“Please,” said Papa Jim, rolling his eyes. “Are you going to tell me that Steerpike wasn’t whispering into her ear? That he didn’t put the pills she overdosed on into her hands? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he forced them down her throat! But that’s not the point.”
“What is your point, Mr. Osbourne?”
“My point is, she was your leverage. She was money in the bank, and you threw it all away. With Maggie Richardson, you could have had Ethan in the palm of your hand. Because he loved her. Do you understand that, Your Holiness? It’s his weakness. He cares for people.”
“Love is not a weakness,” said the pope rather stiffly, as if reciting a lesson he’d learned long ago by rote but had never experienced himself.
“Of course it is,” said Papa Jim. “It’s the biggest goddamn weakness we humans have. It’s also our biggest strength. Tell me what a man loves, and I’ll tell you how to inspire him to do the impossible . . . or how to blackmail him into doing the unthinkable. Without Maggie, there’s only one person left who has that kind of power over Ethan’s heart. My grand-daughter, Kate.”
“If you despise us so much, Mr. Osbourne, why did you agree to help us? Why did you turn over your granddaughter to us instead of keeping her as leverage?”
“Why, I don’t despise you at all,” said Papa Jim, genuinely surprised. “I simply think that all this”—he gestured expansively with his cigar, as if to take in not only the plush office but the building in which it was housed and the entirety of Vatican City itself—“could be run a lot better. A lot smarter. That’s where I come in. Running things from behind the scenes is what I do best. I don’t want the keys to the kingdom. I just want to have a chance to exercise a little guidance. A little influence. See, whether you believe it or not, my goal has always been to bring my country—which is your country too, Your Holiness—back to God. I thought I could use Ethan for that, but he had his own ideas. Misguided ideas. Dangerous ideas. The kind of ideas that lead to chaos and anarchy. Riots like the one in Times Square. And worse. In these troubled times, with terrorists on all sides, we need more order, more authority, not less. I’m sure you agree. That’s why I came to you all those weeks ago with my proposal. In exchange for Ethan, you would give me control of the Congregation. Together, we would work hand in hand in America and across the world to establish God’s kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. That was the offer I brought to you, Your Holiness. That was the offer you accepted. Are you backing out now?”
“The church does not ‘back out’ of its agreements, Mr. Osbourne,” said the pope acidly. “It’s simply that you assured us Ethan would know his mother was our prisoner, and he would come for her. Yet after two days, there is no sign of him. Not even a trace. After the Times Square riot, it’s as if he disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Perhaps he did.”
The pope arched an eyebrow.
“Come now, Your Holiness. We both know that Ethan is exactly who he claims to be. Whether you call him the second Son or the Son of man doesn’t really matter, does it? Why quibble over semantics? The boy is God’s son. He could be anywhere.”
“That is not helpful.”
“Here’s what I think happened,” Papa Jim continued as if the pope hadn’t spoken. “The death of the Richardson girl—however it happened— hit Ethan hard. Very hard. I think the riot was a kind of manifestation of what was going on inside him: all his pain and anger exploding outward to infect those around him. A kind of anti-miracle, if you will. Then, when he saw what he had done, he recoiled in guilt and horror. He took himself away. Where?” Papa Jim shrugged. “Who knows? But now we need to get his attention again. Maybe it’s not enough just to have Kate in our custody. Maybe just holding her here is no more than a whisper in Ethan’s ears, too faint for him to hear.”
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Osbourne?”
“I’m suggesting that we shout.”
“Shout?”
“Turn up the volume, Your Holiness. Make damn sure that Ethan hears the message we’re sending him.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“Take off the gloves,” said Papa Jim.
The pope regarded him with an expression of disgust. “You can speak so casually about hurting your own granddaughter?”
“No, not casually,” said Papa Jim. “But what choice do we have? The point of leverage is to use it. Or threaten to use it. Kate is our leverage over Ethan. If threatening her doesn’t get his attention, we have to escalate. There’s nothing personal about it. The logic of the situation dictates our response. I’m not a sadist, Your Holiness. I love my granddaughter, just as I love Ethan. They’re my family—all the family I’ve got left. But my first loyalty is to God, and I know that God isn’t happy with the way that Ethan has been acting. The boy is out of control. Blazing his own trail instead of following the path that God has laid out for him. You heard his sermons! He’s as much a threat to the Church as he is to everything else. God wants us to find him. To stop him.”
“Yes, the boy needs to be . . . restrained,” said the pope. “Corrected. Gently, of course. To the extent possible. But the pernicious doctrine of the second Son cannot be permitted to survive. He must repudiate it publicly. The Church and the Church alone is the rightful mediator between God and humanity. Christ himself established us, gave us the keys to bind and to loose the souls of human beings on Earth and in Heaven. There can be no other path to salvation and eternal life. The fate of humanity depends on it.”
“Then you’ll give the order?” asked Papa Jim.
The pope nodded, a grave expression on his face. “And may God forgive us for what we do in His name.”
“As long as we act in His name, there isn’t anything to forgive,” Papa Jim said. “That’s the beauty of faith.”
“That’s not faith, Mr. Osbourne,” said the pope. “It’s pride.”
“Whatever,” Papa Jim answered with a shrug and took another puff on his cigar.
For two days now—though she herself had no notion of how much time had passed, as the light in her cell never went out, never even so much as flickered—Kate had neither seen nor heard another human being. Alone in the bare metal cell, she had slept fitfully, waking to find that food had been delivered while she slept: cold sandwiches of bland white bread and processed cheese that could have come out of a vending machine. Blankets, too, had been given to her, so that she didn’t feel the cold so badly. But that hardly counted as a kindness considering how little she knew about her location, the identity of her captors, and what those captors wanted from her. She knew that it all had to do with Ethan in some way, but that knowledge raised more questions than it answered.
She tried to listen for her mysterious captors, tried to feign sleep so as to take them by surprise when they brought her food, but somehow she always wound up actually falling asleep. It occurred to her that the cell was being flooded periodically with a tasteless, odorless gas, something to knock her out. She had no proof, but it seemed a logical inference. Which meant, of course, that there might come a time when some other gas, less benign in purpose and effect, was introduced into the room. Perhaps that time had come already . . . thus did logic lead by sudden, heart-juddering leaps to panic.
She had never been so aware of her essential vulnerability. Not even in the early days of her convent years had she felt so cut off from the world. So acutely alone, forgotten, and afraid.
She responded now as she had then.
Kneeling at the side of what passed for her bed, Kate prayed not just for rescue, though she did pray for that, but even more for God to give her the strength and wisdom to accept whatever He willed for her.
Really, she thought, being in this cell was not so different from being in her cell at the convent. In fact, this one was quite a step up from the other. Her old cell hadn’t had a sink or a toilet; she’d had to wash from a basin and walk to a lavatory used by all the sisters. Her present accommodations were downright lu
xurious by comparison.
Of course, she hadn’t been locked into her cell at the convent. She’d left it every day, gone out into the garden or even into the nearby towns on convent business. But there had been times when she’d retreated from all that, embraced the solitude of her cell as she prayed to God—often raging at Him, it was true, filled with anger and heart-break as she’d been then and for many years afterward.
But no longer. Such anger as she possessed now was not directed toward God. It was directed toward her fellow human beings. Toward Papa Jim, who had lied to her, manipulated her. Toward her kidnappers, who-ever they might be. And toward Ethan’s enemies, the Congregation and any others who wished him ill. Toward them most of all.
God, protect Your son, she prayed in fierce silence, trembling from more than just the cold. Smite His enemies tooth and nail. If vengeance is Yours, like the Bible says, then take vengeance on those who would hurt or kill Ethan!
In the midst of just such a prayer, Kate heard a noise, a whisper of air. Looking up, she saw a familiar black face staring down at her.
It was Gabriel. He was floating above the bed. The angel didn’t speak, but the look of sorrow and compassion on his face was eloquent enough.
Crossing herself, Kate stood. “Is . . . is he . . .” She couldn’t get the words out.
Gabriel spread his arms as if in benediction or greeting. “Hail, Kate, filled with grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
At these words, Kate’s heart leapt up. “Is he alive, then, Gabriel?”
The angel nodded. “He lives.”
“Thank God,” she said and began to cry with relief and happiness.
“Fear not,” said Gabriel, “but trust in God and all will be well.”
“I do,” she said. “I will. Have you come to rescue me, Gabriel?”
He smiled sadly and shook his head. “I have come to bear witness and to offer what comfort I can. The time of trials is upon you, Kate. Much has been given you. Now much will be asked.”
“I . . . I don’t understand.”
“Do you have faith in God?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
“Then hold to your faith and don’t worry about understanding.”
Before Kate could respond to this somewhat enigmatic advice, she heard another sound. The sound of a door opening behind her. Turning, she saw four black-clad figures step through. Their faces were hidden by black ski masks, and they did not speak a word as they advanced upon her, the door closing behind them.
When Ethan had disappeared from the abandoned church in Times Square, he hadn’t ascended into Heaven. Nor had he descended into the depths of hell. He hadn’t gone anyplace like that. In fact, he hadn’t left New York City at all. He’d simply made himself invisible to the sorts of tracking algorithms and technologies relied upon by Grand Inquisitor and AEGIS.
Then he’d taken the subway to a homeless shelter on the Bowery. He’d been there, and on the surrounding streets of the Lower East Side, for the past two days. In all that time, nobody had recognized him, though he hadn’t disguised his appearance in any way. It was simply that New York City conferred upon him the same generous gift that it had been conferring upon its citizens and visitors, famous and nonfamous alike, for years: anonymity.
He needed it. He needed time to himself in order to process everything that had happened: Maggie’s death, the riot, his meeting with Gabriel, and, most of all, the transcendent experience of his encounter with God. He’d come away from all that feeling as though he’d been reborn. It was as if his spirit had been shattered and then put back together in a new and ultimately stronger shape. He felt transfigured. Transformed. But like any newborn thing, he was still weak. He wasn’t quite ready to stand on his own two feet. He was like a newly hatched butterfly that must dry its wings in the sun before spreading them and taking flight.
Over and over again, Ethan replayed in his mind the moment when his father had come to him in the church. In his darkest hour, when he had all but surrendered to the twin evils of bitterness and despair, when he’d been ready to forsake everything, his mission, his humanity, even his share of the divine, when he’d lashed out at God in anger, God had not forsaken him. God had restored his faith, his hope. God had cured him.
But as if that weren’t miracle enough, Ethan realized that God’s healing touch had respected the core of who he was. God hadn’t changed him. He was still the same person he’d always been. The same Ethan. The same . . . but different. Because in leaving him unchanged, in respecting his free will, God had changed him. He had taught Ethan about the power of unselfish love. He remembered a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, one of Maggie’s favorites: “Love is not love that alters where it alteration finds . . .”
And yet, it would be wrong to say that God had taught him this lesson. No, it was more like God had reminded him of it. Because he’d already been taught it, hadn’t he? His teachers had been Lisa and Gordon. Kate and Peter. Even Maggie . . . until her mind had been poisoned by Father Steerpike and the Congregation. Human beings had taught him what love was all about. But he’d forgotten somehow. He’d gotten too wrapped up in his mission and all the expectations that went along with it. He’d made things too complicated. But really, they were simple. As simple as love.
He thought about trying to explain this to people. To start preaching new sermons. But that wasn’t the way. He’d already said everything that could be said. And in any case, it was really too simple for words. Too basic. So he started preaching a new kind of sermon. A sermon put together not with words, but with acts. In everything he did, no matter how small, how seemingly insignificant, he let the love shine through. And as if by a miracle, that love passed into those around him, kindling itself afresh in them, and shining through their actions, until entire blocks of the Lower East Side were aglow with it, transformed as he had been transformed by a knowledge that everyone there knew already, deep in their hearts, but had forgotten, just as he had known and forgotten. They just needed to be reminded, as he had needed to be reminded. It was the exact opposite of the process that had fueled the Times Square riot. It brought people together, not in mindless rage, but in a sense of communion. Strangers smiled at each other. That might not seem like much. Even two days ago, Ethan wouldn’t have thought so. But now he knew better. It was everything.
And now, suddenly, people did recognize him again. But this time, they didn’t pursue him with pleas or demands for help, for healing. They didn’t seek to win his favor or his blessing. They didn’t assail him for what he had done or failed to do. They didn’t curse him or strike him or worse. Most of them didn’t even say a word, and if they did, it was something simple, like “Oh,” or “Ah, there you are,” or “Good to see you.” “Welcome back,” some said. And “Thanks.” They looked him in the eye and smiled. They gave him nods of friendly encouragement and good fellowship. They didn’t seem at all surprised to find him there among them. It was as though they had expected it. And why not? He was one of them.
He was their neighbor. Their brother. Their son. He was their husband. Their father. He was their friend.
He was the Son of man.
But the destiny of the Son of man did not lie in the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Or not only there. And the time came, as he had known it would, when Ethan heard a cry that he no longer had the heart to resist. Or, rather, he now had the wisdom not to try and resist it.
From a cold metal cube in the depths of the old catacombs underlying Vatican City, he heard his mother cry out in pain. The sound came to him through steel and stone, across thousands of miles of water and air. It sank its hooks into his heart and tugged at him.
In less time than it took for Kate to wonder if Ethan was safe, he was there.
CHAPTER 24
“Stop.”
And time itself seemed to heed the command.
The four black-clad figures
in ski masks froze above Kate’s body, which lay slumped and motionless on the metal floor in a spreading pool of blood. Then, with black-gloved fists raised, they turned to face Ethan, who stood behind them. But at the sight of him their fists opened, and their hands fell limply to their sides.
Ethan raised a hand, palm outward, and spoke softly, almost gently, but with a firmness in his voice, and his eyes, that could not be denied. “Move aside.”
The figures stepped away as if they had been pushed.
Ignoring them now, Ethan went to his mother’s side. He knelt there and took her in his arms, turning her face up. “Kate? Can you hear me?”
Bruise-cowled eyes fluttered open. “Ethan? Is . . . is it really you?”
“Shh,” he said, smoothing back her hair. “I’m here.”
“I knew you’d c—come.” Her smile was a smear of red on white. “Knew you’d save me.”
“Don’t try to talk.” He picked her up and carried her to the metal slab of a bed and laid her on the blanket he found there. She winced as he set her down but did not cry out.
“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning close to kiss her forehead.
“N—not your fault,” Kate murmured. Then, as if Ethan’s words, or his presence, had suddenly reminded her, her eyes widened and she said, “Oh. I’m s—so sorry. About Maggie . . .”
“Shh,” he repeated soothingly. “I know.”
She winced again, more sharply, at some inner jab of pain.
Ethan clenched his jaw.
“But you’re here n—now,” Kate said, drawing strength and courage from the mere sight of him. “Here to t—take me out of this awful place.”
Ethan shook his head, eyes glistening. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?” She looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.
“I have to go now,” he told her. “I have to see the men who did this.”
From somewhere, she found the strength to reach out and grab his arm. “Punish them,” she said with a fierceness that took him aback. “Hurt them for what they did to me. To Maggie. P—promise me!”
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