Reborn ac-4

by F. Paul Wilson

  Bill's expression was grim. "You don't think he'd do anything stupid, do you?"

  Carol gathered that by stupid, Bill meant suicidal. The idea shocked her. She had never considered the possibility. Still couldn't.

  "No, he'd never do that. But this has cut him pretty deep."

  "Why don't we go over there," Bill said. "I'll drive."

  6

  Grace sat in the backseat of Martin's Ford Torino sedan, trying to organize her jumbled thoughts and emotions as the car headed east on the Long Island Expressway.

  Jim Stevens—her niece's husband—the Antichrist? It seemed too ridiculous even to consider! Despite his atheistic declarations and antireligious attitudes, Grace had sensed all along that deep down he was a decent man. Perhaps he didn't go to church or even believe in God, but he had always treated Carol well. How could he be the Antichrist?

  And yet…

  What about the sickening dread and terror she had felt the last time he had been to her apartment? And hadn't it been later that very night at choir practice that she had sung about Satan being here when she should have been singing "Ave Maria"?

  Maybe it wasn't so farfetched. Maybe Satan had just been in the process of usurping Jim's soulless body on that day, and she had sensed it somehow.

  But why had she been able to sense it, while Carol obviously didn't? Was she, as Martin had told her over and over, part of the Lord's plan to combat the Antichrist? Was her participation in the Chosen necessary for her salvation?

  She prayed this would bring her the absolution she craved for the terrible sins of her past. That was the only reason she had agreed to accompany the Chosen to Monroe.

  She wished Brother Robert had come along with them. She needed his strength of spirit, his support. But Brother Robert had stayed behind in Manhattan. He had not thought it proper for a member of a contemplative order such as his to make a public show of himself, so he had put Martin in charge. Grace respected his wish, but still she missed his presence.

  "I believe there's something to this," said Mr. Veilleur at her side in the backseat, tapping the copy of The Light in his lap.

  Somehow he had finagled his way into Martin's car, along with Grace and two others. They were the lead vehicle in a caravan of sorts heading for Monroe. One member had a Volkswagen van, and those of the Chosen with the slightest artistic bent were making signs and placards in its rear as they traveled.

  "You think it's true?" she said.

  "Of course it's true!" Martin said from the driver's seat. "The Spirit is guiding us, pointing us along the Path!"

  "I believe the cloning part is true," Mr. Veilleur said to her, ignoring Martin. "As for this Satan-Antichrist business"—he shrugged—"I've told you what I think of that. But this cloning… I've never heard of such a thing, or even dreamed it might be possible. Such a man might well provide a gateway. But why now? What is so special about now, this time, that it should be chosen?"

  "I don't know," Grace said.

  Mr. Veilleur half turned toward her, his blue eyes intent.

  "You say you know this man?"

  Grace nodded. "For about ten years, yes."

  "When was he born?"

  Grace couldn't see how that mattered, but she tried to remember. She knew Jim's birthday was in January. Carol always complained that it fell so soon after Christmas, when she had already exhausted all her gift ideas, and he was the same age as Carol, so that would make it…

  "January 1942. The sixth, I believe."

  "The Epiphany!" The car swerved slightly as Martin shouted from the front. "Little Christmas!"

  "Is that important?" Grace said.

  "I don't know," Martin replied in a softer, more thoughtful voice. "It must be, but I don't know why."

  "January sixth," Mr. Veilleur said, frowning. "That would mean that he was conceived—or began incubation, as it were—somewhere in late April or… early… May of 1941…"

  His voice trailed off as his eyes widened briefly, then narrowed.

  "Is that date significant?" she asked.

  "Someone… something… died then. Or so I'd thought."

  His face settled into fierce, grim lines.

  "What's wrong?"

  He shook his head brusquely once. "Nothing." Then once more. "Everything."

  Grace glanced out the window and saw the sign for the Glen Cove exit. The dread began to grow in her. Monroe was less than ten miles north of here.

  7

  Jim gently pulled Carol aside in the hall just outside the library.

  "Why did you bring them here?"

  He was annoyed at her for leading Bill and, of all people, Ma, out to the mansion. He knew she meant well, but he didn't feel like seeing anybody today. He didn't know when he would ever feel like having company again.

  "It's just a way of showing we love you," she said, running a fingertip along his jawline, sending a chill down his body. "Of saying that none of this matters."

  Jim had to admit he was warmed by the thought, but he still felt somehow… ashamed. He knew he had done nothing wrong. Being the clone of a Nobel prizewinner was not like having it become public knowledge that you had the syph or the like, yet he could not deny that he felt embarrassed—and, yes, diminished—by the truth.

  And a bit paranoid too. Had Bill's handshake been just a bit less firm than he remembered in the past? Had Ma pulled away just a little too quickly when she had hugged him on arriving today? Or was he just looking for things? Was he expecting everyone else to treat him differently because of how differently he now saw himself?

  He watched Carol go off toward the kitchen to make coffee, then he took a deep breath and headed for the library. He couldn't hide forever. Maybe the couple-three belts of Jack Daniel's he'd had earlier would help him handle this. As he entered, he heard the conversation between Bill and Ma die out.

  Ma… he didn't have a real Ma, did he?

  Was she looking at him strangely? He felt like telling her that he wasn't about to sprout another head, but that would blow this whole cool, calm, collected, life-is-going-on-as-usual scene. Instead he put on a smile.

  "So," he said, as casually as he could, "what's new?"

  8

  "Aren't you coming?" Martin said through the open side window of the car.

  "Grace shook her head. "No… I can't. She's my niece."

  "That may be true," Martin said, "but this is the Lord's war. You've got to stand up and be counted sooner or later."

  The authority Brother Martin had given him seemed to have gone to his head.

  "I'm with the Lord," she said, "but I can't picket my niece's home. I just can't."

  Grace shut her eyes to block out the sight of the placard-carrying Chosen walking toward the little white cottage that had been her brother Henry's home before he and Ellen had been killed. Too many lunches and dinners and afternoon cups of tea with Ellen, plus half a dozen years of living there and making a home for her dear, orphaned Carol while she commuted to college at Stony Brook. Too many memories there to allow her to parade in front of it and call Carol's husband the Antichrist, even if it was true.

  But looking at that familiar little cottage sitting there in the light of day, she wondered how such a thing could possibly be true.

  "Where are the reporters?" Martin said, his eyes flicking up and down the street. "I called all five local TV stations, the big papers, and the local rag… what's it called?"

  "The Express, " Grace said.

  "Right. You'd think someone would have sent a crew out here to cover this!"

  "It's Sunday, after all," Mr. Veilleur said. "You're probably far ahead of them. You moved pretty fast."

  "Yes, we did, didn't we?" he said with a note of satisfaction. "But we can't wait forever, and it'll probably be better if we're on line and marching when they arrive. Are you sure, Grace?"

  "I can't. Please don't ask me any more."

  "How about you?" Martin said, opening the door next to Mr. Veilleur. "Time for you to ear
n your keep."

  Mr. Veilleur smiled. "Don't make me laugh."

  Martin's expression turned fierce.

  "Listen, you! Either get out and walk that picket line or get out and start walking back to the city. I'm not having any deadweight around here!"

  Grace didn't have time to express her shock at Martin's rudeness. In a blur of motion Mr. Veilleur's big hand darted out, took hold of Martin's tie, and dragged his head and shoulders into the car.

  "I will not be spoken to that way," he said in a low voice.

  Grace could not see Mr. Veilleur's eyes, but Martin could. She saw his face blanch.

  "Okay, okay," he said quickly. "Have it your way."

  Neither Grace nor Mr. Veilleur said anything as they watched Martin hurry over to the cottage. The Chosen were lined up on the walk before the house. She watched Martin pass through them and stride to the front door. He knocked a few times but there was no answer. She saw him try the knob. The door swung open. Grace almost cried out as she saw Martin go inside with a group of the others trailing behind. They shouldn't be in there! Not in Henry's old house!

  It took maybe fifteen minutes but seemed like hours before Martin reappeared, hurrying toward the car. His face was flushed, his eyes feverish as he slipped back in behind the wheel.

  "No one's home, but I think we found the proof we need!"

  "Proof?" Mr. Veilleur said.

  "Yes! Books on Satanism, the occult! He's obviously been studying them!"

  Mr. Veilleur's smile was wry. "If he's this Antichrist you talk about—the Devil himself or his offspring—one would think he'd already be intimately familiar with all there is to know about Satanism."

  Martin only paused for a beat. "Yes, well, whatever… it establishes a link between this James Stevens and the Devil."

  "Where are the books?" Mr. Veilleur asked.

  "I told them to destroy them." He turned to Grace. "Now, do you know how to get to this mansion he inherited?"

  "Of course," she said. "It's on the waterfront. Everybody in town knows the Hanley mansion. Why?"

  "Because if he's not here, he's probably holed up there."

  "Maybe he left town," Grace said hopefully.

  "No," Martin said slowly. "He's here. I can feel the evil in the air. Can't you?"

  Grace had to admit that there was a sense of wrongness about Monroe, a vague feeling that some sort of cancer was growing in its heart. But she hated to admit it.

  Finally she said, "Yes, I think so."

  Martin started the car. "Which way?"

  "Down here and to the left until you get to Shore Drive," Grace said, pointing the way.

  As the car shifted into gear, Grace glanced out the rear window. The other cars, filled with the Chosen, were falling into line behind them. She looked past them and gasped. Smoke was pouring from one of the cottage windows.

  "The house!" she cried. "It's burning!"

  Martin glanced in his rearview mirror. "The idiots! I told them to burn the books outside!"

  "Stop! We've got to put it out!"

  "No time for that now! We're going to beard the Devil in his den!"

  9

  Carol heard the wail of the siren on the downtown volunteer firehouse. Since she had been a little girl, the sound never failed to disturb her. It meant that somewhere, at that very moment, flames were eating someone'? home, maybe devouring someone's life. She glanced out the parlor window, southeastward, toward their own little house. She was startled to see a pillar of smoke rising from that direction. It looked as if it were coming from their neighborhood. She wondered with a pang of fear if it was someone they knew, someone who needed their help.

  And then she lowered her gaze and saw the cars pulling up outside the mansion's front gate. Her first thought was, Reporters! But then she saw the placards and picket signs and knew something else was going on.

  "Oh, no!" she said. "Who on earth are they?" Bill joined her at the window.

  "They look like protesters. But what are they protesting?" Carol strained to read the words on the signs but could make out only the larger ones.

  "Something about God and Satan."

  "Oh, great!" Bill said. "Just what Jim needs!" Carol glanced back toward the library where Jim sat with Emma. The presence of people he loved and trusted seemed to have had a bolstering effect. The tension had been oozing out of him since their arrival.

  "What can they want?"

  "Who knows? Probably a mob of religious nuts who think he's some sort of Frankenstein monster. I'm going out there. Don't say anything to Jim until I get back."

  "What can you do?"

  "Chase them off, I hope." Bill shrugged and pointed to his cassock and clerical collar. "Maybe this will have some influence on them."

  "Be careful," she said.

  As she watched him step out the front door she felt a sudden rush of dread and knew that something awful was going to happen today.

  10

  As Bill strode the fifty yards or so to the front gate, he began to make out the messages on the signs. There were quotations from scripture about the Antichrist and Armageddon and the end of the world. Others were original, and he found these the most disturbing:

  A MAN WITH NO SOUL IS A HOME FOR THE DEVIL! and GET THEE OUT, DEMON! and the worst, JAMES STEVENS—ANTICHRIST!

  Bill would have found them laughable were it not for the fact that they were talking about his friend. He had caught the hunted look in Jim's eyes a while ago, the look of a man who felt like a freak, who wasn't completely sure to whom he could turn or trust. Harassment by a bunch of religious nut cases might push him over the edge.

  They were just getting their picket line organized when they spotted him. He heard cries of "Look! There's a priest!" and "A priest! A priest!"

  When he reached the open gate, a slim, pale young man stepped forward to meet him.

  "What's the meaning of this?" Bill asked, straining to appear calm and concerned.

  "Have you been sent here to exorcise him, Father?" the man said.

  "What in God's name are you talking about?"

  "In God's name, yes, very apt, very apt. I'm Martin Spano. The Spirit has sent us here to expose this abomination for who he is."

  "And just who do you think he is?"

  "Why, the Antichrist, of course."

  He seemed shocked that Bill did not know. Bill felt his control begin to slip.

  "That's ridiculous! Where did you get such an idea?"

  "He's a clone, Father! A group of cells taken from one man and grown into the shape of another in a blasphemous attempt to play God! But he is not a man! He is a mere cutting! He is born not of man and woman, and as such he has no soul. He is a tool of Satan, an avenue for the Antichrist to enter into this world!"

  Bill was impressed with the force of the man's conviction and momentarily taken aback by the outré logic of his words. If you bought all that Revelations mumbo jumbo, you could probably be convinced that this fellow was on to something here.

  "I assure you," Bill said in his loudest voice, addressing the crowd as well as their young leader, "that you have nothing to fear from Mr. Stevens. I've known him most of my life, and he is not—I repeat, not—the Antichrist!"

  This seemed to slow the crowd, but not as much as Bill would have liked. A couple of them lowered their signs, but the rest stood and waited.

  Their leader was taking no chances, however. He turned to them and held up his arms.

  "Wait a minute!" he cried. "lust wait!" Then he turned back to Bill. "What is your name, Father?"

  "Father William Ryan."

  "Of what order, may I ask?"

  "The Society of Jesus."

  "Ah!" he said, his face lighting as if he had just had a revelation. "A Jesuit! One of the intellectuals of the Church! One of those modern priestly rationalists who would put the human mind above faith! A follower of the Black Pope!"

  "That's not true at all!" Bill said. "You're making—"

  "Obviously the S
pirit has bypassed your unreceptive heart and settled in ours! We have been called, and it is our mission to spread the word of Truth about this man so that no matter where he goes he will be shunned and cast out by the faithful, and his words of sedition against Jesus Christ and his Church will fall on deaf ears! But the Evil One obviously has your ear already, so we will not listen to you!"

  A woman beside Spano suddenly dropped her sign and raised her hands. She began babbling in an alien-sounding tongue that resembled nothing Bill had ever heard before.

  "Do you hear?" Spano cried. "Even now the Spirit is with us, telling us not to be swayed by this fallen priest! We stay to spread the warning about the Antichrist within! Let us join hands and pray!"

  As they clustered together, grasping hands and saying the Our Father, Bill realized there was no way he could reason with this bunch. Their Pentecostal fervor frightened him. No telling what they would do if they got onto the grounds. So while they were praying, he stepped over to the iron gate and swung it across the driveway. As the gate struck the stop on the brick column to his left, the lock clanked closed automatically.

  Spano glared at him as he looked up from their prayer.

  "You can't lock out the word of God, Father Ryan!"

  "I know," Bill said pointedly. "But I haven't heard any of it here."

  Restless and uneasy, he stood and watched the group as it murmured its prayers, remembering someone's comment about the intelligence of a crowd being inversely proportional to its size. He hoped no one did anything stupid. At least the gate barred them from the grounds. That gave him a little comfort. Since reason seemed a useless tool here, Bill turned his back on them and returned to the house.

  11

  "So I'm the Antichrist, am I?" Jim said after Bill had related his conversation with the kooks outside. He had spotted the crowd out front and had watched Bill talk to them. When Bill returned, he had met him at the door. "I love it!"

  "Jim, please!" said Carol, at his left by the window. "This isn't funny."