by Tom Fox
Ben couldn’t comprehend what had suddenly transformed the peaceful janitor he’d come to know over the past months into the raving madman attacking the woman next to him. But there was one thing Ben knew well: the servants of God didn’t act like this. And though he wasn’t sure whether at this point Angelina Calla counted as a colleague or friend, or perhaps, given her antipathy towards his faith, subtle enemy, he knew she was in danger and that he had to do something.
Ben burst out of his chair and ran at Laurence. The surprisingly vigorous old man had just attempted to slash his oversized screwdriver across Angelina’s face and missed, but her slam into the bookshelf had winded her and she didn’t appear to be in motion as Laurence drew back his elbow for a thrust straight into her stomach.
Ben didn’t have time to say anything. He simply roared as Laurence’s arm flexed and the screwdriver started to move directly forward.
Ben threw all his weight forward and ran at him.
Clarity returned to Angelina’s watery eyes just in time to see Laurence’s blurred form take shape in front of her. Her breath was hard to draw in, but she knew she had to move.
Then she glanced down. It was too late. Laurence’s weapon was pointed directly at her stomach, his arm already in motion, less than a metre away. She pushed strength into her legs to sidestep the attack, but she knew she wouldn’t be out of his reach in time. Sweat seemed instantaneously to form and go ice-cold across her entire body.
Then, without warning, Laurence lurched to the side, his arm still extending but suddenly out of her range. Ben had slammed his whole weight into the man, and with a deafening clank of metal the two men crashed into a bookshelf on the wall to Angelina’s right.
She righted herself, took a deep breath in. By the time she’d swivelled towards their new position, both Ben and Laurence had recovered from the crash, Ben pulling himself quickly away to avoid a counter-swing from the older man. Laurence’s rage had transferred, for the moment, to his new opponent, and there was bloodlust in his eyes as he sprang in Ben’s direction.
Angelina realised they had to end this, and quickly, or this man would kill them both.
Ben could see Laurence preparing his next attack, lining up his position, massaging the shoulder where Ben had landed on him, then readying his makeshift weapon for the subsequent strike. Ben was near a corner of the small room and therefore at a decided disadvantage – something Laurence appeared to recognise.
‘You fucking religious nut,’ the old man fumed, the words as poisonous to Ben as the janitor’s rage. ‘I’ve had as much of your kind as I can tolerate.’
Laurence shot himself forward. He raised his arm high, already yanking the screwdriver downwards in a kill strike as he raced to Ben’s position.
All Ben could do was duck. As Laurence threw himself at him, he dropped at the last instant to knee level and rolled forward.
Ben hit Laurence’s left knee as the man’s arm swooped down to end him, and the motion knocked him off trajectory. Laurence wobbled and spun, his arms instinctively rising to keep him from toppling over, but he couldn’t completely control his motion. He swerved to his left, spinning, the screwdriver flailing.
That it landed in Father Alberto’s chest had not been his intention.
The flat blade of the screwdriver tore effortlessly through the priest’s woollen robe, given the mass of thrust behind it, and its eight-centimetre shaft sank into his flesh, colliding with ribs and ricocheting through his body.
For an instant, the world stopped. Motion stopped. Laurence’s expression widened.
Surprise.
He hadn’t intended the priest to be his victim here, and the blood that suddenly poured out of Father Alberto’s chest on to Laurence’s hand, still clenched around the screwdriver’s handle, horrified him with its pulsing warmth.
Behind him, Angelina and Ben had frozen in their steps. In the far corner of the room, Thomás cried out in abject horror.
A second later, Laurence’s features hardened. The shock of stabbing the priest had halted him, but it wasn’t enough to deter him from his course. All his anger and rage returned.
With a great yank he pulled the screwdriver out of the priest’s chest, and with blood still dripping from his hand, he turned to face Angelina and Ben.
‘Now, to be done with the two of you.’
62
The library
Church of St Paul of the Cross
The fight was one against two. The significantly smaller form of Thomás had stood in petrified stillness since the attack began, and once Laurence had ripped the screwdriver from the bleeding hole it had speared into Father Alberto’s chest, Thomás had fallen to his knees and crawled over to the priest’s side, tears streaming from his eyes, apparently oblivious to the battle going on around him and any threat it might pose to his own safety.
Laurence returned his focus to Ben. He was the larger of the two targets, a full head taller than the Calla woman. He’d also been the more aggressive of the two, attacking back while Angelina had thus far only been able to attempt self-defence. When Ben had slammed into Laurence’s side, the impact had been with a mass of muscle and form. Verdyx might look a weakling academic type, but there was strength in his frame.
The screwdriver was slippery now in Laurence’s hand, the priest’s blood congealing around the handle, and he pulled back a thumb over the end to ensure it wouldn’t simply slide through his grasp when he stabbed it into his next victim. It made for a more limited range of motion, but Laurence’s rage was on full power and he knew it would suffice.
He sprang towards Ben in a surprise motion, instantly breaking the lingering stillness that had followed his inadvertent stabbing of the priest. Ben’s eyes were on his pastor, and he didn’t have time to react. Laurence was mid-stride, almost in the air, by the time Ben even saw him coming.
Angelina saw the muscles contract and flex through Laurence’s blood-spattered white shirt, and knew he would be in motion in an instant. He was pointed at Ben, and as she turned to warn him, the attack happened. Ben’s eyes were elsewhere, and she sensed his heart had all but stopped at the sight of the murder of the priest. Her mind cried out in instant realisation: he isn’t going to notice the attack in time.
She threw herself at him, a cry erupting from her throat. With a clarity that could only come from adrenaline, she realised that if she simply slammed into him she’d replace her own body for his in Laurence’s line of attack, and though she wanted to help, she didn’t want to become a martyr. Instead, Angelina dove for Ben’s legs, wrapping her arms around them and toppling him. She’d have to trust he’d manage to use his arms to stop his sudden fall from being as battering as the attack.
Ben’s body tipped and rotated over his feet like an anchored lever, and Angelina grunted as she landed on her stomach, her arms still around his ankles. Above her, Laurence’s lunge for his suddenly absent target caused him to trip over Angelina’s back, the janitor toppling forward and landing a shoulder hard against the bookcase.
The bitch just wouldn’t give up. Laurence’s fury grew with each extra step he was forced to take, and he pushed himself back from the bookshelf and glowered at Angelina as she picked herself up from the floor. Maybe she wasn’t the secondary of the duo, after all.
She was closer now, too. Laurence could take her.
And there was one easy way to do it.
Laurence was coming straight at Angelina with a look of final determination in his eyes. He had both hands wrapped around the screwdriver and held it at belly height. He ran wildly, as if aim were no longer important.
Angelina realised his goal. She’d risen by a corner, and Laurence was barrelling towards her in a way that would push her straight back into it. All he needed do was slam into her, body into body, and the screwdriver in his grip would pierce her like a javelin against the wall.
She could all but smell the panic rising off her skin, forcing her muscles to move her out of his path, when the explosive
sound of cracking wood burst through the air. Laurence wobbled, a puzzled look suddenly on his face, and veered to her side, once again slamming into a bookshelf. Behind his former position, Ben stood with the fragmented remains of one of the wooden chairs in his hand.
In the midst of her panic, Angelina found the power to smile. Despite the awe-inspiring inner strength this man had demonstrated in his attack, an alternative thought had just flashed into her mind.
She knew a good idea when it came.
She sprinted forward and picked up the chair that had formerly been her own, grabbing it firmly by the back. She turned towards Laurence, who’d regained his balance and was now sighting up Ben as the nearest target. His bloodied right hand was high above his head, weapon in hand.
Angelina spun the chair in a broad arc from her right, slamming it across the janitor’s back.
The crunching blow of wood against his spine knocked the wind from Laurence’s lungs. His eyes widened as his throat locked and his balance faltered, but he sensed he couldn’t stop his downward momentum. He flailed his hands towards a support position, but the floor was coming up too fast. There was a whirlwind vision of flesh and blood as his hands came into view in front of his chest.
And the heart-stopping realisation that it was all going to end in this instant.
His fingers instinctively widened in an attempt to brace his impact, and Laurence’s grasp on the screwdriver faltered. The wide composite grip was heavier than the shaft – and once it was free of his grasp gravity did the rest. The screwdriver spun as it fell, the handled end pointing downward.
The flat end of the metal shaft slammed into Laurence’s body as he collided with the floor. His momentum was so great that it not only pierced his solar plexus and drove its way into his heart, but Laurence’s own body mass crushed down on the weapon so that even the handle pushed its way into the wound.
The top of the screwdriver emerged from his back, not quite enough length left to shred through his coveralls, leaving them tented in a grotesque triangle beneath his shoulder blades. A second later, the fabric started to go red.
He knew he was a dead man before the inevitable reality came. The position of the weapon in his flesh meant it came swiftly. He had only time to whisper out a single phrase before his life ebbed away.
‘You’ll never be able to stop them.’
63
The library
Church of St Paul of the Cross
The amount of blood spattered throughout the diminutive library of the Church of St Paul of the Cross was accentuated by the bright fluorescent glow of the lighting. A broadening pool expanded beneath the body of the deceased custodian, but in the attacks before he’d fallen he’d scattered the smears of Father Alberto’s blood that clung to his tool and his hand in arcs around the room. The room looked like something out of a slasher film, chairs broken, books scattered on the floor.
The only person who had remained unscathed was Thomás. He continued to kneel at the priest’s side, tears welling in his eyes and streaming down his face. He held one of the older man’s hands in his own, his lips silently muttering prayers.
Once it was clear that Laurence was dead, Ben sprang over to join Thomás at Alvarez’s side.
‘Is he dead?’ he asked. His own eyes began to go glassy.
‘He’s . . . barely breathing,’ Thomás answered. Ben fell on to his knees and grasped the priest’s other hand.
Angelina had kept her gaze on the fallen form of the janitor, still catching her breath. His resolve, his power, had been simply awesome.
In the sudden calm that followed the attack, her own leg had begun to throb.
‘Bring . . . bring her . . . here.’ The words unexpectedly rasped out of Father Alberto’s throat. Ben and Thomás stared at his face, shocked to hear the priest speak.
‘Her?’
Father Alberto wrenched his right hand out of Ben’s grasp. With what little strength he had left, he pointed at Angelina.
She saw the gesture, and her pain seemed to vanish. Religious or not, cleric or not, this is a man at the gateway of death. His brownish robe bore the rosette of his wound at his stomach, the skin of his face a starkly contrasting white. Her heart filled with the compassion she would have for any human being in such a state.
She stepped around Laurence’s corpse and walked to the small huddle of men. She stood in front of the priest, unsure why in his final moments he should beckon her.
‘You . . . are wounded,’ he managed.
Fear gripped her. Had he spotted an injury she hadn’t realised? Angelina urgently scanned over her body for wounds, but there were none, just the swathes of blood that had come from contact with Laurence’s body.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘I’m okay,’ and then, despite herself, ‘Father.’
‘No,’ he gasped, ‘there.’ He motioned towards Angelina’s left calf.
She looked down. The wound she’d suffered yesterday throbbed beneath her trousers, but nothing was visible beneath the bandages that Ben had carefully helped her apply.
‘How do you—’
Father Alberto didn’t give her time to finish the question. ‘You need to . . . take care of that.’ A slow breath. ‘Don’t let it get . . . infected. Still . . . work for you to do.’
Angelina was at a loss for words. Poor man, so frail.
Suddenly, Father Alberto clasped both hands together, a strength that hadn’t been there a moment ago coursing through his body.
‘The rest is coming,’ he said, his eyes wide. He managed to turn his head from Angelina to Ben, then back again. ‘The fire, and then the blotting out of the sun, and then the . . .’
His strength drained away as fast as it had come.
‘Myths, Father,’ Angelina said, shaking her head. Delusion was delusion, even in the throes of death. ‘Deception.’
Father Alberto managed a soft smile.
‘Maybe so, maybe so, professor.’ His breath seeped slowly away.
‘But God has worked in more mysterious ways than this before. Never . . . underestimate . . . his hand.’
With that, the light left Father Alberto’s eyes, and the old priest’s earthly words came to their end.
On the street outside the Church of St Paul of the Cross
The next four and a half hours were spent in the environs of the church, as an ambulance phoned by Thomás finally arrived, and then the police, and the ritualised procedure of interviews, questions, witness statements and all the other accoutrements of a crime-scene investigation were gone through. The scene was so bloody that the initial responders had handcuffed Ben, Angelina and Thomás as the medics huddled around Father Alberto’s body, unsure who, or what, to believe about the gruesome scene around them. But Thomás had swiftly pointed out to the officers the presence of small security cameras everywhere in the church’s property, including in an upper corner of the library. The scene recorded on digital tape matched the story each of the three told, and after extended additional questioning, the police eventually informed them they were free to go – though they were not to leave Rome.
‘Our priest,’ Ben asked, finally escaping the clutch of law enforcement and making his way to the medics. ‘Is he . . .?’
‘He’s still alive,’ an ambulance technician answered, slamming closed the vehicle’s door behind him, ‘but he’s not conscious. It doesn’t look good.’
He said no more, his professionalism apparently not extending to attempts at a gentle bedside manner.
The ambulance drove away in a whir of sirens and lights. Their beams seemed to dance in the remnants of the fog that still clung to the ground.
‘What happened to the mist?’ Angelina asked one of the officers, motioning towards the grey haze. It was noticeably less than when they’d entered the church an hour ago.
‘Who the fuck knows?’ a gruff, fat investigator answered. ‘Stuff covered the whole city for about forty-five minutes. Came outta everywhere. Never seen anything like it. Scar
ed the shit outta folk.’
‘One of them signs of the, you know, apocalypse,’ another officer answered, clucking in disapproval. ‘That’s what my wife says. Said she heard about it on the Internet, too, so you know it’s got to be true.’
Dark laughter, and the officers went back to their chores.
Angelina and Ben did not laugh.
‘What do we do from here?’ Ben finally asked when they were left alone. He was coping with his shock better than Angelina had anticipated he would, especially given what had just befallen a priest he clearly loved.
But Angelina’s mind couldn’t stop replaying the scenes, and words, of the final moments of their struggles. She said nothing, leaning against the side of one of the patrol cars, pondering.
Suddenly, she stood bolt upright.
‘He said “them”.’
Ben looked at her quizzically.
‘Laurence,’ she continued, her words suddenly coming quickly, ‘your janitor. As he was dying.’
‘I don’t see the meaning,’ Ben said.
‘His last words were, “You’ll never be able to stop them.” Them, Ben!’
He shook his head, still not grasping her point, and Angelina leaned forward to place a hand on his arm.
‘He didn’t say, “Stop what I’ve done,” or even “what we’ve done”. He said “them”. Others. Someone outside your church.’
Ben’s features started to pale.
‘You think Laurence was tied up with someone else?’
Angelina nodded furiously, but she was already looking around them.
‘Can we get out of here, Ben? Go somewhere else? Anywhere else?’
‘You have a plan?’
‘Of sorts. I want to get somewhere where we can sort out our next steps.’
Thomás, who had stood a few metres away during their discussion, stepped forward.
‘I don’t live far from here,’ he said. ‘If you want, you can come with me.’
For the first time since she’d met the young man whose face she’d seen on video, whose voice she’d heard proclaiming prophecy, Angelina smiled at him.