Of course, she knew that he could have escaped at any time. Could have freed her or himself. He was God’s son. Nothing was beyond him. But he had refused to use his powers in that way. Just as Jesus had set aside his miraculous powers at the end, when he could have saved himself, and had embraced the sacrifice that God had asked of him. Did God expect the same of Ethan?
“Why, God?” Kate prayed in a whisper, not so much questioning as simply wanting to understand. “Why does there always have to be a death, a sacrifice?”
“That is the great mystery,” came the answer.
Startled, she looked up to see Gabriel; she had forgotten all about the angel’s presence. She sat up now, clutching the blanket to her, grimacing as waves of fresh pain flared through her body. “It’s not fair,” she told him defiantly. “It’s not fair that someone as good and brave and decent as Ethan should have to die.”
“No, it’s not,” the angel agreed.
“The people who killed Maggie and Lisa. The torturers. The murderers. The terrorists. They’re the ones who deserve to be punished. Who deserve to die.”
“Perhaps.”
“But they don’t die. They never do. Where’s the justice in that?”
The angel did not reply.
“Help me, Gabriel,” she pleaded. “Help me to understand.”
“Perhaps it is not about justice,” he suggested gently.
“What is it about, then?”
“Perhaps it is about forgiveness. Perhaps it is about love.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.
“Jesus said to forgive not just seven times, but seventy times seven. And he said to love your enemy as yourself.”
“I don’t care what he said. Not even Jesus could live up to those impossible ideals. What about Judas, the man who betrayed him? Was he forgiven? Was he loved?”
“No,” said Gabriel.
“You’re damn right he wasn’t. And if God is so big on forgiveness and love, why is there a hell at all?”
“I cannot say.”
“You mean you won’t tell me?”
“I mean I don’t know. I’m only an angel, Kate. I don’t know everything.”
For some reason, after all that had happened to her, this struck Kate as amusing. She chuckled, then winced at the burning sensation this caused in her bruised ribs, which, though painful, was itself somehow funny, like the punch line to a sick joke, and caused her to laugh even harder, though the pain levels ratcheted up accordingly. Soon she was lying on the slab again, clutching her ribs and rocking back and forth, wheezing for air as tears ran down her cheeks.
“Are you all right?” asked Gabriel in a tone of deep concern.
“Oh God,” she managed to gasp out. “You’re killing me!”
“I am . . . killing you?”
“Jesus, stop, Gabriel!”
“Stop what?”
“Please, no!”
When the fit of half-hysterical laughter had subsided, Kate drew a deep breath and sat up again. Gabriel was regarding her with a wounded expression that nearly set her off again.
“Just answer me one question, all right?” she asked.
“If I can.”
“What is this place?”
“We are in the Vatican,” said Gabriel.
Kate sighed, shoulders slumping beneath the blanket. “I knew it. And I wasn’t kidnapped at all, was I? Papa Jim—he gave me up to them, didn’t he?”
“That is more than one question.”
“Now is not the time to get sarcastic, Gabriel,” she warned him.
“Sorry. In that case, yes. Your grandfather betrayed you. He betrayed Conversatio. He is part of the Congregation now.”
Kate felt tears coming again, but she forced them back. She was not going to let that bastard make her cry, ever again. “Goddamn him,” she said through clenched teeth. “Goddamn him to hell.” She glared at Gabriel. “I suppose he should be forgiven too, is that right?”
The angel did not reply.
Meanwhile, Ethan was sitting in the cell where Pope Peter II had left him. He hadn’t stirred from the bed. Yet he’d been an unseen witness to the conversation between Father O’Malley and Cardinal Ehrlich, as well as to the conversation taking place simultaneously between his mother and Gabriel. Though his body was imprisoned, if only by his own choice, still his mind could roam freely.
Thus he was not surprised when the door to his cell opened and Papa Jim came sauntering in as if he owned the place. Papa Jim did not look in the least troubled or embarrassed to see his great-grandson under lock and key as a result of his efforts; in fact, there was a kind of shrewd satisfaction in the expression with which he regarded Ethan, as if everything that had passed between them had been no more than a game—a game that Papa Jim had now indisputably won.
“So,” he said, clearly savoring the moment, “here you are.”
“‘The Son of Man goeth as it is written of him,’” replied Ethan, “‘but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born.’”
“Please.” Papa Jim chuckled and drew a cigar from his jacket pocket. “You call this betrayal? I’ve done you a favor, Ethan. Put you back on your true path. Someday you’ll realize that. Someday you’ll thank me for it.”
“And what about Kate?” he demanded, meeting the old man’s gaze. “Will she thank you, too? Will Cardinal Ehrlich?”
At this, a shadow passed over Papa Jim’s features, and a haunted look rose in his eyes, all of which he did his best to hide from Ethan, and perhaps from himself, by the business of lighting his cigar. “Ehrlich?” he repeated once the cigar was going. “Just because he was a spy for Conversatio doesn’t make him a saint. Do you have any idea how many deaths that man is responsible for? How many murders?”
“Nearly as many as you,” said Ethan. “But I notice you don’t mention your own granddaughter. Have you even been to see her?”
“What would be the point?” Papa Jim asked. “I lost her love a long time ago.”
“Lost? You threw it away! And you think that somehow gives you the right to have her beaten and tortured?”
“You know damn well that I haven’t done either of those things!” Papa Jim shot back. “My hands are clean. What kind of monster do you think I am?”
“I think you’re the kind of monster who gives up his granddaughter to men he knows will torture her and then boasts about having clean hands. The kind who then advises those men to ‘take the gloves off.’”
Papa Jim flushed crimson. “That was just an expression!” he protested. “I didn’t mean—”
“Actually, Papa Jim,” Ethan broke in, “you might be interested to know that they left them on. The gloves, I mean.” His voice was low, but it brooked no interruption. “I suppose it’s easier on the knuckles that way. A little padding. All that punching can do a lot of damage to a man’s hands.”
Papa Jim had listened as though in a horrified trance. But now, with a visible effort, he shook himself out of it. “Is . . . is she . . . ?”
“What the hell kind of question is that? Men specially trained to inflict pain beat the living crap out of your granddaughter, Papa Jim. That’s how she is.”
“And you didn’t heal her?”
Ethan was taken aback. “What?”
“You saw her. You saw what they did to her. Yet you did nothing. You let your mother’s suffering go on when you had the power to take it away.” Papa Jim jabbed his cigar toward Ethan, practically spitting his words. “Your own mother. And you have the temerity to criticize me? To call me a monster? I suggest you don’t look in any mirrors, Ethan. You might not like what you see.”
Ethan stood then, and Papa Jim stepped back, his angry features giving way to a look of trepidation. “You wouldn’t . . .” he said, letting the words hang.
“Wouldn’t what?” Ethan demanded, taking another step toward him, from which Papa Jim again retreated, his back hitting the metal wa
ll. “Wouldn’t make you pay for what you’ve done to Kate and to all the other innocent victims of your twisted ambition?”
“P—please,” stammered Papa Jim, his hands upraised now, warding Ethan off. “Everything I did, I did for you, Ethan. For God’s sake . . .”
“I pity you,” said Ethan. “I don’t need to punish you. You’re already being punished, and you don’t even realize it. But you will, Papa Jim. You will realize it. Too late.” He turned away.
Papa Jim sagged against the wall. “You don’t scare me,” he said, summoning up all his bravado, though his hands were trembling and the cigar, unnoticed, had gone out. “I know you, Ethan. You won’t let anything happen to Kate or to me. We’re family, the only family you’ve got. You’ll realize that in the end. Family’s all that matters. It’s all there is.”
“Mankind is my family,” said Ethan without glancing back.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Ethan turned to him. “Because you have to ask, Papa Jim, you’ll never know.”
Papa Jim was about to reply when, without warning, the door beside him opened and two of the black-clad priests in ski masks entered. Papa Jim drew back from them sharply, as if their slightest touch would stain him with the blood of his granddaughter.
Right behind them came Pope Peter II.
He glanced from Ethan to Papa Jim and back again. “I hope I’m not interrupting this little family reunion,” he said, “but there’s something you need to see, Ethan. Something you might find persuasive. I think you will benefit as well, Mr. Osbourne.”
He raised his hand, and, at the golden flash of the Ring of the Fisherman, the wall across from the door, and the two walls on either side, began to rise smoothly and swiftly, with a faint hiss of hidden hydraulics, like steel curtains going up before a theatrical performance.
As they did so, the two priests who had preceded the pope into the cell moved with equal swiftness to lay hands on Ethan and Papa Jim from behind, holding them firmly in place and ignoring Papa Jim’s loud protests.
“What the hell? What’s the meaning of this?”
Ethan remained silent. And even Papa Jim quieted as the rising walls unveiled their secrets.
Three rooms. Two of them cells like Ethan’s. One of these cells, the one on the right, was occupied by two men. One, wearing the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner, lay on his side upon a metal slab, while the other, wearing the torn and soiled robes of a cardinal, stood beside him. Both were badly beaten, and both were gazing in Ethan’s cell with startled expressions. The cell on the left held a solitary woman in an orange jumpsuit. She too had been beaten, perhaps worse than the older of the two men in the first cell, but not nearly as badly as the younger.
“Ethan!” cried this woman—who was Kate, of course. She rushed toward him, but, at another gesture from the pope, a black-clad priest dashed from the third room to intercept her. This room, located between the other two, resembled nothing so much as a cross between a hospital operating theater and a medieval torture chamber. It was a place of bright and shiny horror. In addition to a varied assortment of instruments and devices ranging from the classic implements of torture to modern inventions whose exact purpose was impossible to guess at a glance, and which seemed all the more sinister for it, the room held six black-clad priests of the Congregation. One of whom, in response to the pope’s silent command, had grabbed Kate and was even now dragging her toward a stainless steel slab at the room’s center. The slab stood upright and had built-in restraints along with an array of electrical outlets and data ports for more obscure uses. Kate struggled in the arms of her captor, but to no avail, and her cries were muffled by a leather glove clapped tightly over her mouth.
“What is this?” demanded Papa Jim in a strangled voice. He lunged toward her, but he had as much chance of breaking the iron grip of the priest who stood behind him, silent and immobile as a statue, as Kate did of breaking loose from the restraints being cinched tightly around her ankles, wrists, chest, and waist.
“I believe it’s what you called ‘taking the gloves off,’” said Ethan.
“That is not at all what I intended them to do to Kate. Are you just going to stand there? Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Ethan is a man of high moral principles,” observed the pope. “I respect that. But a rigid adherence to principles is unhealthy. I’m going to demonstrate that truth to him now.”
“Not with my granddaughter you’re not, goddamn it!”
“Leverage, Mr. Osbourne,” the pope reminded, signaling again with his ring as he spoke. “Leverage!”
“Please,” said Papa Jim, craning his head back to address the man who held him. “Stop this. I’ll pay you anything. I’ll do anything . . .”
“Don’t waste your breath, Mr. Osbourne,” said the pope. “We’ve found that deaf mutes are best suited to this kind of work, for reasons that you are no doubt beginning to appreciate.”
At the same time this discussion was proceeding, three priests were in the process of fetching the occupants of the other cell none too gently back to the middle room, where two more slabs were waiting, one on either side of the central slab to which Kate had now been quite thoroughly strapped down. The fight appeared to have gone out of her; she hung limply, breathing heavily through her nose; a gag had been stuffed into her mouth.
“How can you watch this?” Papa Jim demanded of Ethan as the two other prisoners were gagged and bound to the remaining slabs. “Why don’t you stop it?”
“It’s not for me to stop,” Ethan replied.
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry? Admit that I was wrong, that this was all a mistake? That it’s all my fault? Do you want me to beg you? What?”
“It’s not for you to stop either,” said Ethan.
“Enough,” said the pope, striding forward to stand between the two men and the torture chamber. “You are a man afflicted with many sins, Mr. Osbourne. But the greatest of them is pride. You thought your money, your power, your ridiculous munchies could protect you here. Here, at the very heart of the Church, you thought you could dictate terms to me. Me, the heir of St. Peter!”
“My munchies will tear this place apart.”
“Perhaps. But not in time to save your granddaughter. Only Ethan can do that.” He turned to Ethan. “Well, Son of man? My patience is limited. I will only ask you three times. This is the first. You know what the Church requires of you. Will you help us?”
Ethan stood in silence. His eyes and expression conveyed all the answer that was needed.
“So be it,” said the pope. He turned toward the man bound to the slab on Kate’s right, who was straining against his bonds, straining to speak past the gag in his mouth, his eyes wide open and bulging with the effort. “Allow me to introduce Cardinal Ehrlich.”
“My God!” gasped Papa Jim.
“Yes, Mr. Osbourne, behold the fruits of your betrayal.” He raised his hand again, the ring flashing gold. “Good-bye, old friend,” he said softly.
A masked priest stepped up to the cardinal, laid his hands to either side of the man’s head, and twisted sharply. The crack was like a pistol shot. When the priest stepped back, Cardinal Ehrlich’s head flopped to his chest like the head of a rag doll.
“May God forgive you,” said Ethan.
“That’s one,” said the pope.
Papa Jim had turned an ashen shade of gray. “I think I’m going to be sick . . .”
The pope gestured again, and the priest in charge of Papa Jim frogmarched him to the metal toilet and held him as he threw up into the bowl.
“It’s one thing to give the orders,” said the pope, “and quite another to watch the consequences of those orders. Don’t you agree, Mr. Osbourne?”
But Papa Jim was too busy to answer.
The pope turned back to Ethan. “Now, Ethan. For the second time. Will you dedicate yourself to the service of the Holy Church?”
“No.”
“So be it.” The ri
ng flashed; a priest stepped forward.
“This is Father Michael O’Malley, something of a computer genius, I’m told. He conspired with Cardinal Ehrlich in the destruction of Grand Inquisitor.” Here an impish smile creased his chubby cheeks. “Or should I say, Saint Grand Inquisitor?”
Another crack like a pistol shot.
“That’s two,” said the pope, holding up as many pudgy fingers.
And Ethan said, “There are two new saints in Heaven this day.”
“Really?” said the pope. “I had no idea it was so easy to make a saint. Shall we try for three?”
At his nod, a priest stepped up to Kate.
“I ask you for the third and final time, Son of man,” said the pope. “Will you help us?”
“Ethan!” cried Papa Jim. “I’m begging you with every ounce of life I have in me to save Kate. For God’s sake, say yes!”
“It’s for His sake that I say no,” said Ethan.
“So be it,” said the pope.
And the priest laid his black-gloved hands on Kate’s head.
“No!” cried Papa Jim.
A crack rang out.
But it was not the crack of a breaking neck.
It was a crack of thunder, or something very like thunder.
A blinding light filled the space, and from out of that light spoke a voice that was itself like thunder—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that thunder was something like this voice, a faint echo of it.
“This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”
And Ethan’s voice answered, “Is it time, Father?”
“It is time,” came the reply. “The choice is upon you, my second Son. It is for you to decide the fate of this race I made in my image yet which has spurned so much of who I am. I gave them souls and free will, gifts that even my angels lack. I sent them my first son, your brother, and he gave up his life for their sake, taking their sins upon himself and giving them a second chance. But look what mankind has brought upon itself. More than two thousand years of war, poverty, inequality, and hate. Despite their achievements in science, the world is torn by war and terrorism, polluted by hatred, violence, and greed. So now I have sent you, my second Son. You have lived among them, as one of them. You know their hearts, their souls. The decision is yours to make, Ethan. Shall this race receive mercy, or shall they be scourged like a pestilence from the face of the earth? The time is now. The choice is yours. The great scythe rests in your hands to use or cast aside.”
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