The Six Messiahs

chapter 16

When Frank mentioned the stolen rifles, Kanazuchi told him about the machine guns and it occurred to both of them that the warehouse would be a good place to start. A wind had come up, swirling dust, thickening the air. Bells were still ringing in the church tower, and as they slowly crept back toward the main street, small patrols of white shirts occasionally ran by carrying torches and weapons, heading for the center of town.

A red glow lit up the sky above that area, and they realized a fire had started to burn.

"Looks like the theater," said Frank, seeing white shirts pouring out into the street. "Eileen's in there."

"She will move away."

"To where? It spreads to those shanties, the whole town'll go up like kindling." Jacob missing, Eileen on the loose; shit, his whole plan was collapsing. Frank looked over and saw Kanazuchi studying him. "What?"

"May I offer words of advice?"

"I guess we know each other well enough."

"Events move in a flow. Picture water in a stream."

"Okay." What the hell was this, a lecture on nature appreciation?

"More water means greater force. Harder to resist."

"Like a current."

"Like a flood. Takes away everything in its path. Now; here: We are in the flood."

Frank saw a massive number of armed men assembling near the House of Hope—the same militia outfit he'd seen running around in the dark last night. He could make out Cornelius Moncrief striding around waving a rifle and shouting orders.

"So once you got your feet wet, it's better to jump in, is what you're saying," said Frank.

"Once started, it is better not to worry. The river will carry you. Trust in a positive outcome."

"Okay."

Over Kanazuchi's shoulder, Frank caught a glimpse of a white shirt sneaking up the alley behind them. Frank stood casually and swung the butt of his rifle like a baseball bat around the corner, smashing the man against the wall. He fell and lay still.

"Damn; it's working already," said Frank.

No more waiting for the right moment to cross; Main Street was crowded now. White shirts heading for the church at the end of town; a hundred torches burned there already, lighting up its dark face. The brigade of militia marched down the street toward their position, platoons peeling off to search every side street.

Searching for us, both men realized.

They lowered their weapons, waited for a rush of shirts to congest the street, then walked calmly across through the mix. No one took a run at them; the militia was still a quarter mile away and the eyes of the people passing were all focused on the church.

Reaching the alley, they broke into a run; Kanazuchi drew his sword as he took the lead. At the next intersection, a white shirt patrol turned the corner ahead of them; Kanazuchi ran right through the four men, the sword in his hands a blur, and before any of them could fire a shot, parts of three bodies hit the ground. Frank killed the fourth man with a single shot. He saw a severed hand still holding on to the torch.

Lights and activity ahead: the warehouse. A long line of white shirts crowded its broad front entrance, black shirts inside at a stack of crates, passing out a rifle and a box of bullets to each man that passed. Frank followed Kanazuchi to the rear door and they entered the warehouse.

White shirts swarmed over the interior; a chain of them relaying crates forward to the distribution area. Taking cover at the rear, ahead to their right they saw teams of men in black loading the machine guns onto the back of caissons; two of the four guns already being wheeled toward the front.

"Gatling guns," said Frank. "Shit. You weren't kidding."

"This is bad."

"Bad don't quite cover it."

"Can you work one of these guns?" asked Kanazuchi.

"Yup."

As they turned to go, two guards in black came through the door, pistols drawn; they reacted quickly, raising the guns to fire. Kanazuchi rolled to the floor and as he came to his knees the long knife flew between them and pinned one guard's forearm to the door. His finger pulled the trigger before the gun dropped; the bullet shot harmlessly into the ceiling. Kanazuchi killed him with the Grass Cutter before he could scream.

The second man had the drop on Frank; no time to raise the Henry, Frank spanked out his Colt and fired. The man went down but his single shot creased Frank's face, skidding across his cheek, chipping the bone. Blood slipped from the wound in freshets; pain seared his nerves. Frank raised a hand to it and realized the damage was slight.

But at the sharp report of the guns, all work in the warehouse stopped, a hundred eyes searching for the source. Kanazuchi yanked the wakizashi from the dead guard's arm and they ran out of the warehouse, crossed the open plaza, and sprinted down an alley. Saw torches coming toward them from Main Street and veered right. Flames ignited the sky ahead; deep shades of orange and red, the fire spreading. Behind them men from the warehouse spilled down the side streets, the search intensifying.

Frank stumbled trying to keep pace with Kanazuchi; he had the night vision of a cat. Fifty steps ahead, Kanazuchi pushed him into a cramped chicken coop, hens scattering. Frank gasped for air; Kanazuchi closed his eyes, breathed deeply, drew his energy inward, and listened. One group rushed by outside, shouting to another. A minute later, a second group passed them, heading in the other direction.

The roar and crackle of the fire advanced on them; distant screams twisted in the wind, crashes as a ruined building came down. Clusters of ash drifted, black snowflakes. A dim red glow lit the coop's interior; Frank could just make out the hard line of Kanazuchi's face, staring out at the night. Out of habit, Frank reloaded the Colt. He looked up at another sound, shocking, completely unexpected.

Children singing. A chorus of voices.

"What the hell..." whispered Frank.

Kanazuchi instantly alert. "Come."

They left the hiding place and followed the voices down the alley to the next street; ahead of them, marching together, herded by white shirts ringed around them, at least a hundred children, the ones Kanazuchi had seen in the holding pen, singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm." A few of the small ones crying, frightened; most of them skipping along, strings of them holding hands, laughing happily.

"Only kids I've seen here," said Frank.

For the first time, Frank saw anger in Kanazuchi's eyes.

"What are they doing?" asked Frank.

"Taking them to the church. They are all going to the church."

Miles before they reached the town, they saw the fire. The blistering pace Jack set in the lead spread them out over a quarter of a mile, but as he drew within sight of the guardhouse and gate, he slowed and waited for Walks Alone to catch him. Off to their right, strangled formations of rock glowed in the moonlight.

As she drew alongside, Jack whispered, "Three men."

"To the right," she said.

Jack nodded.

Doyle and the others still lagged a half mile behind. Jack and Walks Alone skirted the gate and rode on until the rocks were behind them, then doubled back, tied the horses near the entrance to a narrow passage, and entered on foot, drawing their knives.

In a clearing at the center of the formation, they found three horses and the cold remains of a campfire. Using gestures to communicate, they split up and stalked silently toward two openings at the guardhouse end of the clearing. Jack scaled a high rock to survey while Walks Alone waited below for direction.

Three men wearing loose black clothes stationed across a hundred-yard stretch at the edge of the rocks. Sniper rifles in hand. One held a pair of field glasses, watching Doyle and the others arrive at the guardhouse. Jack pointed Walks Alone toward the one to the left, jumped down softly, and moved in on the man in the middle.

Walks Alone tossed a handful of pebbles against the rocks to the man's left. As he turned, she ran in from the right and slashed his throat with one downward stroke of her knife. The man slammed her back against the rocks with a powerful blow, raised a hand to his throat, and realized the artery had been cut. Calmly pressing one hand to the spurting wound, he pulled his pistol with the other. She ducked under his arm before he could fire, plunged the blade in below the center of his ribs and ripped upward. Letting go of the handle, she covered the man's mouth with one hand and wrestled the gun from him with the other. He sank slowly to the dirt and died.

The guard in the middle heard faint sounds of the scuffle to his left, then something scraped the rocks behind him; all he saw was a deadly descending shadow.

Walks Alone joined Jack at the center position; together they approached the third guard. All they found was a pile of cigarette butts in the sand. Both sprinted back to the clearing; the guard was already on his horse, riding toward the passage. Walks Alone threw her knife; it clattered off the rock near the man's head.

They ran after him, losing ground; by the time they reached their horses, the black shirt was back on the road, riding low, heading for The New City. Jack pulled his rifle from the saddle, ran forward, steadied the barrel against a rock, and drew a bead on the disappearing figure.

Doyle and the other men were examining the telegraph key in the guardhouse when they heard two rifle shots crack the night. They ran out to the road; Jack and Walks Alone galloped toward them out of the darkness.

"After us," shouted Jack. "One of them got away."

Both of them covered in blood.

Jack and Walks Alone wheeled and took off down the road.

"Jack's back," said Doyle.

"I couldn't help but notice," answered Innes.

"Lionel," said Doyle, "perhaps you ought to wait here.... "

"By myself?" said Lionel, launching himself into the sad-die like a veteran. "Are you crazy? Let's ride."

They followed Jack's hell-bent pace. The sky grew red; the violent bouncing of the saddles blurred their vision, giving the horizon a shimmering miragelike surreality, until The New City itself finally came into view; the entire southern half of the town was engulfed in fire, wind gusts fanning sheets of flame to towering heights. On the north side of Main Street, most of the buildings remained intact.

They heard church bells ringing, and at the far end of that street, for the first time they saw the black tower stark against the sky, lit up by the inferno, marbled in a dozen hues of swirling red reflections. A sea of torches swarmed around its base above an undulating mass of white that they realized was a crowd of people.

A second gate blocked the road in a fence that ringed the settlement; Jack and Walks Alone steadied their horses' strides on approach and cleared it with a jump. Two black-shirted guards jumped out of the guardhouse and took aim at their backs. Presto and Innes quickly dismounted and cut the guards down with a volley before they could shoot.

"This is it!" shouted Innes, running forward, opening the gate while Presto covered him.

"Leave the horses here," said Doyle, climbing down.

"But they've already gone on," said Lionel, pointing to Main Street where Jack and Walks Alone had ridden from view.

"We'll need a way back out," said Doyle, ending the discussion. "Tie them here."

They secured the horses to the gate and armed themselves.

"Lionel," said Doyle, "why don't you wait for us here as well...."

"No, goddammit," said Lionel, cocking his Winchester as he'd seen the others do. "Stop treating me as if I'm some sort of inconvenience. It's my father who's in here somewhere, and I've a better right than anyone to be—"

A bullet whistled, knocking off his hat; Innes yanked Lionel to the ground, and the four scrambled to cover behind the guardhouse as another shot kicked off the gate.

"I do apologize," said Doyle to Lionel, who was nervously fingering the hole in his hat.

Halfway down Main Street, Jack and Walks Alone stopped in front of a large adobe house; the fire burning too intensely to risk taking the horses in any farther. They grabbed their rifles, turned the horses around, and spanked them back in the direction of the gate.

At the far end of the street through a thick haze of smoke and dust, they could see a column of people in white shirts moving toward the black church, where a large crowd moved slowly and steadily through its doors.

"There," said Jack, pointing toward the church. "That's where we're supposed to go, isn't it?"

Walks Alone nodded. They moved.

A patrol of white shirts came out of an alley; Jack calmly pulled his pistol and fired four times. As they stepped over the bodies, another figure stumbled toward them out of the darkness. Walks Alone raised the shotgun in her hand to fire, but Jack pushed the barrel aside.

A woman. Wearing a white low-cut gown with an Empire waist, a paste tiara fastened to her thick black hair. Face blackened with soot, dress shredded, arms raised in desperation.

"Help me, please," she said.

Jack stared at her. "Oh, my God."

The woman's eyes hit Jack and grew wide. "Oh, my God."

Walks Alone saw recognition fighting Jack's eyes as well. He moved right to the woman and she fell into his arms, holding on for dear life.

"It's you. It's really you, it's really you." Eileen opened her eyes, saw the Indian woman covered with blood over Jack's shoulder, and gasped.

"You're all right?" asked Jack.

She nodded, tears falling onto his shoulder.

"Where's Frank?" she asked, irrationally deciding they all must know each other.

"Who's Frank?" he asked.

"He went to look for Jacob."

"Jacob is here?" said Walks Alone.

"You know Jacob?" asked Eileen.

"He is here, then," said Jack.

"Yes, he's with your brother," said Eileen. "He killed Bendigo."

"Jacob did?" asked Jack.

"No; your brother." "So my brother's here."

"Yes."

"Who's Bendigo?" asked Walks Alone, growing more confused.

"Who's she?" asked Eileen.

"A friend. Where's Jacob now?"

"I don't know; we came in with the Japanese man...."

"Japanese man?" asked Walks Alone.

"This Japanese man?" asked Jack, pulling out the flier.

"That's him," said Eileen.

"Where is he?" asked Jack.

"I don't know; maybe with Frank."

"Who's Frank?" asked Walks Alone.

"Wait," said Jack, to both of them. "Slow down. Back up."

Jack pulled them into the shadows of the alley; Eileen took a deep breath and tried her best to explain.

At the guardhouse, shots peppered the logs around the four men. Their return fire had failed to flush out the sniper; Doyle looked through his spyglass and spotted a muzzle flash in the darkness of a shack to the northeast, a hundred yards away across open sand.

"We can't stay here," said Doyle.

"I'll have a go," said Presto.

The men looked at each other.

"Bit of the old tiger hunt," he said blithely. "Nothing to it."

"You're one of the dreamers," said Doyle. "You've some part to play in all this. Can't risk losing you off the board."

Presto reluctantly deferred. Doyle looked at his brother.

"Me, then," said Innes.

Doyle nodded. Innes edged to the side of the logs, looked left, and saw Jack's and Walks Alone's horses galloping toward him.

"Diversionary fire would be much appreciated," said Innes.

On Doyle's signal, the other three men rose up and emptied their guns toward the sniper. Innes dashed out from behind the guardhouse in front of the advancing horses. They reared as he approached; he grabbed one by the reins and used the horse as cover to take him to the nearest structure, a row of shanties north of the main street. By the time the sniper could spot him, the horse had run off again and Innes was in place; the shots cracked harmlessly through the wood over his head.

With the sniper firing at Innes, Doyle jumped out and grabbed the bridles of the horses, gathered them in, and tied them with the others behind the guardhouse. Presto spotted Edison's suitcase strapped to Jack's saddle and pulled it down.

Innes rushed silently through the back of die shanty, negotiating a series of empty buildings until he was directly behind the sniper's position. He picked up a rock, cocked his pistol, and closed in on the shack's rear door.

Through the glass, Doyle saw movement in the shack window and took off at a dead run toward the building.

Innes tossed the rock onto the roof of a lean-to on the right and kicked open the back door, ready to fire; the shack was empty. He heard a hammer cock to his left and dove to the ground; the first bullet cut through the meat of his upper left arm, the second kicked into the ground beside his head. His return shot went through the window wide, missing the sniper, a man in black outside the building. The sniper raised the rifle to finish him when three shots exploded in a burst and knocked the man out of sight.

Innes lay still, cocking the pistol, hands shaking violently. "Get him? Did you get him?"

Silence. Innes lowered the gun when Arthur appeared in the window, holding his smoking rifle.

"Got him," said Doyle, looking down at the man in black clothes.

"Is that the one?" asked Innes, feeling both faint and talkative. "Is that the one that got away? Out there, I mean. You know; the one they saw."

"He'll do for it. Not too bad, is it, old boy?"

"Not too bad," said Innes, gingerly touching his wounded arm. "Clean through, I think."

Doyle kicked down a wall of the shack to get to his brother and improvised a field wrap from a strip of his shirt to staunch the bleeding.

"Handy having a doctor along," said Innes, watching him work. "I should be good for an action medal now. Service ribbon, at the least."

"Victoria Cross, if I have anything to say about it. From the old girl herself."

"Younger brothers are good for something, after all," said Innes.

Doyle finished applying the bandage and patted him on the back, afraid that if he tried to speak he'd burst into tears. He helped Innes to his feet as the other two men ran up to join them; he noticed that Lionel carried the crate that contained the Book of Zohar.

"We must find Jack," said Doyle. "And then I think we'd better be getting you along to that church."

They returned to the horses and Doyle grabbed the medical kit from his saddlebag. Armed to the teeth, the four men I walked down the middle of Main Street. The buildings to their left had already collapsed as the heart of the fire laid waste to ' the southern half of town. Red cinder and ash drifted toward them. The wind was shifting to the north; Doyle estimated it wouldn't be long before the other side of town ignited and began to burn.

As they neared the largest building left standing on their right, a solid adobe hacienda, Jack called out and waved them into the shelter of an alley.

"Someone here to see you, Doyle," said Jack.

Eileen stepped out of the shadows.

"Hello, Arthur," she said.

Doyle stared at her, stunned to his core, a thousand fragmented memories rushing into his mind at the trigger of her voice, riding a dozen colliding powerful emotions.

"Hello," he said.

She looked sheepish, relieved, bashful, ashamed, frightened, happy—in other words, the same violently oscillating range of feeling she had always managed to simultaneously convey during their brief and unforgettable romance.

"Someone you know?" whispered Innes, with the intuitive insinuation only a brother could manage.

Doyle nodded slightly, waving him away, unable to speak.

"You got my letter, I guess," she said when they were alone. The letter in which she'd said good-bye when she left England ten years before; the letter that had snapped his young heart in two.

"Yes," was all he could manage.

"How have you been?" she asked, then before he could answer: "What a stupid question, I know perfectly well how you've been; you're famous, for God's sake, probably fabulously wealthy, and married—"

"Yes."

"—I remember reading somewhere, with a lovely wife and three gorgeous children. And how have I been? Well, look at me."

"You look... beautiful."

She smiled ruefully and pulled the paste tiara off her head. "Awfully nice of you to say, Arthur."

"I mean it."

"If I'd stayed with you, I'd most likely own a real one of these by now. Really know how to back a winner, don't I. . .No, I've been all right, it's been a fine life. I'm just not at the top of my game at the moment...."

She burst into tears. Doyle put a comforting hand on her shoulder, then allowed her to hug him briefly before she pulled herself together. "Give me a moment, would you, dear?"

She walked off a short way without meeting his eyes.

The thousand things he had longed to say to her. All the experiences they'd never shared. He still wanted her, he knew that much. And it was impossible; not here, not now. And unless he wanted to destroy the life he'd worked so hard to build, not ever.

Jack had gathered Presto and Walks Alone at the edge of the street. He moved to where Doyle was standing. "We need to move on."

Doyle nodded wearily. Jack looked over at Innes, favoring his wounded arm. "Innes all right?"

"He'll survive."

"Will you?" said Jack, with a sly glance back at Eileen.

Doyle took him in. "That remains to be seen."

"Arthur, you're under no further obligation. Already far beyond the call. We'll carry on from here."

"But Jack—"

Sparks raised a gentle hand to still him. "We were the only ones actually invited to this party, remember?"

"What will you do if you find him? Alexander."

"I don't honestly know."

Through the net of his turbulent feelings, Doyle realized that standing in front of him was a man bearing an exact resemblance to his old friend Jack; light in his eyes again, life animating his gestures, a curl of amusement lifting the corners of his mouth.

How extraordinary to find him here, now, in this moment. Just when I might lose him again.

"My God, it's you," said Doyle, blinking in amazement.

"None other. Ever so faithfully yours, old friend," said Jack.

He laid a hand on Doyle's shoulder; Doyle covered Jack's hand with his and gripped tightly; the rest, a great deal, passed wordlessly between them. Doyle nodded in gratitude, wiping away the single tear that rolled down his cheek. Jack pulled away, snapped a jaunty salute, and with Presto and Walks Alone flanking him, started down Main Street toward the black church.

The bells in the church tower stopped ringing; the howling of the fire filled the silence.

"I'm coming with you," said Lionel, trotting after them, still carrying the Book of Zohar.

"We should follow behind," called Doyle to Jack. "Lay down some covering fire...."

"Up to you, old man," shouted Jack over his shoulder. "I can't stop you."

"So," said Innes, who'd been slowly working up to speaking with Eileen. "Where do you know my brother from?"

Eileen, sitting on the steps of the House of Hope, resting her head in her hands, looked up through bleary eyes and gave the young man a once-over. "Church group."

"Shared the same pew, did you?" said Innes, with a knowing smile.

She smiled back; cheeky one, wasn't he?

"My dance card's a little crowded at the moment, junior," she said. "But thanks for asking."

"Sorry?" said Innes, thoroughly perplexed. For the first time, it occurred to him that there might be some women in this world who were out of his league.

Doyle walked back to them, holding a pair of rifles.

"Do you still know how to shoot?" he asked Eileen.

"I haven't forgotten much of anything."

"Good," said Doyle, handing her a rifle. "Then follow me."

As the city collapsed, so too did the white shirts' organized pursuit of the two intruders; Frank and Kanazuchi raced ahead of the fire through the southern side of town, shadowing the escorted group of children. They passed the workers' quarters where Kanazuchi had spent die night and drew within sight of the cathedral; the wide gap separating it from the shanties had acted as a firebreak, so neither the church nor any of its surrounding structures was in any immediate danger.

As the children marched over the open ground to the church, Frank and Kanazuchi realized they had no chance to attack and kill their escorts without endangering the children. They hung back at the supply shacks and watched as the children folded into the white shirts outside the cathedral, moving obediently along with the crowd through the entrance. With most of the town's population, including the armed militia, now secured inside, the doors to the cathedral slammed shut behind them.

"Wrong time for the Sunday sermon," said Frank.

The bells in the tower stopped ringing. As the echoes faded, they heard only the windborne moaning of the fire.

Kanazuchi gestured and led Frank closer, to a tool shed on the edge of the work area. As they ducked inside, an assembly of guards wearing black trotted toward the church from a number of different directions and fell into a defensive formation across its entire facade.

Frank counted nearly fifty of them.

The men in black lifted and slid thick wooden bars through brackets on the cathedral doors. Frank and Kanazuchi looked at each other, asking the same question: Why are they locking the doors on this side?

Cornelius Moncrief stepped around the side of the church. A squad of men in black rolled the Gatling guns on their caissons into position, facing out, protecting the cathedral doors; one at the front, one at either side entrance. Another team pulled the fourth gun around to the back.

Cornelius glanced at his watch, gave another order, and three-man teams who appeared to know what they were doing took their places at each of the gun positions.

"All this for us?" asked Frank. "I mean, we're good, but—"

"Not for us," said Kanazuchi.

"Maybe they saw something. Maybe the army's coming for its guns."

Frank saw an alarming idea enter Kanazuchi's mind.

"This way," he said.

They backtracked from the work area near the cathedral entrance and followed the men pulling the last machine gun to the rear. Frank and Kanazuchi settled in behind one of the high mounds of rocks and debris above the path and watched the men in black pass beneath them, stop and set up the gun twenty feet from the rear doors of the church. Frank turned to look at the sheer wall of rock rising in back of the mounds.

"Nobody's gonna attack from this side," he said, puzzled.

Moments later half of the black-clad guards they'd seen out front ran in and formed a line to either side of the Gatling across the rear of the building. Each man carried a repeating Winchester and an extra ammunition belt; they knelt in firing positions, loaded and cocked their guns. Then the team manning the machine gun wheeled the muzzle around and aimed it directly at the rear doors.

"Want to tell me what the hell you think's going on here, Hammer?"

"They are going to kill them."

"Who?"

"The people in the church."

Frank paused. "That's just plain crazy."

Kanazuchi looked at him and nodded.

"And I suppose you think we ought to stop 'em."

"Yes."

"That's what I thought. Shit."

Frank looked off toward the south, past the reddened horizon.

"Mexico," he said quietly.

"What did you say?"

"I said what part of the river are we in now?"

Kanazuchi smiled slightly. "Most treacherous part."

"Suppose you got an idea 'bout how we're gonna do this."

"Hai."

Frank lit a cigar. "You want to tell me or you gonna make me guess?"

He told him.

Reverend Day didn't loosen his fierce grip on Dante's arm the whole way across between Main Street and the church; about halfway there, Dante realized the Reverend was holding on to him so tight because he needed help to walk. Smoke and heat choked the air, making breathing difficult at best. The Reverend hadn't said a word for a while; his face looked gray in the red light and his breath smelled worse than some of the jars in Dante's suitcases.

After leaving the theater, they had gone to the House of Hope, and Dante stood by as the Reverend rummaged through his desk, reading some papers real intently like he was trying to remember something; outside the office lay the bodies of four dead guards he hadn't even looked at. Then they'd gone down and out through a secret passage in the wall and started walking here. The Reverend had been getting weaker with every step. Dante felt scared; he didn't even want to think about anything bad happening to Reverend Day.

Ahead to the left, the last of a crowd of white shirts pressed inside the church; Dante even saw some little kids in the mix. The Reverend looked at the church, looked at his watch, seemed satisfied, then steered them to the right until they found two steel plates set in the dirt. Fumbling out a ring of keys, the Reverend dropped them on the ground.

"If you would be kind enough ... to do the honors," said the Reverend, weary and strained.

"Sure."

Dante picked up the keys, the Reverend fished out the right one for him, and Dante undid the padlock. He lifted the heavy plates off their hinges, revealing a steep staircase descending belowground. The Reverend took his arm again and Dante helped him down the steps. Handing him some matches, the Reverend directed Dante to light a lantern hung on a bracket beside the black stone door at the base of the stairs. It reminded Dante of a bank vault he'd seen once. With the aid of the lantern, the Reverend used another key to unlock the door; he pushed it lightly with one hand and it swung silently open.

A blast of cool, refreshing air washed over them. The Reverend breathed deeply, leaning against the doorway for support.

"You okay, sir?" asked Dante plaintively.

The Reverend nodded, laughed slightly at his concern, tousled Dante's hair, and waved him inside. A clean room, carved out of smooth stone, as cold and welcoming as springwater. An earthy smell that reminded Dante of a graveyard in the rain. The Reverend lowered himself slowly into the room's only chair, fumbled out his watch, and checked the time again.

"You are to wait here, lad," he said, taking Dante's hand, speaking simply and directly. "Leave that door open. Frederick will be along with something that I need; when he does, ring this bell, here on the wall, and I'll come for it. Do not go back to the surface or follow me into that passage...

The Reverend pointed to a dark, curving hallway leading out of the room, carved from the same black marble.

"If anyone besides Frederick comes in, you are to kill them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir, Reverend."

"That's a good boy," he said, patting Dante's hand. "Help me up and we'll get started."

Dante pulled the Reverend to his feet; the man felt as insubstantial as a scarecrow. Reverend Day gripped the lantern in one hand and walked to the edge of the black hallway, smiled, and waved once to Dante. Dante waved back and the Reverend limped out of sight around the corner. Alone in the dark, Dante sat on the chair facing the door, laid his briefcase across his lap, and undid the clasps. He picked out his two favorite knives by touch, closed the case, and set it carefully beside the chair. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and soon a faint red glow lit up the outline of the open door.

He noticed that outside the church bells had stopped ringing.

Long before it reached him, Jacob saw the light of a lantern approach from the maze, reflecting off its smooth black walls; he'd been lying so long in total darkness, it took him a few moments to figure out which way he was looking: straight up? straight down? For some time he had been hearing the disorienting ghostly echoes of a thousand murmuring voices, the generalized hum of a crowd, drifting down from somewhere above.

He remembered he was on the floor, cold stone beneath him, hands and feet numb from the constrictions of the rope. When consciousness had first returned and Jacob found himself still breathing, he couldn't have been more surprised; surely the

Reverend must have killed him by now. Maybe he had. Maybe this was proof of an afterlife. If so, you'd think they could afford some lights over here.

Considering how lousy I feel, thought Jacob when he realized he was alive, I might as well be dead. But if this is Reverend Day I hear coming, maybe I won't have long to wait.

The shuffling footsteps; spurs jingling.

Yes, it was him.

Reverend Day entered the chamber, and by the light of his lantern for the first time Jacob saw the round room where he had been lying. In a slight depression scooped from the center of a round pattern, a detailed mosaic of some kind, set in the stone floor. Arrayed around him at the edge of the circle, he counted six silver pedestals. A squat coal-burning brazier stood off to one side. The cold wind he had felt issued from a rough gaping hole in the earth at the end of the room opposite the maze; a wide trough cut iri the floor ran down to the lip of the hole from the hollow where he lay. Set in the ceiling above him, he saw a tight circle of grills that looked like manhole covers; the spectral voices he had heard were issuing from there.

The Reverend hobbled around the room, lighting a series of lanterns on the walls from the one he carried. He moved to Jacob, stood over and studied him a moment; when Jacob didn't move, the Reverend nudged him with the toe of a boot.

"I'm awake," said Jacob.

"Really? I would have settled for alive; awake is something of a bonus. I was afraid you might miss all the fun."

Jacob kept silent.

"I know how extraordinarily conversant you are with your Torah, Rabbi; how are you with Scripture?"

"Forgive me, I—"

"The Book of Revelation, for example."

Jacob's heart skipped a beat; he tried to adjust his position to jar it back into rhythm, and in doing so for the first time since the man entered, he caught a glimpse of the Reverend's face.

Good God. He looks worse than I feel. Like an exhumed corpse.

Caked blood encrusted his face, which had gone whiter than ivory. Blood vessels rimming his forehead undulated as if they had come to life and broken free of their moorings. His eyes looked as red and savage as raw meat.

"Let me refresh your memory," said the Reverend. " 'The blood of the innocent shall rain down into the wound that hath opened in the earth and the Beast shall ascend, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon. And he shall make war against them and overcome them and kill them.' Ring any bells for you, does it, Rabbi?"

Jacob shook his head.

"Oh, it will," said Reverend Day, craning his neck to look at the grills overhead. "When the bells start to ring again and the Holy Work begins."

Dante saw a shadow creep across the wall outside the door; he stood up, holding his knives, ready to pounce. The door pushed open; Frederick. Dante relaxed, then saw the terrible look on Frederick's face.

"Is he in there?" asked Frederick, pointing toward the maze.

Dante nodded.

"Then we'll never find him." He looked furious, more agitated than Dante had ever seen him.

"Do you have the book?" asked Dante.

"No. Here is our situation, Mr. Scruggs: There is no more time and the Reverend has defaulted on what is owed to me, an enormous sum, and there is no money"—Frederick's face contorted in a spasm of rage—"anywhere in the town that I can find. Giving our lives without recompense is not part of my arrangement. Do you understand? No further service is required here; I am taking my leave. If you want to live, I suggest you do the same."

Dante looked toward the hall, thought for a moment, then shook his head. He liked Frederick well enough, but he liked the Reverend even more.

"Suit yourself," said Frederick, and he vanished up the stairs.

Dante walked to the center of the room: What should he do? Ring the bell, have the Reverend come all the way back just to tell him Frederick didn't bring the book? That would only make him mad. Maybe he should go look for him. But the Reverend had said not to follow him into the hallway.

Dante stood paralyzed with indecision, until he again heard footsteps on the stairs.

As they neared the front of the church and saw the black-shirted guards rolling something on wheels into place, Jack directed them behind the cover of a stonecutter's hut. Presto and Lionel tried to make sense of the movement around the cathedral.

"What we're looking for is under the tower," said Jack.

"Right," said Presto.

Looking to her right about a hundred yards away, Walks Alone caught sight of a man in a suit climbing up out of the earth and sprinting off into the darkness.

"Over there," she whispered.

She led them to the spot from where she'd seen the man emerge; two steel flaps hinged back, stairs descending.

"This is it," said Jack.

Walks Alone led the way down the stairs.

"According to the dream, there are supposed to be six of them in total, whoever or whatever they're supposed to be, correct?" asked Innes.

Innes had hardly stopped talking since the moment he'd been shot; he's warding off shock, thought Doyle. He had led Innes and Eileen to shelter at the north edge of the shanties and was watching Jack and the others through his spyglass as they cautiously approached the church.

"Agreed," said Doyle.

"So Jack, Presto, and Mary what's her name, there's three of them," said Innes.

"Jacob and Kanazuchi," said Eileen, lying between them, rifle in hand.

"That's five," said Doyle.

"So my question is, if how many of them there are is so all-fired important—and it seems to be—"

"Who's number six?" said Doyle. "Not an uninteresting question."

He moved the glass right to follow their friends, as Walks

Alone led them to a flat, featureless area where they stopped and studied something in the dirt.

"What are they doing?" whispered Doyle.

A moment later, he watched them disappear into the ground.

"What the devil?"

"What is it?" asked Eileen.

"Are you up to moving on?" Doyle asked Innes.

"Right; lead away."

"Eileen?"

"I don't fancy hanging back here by my lonesome, thank you."

They helped Innes to his feet and crept closer.

Dante withdrew into the blackness of the hall behind him as the door swung open, grateful the Reverend had given him ; permission to kill whoever came through that door. He gripped the knives tightly, flush with heat, poised to rush forward and go to work.

He stopped dead when he saw the Indian woman.

The shock delayed his attack long enough for the three men to step into the room behind her. All carrying guns; one with a small suitcase. His eye jumped to the chair where he'd been sitting.

Damn, he'd left his case sitting on the floor.

The lead man, a tall, thin one who vaguely reminded him of Reverend Day, went to the case, flipped it open, showed its contents to the others, then tossed it aside. They talked in whispering voices—Dante heard the word "Chicago"—then j the tall man pointed them toward the hall where Dante was hiding.

Dante quickly felt his way along the wall to the first corner. He took a quiet breath, reached out to feel his way, and headed deep into the darkness.

Presto opened Edison's suitcase and took out the flash-a-light. Jack pulled from a pocket in his vest a handful of small square patches and the compass. Narrowing its aperture to a pinpoint, Jack turned on the flash-a-light, shined it briefly on the patches, took a reading off the compass, turned off the light, and led them to the mouth of the hallway.

"Do you remember this part of the dream?" he asked, voice low.

"Tunnels," said Walks Alone. "Twisted passages."

"Something like a maze," said Presto.

"Right," said Jack, attaching one of the patches to the wall at eye level; its back was coated with adhesive and it glowed a faint luminescent green. "We'll head north by northwest, towards the church."

Jack opened the suitcase and took out the night-vision glasses, handing the flash-a-light and the compass to Presto and Lionel. Jack slipped on the goggles and peered ahead into the corridor.

"Keep the light handy. Stay close," said Jack.

Wide enough to accommodate two people abreast, the hall gaped before them like a black throat. The other three followed Jack into the corridor, and its vast darkness instantly swallowed what little light issued from the room behind. Ten cautious steps on, they came to the first corner. Jack examined each of the three open passages.

"Compass," he whispered.

Presto turned on the flash-a-light; a minuscule beam hit the face of the compass in Lionel's hand.

"Northwest," said Presto, pointing left. He turned off the light.

Jack attached another glowing patch to the wall, and they inched their way down the left-hand passage. The red-tinged field of vision afforded by the goggles revealed little more to him than the crude outline of the walls; the glasses primarily detected objects that radiated heat. None were in sight.

Walks Alone caught the scent of something on a wind that blew toward them: chloroform, formaldehyde. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

Was it possible? She quietly pulled the knife from her belt.

Doyle, Innes, and Eileen crept down the stairs to the sanctum, entered the foyer, and waited for their eyes to adjust. Innes noticed a glowing green patch inside the hallway. He wanted to follow but on instinct Doyle held them back.

"Not yet," he said.

He led them back up the stairs where they stopped below-ground, rested their rifles on the plates, and trained them on the church.

"I'm not trying to be critical, but what are we waiting for?" whispered Eileen.

"I'm not entirely sure," said Doyle.

"Did you miss me, Arthur?" she whispered a moment later.

"Not at all," he said. "Desperately."

"Good," she said. "Sorry."

Dead silence from the direction of the church; looking through the glass, he saw a huge man in a long, gray coat move along the line of men in black outside the front doors. The big man stopped to glance at his watch; he gave a signal, the bars across the doors were removed, and a team of men began turning what looked like a machine gun around to face the cathedral.

"Good Christ," said Doyle.

Another patch went on the wall; they were following the track of the compass, but Walks Alone could have led them on the air coming toward them alone. Jack stopped, his foot encountering an irregular shape.

"Light," he whispered.

Presto directed the light to the ground and turned it on; Jack pressed his foot down onto a slightly elevated patch of marble. A three-foot-square section of floor directly ahead of them dropped away. Shining the light into the pit that opened, they saw a field of gleaming spikes.

"Jump over or double back?" asked Jack.

"This is the right way," said Walks Alone, pointing ahead.

"Jump, then."

Presto opened the aperture and used it to guide the leap across; Lionel carried the book and went first; Presto last, carrying the light. By the time they readied themselves on the far side and Jack had taken another reading of the compass, the light began to falter.

"Battery's fading," said Presto, switching it off.

They tested each step ahead. Reached another intersection that branched to the left and right; three passages from which to choose, all heading in the same direction. Jack stared down each of the corridors through the goggles. Presto thought he could make out a faint aura of light in each of the tunnels ahead.

"We're close," said Walks Alone.

Jack stuck a patch on the wall then handed the remaining ones to Presto and Walks Alone. "We'll each take a path a short way ahead. Lionel, with me. Call out at once if the light increases; we'll meet back here."

Jack attached a second patch next to the first.

They separated and edged up each of the three corridors. Presto widened the aperture and kept his finger on the switch of the light, a pistol in his other hand. Walks Alone gripped her knife and felt her way along the wall. Lionel held on to Jack's belt; Jack stopped when he heard a faint echo of voices ahead.

"Jacob!" Jack cried out.

"Father!" Lionel shouted.

Through the dim filtered screen of the goggles, Jack saw a line of heat and movement cross his vision in the nest of passages ahead and he realized his mistake.

Reverend Day's head twisted around as he heard the voices call out from the tunnel.

No, this was wrong, too close; the boy was supposed to stop them.

He pulled out his watch; two minutes before Cornelius gave the signal and the Holy Work began. He heard a laugh and whipped his stiff neck around to look at Jacob; the Jew was smiling at him.

"Expecting someone?" asked Jacob.

A low sustained rumble sounded from deep inside the pit.

"As a matter of fact, I am," said the Reverend, returning the smile.

Here we go again, thought Frank.

His hands were in the air; Kanazuchi had the rifle pointed at his back.

What the hell, maybe Hammer's black pajamas looked enough like what these men were wearing to get them close. If they didn't, not much else mattered.

They marched down the embankment and across the space between them and the line of men, then along toward the Gatling gun. The first of the men in black caught sight and just stared at them. Word traveled fast down the line, reaching the gun well before they did, just as Cornelius Moncrief walked around the side of the church.

"Two minutes!" he called out.

Two of the men in black pulled the bar out of the brackets on the doors. They swung open, and the team manning the machine gun pointed it inside.

Cornelius saw the two men approaching and started straight at them, pulling a pistol; Frank could tell they were going to meet up right in front of the gun. He noticed that its safety was off and the feeder belt had already been attached to the mouth of the gun.

Good.

"What the hell is this?" asked Cornelius.

They came together and stopped three feet apart.

"One of the intruders," said Kanazuchi.

"Hi, Cornelius," said Frank. "Remember me?"

Cornelius stared at him, eyebrows wriggling like caterpillars. Frank saw the pupils in the man's eyes constrict: Cornelius's gun started up.

"You dumb fuck," said Frank.

Frank drew the Colt and fired six times, punching a circle around his heart.

Kanazuchi turned and emptied the rifle on the men at the Gatling, killing all three. Before the men in the line on either side could react Kanazuchi pulled the Grass Cutter and attacked to his right.

Frank jumped to the Gatling and swung it back left; he caught a glimpse through the doors of a sea of white shirts down on the cathedral floor, a splash of red moonlight shining on them through a round glass window. His hand found the crank and he let the Gatling rip; a stream of bullets kicked up a cloud of dust, hitting the ground to the left of the line— damn thing wasn't calibrated; fucking army didn't know how to fucking maintain its fucking equipment.

Men in black in the line returned fire. Frank found the balance in the gun as it continued to fire and wrestled it to the right. Now bullets ripped directly down the flank of their line, chewing it up, tossing men back and to the sides; ones in the rear ran for cover as they saw the others fall.

A shot smashed through Frank's boot; his left ankle shattered. He staggered but kept cranking; heard a bullet clip his ear. Another ripped clean through his right upper thigh.

Missed the bone, thought Frank. He kept his right hand glued to the crank and screamed through the pain.

Behind Frank, Kanazuchi barreled into the right side of the line; the Grass Cutter never stopped. The men had trouble distinguishing him from one of their own, and the ferocity of his assault drew their attention away from the machine gun. All they knew before he was on top of them was that this man had a sword and he moved like the wind. Their bullets struck each other as they fired wildly, others taken down by shots that missed the man at the Gatling. Highly disciplined soldiers, all of them, but their panicked cries testified that they'd never faced this hot a fight before. Their bullets whistled through the man but didn't seem to strike him. They saw limbs fly off their comrades. Heads dropped from necks, bodies opened, and the sword mowed through them as if it possessed a life of its own.

Ten men died before the others dropped their weapons and ran, and still the man with the blood-red sword came after them. One stroke apiece; he finished the assault with a terrible economy of violence. When the last man fell, without hesitation Kanazuchi disappeared around the right side of the church, zeroing in on the team stationed at the second gun.

Frank erased the last of the black shirts on his side with a burst that cut through a mound of dirt the man had sought shelter behind. He released the crank as the last cartridge fed through the gun. He reached down for more ammunition. His hand burned as it grazed the barrel.

A hail of bullets cut the air over his head; Frank glanced through the cathedral and saw muzzle bursts from the open front doors at the far end. Shit, the other machine gun, shooting at him clear through the church. White shirts inside screaming. They were being slaughtered down there.

A bullet bit a chunk out of his left shoulder and Frank went into the dirt. Most of their shots still going high. His shoulder wouldn't cooperate, so he stayed low, coaxed a cartridge out of the crate and up to the feeder with his good hand. He hit the crank and a burst shattered the window above the doors. Red glass rained down.

The shooting started. Doyle placed it at the rear of the cathedral: machine gun fire. The team at the Gatling in front of the church struggled go get theirs working; the rest of the black shirts took aim and shot their rifles down into the church. Desperate screams from inside reached them over the crack of the guns.

Innes had trouble steadying the gun with his wounded arm and he grunted painfully with each shot, but among the three of them, taking their time and shooting accurately they knocked out the team at the machine gun before it could lay down a steady field of fire. When two other men jumped in to take their place they picked them off as well, then began to direct their fire at the men with the rifles.

No one spoke, minds focused on the bloody business. As he reloaded, Doyle glanced at Eileen; she had definitely not forgotten how to shoot.

The first bursts of the guns from above echoed metallically down through the grillwork over Jacob's head. Reverend Day wheeled around the circle, frantic, an open watch in his hand.

"No, no! Where are the bells? WHERE ARE THE BELLS?"

The gunfire steadily increased in intensity, deafening as it reverberated through the chamber. Jacob did not move or speak; he dared not draw the Reverend's attention now because he was almost certain that he had heard his son's voice calling his name out of the darkness of the maze.

He heard a sound above him like a rushing of water and raised his head to look. A trickle of blood seeped through the grills and dripped down around him.

With both blades in his hands, Kanazuchi charged the machine gun at the side of the church. Only three men stationed here, concentrating the deadly fire of the Gatling into the cathedral. They never heard him coming.

Kanazuchi cut off the hand of the man on the crank, backhanded the ammunition feeder away with the knife, and drove the Grass Cutter through the throat of the last man. He took control of the gun, raised the muzzle, and fired until the feeder emptied, wiping out the machine gun position at the opposite side door.

He looked down at the dark spreading stains on the arms of his tunic and pants; he had been hit three times. No vital organs struck, but he was losing blood rapidly.

Now all the Gatlings stopped firing; only rifles somewhere to the front.

Kanazuchi hurried to the edge of the church and looked inside. White shirts cowered and huddled together, horrible moans coming from every direction; a thousand bodies covering the stone floor. He could not tell how many had died; he did not know how long the guns had fired, but he could see a great deal of blood. Moonlight through the broken frame of the window illuminated the center of the room in a stark circle of white. He listened for the children. Heard them to his right.

He descended the stairs to the floor. White shirts moving now that the gunfire had ended, crawling over each other. Bitter sounds; shock, fear, and dreadful suffering. Kanazuchi saw many discarded rifles; the militia had been sent to the slaughter with the rest of them.

The children's cries led him farther right; he found them huddled behind a row of columns, a niche in the wall, a chapel. The guns could not reach this area; the hundred children were alive.

Kanazuchi walked into their midst, speaking softly, encouragingly, gathering the children around him, lifting stragglers to their feet, holding them together. He gently led them back to the stairs through which he'd entered. The children followed meekly, weeping quietly, stumbling and stepping over bodies that had fallen. The adult survivors they passed paid no attention, staring dully ahead with glassy uncomprehending eyes.

Walks Alone stopped when she heard the others call for Jacob, and then the sound of many guns began somewhere above. She reached another intersection, twenty steps beyond where they had separated, and realized that this section ahead was honeycombed with passages; ten more steps and she would be hopelessly lost. She headed back to the meeting place occupied with many thoughts, and when the smell of the one-eyed man and the rush of movement in the air reached her senses, she was a second slow to react.

Half-turned, she cried out as the first blade cut her left shoulder to the bone. She felt his other hand slash past her right, glancing off her hip; he had a knife in that hand too. She dropped to the ground, grabbed the handle of her knife with both hands, and thrust up into the darkness, felt the tip of the blade connect and enter, heard the man grunt in pain and surprise.

He struck down at her with both hands; the knives missed by fractions of an inch; one sliced her hair, sparks flew off the wall beside her head. She slashed back, felt the blade cut tendoned flesh on the back of his leg. He bellowed and fell to his knees.

"Here, Jack!"

Presto's voice, not far off, coming closer.

The one-eyed man whimpered like an animal and raised the knives again; she wiggled to her right along the wall, parried the slash of one blade with her knife while the other scratched along her arm, opening a deep gash.

"You bitch, why won't you die?"

His face only inches from hers as their locked knives pushed against each other; blood and fear on his breath. Her arm began to drop under his weight.

A sharp beam of light shot through the dark and found his face; it lit up like a full moon, blinding his one good eye. Walks Alone slipped to the side and raised her knife. He fell forward and she drove the knife deep into the sky-blue sightless marble resting in its socket. Heard the marble crack against the blade. He screamed and staggered back, dropped his weapons, trying to pull out her knife by the handle.

She pointed her pistol and fired; two red holes appeared in the monster's head. He fell out of sight as the gunshots exploded in the tunnel.

Jack reached her first. Presto at her side from the other direction, holding the light for them to see.

"Can you move?" asked Jack.

"I don't want to look at him," she whispered. "I don't want to look at him."

They helped her to her feet and moved quickly away from Dante's body to the intersection marked by the two glowing patches.

Jack had run off into the dark without saying a word; when Lionel tried to follow, he stumbled ahead in the corridor and quickly lost his way. He heard a man shouting and bursts of remote gunfire coming from his left where the light was growing stronger, so he began to run and two turns later he abruptly entered the round room. Haunting screams from somewhere above underscored staccato gunbursts. Light in the room dazzled his eyes, and he raised his arm against the brightness; what he thought he saw in the center of the floor was a steady stream of blood pouring out of the ceiling onto a figure lying in a pool below.

It looked like his father.

"What's that you have there?" said a voice to his left.

He turned. A nightmarish figure that looked like a walking dead body gestured at him; the crate Lionel held flew out of his hands across the ten feet between them and into the arms of the ghoulish man. He ripped open the crate and laid his hands on the Gerona Zohar.

"I don't know how to thank you," said the man.

He seemed to lose all interest in Lionel. He rushed to his father's side and pulled him from the cascading stream of blood, flowing in volume down a trough to an open pit at the end of the room.

"You're alive," gasped Lionel.

"And I'm really very glad to see you, my son," said Jacob quietly. "Do you have a gun?"

Lionel took the pistol from his belt.

"Shoot him."

Jacob nodded at the man across the circle, the hump of his back to them, setting the Book of Zohar into the last of the silver caskets.

Lionel aimed the Colt with shaking hands. The man turned and waved his arm at them; the shot fired wide as Lionel's body was jolted. The gun flew out of his hand and into the pit. Lionel fell to his knees.

Paying no attention to them, Reverend Day walked to a brazier at the edge of the circle, took a handful of matches from his pocket, and tried to strike one on the brazier; the match broke in his hand. He tried another with the same result, then a third.

"Damn," said Reverend Day, laughing. "For the want of a match ..."

A bloodcurdling scream and two shots boomed out of the maze. Reverend Day cocked his head, listened, tossed the matches away, limped over, yanked a lantern off the wall, and carried it back to the brazier.

Lionel worked furiously to untie his father's hands. Above them, the burst of gunfire died; they heard only occasional rifles and the rising, pitiful cries of the wounded.

As blood poured out of the grills and down the trough into the pit, the rumbling from deep belowground grew louder and more sustained.

The last of the black shirts left alive in front of the church dropped their rifles and ran shortly after the last machine gun quit firing. Through his glass, Doyle saw the first white shirts splattered with red crawling out of the open cathedral doors.

"Come on," he said.

Eileen and Doyle helped Innes up, and they hurried toward the church. Doyle broke into a run ahead of them. He passed the blackshirted bodies lying around the perimeter and stopped when he reached the doors.

A massacre inside. Bodies sprawled on top of one another. The cathedral floor red with blood and shattered glass. Numbed survivors staggering to their feet.

Eileen and Innes joined him; Eileen's breath caught, horrified.

"Good God, Arthur," said Innes, shaking his head in disbelief. "Good God."

There were many wounded, hundreds, and they needed help fast.

"Got to get them outside where we can see," he said. Doyle took Eileen by the arms, looked her in the eye, and spoke firmly. "I need your help. No time for tears now."

She saw the fierce compassion in his eyes and nodded. They entered down the bloody steps; they spoke to the ones who could still walk, directing them to help survivors to the front of the church. Many remained unresponsive, some needed to hear the instruction twice; the guns had nearly deafened them. It seemed to Doyle's eye that the deadliest casualties were concentrated in the center of the room, where blood was running down into a circle of drains.

The sound of children's cries outside drew Innes to the left side doors.

"Arthur, over here."

Doyle joined him on the steps, and they saw the circle of children sitting fifty steps outside, listening to a man in black who knelt before them in the dirt. Doyle and Innes walked past the dead at the machine gun to the man; he looked up at them as they stopped.

"Kanazuchi?" asked Doyle.

The man nodded; his face pale, ashen. Critically wounded.

"See to them, please," said Kanazuchi.

The man winced and with dreadful effort rose to his feet; Doyle helped him up. Innes tried to hold him back.

"You must rest, sir," said Innes.

"No," said Kanazuchi. "Thank you."

Kanazuchi bowed slightly, gathered himself, and walked slowly toward the church, grasping the hilt of his sword.

Innes and Doyle looked down at the small piteous faces staring hopefully, fearfully up at them.

"I'll look after them," said Innes in a husky voice.

Doyle clutched Innes and held him until their tears passed, bodies trembling with the effort to contain them.

"Dear God. Dear God in heaven."

"Mustn't show them we're frightened, too," whispered Innes.

Doyle looked away, gripped Innes's hand, then followed Kanazuchi back to the church.

As she reached the back of the cathedral, Eileen saw Frank through the rear doors outside, twisted around the machine gun. She ran up the steps to him, saw the blood pooled around him in the dirt, and went to her knees.

"No. No, please."

Frank opened his eyes and looked up but didn't see her.

"That you, Molly?"

"Frank, it's Eileen."

His eyes found her and focused. "Molly. Sure look pretty in that dress."

His hand reached out; she held it with both of hers, and the tears ran freely from her eyes.

"It's Molly, Frank. I'm here."

"Never meant to hurt you, Molly," he whispered.

"You didn't, Frank. You didn't ever."

"Sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's all right."

"Nothing in our way now. Me and you."

She shook her head. "No."

"That's good."

"Yes, Frank."

Frank smiled; it made him so happy to see her again.

"Always love you," he said.

His eyes looked past her, then closed. His hand let go.

Eileen lowered her head and wept.

As he walked back down to the floor of the cathedral, Doyle could not accurately determine how many had died; perhaps a quarter of the thousand who had been inside, another equal number wounded. It was more than bad enough, but when he saw the deadly configuration of the machine guns, he realized how much worse it could have been; hundreds had been spared. He heard a deep rumbling in the ground far below the church.

Doyle found Kanazuchi in the center of the room, kneeling beside the open grillwork in the floor through which the blood of the victims still funneled.

"Help me," said Kanazuchi. "I must hurry."

Doyle moved instantly to his side; together they used the edges of his knives to pry one of the blood-soaked grills free from its rim.

Jack and Presto carried Walks Alone through the last turns of the maze toward the light they saw ahead. Powerful tremors shook the walls, rivulets of rock and dirt running down from the corners. When they entered the round room, they saw the Reverend Day pouring oil from a lantern into a small brazier; the coals ignited, Day picked up a long taper, lit it from the fire, and walked toward the nearest silver casket

Jacob saw them; Lionel had untied his hands and was working to free his legs. Jack left Walks Alone with Presto and stepped into the circle, drawing his pistol. Sensing another's presence, Reverend Day turned to face him; Jack stopped a foot away. His face a grim, determined mask, he raised and pointed the gun directly at the Reverend's head.

The Reverend waved his hand sharply, as if trying to fend off a bothersome insect, a move that might have sent another man flying across the room. Jack did not yield or react but instead reached forward, touched the barrel to the Reverend's upper lip and coolly cocked the pistol's hammer, fully prepared to kill him. A quizzical look shaded the Reverend's features; fear had become such a stranger to him he seemed incapable of registering danger, but then fury erupted inside as he realized the affront this man offered him and he drove the power from his eyes forward into Jack's.

Jack appeared to stand his ground against the assault, but after a long silence the hand holding the gun wavered, then Jack slowly lowered it to his side.

"I'll deal with you presently," said the Reverend.

But Jack's move was not born of obedience. As the Reverend turned and again tried to set fire to the first of the Books that would trigger the summoning, Jack reached over and, oblivious to the pain, snuffed out the burning taper in the Reverend's hand. When Day raised his hand to strike at him, Jack caught him by the wrist in a steely grip, twisted hard, and the taper fell to the floor.

Blood continued to run down into the trough. The rumbling from the pit grew stronger until the walls and floor trembled steadily, but none of the others in the room dared to move, riveted by the confrontation.

"Let go of my hand," ordered Reverend Day, locking eyes with him again.

Jack dropped the gun of his own accord and let go of the Reverend's wrist. Again, before he could move away, Jack reached out, took firm hold of the Reverend's head with both his hands, pulled him close, and stared right back into his eyes.

"Look at me," said Jack quietly.

Enraged, the Reverend now brought the full force of his power to bear; the air appeared to bend around them, their forms wavered, warped by a savage expulsion of energy. Men had died under far less exposure to the sacrament than this, minds dissolving, their will slipping out of them in a runny stream.

Nothing happened. The man stared right back at him.

Blood poured freely out of the Reverend's nose; the effort had weakened him tremendously. Shocked, slowly realizing he could effect no control over this man, the Reverend searched this stranger's face with increasing desperation. The man's expression remained strong but infuriatingly neutral, without rancor, offering no purchase for the Reverend's influence to grasp.

There's no fear in the man, thought Jacob, watching Jack. Without fear there's nothing for the Reverend to seize hold of.

The standoff continued. Finally, when Reverend Day spotted a ghost of something familiar in the stranger's eyes, his own went wide with terror and he scrambled and clawed to pull away, but Jack held his head ferociously in place. Recognition was what he had been waiting for.

"No," said Jack.

Unable to escape, the Reverend tried to avoid his eyes, but Jack maintained his grip, exerted his own will, and pulled the Reverend's eyes back into contact with his own.

"What do you want?" the Reverend asked weakly.

Jack did not answer.

"Who are you?" said Day, his voice failing.

"You know who I am," said Jack.

The man's pitiful, ill face struggled against that suggestion until his last vestige of resistance melted and he sagged forward.

"You know who I am."

"Yes," the Reverend whispered.

"Who am I? Tell me."

After a long silence, the Reverend replied: "My brother."

"What's my name?"

Reverend Day looked puzzled again. "Jack."

"And what is yours?"

After an even longer silence, he whispered: "Alexander."

Jack nodded once. Every pretense fell away from the exchange between them, every mask. All enmity and struggle stripped away. Now they were only brothers.

"Listen to me," said Jack quietly and slowly, trusting that the words he needed would come to him. "Listen to me, Alex. We are all here, in this room; mother, father. Our little sister. None of us know why any of it happened, how you fell so far away from us, the darkness that took you and made you do the crimes you did to us or any of the others. None of that matters now. Do you hear me?"

Alexander Sparks stared at his brother with the rapt attention of a terrified child, praying for comfort and relief. Trembling, lost, the fear was in him now.

"They are all with us here in this room now; their spirits are with us and here is where it ends. I speak for them, their voices are joined with mine. Listen to me...."

Jack found what he had come here to say, leaned forward, and whispered in his ear.

"We forgive you, my brother."

A quiet sob burst from Alexander.

"We forgive you."

Now Alexander sagged forward completely and collapsed into his brother's arms; Jack guided his brittle weight gently down to the floor, knelt beside him, and cradled his brother's piteous broken body in his lap.

"We forgive you," he whispered.

A heartrending wail rose from Alexander, a lifetime's mourning for a multitude of lost and stolen souls. He clung weakly to his brother as sobs jolted his fragile bones. The others in the room, despite their fears or anger at Alexander's crimes, could not look on with anything but pity.

With a grinding metallic ring, one of the grills above the center of the room lifted from its rim; Jacob looked up as Kanazuchi let himself down through the cavity and dropped to the floor beside them. The last of the blood flow followed and ran off into the pit. The rumbling from below rose again in pitch and power; wind from the hollow guttered the flames of the lanterns. Kanazuchi sat unmoving, stunned. When he weakly failed to lift himself to his feet, Jacob unsteadily walked the few steps to Kanazuchi.

"Come along, my friend," said Jacob quietly.

He extended his hands to Kanazuchi and helped him slowly rise; leaning on one another they walked to Jack and Alexander. Jacob helped Kanazuchi down and then sat beside him next to the brothers.

Walks Alone nodded to Presto; he wrapped an arm around her. They moved forward and filled the last places in the circle. Walks Alone held Presto's left hand and extended her right to Jack. He grasped it tightly with his left, holding on to Alexander's in his other. While Kanazuchi held his right hand, Jacob leaned over and gently covered Alexander's right hand. Kanazuchi reached out to Presto and their hands completed the circle.

Alexander's sobs subsided; he looked up and his eyes found Jack's. Jack nodded to him, gentle and kind. Alexander nodded in return. Then Jack's eyes sought out each of the others and now a silent understanding, something pure and inexpressible, passed among them all.

Realizing there was no place for him among their number, Lionel stood up and moved deliberately around the circle, from casket to casket, removing each of the stolen books and securing them safely by the wall. When he completed this task and looked back at the circle, the sight that greeted him forced him to the ground, his back pressed against the wall in deep humility. Although he would never again be as certain of it as he was in the moments that followed, as the Six looked at each other Lionel thought he saw a penumbra of light extend into the air above them, a round transparent curtain that contained in the fabric of its weave a host of swirling forms and shapes and faces, each carrying within it the strength and beauty and compassion of a hundred thousand human souls.

In that moment this is what Lionel, a secular man, thought he had seen, but as the years passed he would never again be as sure.

As the light above the circle brightened, the deep rumbling in the pit below the chamber fell gradually away. No one in the circle moved.

When it was gone entirely, the light receded.

In the peaceful silence that followed, Alexander gave out a small cry and died quietly in his brother's arms.

Lionel helped his father to his feet, staring down in sympathy and horror at the broken, impossibly thin body of the brother still resting in Jack's arms.

"Whatever did he want the books for?" Lionel asked softly.

"He thought he wanted to destroy God," said Jacob.

Lionel blinked back his astonishment. "But he would have had to ... end the world."

"He was mistaken," said Jacob sadly. "All he really wanted to destroy was himself."

Doyle had searched for and found a rope in one of the corners of the church after Kanazuchi went below. When the rumbling stopped—an earthquake or some sort of related seismic disturbance, Doyle decided, and no one later contradicted him— he secured one end of the rope around his waist, let the other fall down into the chamber, and called out to them to take hold. Then his powerful arms lifted the survivors and then-rescued books, one by one, to the floor of the moonlit cathedral.

Jack Sparks was the last to ascend; after remaining below alone and committing his brother's body to the memory of their lost family, he grasped the line and Doyle pulled him up, up into the light.