Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  "What about a phone?"

  "Just relax, why don't you? Smell the country air."

  "Indoors?"

  "You've got a point. But not to worry. Everything's taken care of."

  "Oh?"

  "It's going down to thirty tonight. But I figured out how to get the heat turned on in the building."

  Hal left.

  Drew glanced impatiently at his watch again. Its hands were aimed precisely at six - when for years the vespers bell had rung.

  He craved the satisfaction that he'd felt today during mass. He wanted to reestablish the blissful pattern of the monastery. Six o'clock. As if he heard the vespers bell start tolling, he obeyed its summons and left his room.

  8

  The retreat house was silent. A light glowed at the end of the hall, beckoning him to the stairwell. With his hand on the pitted metal railing, he descended, reached the first floor, ignored the half-lit lobby, and continued to the basement. He brushed his hand against a clammy plaster wall and proceeded through darkness toward a door to the right. The chapel where earlier he'd served at mass, where the vespers service ought to occur.

  He pushed the door open and entered. Blackness. Recalling a light switch to his left, he felt for it and flicked it on. But the power for the basement must have been on a different circuit from the one for his room on the second floor, because the blackness continued to face him. Earlier, sunlight gleaming through windows high on one wall had been sufficient for him to help at mass. But now...

  He imagined the hands on his watch moving farther past six. His compulsion increased.

  As he groped along the wall to his left, he bumped against a chair. Then he reached another wall and felt his way past the bulky compartment of a confessional. The odor of mildew widened his nostrils. But beneath the mildew was the redolence of incense from years of services. When his waist touched the altar railing, he knew that he was almost home.

  Now if only there were matches. He remembered the rows of votive candles that flanked the inside right and left stretch of the altar railing. Yes, when he straddled the altar railing, stepping forward, he felt matches in a metal cup, struck one against the cup, and smiled at the gleam. His smile persisted as one by one he lit the candles, filling the front of the chapel with a shimmering radiance. He knelt in the first pew, silently reciting the vespers prayers.

  At midnight, with still no word from the bishop, he again felt compelled by the ritual, coming back to recite the matins prayers.

  And heard the creak behind him.

  9

  The first time he heard it, he told himself that the sound was only wood contracting because of cold.

  The second time, he told himself that the tired old building was sagging.

  The third time, he pulled his Mauser from beneath his jacket and sank to the floor.

  "Okay, pal, relax," a voice said in back. "I didn't mean to make you nervous."

  Hal.

  Drew stayed out of sight on the floor beneath the pew.

  "Come on," Hal said, concealed by the dark at the rear of the chapel. "I know where you are. I saw you duck down. But first I saw you pull a gun from under your jacket. So let's be calm, all right? I'm supposed to keep an eye on you, not let you use me for target practice."

  Drew didn't intend to take chances. He glanced ahead of him toward a door on his left beyond the altar railing, remembering from the mass he'd served at noon that it led to the sacristy behind the altar. Beyond it, another door opened on a stairwell. If I have to, I can jump the altar railing and get away.

  Another creak, coming closer.

  Drew's forehead felt slick with sweat. But the chapel was terribly cold.

  "Just loosen up, okay," Hal asked, "while I explain? See, I know you came down here at six. I figured you were following the routine you had in the monastery. Vespers service. The next service is matins, at midnight. So I got here earlier. I thought I'd watch you from out of sight so I wouldn't disturb your prayers. I'm only doing my job. How was I to know that the floor back here creaks every time I breathe?"

  Drew debated. Hal could be telling the truth. But why didn't he just come down here with me? I wouldn't have cared if he was in the chapel while I prayed. No, something's wrong.

  Another creak. Closer.

  Drew eased from the pew and began to squirm toward the altar railing. His chest felt chilled by the floor.

  "We're in a bind," Hal said, a little closer. "You don't want to show yourself till I do. But I don't want to do it first, not with that gun in your hand. Hey, I made a mistake by not letting you know I was here. I admit that. But we've got to end this stand-off. I'm on your side."

  Another creak.

  Drew squirmed a half-foot closer to the altar rail. The candles shimmered.

  "Think," Hal said. "If I wanted to move against you, I could have done it while you slept in the car."

  Good point.

  "Or I could have..."

  Creak. Drew squirmed another half-foot closer to the altar railing.

  "... shot you while you were praying just now."

  A second good point.

  "So, let's call a truce, I'm a victim of circumstance."

  All right, Drew thought. I like to believe I'm open-minded. Instead of crawling the rest of the way to the altar railing, he rolled in the opposite direction, toward the pews on the right side of the chapel.

  He aimed, and for the first time, spoke. "Then all you have to do is tell me why you joined the priesthood."

  At the sound of Drew's voice, the door to the chapel burst open. A man in a priest's black suit and white collar lunged forward, aiming an M-16.

  "No!" Hal screamed. He stood, much closer than Drew had expected, raising an arm. It was hard to tell in the shadows. He might have been holding a pistol.

  But the priest swung in Hal's direction, squeezing the trigger on the M-16. The muzzle flash lit the shadows in back as the weapon - on automatic - rattled, ejecting empty casings which clinked on the floor. The force of the volley lifted Hal off his feet and threw him back against the wall. Blood spattered. Hal rebounded shuddering, toppling to the floor.

  As Drew rose, kneeling, aiming his Mauser, a second priest appeared in the doorway, flanking the first, clutching an Uzi, strafing the chapel. The noise, magnified by the echoing walls, struck Drew's ears. In agony, they started to ring.

  He crouched back down below the pew. Priests? Killers? His sanity tilted. Religion? Violence? The contradiction shocked him.

  The priest-assassins had the advantage of darkness back there. He didn't dare show himself in the candlelight to aim and shoot. A Mauser against an M-16 and an Uzi? The odds were against him. As the acrid stench of cordite wafted toward him, he turned, thrust upward from his knees, and vaulted the altar railing. His body arched. He landed hard on the carpeted floor beyond, gasping from the impact against his shoulder, and lunged up, scrambling toward the sacristy door. Bullets tore apart the altar behind him.

  At once the staccato reports of a handgun interrupted the rattling gunfire. The unmistakable wallop of a.45 automatic pistol. Again. And again.

  Drew grabbed the knob on the sacristy door, twisting it, shoving inward, falling to conceal his body. He glanced back and caught a furtive glimpse of someone else in the chapel. Enough to make him pause where he crouched.

  Another priest. But this man was older. Early fifties, average height, but large in the chest. Muscular shoulders. Dark hair. Slavic features, mustache.

  In the dark of the sacristy, Drew forced himself to keep staring. The priest had appeared from - Drew shuddered, suddenly realizing - the confessional on the right.

  Had he been there all along? When I groped through the dark and bumped against that confessional earlier?

  He had stepped out, shooting, when Hal had been killed. Drew still aimed his pistol toward the priests in back, his caution needless. The men lay motionless in the aisle, a pool of blood spreading around them.

  The pistol was in the
priest's left hand. Drew's perspective gave him a good view of the outside of that hand. A glint of reflected candlelight attracted his attention. Off the middle finger.

  A ring, and even at this distance, it was compelling. Eerie. It seemed to glow.

  A ring with a large red brilliant stone.

  The priest, his pistol still raised, swung toward the open door to the sacristy. Though he couldn't possibly see Drew in the darkness back there, Drew had the terrible sense that their gazes met. His jaw set grimly, the priest stalked toward the altar railing.

  Drew tightened his finger on the Mauser's trigger. He didn't know whether to shoot the man or to question him. After all, the man had saved his life.

  Or had he? Two priests just tried to kill me. Hal's dead. And this guy looks like he'd kick your teeth in for penance if he didn't like what you told him in confession. Why was he hiding in the chapel? What in God's name is going on?

  The priest lunged out of sight, ducking for cover beneath the altar railing.

  Drew held his breath.

  The voice from out there was full-throated, husky, tinged with a Slavic accent. "I know you're in the sacristy. Listen to what I tell you. Yanus."

  With difficulty, Drew controlled his breathing.

  "Yanus," the Slavic voice repeated. "We have to talk about Yanus."

  Drew's delicately balanced choices tipped. Hearing sudden footsteps rushing along the corridor outside, louder as they neared the chapel, he bolted.

  10

  He wasn't the only one. As voices entered the chapel, the priest ran too, leaping the altar railing, charging toward the sacristy.

  Drew reached the door that led to another hallway and yanked it open. At noon, when he'd helped Hal prepare for mass, he'd glanced beyond the door and seen a stairwell angling up. But now, at night, without the sun streaming through a window, he couldn't see the stairs.

  Not that it mattered. He didn't intend to use them. Instead he sprinted straight ahead, toward a tunnel's entrance. He didn't know where it led, but he did know this - the two priests who'd tried to kill him had acted with such professional detachment that they would surely have followed other professional standards and not have moved alone. In case Drew had managed to escape, there'd be other assassins watching the stairs up from this basement. As soon as they heard him approaching, they'd prepare themselves for the kill. If there'd been time, he could have tried to mount the stairs silently. But behind him, the pursuing footsteps of the priest who'd hidden in the confessional forced Drew to take the route he hoped was least expected and one that the hit team possibly didn't even know about. In that case, all he had to deal with was the priest chasing after him.

  The footsteps came closer.

  Far back, other footsteps charged into the chapel.

  Drew hurried through blackness. He walloped against a table, battering his thighs, wincing as the impact scraped the bottom of the table's legs across the concrete floor.

  He turned. Though he saw nothing, he heard the subtle crunch of carefully lowered shoes, the brush of stealthy footsteps coming toward him. Drew resisted the urge to shoot. The Mauser's muzzle flash would reveal his position. And what would be the use if he couldn't see his target? True, he could try to judge his opponent's location from the sounds he made. But suppose his opponent made deceptive noises to trick him? If Drew fired, the muzzle flash would doom him. Of course, he could stay where he was, crouching to one side. After all, the dark was his specialty. Hand-to-hand combat with total sightlessness. But that type of combat was painstaking, time-consuming. To do it properly, which meant to survive, required the care of a specialist defusing a bomb.

  Drew didn't have the time for care. He had to get out of here. Voices echoed from the sacristy. He thought about the likelihood that other assassins were waiting in the retreat house and listened to the solitary footsteps shifting toward him.

  "You don't understand," the Slavic voice whispered. "I don't want to hurt you. Yanus. We need to talk about Yanus. I'm here to protect you."

  Disoriented, Drew couldn't afford to believe him. He hurried forward again. His pursuer followed. When Drew stopped, his pursuer stopped.

  "You must let me explain," the Slavic voice hissed.

  No way. Drew thought, plunging forward again. I don't know who you are or if you're even a priest. I don't know who the hell tried to kill me in there or why. But I do know this. I tried to do this by the rules. I got in touch with my confessor, my control. I trusted my superiors in the Church (Drew almost substituted "network"). But someone else isn't playing by the rules. There's been an informer. A leak. Someone's told them where I was.

  So now I'll play by my own rules. I'll do this my way.

  He charged through spiderwebs, feeling them stick to his face. Water dripped. He smelled fetid dankness and mold. Behind, the footsteps continued after him. As he splashed through a pool of water, feeling it soak his shoes and pants, he heard the echo of voices far back in the tunnel. The group that had entered the chapel now came this way. He hurried on. Too soon, the man behind him splashed through the water. The voices seemed louder behind him. Turning to listen, he slammed the side of his head against a pipe that stretched from one wall to the other. He reeled back, seeing crimson behind his eyes, clutching the lump that began to swell. Feeling moisture in his hair, he lowered his fingers to his mouth, relieved when he tasted the salt of sweat, not the copper of blood. He scurried forward again.

  What was the tunnel used for? Where did it go? He stooped as he rushed, protecting his head from other pipes. But as he bumped past a row of insulated ducts against the left wall, he guessed that it must be a maintenance tunnel. Sure. The water and heating systems must be routed through here, he thought, making it easy for the seminary's work crew to make repairs. If so, the tunnel must lead to the seminary building. With a goal at last in mind, he felt better. But something was wrong. The sounds behind him had stopped.

  Why?

  Ahead of him, he struck a wall. His nose stung.

  He'd been wrong - the tunnel was a trap! And now his pursuer waited back there.

  Drew clutched the Mauser, turned, and squinted uselessly toward the pitch-black gauntlet through which he'd have to return. He felt along the wall to his left, inching back the way he'd come. But as his shoes touched a chunk of broken concrete on the floor, the sound of his own footsteps changed. He stopped and frowned. Easing forward again, he heard the scuff of his shoes return to the narrow echo he'd been used to. He tried an experiment, took three steps back, and the echo became more full again.

  Understanding, he groped toward the wall across from him, and as he expected, where the wall should have been, his hand touched nothing. His foot struck concrete, though. He raised the foot, and now it, like his hand, touched nothing. A little higher, concrete again. A stairwell! He scurried up.

  The stairway turned. He reached a wooden door, turned the knob, and pulled it. Nothing happened. He had a sudden intuition, pushed instead of pulled, and exhaled as the door swung open. In case someone was hiding behind it, he shoved it against a wall, then peered out, facing a dimly lit hall. The tunnel had led him to the seminary building.

  Seeing no one, he lunged to the left. He reached a large room: sofas, chairs, tables, a television. Moonlight gleamed through windows, revealing the lawn in front of the building. Beyond the lawn would be the forest and the mountains. Safety.

  But he had to leave before a seminarian found him or his pursuers intercepted him. Passing the room, he entered a lobby, seeing a door on his left that led outside. But as he moved in that direction, he heard the rustle of cloth behind him. Pivoting, he aimed the Mauser and froze.

  "Oh, Jesus, thank you."

  Drew's scalp tingled.

  "I knew you'd come." From the dark, the voice sounded desperate, ancient, brittle. "Deliver me. You know how much I've suffered." The voice began to sob. "They won't believe that your mother sings to me each night."

  From a shadowy corner, an apparition app
eared. An old stooped man. His hair and beard were white. He wore a white nightgown.

  Drew's stomach felt chilled. The old man clutched a staff. His feet were bare. His eyes gleamed insanely.

  Dear God, Drew thought, I'm not in the seminary building. I passed that staircase. I went farther. I'm in the rest home. This is the old priest that Hal said he'd brought here. This is where they keep -

  The old man knelt, pressing his hands together, peering up in rapture. "But thank you, Jesus." The old man wept. "You'll make them understand. You'll tell them I wasn't lying about your blessed mother. I've waited so long for you to deliver me."

  Drew stumbled back in horror. The old man gasped, and Drew thought that he might be having a heart attack. But he was only inhaling, beginning to sing.