F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (31 page)

           
 
Vincenzo wondered at this fellow's use of the
term "the Master." Surely he was referring to Christ. Who else could
be expected at the Second Coming. But it was such an archaic reference, the way
the early church referred to Jesus.

           
 
But Vincenzo was even more intrigued by his
last statement.

           
 
"It's 1996," he said. "Why do
you say we don't have four years?"

           
 
"Because your calendar is wrong. The
Master was not born in the year you have designated one A.D."

           
 
Vincenzo realized with a shock that he was
right. It was an accepted fact now that the birth year of Christ had been
miscalculated by a sixth century monk named Dionysus Exiguus who had been
charged by the Church with numbering the years of the Christian era.

           
 
"Good Lord, sir, that is true! Jesus
Christ is believed to have been born somewhere between four and seven
B.C!"

           
 
"Four."

           
 
"I beg your pardon?"

           
 
"The Master was born in what you now call
four B.C."

           
 
"I don't think anyone really knows for
sure."

           
 
"I do."

           
 
The man's tone was defiantly authoritative,
leaving no room for argument. One would almost think he'd been alive then.

           
 
"Yes . . . well," Vincenzo said.
"For the sake of discussion we shall accept the year four B.C. That would
mean that" ... a chill rippled up Vincenzo's spine . . . "Heavens,
man, that would mean that this very year marks the two-thousandth year since
His birth!"

           
 
The bearded man nodded slowly. "Yes.
Unsettling, no? I just realized that fact myself a moment ago." He shot to
his feet. "Good-bye. I must be going."

           
 
"Yes," Vincenzo said. "Of
course. It was most enlightening talking to you. Perhaps we'll meet some other
time."

           
 
"I do not think so."

           
 
He walked off.

           
 
Vincenzo wondered if he was another
"Mary-hunter," as one of the local papers had dubbed the hordes of
faithful roaming the
Lower
East Side
streets
in search of the Blessed Virgin.

           
 
Perhaps, perhaps not, Vincenzo thought as he
pushed himself to his feet. But certainly something strange about that fellow.
Not very friendly, which he supposed was to be expected in
New York
, but this fellow was almost furtive.

           
 
Vincenzo wished he'd had more time to talk to
him, though. If he was right, then this year indeed marked the true end of the
second millennium. Vincenzo found that more than a little disquieting.

           
 
As he crossed
Pearl Street
a man ran out of an alley, frantically
waving his arms in the dusk.

           
 
"OhmyGod! OhmyGod! I think I saw her! I
think it's
her!"

           
 
Vincenzo's heart leapt. "Where?"

           
 
As the fellow pointed toward the black maw of
the alley behind him, Vincenzo tried in vain to make out his features in the
dusky light.

           
 
"Back there! She was just standing there,
glowing."

           
 
"Show me," Vincenzo said.
"Please show me!"

           
 
"Sure," the fellow said, waving him
to follow. "Come on!"

           
 
An alarm clanged faintly in a corner of
Vincenzo's brain, but his mind was too suffused with glorious anticipation to
pay it proper heed.

           
 
The darkness of the alley swallowed him. He
saw nothing.

           
 
"Where?"

           
 
He was shoved roughly from behind and fell to
his knees on the garbage-strewn pavement. Fear pounded through Vincenzo as he
realized he was being mugged. He'd heard about the predators who'd begun
stalking the defenseless Mary-hunters. The papers had dubbed them
"Holy-rollers." He began shouting for help until a heavy boot slammed
into his ribs and drove the wind out of him.

           
 
"Shuddup, asshole, an' gimme yer
wallet!"

           
 
Vincenzo shouted again and was kicked again.
The mugger grabbed his wrist and pulled off his watch.

           
 
"Where's yer wallet. Gimme yer fuckin'
wallet or I cut ya!"

           
 
Vincenzo was reaching for his back pocket when
he heard a groan above him. He heard scuffling feet, and then a heavy weight
slammed onto the pavement next to him.

           
 
"Did he stab you? Do you need a
hospital?"

           
 
Vincenzo recognized the accent—the little
bearded fellow who'd been sitting on the bench with him moments ago.

           
 
"No. I'm only bruised. Could you help me
up, perhaps?"

           
 
He raised his hand and felt another grasp it
and pull him to his feet.

           
 
Immediately the man began to move off.

           
 
"Wait. I haven't thanked you. There must
be something—"

           
 
"You can say nothing of this," the
fellow said, stopping and turning. "That will be thanks enough."

           
 
"But people should know! You're a
hero!"

           
 
"That man behind you will be dead before
help arrives. I am a stranger in this country. I do not wish to be
arrested."

           
 
"What did you do to him?"

           
 
"My knife did to him what his knife was
going to do to you."

           
 
"But why?"

           
 
"I needed to."

           
 
Weak and trembling, Vincenzo leaned against a
wall and silently watched the stranger hurry off. The parting words turned over
in his mind. /
needed to.
Something
about the way he'd said that . . .

           
 
Needed to what? Help somebody . . . or stab
somebody?

           
 
He turned for one final look into the alley
that might have been his grave and saw her.

           
 
She was only a few feet away, moving closer .
. .
flowing
toward him . . . her
faint glow a beacon in the black hole of the alley. Her robes were the same as
in
Cork
, only now he was close enough to make out
some of her features. The tears in his eyes blurred them but he thought he
detected a hint of a smile as she looked at him.

           
 
"It's you!" he sobbed, overcome by
an unplumbed longing within. "I've been searching for you. I knew I'd find
you again!"

           
 
She flowed closer without slowing . . . closer
. . .

           
 
Vincenzo backed up a step but she never slowed
her approach. It was as if she didn't see him. When she was within inches he
cried, "Stop!" but she continued her irresistible course, pressing
against him—but he felt nothing. She had no substance. And then his vision was
filled with light that blotted out the alley and the street and the city, light
all around, light within him . . .

           
 
Within him . . .

           
 
The apparition had merged with him. Was he
within her or was she within him?

           
 
He froze, he sizzled, dazzling spots flashed
and swelled and danced before his eyes, he floated, he plummeted . . .

           
 
And then the light faded and the city night
filled his eyes again. He whirled and saw the apparition directly behind him,
flowing away.

           
 
She
walked
. . .
right . . . through . .
. me!

           
 
And then she began to fade. Within seconds
Vincenzo was alone again. And then the wonder that filled him also began to
fade as the pain began, searing bolts of agony lancing through his chest and
abdomen, doubling him over, driving him to his knees.

           
IN
THE PACIFIC

           
7°
N, 150° W

           
 
The clouds and wind have organized into a
pocket of turbulence with sharply demarcated borders. The pocket begins to
drift eastward, drawing warm moist air up from the ocean surface into its high,
cool center where the moisture condenses into droplets. Thunder rumbles and
lightning flashes as rain and wind whip the churning ocean surface to a froth.

           
 
The storm swells as it accelerates its
eastward course.

           
Manhattan

           
 
"Okay, Monsignor. Another deep breath,
and hold this one."

           
 
Vincenzo Riccio filled his lungs while Dr.
Karras's fingers probed his abdomen under the lower right edge of his rib cage.
The young oncologist's normally tanned-looking skin was relatively pale today.
The overhead fluorescents of the examining room reflected off the fine sheen of
perspiration on his forehead.

           
 
"Damn!" he muttered as his fingers
probed more deeply under Vincenzo's ribs.

           
 
"Something wrong?" Vincenzo said,
exhaling at last.

           
 
"No. I mean, yes. I mean . . ."

           
 
Vincenzo sat up and pulled down his
undershirt.

           
 
"I don't understand."

           
 
"Neither do I," Karras said, running
a hand through his short black hair.

           
 
"Perhaps you'd better tell me the
problem, Doctor. I think I deserve to know."

           
 
The examination had started out routinely
enough, with Vincenzo arriving at the outpatient cancer clinic, reading in the
waiting room until his name was called, and then being examined by Dr. Karras.
But after examining him just as he had now, Karras had stepped over to the
chart and pulled out yesterday's blood test results. After checking those for
what seemed like an unduly long time and shuffling through the sheaf of
previous reports, he examined Vincenzo's abdomen

           
again, then sent him for a CT scan
of the liver, with comparison to the previous study.

           
 
"Stat," he'd said into the phone.
"Double
stat." So Vincenzo had
allowed himself to be swallowed by the metal gullet of the scanner where his
liver could be radiographically sliced and diced, and now he was back again on
the examining table. He had an inkling as to the nature of Dr. Karras's
discomfiture, but he dared not voice it . . . dared not even
think
it. 'The problem is—"

           
 
The intercom beeped. "Dr. Weiskopf is
here."

           
 
"Weiskopf?" Karras said. "From
radiology? What's—? Oh, shit. Excuse me." He all but leapt from the
examining room door.

           
 
A few moments later he was back, trailing in
his wake a tall, bearded man whom he introduced as Dr. Weiskopf. He looked
about fifty and wore a yarmulke; a large manila X-ray envelope was tucked under
his left arm.

           
 
"I've never met a walking miracle,"
Dr. Weiskopf said softly as they shook hands.

           
 
Vincenzo suddenly felt weak.
"Miracle?"

           
 
"What else can you call it? I looked at
your scan from today, then called up your initial scan from July, and I said to
myself, Moshe, a trick this Karras kid is playing on you, trying to make a fool
of you by asking you to compare the very sick liver of one man to the perfectly
healthy liver of another. And then I spied an osteophyte—doctorese for a bone
spur—on one of the vertebrae of the new scan; much to my shock, there was the
very same spur on the old scan. So I had to come and see this man for
myself."

           
 
Vincenzo looked from Weiskopf to Karras.
"What . . . what's he saying?"

           
 
"He's saying your liver scan's normal,
Monsignor."

           
 
"You mean the tumor's shrinking?"

           
 
"Shrinking?" Dr. Weiskopf said.
"It's gone!
Pfffftt!
Like it was
never there. On your first scan your liver was, if you'll pardon the term,
Swiss-cheesed with tumors—"

           
 
"Nodular," Dr. Karras added.
"And half again its normal size."

           
 
"But now it's perfectly homogeneous. Not
even a little fatty degeneration."

           
 
"And it's back to normal size," Dr.
Karras said. "I can barely feel it anymore."

           
 
"Is that what you were doing to me?"
Vincenzo said, feeling giddy and dizzy, wanting to laugh or cry or both,
wanting to fall to his knees in prayer but struggling to maintain his
composure. "For a while there I thought you were trying to feel my spine
from the front."

           
 
Dr. Karras smiled weakly. "Last week your
liver was big and nodular. Your liver enzymes were climbing. Now—"

           
 
"Maybe we're onto something with this new
protocol," Dr. Weiskopf said.

           
 
Dr. Karras was shaking his head, staring at
Vincenzo. "No. The protocol's a bust. We haven't seen significant tumor
regression with anyone."

           
 
"Until now," Dr. Weiskopf said,
tapping this X-ray envelope.

           
 
"Uh-uh," Dr. Karras said, still
shaking his head and staring. "Even if it were the protocol, tumor
regression would be gradual. A slow shrinking of the tumors, and even in a
best-case scenario we'd be left with a battered and scarred but functioning
liver. The Monsignor's CT shows a perfectly healthy liver. Almost as if he'd
had a transplant."

           
 
"
I
can't explain it," Dr. Weiskopf said.

           
 
"Maybe you already did," Vincenzo
said. "It's a miracle."

           
 
Vincenzo was regaining his inner composure
now. He hadn't been totally unprepared for this. After the apparition had
passed through him three nights ago, he'd been racked with horrific pain for a
few moments, and then it had passed, leaving him weak and sweaty. He'd
staggered back to his quarters at the mission where he fell into an exhausted
sleep. But when he awakened early the next morning he'd felt better than he had
in years. And each passing day brought renewed strength and vigor. A power had
touched him outside that alley. He'd been changed inside. He'd wondered how,
why. He'd prayed, but he'd dared not hope . . .

           
 
Until now.

           
 
A miracle . . .

           
 
The doctors' smiles were polite but
condescending.

           
 
"A figure of speech, Monsignor," Dr.
Weiskopf said.

           
 
Dr. Karras cleared his throat. "I'd like
to admit you for a day or two, Monsignor. Do a full, head-to-toe workup to see
if we can get a handle on this and—"

           
 
Vincenzo shook his head as he slipped off the
examining table and reached for his cassock.

           
"I'm sorry, but I have no time
for that."

           
 
"Monsignor, something extraordinary has
happened here. If we can pin this down, who knows how many other people we can
help?"

           
 
"You will find nothing useful in
examining me," he said as he fastened his Roman collar. "Only
confusion."

           
 
"You can't say that."

           
 
"I wish it were otherwise. But
unfortunately what happened to me cannot be applied to your other cases. At
least not in a hospital or clinic setting."

           
 
"Where then?"

           
 
"I do not know. But I'm going to try and
find out."

           
 
Vincenzo was returning to the
Lower East Side
. Something was drawing him back.

           
 
"Y'soup's goin' cold, guy. Ain't y'gonna
eat it?"

           
 
Emilio glanced to his right at the scrawny
little man next to him—bright eyes crinkled within a wrinkled face framed by a
mass of gray hair and beard matted with food and dirt; a gnarled finger with a
nail the color of asphalt pointed to the bowl that cooled before him on the
table.

           
 
"Do you want it?" Emilio said.

           
 
This was Emilio's third meal at the
church-basement soup kitchen called Loaves and Fishes and so far he'd managed
to get through each time without having to eat a thing.

           
 
"Well, if you ain't gonna be eatin' it,
it'd sure be a sin to waste it."

           
 
Emilio switched bowls with the old man,
trading his full one for an empty. He placed his slice of bread on the other
man's plate as well.

           
 
"Ain'tcha hungry?" the old man said,
bending over the fresh bowl and adding his slurps to the chorus of guttural
noises around them.

           
 
"No. Not really." He'd had a big
breakfast in the
East
Village
before walking over to
St. Joseph
's. "I'm not feeling well lately."

           
 
"Yeah?" the old man said.
"Well, then, this is the place to be." He leaned closer and spoke out
of the side of his mouth. "Miracles happen here."

           
 
"So I've heard," Emilio replied.

           
 
It was talk of miracles that had brought him
to Loaves and Fishes.

           
 
Emilio had been in town a week and a half and
hadn't uncovered anything. And he didn't expect to. A waste of time as far as
he was concerned. But the opinion of Emilio Sanchez did not count in this
matter. The
senador
wanted him here,
sniffing about, turning over any rocks that the CDC might miss, and so here he
was. The
senador
would get copies of
the official CDC reports as they were filed. What he wanted from Emilio was the
unofficial story, "the view from street level," as the
senador
called it.

           
 
To do that, Emilio had rented a room in one of
the area's seedy residential hotels, stopped taking showers, and let his beard
grow. He'd picked up some thrift-shop clothes and begun wandering the
Lower East Side
, posing as a local.

           
 
And it was as a local that he'd run into
someone named Pilgrim who ranted on about this blind friend Preacher who'd
begun to see at a place called Loaves and Fishes, and how all the men who'd
been cured of AIDS used to come to Loaves and Fishes.

           
 
And so now Emilio came to Loaves and Fishes.

           
 
Not that he suspected to find anything even
vaguely supernatural going on, but there was always the chance that the place
might be frequented by someone pedaling a drug or a folk medicine that might
have been responsible for the now-famous AIDS cures.

           
 
But there was nothing going on here. Just a
crowd of hungry losers stuffing their faces with anything edible they could lay
their hands on. No fights, which struck Emilio as unusual with this sort of
group. Maybe they were just too busy eating. Nothing special about the staff,
either. Mostly lonely old biddies filling up their empty days toiling in what
they probably thought was service to mankind, plus a beautiful young nun who
spent too much of her time in the kitchen.

           
 
And a young priest who seemed to be in charge.
Emilio had been startled to recognize him as the same priest the
senador
had chewed up and spit out in
front of the Waldorf last spring. He doubted the priest would recognize him,
but just the same, Emilio kept his head down whenever he came around.