Fires Rising (19 page)

Something is calling me, and I must follow…

A faint acrid smell drifted up from the hole. He took a deep breath, running his gaze along the walls of the pit and the ten or twelve feet of exposed asphalt, soil, and clay. Twisted pipes jutted angrily from the pitted surface, hunks of brown rock and earth surrounding them like barren terrain. At the bottom of the hole he could see the wooden crate, a tiny island drowning in a sea of shattered bones, ancient, cold, and petrified. Its details were instantly recognizable in the wash of bright light: four feet long and three feet wide, odd writing burned into its rough surface, its depth undisclosed as it lay partially buried in shadows.

It was open, just as he left it.

He peered into its dark center, and could see not the interior of the crate, but the men from his dreams, the forefathers of the church…

…and they were wrapping the chalice in burlap and placing it inside next to the shrouded rosary. Beside the crate he saw a line of lifeless bodies, men, women, and children lying face up, their eyes gouged, crucifixes piercing their hearts. There were perhaps two dozen dead packed in the bottom of the pit, sacrifices made to the Evil that threatened to bring mankind down…

He shuddered, could see it all in his mind's eye, like a recent memory still fresh in his head.

He struggled to step back from the hole's edge. He wiped his forehead, feeling weak and ill, scared. A jolt of pain grasped his heart and he startled away from this vision, seeing in his mind's eye now the Evil entity that had tormented these people, that had forced them to sacrifice their good in exchange for freedom from apocalypse. And it terrified him. He could feel his body trembling. He wanted to scream, wanted to lapse into panic, but his fear of the vision wouldn't let him. His mind had become a terrified prisoner in his head. This Evil…he could
see
it, a dark and formless thing wholly able to represent itself in any menacing form it chose. Somehow…somehow, Jyro understood this, as plainly as the excavated hole before him—it had composed itself of waste, it had entered into the albino and one-eared Larry. All representations of the beast released from its bonds, now in possession of the church.

Oh dear God, help us all…

And yet, something buried deep inside his mind made him see that there was some Good present in all these terrible representations…that within each of the beast's emergences, a certain level of goodness was there struggling to keep it at bay: the rosary in Timothy's hand, enabling him to down the possession of the waste; the messages from the crucified man, and from one-eared Larry.

Jyro jolted, and the piece of his mind making him see and understand everything happening
today
lapsed back into the fearful reverie of the past he so desperately wanted to escape…

…and he could see the men, the dream figures of the past who appeared as real as the men standing behind him, the crate and the dead bodies now buried deep in the darkness of the soil, the Evil in their lives lost forever along with the lives of their innocent loved ones—sacrifices made to the beast who threatened the existence of every man, woman, and child on earth
.

He fought away the reverie for a second time, seeing now in certain fullness that the good of the rosary had been used by the men of the past to keep the evil of the chalice at bay, as if the spilled-out pieces of some mysterious puzzle had magically come together in his mind. A voice uttered in his head:
One holds darkness, one holds light, the mother of God's protection against evil is man's only hope. Find the sinless one.
And he knew: whether bound in confinement, or exposed to the elements, the rosary was the only exploitable weapon against the Evil that promised man the end of days. And that Evil was flourishing because the
chalice and the rosary had been separated
. He heard this in his head as if it had been spoken from an ancient book of lore, each word chiseled in stone for his certain understanding. And it made him painfully aware that all those in the custodies of the chalice and rosary would unconsciously become representatives of their amassing armies; the workers, retrievers of the chalice from its lofty point above the pit, now incarnations of Evil; and Jyro's reclamation of the rosary, instituting those like himself—the city's homeless—to form Good's army.

It became as painfully clear to him as the gooseflesh now marbling up and down his body. The city's homeless vs. the city's workers. Good vs. Evil. And Jyro knew: the only means of beating back the beast's unfettered emergence was to bring the chalice and the rosary back together again and lock them inside the crate, once and forever. Just as the church's original ancestors had done over a hundred years ago.

A task easier considered than done.

The image of the past faded from his mind. Faintly, dimly, he sensed himself being pulled away from the hole. He tried to resist the insurmountable pull but a wave of dizziness consumed him and the real world rolled back into his sights. His feet tangled together and he collapsed back…into the waiting hands of his brothers.

He could hear them shouting out, voices coming at him from every direction, hands slapping his cheeks as he came to. He looked up, saw Timothy and Weston staring down at him, their outlines bobbing crookedly in the light as they dragged him out of the rec room.

"Are you okay?" Timothy asked hurriedly, helping him down against the lockers in the hallway.

Short of breath, Jyro peered at the scene before him, now coming into focus: seven men and one teenaged boy, pathetic and filthy but brimming with unforeseen spirit and strength.

"What happened?" he muttered, the images of the past and the questions they answered still fresh in his mind.

"You almost toppled into the pit," Timothy quietly replied.

"It looked like you were in some sort of trance." Weston kneeled down before Jyro; the big man's forever stirring face was so red it was almost purple. "You started mumbling, and when we looked at you we could see that your eyes had rolled up in your head."

Timothy said, "We left you alone at first, but…but then you started trembling and that was when you leaned forward and we had to pull you back before you fell into the hole."

There was a long pause as Jyro corralled his thoughts. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, then in silence climbed to his feet and leaned back against the lockers. With the events of a hundred years ago still gnawing at his mind, he figured upon only one course of action: to do as they did, all those years ago. If he could put this hellstorm off for another hundred years, then so be it. It wouldn't be his problem anymore. He told the men: "We need to find the chalice. The sinless one, whoever he is, will bring us the rosary. We need to put them both into that crate at the bottom of the hole and bury it someplace where no one will ever find it again."

Just like the founding fathers of the church did all those years ago.

The group of men nodded, weakly but affirmatively. Timothy's right eye was nearly swollen shut. He asked, "So where do we look for the chalice, then?"

Eyes narrowed, Jyro looked through the open doors of the rec room. "Well as far as I can see, it ain't in there..." He took a deep breath and motioned toward the partially open door in the rectory lobby.

"We have to get into the church, don't we?" Weston said, looking edgy and aimless.

Jyro nodded, and the men spread out as he trudged through them and moved down the hall.

Wilson moved in alongside him. "How, man? How are we supposed to do that without getting burned?"

Keeping his eyes pointed ahead, Jyro said, "You used to be an altar boy. Didn't they teach you that when there's a will, there's a way?"

Wilson stared back at Jyro, utterly silent.

"C'mon. Let's go find a way into the church."

"M
y…dear…Jesus…"

Pilazzo stood trembling at the top of the subway entrance, aghast at the scene playing out before him. It was still early in the morning, the sun's rays a faint glimmer over the horizon. The streetlights were out, but in the dim surroundings he could see roiling flames and black smoke spewing from a building's windows not ten blocks away. Distant sirens blared and people meandered blindly, eyes red-rimmed and doused with tears, witnesses to sudden tragedy. A few taxis and cars zoomed past, alarm printed on the drivers' faces, alluding to stories of narrow escape.

A girl of perhaps eighteen, wearing running gear, rushed up to Pilazzo and grasped his open robe in a panic.

"Help me!"
she cried, eyes red and swollen with tears. Smears of ash and soot marked her sweaty cheeks and forehead like war paint. Her thin brown hair was wet with sweat, plastered to the sides of her face.

Pilazzo startled, and in fear shoved her away. He staggered along the sidewalk, peering at the girl over his shoulder as she raced blindly into the street…

"Oh God NO!"

…right in front of a speeding cab. With a hideous
crack!
, the cab slammed into her and sent her flying twenty feet into the windshield of a parked sedan. Her head exploded on impact, driving portions of bone and brain across the webbed glass. Pilazzo watched with horror, his mind rejecting the horrible truth of the matter as the center of the windshield caved in and her body slid down onto the front seat, leaving her bloody legs sticking out like splintered tree branches.

Somewhere nearby, people screamed. A few feet away, a shirtless man sprinted across the sidewalk, clutching a wound on his chest. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. He collided into a mailbox on the corner, and quickly disappeared down 77
^th
Street.

Short of breath, Pilazzo shambled down 3
^rd
Avenue, eyes skirting back and forth. Terrors filled his senses at every angle. Cars screeching, shouts filling the air, sirens calling out to one another in the distance.

The world around him fell into a blur, making it difficult to make out any details. Nearby, he heard the shrewd wail of what he thought was a circular saw. In its midst, bloodcurdling screams surfaced, sending painful shivers down his spine.

A cold wind blew across the Avenue, feeling like a December gust. He shivered, holding his arms close, blinking as dust invaded his eyes. He moved across the littered sidewalk, robe billowing out behind him. In the curb he saw a dead dog, its injuries still wet. Its tongue was bloated and black. Alongside its mouth were two human fingers, chewed off below the knuckles.

Grimacing, Pilazzo pulled his tortured eyes away and jogged across the street, listening to the sounds of looming destruction, relentless in the distance. Ahead a homeless man lay alongside a crashed vehicle, one leg pinned beneath the car's front tire. Pilazzo hurried to him and kneeled down at his side. The man appeared unconscious. Blood oozed from his nostrils and lips, bits of hair and blood plastered on the parking meter pole the car had crashed into.

Pilazzo grabbed the man's wrist, felt for a pulse.

The vagrant's eyes darted open. He pulled his arm away and grabbed the priest's wrist. A quick jolt of pain ripped through the priest's arm. Pilazzo cried out, tried to pull away but couldn't gather any leverage.

Through split and bleeding lips, the vagrant uttered,
"Your church awaits…"
He then let go of the priest and fell motionless, empty eyes staring blankly toward the gray skies.

Heart pounding, Pilazzo stood and staggered back into a grocery storefront. The front door was shattered, bits of glass crunching beneath his soles. He looked inside and saw a retarded man standing in the center of the store, eating an orange, babbling as he chewed, juicy bits slathering down his chin. A male youth blanketed in tattoos sat at the foot of the register, jabbing his arm with a hypodermic needle. Neither of them looked at the priest.

Pilazzo fled the storefront and moved farther on down the Avenue. He saw a car speeding across the empty street toward him. Remembering the homeless man that had gotten hit, he hurriedly slipped into an alcove fronting a building under construction. The car zigzagged as it went, sideswiping a parked delivery truck before speeding on. Somewhere nearby, a girl screamed.

Pilazzo emerged from the alcove and peered up at the unfinished structure looming over him.

From within, he could hear them: shouts and laughs amid a harsh clanging of tools.

The workers. They were coming.

He ran as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast at all. A cold breeze lanced his face. His robe billowed behind him. He turned the corner onto 78
^th
street.

Halfway up the block, he could see it. The Church of St Peter. He staggered toward it, noticing that all the trees on the block—those planted in cement cutouts every ten feet—were gray and leafless now, dead. Tree branches lay all over, severed from their small trunks, rising and poking every-which-way. Beneath each tree lay masses of dead sparrows, wings withered and jutting like the branches surrounding them.

What in God's name…?

As he approached the church, he saw something in his peripheral vision. He skidded to a stop, looked to his right, and stared.
 

In the center of the street was a mob of construction workers.