hung yourself!" Dan
blurted.

           
 
The man he'd known as Kesev looked at him and
nodded slowly. "Yes. Many times. But I was not allowed to die."

           
 
"W-why are you here?" Crenshaw said.

           
 
The Virgin turned to him and pointed to
Emilio.

           
 
"Because you told him to bring me
here."

           
 
"Yes-yes," Crenshaw said quickly,
"and I'm terribly sorry about that. Grievously sorry." He pointed at
the waterspout still roaring outside the empty window frames. "But why is
He here?"

           
 
Again the Virgin pointed to Emilio.

           
 
"Because you told him to bring me
here."

           
 
"No!"
Emilio screamed. He had a pistol—no silencer this time—and was holding it
in a two-handed grip. The wavering barrel was pointed at the Virgin. A wild
look filled his eyes; he crouched like a cornered animal as he let loose a
rapid-fire stream of Spanish that Dan had difficulty following. Something about
all this being a
treta,
a trick, and
he'd show them all.

           
 
Then he began pulling the trigger and firing
at the Virgin.

           
 
The reports sounded sharp and rather pitiful
against the towering roar from outside. Dan didn't know where the bullets went.
Emilio was firing madly, the empty brass casings flying through the air and
bouncing along the floor, but the Virgin didn't even flinch. No holes appeared
in her robes, and Dan saw no breakage in the area behind her. The bullets just
seemed to disappear after they left the muzzle.

           
 
Finally the hammer clinked on an empty
chamber. Emilio lowered the pistol and stood staring at his untouched target.
With a a feral whine he cocked his arm to throw it at her.

           
 
That was when the light went out.

           
 
Not the electricity—the light. An instant
blackness, darker than a tomb, darker than the back end of a cave in the
deepest crevasse of the
Marianas Trench
. Such an absolute absence of light that for an instant Dan panicked,
unsure of up or down.