Pierced by a Sword (2 page)

Pierced by a Sword
is an imaginative
apocalypse. It is more concerned with raising the question:

What if?

What if it turns out this way? What would I, the reader, do in such a crisis? Where would I place myself in this vast landscape of chaos? How would I personally resolve the dilemmas faced by the men and women in this novel? What choices would I make if I were in their place? And most importantly, will I be ready?

As you read
this book, you will gradually come to understand the principles at stake whenever good and evil confront each other. I will not spoil the story by giving away even the smallest part of the plot. Plunge in! Discover it for yourself. Get ready for a journey of epic proportions—rather,
cosmic
proportions. You hold in your hands a little treasure, a marvel. This is an adventure, a comedy, a tragedy,
a turbulent odyssey and a peaceful stroll. Most of all, this is a love story like no other I have ever read. A new kind of love story. I'll see you inside…

M
ICHAEL
D. O'B
RIEN

Preface

I believe that most novels get read because readers find them entertaining. Hopefully, you won't be able to put this book down once you get a few chapters into it because you are enjoying yourself and are pulling for the characters. And you'll like it so much you'll recommend it to a friend. That's the greatest compliment you can give me as an author. No amount of marketing can replace
a good story.

While I certainly thought up the stuff in this book, it takes many people to get a book—any book—into your hands. This novel is in
your
hands because hundreds of thousands of people read
Pierced by a Sword
and passed it on.

So enjoy the ride. Trust me—I drive fast but I know where we're going. Nathan Payne, Becky Macadam, Father Chet, and other friends are waiting for you.
Oremus.

B
UD
M
ACFARLANE
J
R.

And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary…"Behold, this child is set for the ruin, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed."
Luke 2: 34-35

Prologue

24 R.E. (Reign of the Eucharist)
Marytown, Indiana

The lone bell of Immaculate Conception Church rang in the distance as Denny Wheat sighed, then leaned forward and cut the motor of his battered John Deere. Noon.

Time to whisper into the ear of my Lord.

He bowed his head. Denny's son Zack, silhouetted in the October sun, stopped working on a Cessna 172 fifty yards to the west and also
bowed his head. The entire population of Marytown was praying the Angelus.

Denny finished his prayers and turned the old tractor back on.
We're not much different than simple farmers hundreds of years ago in Christian Europe,
Denny thought.
Except now, every person in Marytown feels like they are whispering into the very ear of Jesus. The Eucharistic Reign of Christ, we used to call it in the
Dark Years, not knowing what it meant. It turned out to be so simple! What took years of discipline for the great mystics like Saint John of the Cross is like breathing for the residents of Marytown.

Denny looked at his son Zack, who was twenty-two.

The Dark Years are to Zack like that movie Star Wars was for me in my youth—sheer fantasy. A time so evil that it can barely be imagined by those
who were born in the Eucharistic Reign.

Denny was reminded of the role he played during the Dark Years. He remembered the heroes and heroines he knew during that horrible and strangely exciting time of suffering and redemption—Nathan, Becky, Father Chet, others.

And Lee Washington! I knew them—I lived through it. I lived to tell…

PART ONE

The Remnant

There is nothing that does not participate in beauty and goodness, because each thing is beautiful and good according to its proper form.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

Called up my preacher; I said, Give me strength for round five. He said, You don't need no strength, you need to grow up, son.
John Cougar Mellencamp

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo
Emerson

Well I'm goin' out, I'm goin' out lookin' for a cynical girl, who's got no use for the real world. I'm looking for a cynical girl.
Marshall Crenshaw

But then, O Immaculata, who are you?
Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Chapter One

1

Mid 1920s, Summer
Woodland Section
Cleveland, Ohio

Father Greg walked through the courtyard of Saint Nicholas Church with Sister Susan, the principal of the parish grammar school. They were saying their daily Rosary together for the parishioners. Father Greg was meditating deeply on the fourth Sorrowful Mystery–Jesus Carries the Cross–so he didn't notice when his Miraculous Medal
slipped out of the hole in his pocket down to the ground. The medal had been a gift from his mother on the first anniversary of his ordination twenty years earlier. He carried it in his pocket because he didn't like wearing medals around his neck.

After weeks of searching, Father Greg gave up looking for the medal, praying:
Dear Mary, let someone who needs it find it. I had it for twenty years–that's
enough for me. I'll make you a deal! I'll trade you the medal for a bigger church and a new school for Sister Susan.

In the 1920s the Woodland Section was still a vibrant community, and many new parishioners were joining Saint Nicholas. The steel mills and car factories of Cleveland were running at full steam. It was a safe and wonderful place to raise a family.

2

Two Decades Ago, Summer
Woodland
Section
Cleveland, Ohio

The heavyset kid swung mightily and whacked the tennis ball.

Lee Washington turned and ran as fast as he could, looking over his shoulder. The black youngster was straining to catch the tennis ball off the broomstick of LaPhonso Mack. LaPhonso was already a legendary power hitter in the rough and tumble annals of Woodland stickball. Part of a three-man team, Lee Washington
was the lone outfielder. He was an expert at dodging the abandoned cars, wild dogs, and old tires that filled the back of the empty lot which served as an illegal dump in the ghetto neighborhood. Lee strained his eyes against the setting sun while his teammates cheered him on. He prepared to dive headfirst for the dirty green ball.

I'm gonna catch it!

Lee tripped on a rusty bumper from a 1965
Chevy pickup and missed the ball. Dirt filled his mouth. Game over. His teammates cursed in a good-natured way as the laughing LaPhonso rumbled around the makeshift bases.

Lee, who was not a particularly good or bad player, was not disappointed. The shy, fatherless boy had given chase with supreme effort–as usual. Despite their perfunctory curses, he knew his teammates appreciated the hustle.
No one else but Lee would have been crazy enough to dive for a ball in the debris. Summer was only half over and stickball would resume tomorrow.

He spit the dirt out of his mouth. Then he waved to his friends, hollering brightly, "I'm okay! See you tomorrow!" He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the dump.

His friends called back their good-byes and turned to go home. He continued to dust
the dirt and grime off his pants and suppressed an urge to kick the truck bumper. He looked again at the twisted, rust-covered hunk of metal.

Must be a new piece of junk,
he mused.
What's that gleaming there? A quarter?

Lee Washington took a step and bent over to pick up the quarter. But it wasn't a quarter. He didn't know what it was. He had never seen a Miraculous Medal before. It was mostly
caked with dirt.

It was made of silver, like a quarter, and Lee thought it might be worth some money.
Maybe I could sell it? Get some candy for it. Yeah, I'll get a couple Marathon bars.

Lee, despite being soft-spoken and shy, was known by his schoolmates as a deal maker. The little entrepreneur loved to buy and sell. He also had a reputation for fairness. Fairness was good for business.
I'm gonna
be a mill-yanair someday.

The dirty Miraculous Medal was large–almost as big as a quarter, but oval shaped and thicker. He spit carefully on the medal and wiped it off with the flap of his shirt. His brow furrowed with curiosity as he studied the sculpted images on both sides. He liked the picture of a woman stepping on a snake on the one side and the two hearts on the other. One heart had a crown
of thorns upon it, and the other heart had a sword going through it.

Cool! Wonder what the round thing with the points on it is?
He didn't know it was a crown of thorns.

He tentatively sounded out the words on the front side, "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." When he pronounced
conceived
he said: Con-see-ive-ed.
So it's a religious thing. Cool.

Lee had been
abandoned by his father before he was born. He had no religious training from his mother, Shawna Washington. He figured that "Mary" must mean the mother of Jesus. He had seen the Christmas crèche in front of the local Baptist church during Christmas time. Lee was an intelligent boy, and correctly deduced the words to be a prayer.

What the hell. Might as well say it.
He took a deep breath. "O Mary
con-see-ive-ed without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."
Cool.

When Lee got home to the tenement, he found a sturdy steel chain in his mother's huge costume jewelry collection, and attached the medal. He hung the large silver medal around his neck, looking at himself in the mirror. None of the other boys had medals. He liked it. He decided not to sell it after all.

Over the years the
Miraculous Medal became his good luck charm. He did not attach any religious significance to it beyond the one prayer he said in the sandlot the day he found it. That prayer was the first prayer of his life. His second prayer would come years later.

Lee never discovered, however, that the sandlot where he had found the medal was on the former grounds of Saint Nicholas Church, which had been demolished
right before the Great Depression. Old Father Greg had done well as a pastor and he eventually decided to sell the lot and the church to build a bigger, better church several blocks away. The original building was deconsecrated and demolished with the blessing of the bishop. Sister Susan was thrilled to get a bigger, brand new school in the mix. And Lee eventually got a Miraculous Medal.
A good deal all around.

3

The Present
Saturday Afternoon
7 October
Chicago, Illinois

Cities are full of beautiful women. Becky Macadam was more than beautiful. She was
achingly
beautiful. She was blond, twenty-six, and in trouble.

"My Grace Kelly with dark brown eyes," as Daddy used to say
, Becky thought rather miserably. Bad news on the horizon. The little red plus sign she was looking at said
so.

She was quite stunning–despite the sweat suit hiding her athletic limbs as she knelt on the living room floor. Her simple but elegant short haircut was all in a mess. Had she been a bit taller and thinner, Becky might have been an extremely successful model. As it happened, she was a mildly successful advertising executive.

Her eyes focused again on the square piece of plastic on the expensive
throw rug on the wood floor. She read the result of the home diagnostic test and knew for certain what she had already guessed by feeling.
I'm pregnant. I can't believe it. A muffin in the oven,
she thought with a mixture of sadness and distant jubilation.

Condoms! They don't really work, now do they?

Becky suddenly thought of her father. Walt Macadam had died of lung cancer when she was in grade
school. An only child, Becky had been devastated.
Why do you keep popping into my head at a time like this, Daddy?

Anger and frustration flashed inside her. She stared at the red plus sign on the little plastic square. She threw it across the room. Becky had a strong arm and it glanced off Sam's picture.
There, now I feel better.

She thought of Sam, who had been her domestic partner for over a
year.

That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it? Will Sam want me to keep it? It? Try
him
or
her.

She got up, went to the kitchen, tiny as all kitchens are in the apartment world of Chicago, and poured herself a giant plastic cup of wine. The logo of the Chicago Cubs was on the cup. It was not expensive wine.

Cubs. I'm going to have a cub of my own.
She lit a cigarette.
I'll be
okay. I'll be just fine. I'm a big girl.

Outside she heard a random car horn. A fly buzzed around the apartment ceiling and followed her into the living room where she collapsed on the couch. Becky inhaled deeply on her cigarette and exhaled a long slow mist of smoke.

Hi little Cub! I'm your mom. What's it like in there?

Then, the most beautiful woman in the whole city began to cry like a little
girl in soft, reluctant sobs. Her domestic partner was due home from shopping in less than an hour. Both were then supposed to get ready for a party at Nathan Payne's later that night.

4

Sunday Morning
8 October
Indiana Tollway, Indiana

The black convertible Mustang sliced through the air, top down, at eighty-five. Nathan Payne scanned the horizon for state troopers. The rock music on the CD screamed
"Three Strange Days" by a group called School of Fish. In the passenger seat a young lady with wavy, shoulder length auburn hair and a snow white complexion was sleeping deeply. She had been out like a light since way before the Skyway.

God, she's different,
he thought wistfully, gripping the steering wheel more tightly, keeping one eye on the road.
Inside and out different.
Her name was Joanie
Wheat.

As if she could read his thoughts in her dream, she gave a low moan, adjusted her position on the gray leather seat, but didn't wake up. She was wearing baggy jeans and an oversized gray sweater which hid her thin figure.

I wish she would open her eyes. She had the clearest blue eyes Nathan had ever seen–and he had looked closely into many a woman's eyes. Joanie Wheat was not the most beautiful
woman Nathan had ever been with, but she did have the most enchanting eyes.

He decided against waking her up and turned his complete attention back to the highway, which was whizzing by in a blur. Chicago was now seventy miles to the west. The rolling hills of western Indiana were starting to level out into good old Hoosier flatlands.

Nathan was a slender, handsome man with inscrutable green eyes
that made him seem older than his thirty-one years. He glanced at the young lady again before taking another sip of the Red Bull which was keeping him awake after the big party last night in Chicago.

I've got to call my voicemail and let Chet know where I'm going.

Nathan had given Chet the number.

Chet was Father Chet Sullivan, Nathan's boyhood friend visiting on vacation for a week in Chicago.
Chet was a parish priest from New Jersey. He was the same age as Nathan. Despite Chet's protests, Nathan had thrown a big party on Chet's second night in town. Forty people had been crammed into Nathan's large high-rise apartment, which was located on the lakefront–Chicago's chic Gold Coast.

Nathan had met the girl in his passenger seat for the first time at the party. Coincidentally, Joanie had
been an acquaintance of Chet's ten years earlier during his undergraduate days at the University of Notre Dame. Chet had been pleasantly surprised to see Joanie there.

She was a friend of a friend of a friend who heard about the party. I was pretty wasted before she even showed up. What number would she have been, forty-eight?
Nathan was suddenly aware of a strange emotion. It was far away, like
the sound of a ship's foghorn.

What is that?
Guilt?
That's not like you, Fat Boy. Not like you at all. The Fat Boy does not feel guilt! She was a consenting adult, even if she was a somewhat drunken one. You didn't even go all the way with her, though you got pretty close.

Nathan's tongue-in-cheek nickname for himself was Fat Boy. He had called himself that since high school. At the time, Nathan
had been overweight by forty pounds. He had been overweight for practically his entire life up until the summer before his senior year at Fenwick High School. Fenwick was a Catholic school run by dedicated Dominican friars.

The guilt over last night was still there.

A dry little voice spoke to him:
What have you become that you're trying to seduce drunk girls, especially nice girls like Joanie?
She cried so sadly before passing out last night. For heaven's sake, she knew Chetmeister! If Father Chet had seen you sneak away with her, he would've barged in to break it up, claiming to be looking for his keys or something.

Chet had been out on the open air deck trying valiantly to bring Christianity to Nathan's many heathen friends while making them laugh at the same time.
Good old Father
Chet. Mr. Missionary. My friend through thick and thin. Why does he still waste a week on me every year?
Chet was the only person from New Jersey who Nathan still kept in touch with since moving to Chicago.

Probably going to get one or two to church today, if I know the cagey Irishman.
Nathan's thought was not very far from the truth. In fact, it was right on the money.

Forty-seven. Nathan had
been keeping track of how many women he had slept with since the first, a girl he would forever remember as Sally the Waitress. In a way, he couldn't help but number them because he had a special gift for numbers. During his freshman year of college, Sally the Waitress had been serving him drinks at a bar near his apartment at the University of Illinois. Sally had told Nathan that she wanted to see
his room, and one thing had led to another.
How long ago was that, twelve years? I've been sleeping around for over a decade?

Almost against his will Nathan divided forty-seven women by twelve years and instantly came up with 3.916666–on to infinity. Two numbers had presented themselves and his mind automatically called forth their mathematical relationship.

His ample mathematical skills gave
Nathan the edge–along with his voracious appetite for competition–that made him the top trader in the smallish but respected brokerage firm for which he worked. Over the last two years he had earned well over three hundred thousand dollars per year. Nathan invested most of his money right back into his own daring trades.