“How-how do you know?” he asked, his voice catching.
“I know,” she said simply, looking at him with a mixture of warmth and profound sadness.
Finally, another small, single ball of light made its way slowly up from the castle and then suddenly accelerated, did a joyful loop and merged.
“Father Gallo,” Maria said with a tender laugh. “Now all his questions have been answered and he has his proof of God’s pure love.”
Clay leaned towards her, both a longing and a sense of fear clouding his handsome, grey eyes. Something compelled him to again tell her how he felt towards her. “Maria, I love you...more than life itself. I want this nightmare to end...to spend my life with you. I want to watch you go to sleep at night and wake up with you in the morning. I want to be one with you and to live our lives for each other, to have a family and be happy. Surely we have earned the right to be happy–?”
Ever so lightly she pressed a warm finger to his lips, silencing his outburst. Her eyes were shiny in the moonlight as she pressed her body against his; he could feel her warmth through their cold, wet clothes. She raised her lips, closed her eyes and they met in a tender, lengthy kiss that stretched on as they entered a place where human hearts are fortunate to go even once in a lifetime. He felt her kindness, her dedication and her inherent goodness in her kiss. He felt her strength, her faith and her devotion in her kiss. And, he felt her yearning, her surrender and her undying and eternal love for him in her kiss.
They broke away, breathless. He pulled her close again, never wanting to let her go. But something drew his eyes upward and he found himself looking back at the Light pulsing in the air. Suddenly he was afraid. In fact, he was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. He watched it, growing and receding in intensity but all the while moving inevitably closer. He didn’t want it to come closer. He wanted it to go away. He wanted it to disappear. It had taken enough.
“Why is it moving this way?” Clay asked, his question almost choking in his throat. “What does it want? What is it waiting for?”
Maria took his hand and looked up at him with love in her eyes. In a small, calm voice she gently said: “It’s waiting for me, Clay.”
He stared at her, this woman who – in such a short time – had given new meaning to his life, this woman who somehow reawakened emotions within him and one who he would love forever.
“N-No,” he said. “I won’t let you go. I love you so much.” He pulled her close.
Again she placed a small finger against his lips to quiet his protests. “I’m so sorry; if I could spare you this pain, I would. I never wanted you to be hurt.”
Maria, don’t leave me...,” he said, his throat swelling as he realized the full implications of her prior premonition. He was not the one in danger. But he would be the one who was hurt.
She looked at him sadly and slowly nodded. “Remember my love....”
The shrieking screech from above heralded the arrival of Adramelech as he thundered down on a violent, cold wind and landed with a dull thud on the edge of the cliff sending clumps of earth and rocks sliding over the side. The Great Carrion grinned wickedly. The Light was forgotten for the moment. They both spun about and stared at the mutation from hell that had grown larger and more powerful.
“Get back, Maria,” Clay shouted, pushing her behind him.
Adramelech spread his arms while his wings moved slowly, keeping him poised at the exact edge of the cliff where any attack would be suicidal; there was no way to go after him without falling over the precipice.
Maria pulled Clay around and thrust the case at him. “It’s locked, open it!” She commanded, her tone brooking no argument. They both bent over it shielding their actions.
He snatched his weapon from its holster. With four shots fired at the Beast in the castle, two remained. He aimed at the first lock and flames roared out of the barrel; the right side of the metal case sprung open. A second shot followed almost on top of the first. The top popped open. Inside the Relic suddenly pulsed with a radiant blue energy outlining its form. It snapped and hissed like a live electric wire.
Without hesitation, Maria pulled the dagger-like piece of petrified wood from the case. She held it behind her back. She moved out from behind Clay who tried to keep himself between her and the demon. He needed to intervene. He needed to get back between her and Adramelech. He needed to stop her. He faced the demon. Then, inexplicably he couldn’t move an inch. He was frozen.
Maria walked purposely forward, around him.
“No Maria...DON’T!” Clay screamed.
As she faced the demon, he felt both desperation and helplessness. But mostly, once again...fear! Not for himself, but for Maria. It clutched at his heart and moved into his throat, an invisible hand squeezing his chest in a paralytic pincer hold that weakened his knees.
For a brief moment Adramelech smiled at her boldness as he purred empty words of encouragement and challenge, and beckoned her forward with one claw. When she reached him, he would simply retreat and she would plunge over the edge to her death below. With her, would go the cursed Relic thus assuring his sovereignty for all time.
But Maria knew she now possessed a God-given weapon...and she was going to use it. This was her destiny, the reason she had been brought into this world. She would not disappoint the Father. She would not flinch nor fail in her duty. With a cry she charged forward, pulling the Relic from behind her back.
The Beast grinned and sifted back from the edge, creating the opening where she would plunge to her death.
But her small figure didn’t hesitate, teeter and fall as he’d planned. She didn’t let her fear of death interfere with her purpose. Rather, her courage was such that she ran as hard and fast as she could, and leaped fearlessly across the impossibly wide void ignoring the 200-foot drop below. She slammed into Adramelech’s body and with all her remaining strength, supplemented with the anger and righteousness of all of earth’s creatures, she stabbed downward driving the blessed Wood of the Cross deep into his heart.
Adramelech screamed. Instinctively he grabbed and pulled her to him as the pain exploded in his chest. For a moment the two were frozen, hanging in the air near the edge of the cliff. A blue fire radiated outward from where the Relic protruded from his body; instantly the blue fire spread and totally covered the demon who writhed and jerked in agony as the power fried, sizzled and crackled within him. His malevolent energy was turned inward draining his physical life force while pulverizing his already dried and wizened soul. He wailed in rage, a sound that began as a base roar and climbed higher and higher in pitch till it was so penetrating Clay thought his head would burst.
The exact moment the instrument of Christ’s death pierced Adramelech’s chest, Clay had been freed from his paralysis. He staggered back momentarily, found his balance and raced forward towards Maria to snatch her back from disaster. His heart sank as, locked in Adramelech’s grip, she cast a frightened glance back at him. The deed was done and now her human instinct for survival took over.
“No!” Clay screamed hard and long as Adramelech struggled in vain to keep them both afloat in the air. They were a mere few feet below the level of the cliff. If he could just reach her...! Desperately he threw himself flat and stretched his arm over the precipice.
The demon’s wings were beating frantically now, the blue fire gradually dissipating. Together Adramelech and Maria ascended a few feet, almost coming parallel with the edge. New hope surged in Clay’s heart and he desperately shoved his hand out towards Maria.
She also reached for him and their fingers touched. He surged forward, grabbed her wrist and locked his grip. But the demon still had the presence of mind to see what was happening. Even in his death throes, he seized a small moment of triumph. Crushing Maria closer, he ripped her hand from Clay, and gave him a wicked smile as he pulled her out of reach. Mortally wounded, the beat of his wings began to weaken; the light of evil slowly died in his eyes.
Adramelech tril
led weakly in defeat. He continued to hold Maria close as she struggled, reaching desperately out to Clay. It was not to be. They began to spiral slowly downward. As they dropped, his dead talons finally freed her; she separated from him and floated away in the air.
The Beast’s body, on its back, with wings spread wide, whirled faster and faster towards the ocean accelerating away from Maria who seemed to actually slow in her descent. Adramelech slammed into the jagged rocks and shattered into thousands of pieces that immediately ignited into small fireballs. One-by-one the fireballs, shrieking madly in multiple disembodied voices, smashed insanely into the rocks of the cliff, shot up in the sky to fade into nothing, or dropped down to hiss out in the roaring surf.
Maria, also falling on her back, looked upward at Clay. The distance between them seemed to dissolve and they looked directly into each other’s souls. Her eyes told him to have faith and be calm and strong. His eyes – already brimming with tears of pain and loss – were simply telling her that he loved her.
Later, Clay would question what he saw next.
He would questioned it over and over in his mind, never sure of its validity, afraid to believe, and even more afraid not to believe.
For some seconds, ones that confirmed a holy power’s eternal commitment to humankind, he was allowed to see what few humans have ever been privileged to see. Perhaps, he reasoned later, it was God’s way of making it less painful for him; possibly it was his own psyche furnishing an ending that he could live with more easily. Still, despite the doubts that regularly tested his faith for many years thereafter, he knew that to his dying day, he would be certain that he saw...what he saw. Before Maria could plummet into the rocks and waves below, a star-bright beam of Light shot down from on high and enveloped her entire body, freezing her motionless in mid-air. The beam then slowly retracted, raising her back up the face to about twenty feet below where Clay lay on the grassy cliff. She seemed to hang there in limbo for a few seconds surrounded by a growing halo of magnificent radiance.
Its brilliance was such that Clay was forced to close his eyes against the Light. Gradually, unable to resist, he opened them again. As his sight adjusted to the shining, he made out a beautiful, snow-white, winged Being, at least twice Maria’s size, holding her tenderly like a babe in its arms. The Being, human looking and yet possessing a benign alien quality, gazed lovingly at Clay with large limpid blue eyes mirroring tenderness tempered with sadness, perhaps, at what was to come. Its garments were also luminous, flowing like wisps of silver mist about its body as it balanced in the night air casting brilliant reflections on the cliff and grasses surrounding Clay. Giant wings of snow white, gossamer-like feathers throbbed slowly in powerful strokes. A cobalt blue girdle that appeared and disappeared into its animated, flowing garments showed a golden sword attached to it.
An immense positive energy surged towards Clay. No longer was he saddled with feelings of despair and sadness. Instead he felt warmth and awe. Maria, her face also enraptured, and with a peaceful smile on her delicate features, looked deep into his eyes and deeper into his heart. Her features seemed to have grown more beautiful as her tiny lips mouthed a final good-bye....
Then her gaze shifted Heavenward....
And, in an instant...
...Maria and the Being were gone.
They had simply vanished leaving behind the empty darkness, the howl of the wind and the massive waves of a thick, oily black ocean breaking relentlessly on the rocks below.
Clay desperately rolled on his back and watched as the small orb of Maria’s body and soul, held in the tender care of God’s angel, climbed towards the ball of Light in the sky. It paused for a moment as though reluctant to leave him, but then merged.
Its holy mission accomplished, the pulsing Light became stronger and brighter and slowly moved away. Finally, its magnificence taking on the power of a super nova, it exploded and accelerated sharply upward until it became one with the stars.
It was too much for any mortal. Clay’s head spun and he passed out.
A short time later, a limping Cardinal Malachi, supported by Detective Chief Superintendent Cruickshank, found him sitting by the edge of the cliff, his shoulders occasionally wracked by deep sobs. As Malachi separated from Cruickshank, the Scotland Yard man looked back towards where the castle had been. “Bloody hell,” he said. “It’s gone. The bloody castle has disappeared.”
“Back to hell, I hope,” Malachi said, moving forward. “Clay...where is he...where’s Adramelech?”
Clay managed to regain his self control and said simply: “Dead.”
Malachi hesitated and then more gently asked: “Maria?”
“Gone...,” Clay said, looking up. Tears shimmered in his eyes and he drew a ragged breath, and stared at the night sky. After a moment, he added the word: “...home.”
Malachi exchanged glances with Cruickshank, waved him away, and lowered his frame to the ground beside Clay. He sat silently and patiently with his arm around the trembling man.
Later, just before dawn when the pilot, observer and police arrived, Cruickshank met them, presented his credentials and moved them away trying to explain that they all must have suffered from some sort of hallucinatory trance since there was obviously no castle or any other structure about. He began a long litany of explanations and a cover story that he would perfect over time.
A half-hour later, Clay and Malachi sat together at the edge of the cliff and felt the warmth of the sun as it rose to cast its golden glow over a calm, turquoise sea rolling languidly onto the rocks below under a blue sky. Clay took a deep breath, sighed, and looked up searching for the star that mattered most to him. Of course, with the sunlight now flooding the countryside, the star was nowhere to be seen.
With the torture of his terrible loss mirrored in his eyes, he looked at Malachi seeking an explanation for this final cruelty. The cardinal merely shook his head, his compassion, understanding and empathy evident but in no way an elixir for this loss. With one hand, he softly brushed Clay’s hair back from his forehead as a loving father would do for a son.
It was a new day for those that had been left behind.
And, a new era for mankind.
~ 16 ~
Maria ran into the garden towards Clay and he met her halfway, seized her in his arms and spun her around in a big circle as she wailed in delight. “My God, I love you so much,” she said, laughing gaily.
He put her down, looked into her sparkling dark eyes and kissed her heart-shaped ruby-red lips gently but with such enthusiasm that it turned it into a lengthy kiss of exploration and happiness. They were standing in the garden where she had once met Malachi and had been touched by the holiness of the Relic.
“You let me think I had lost you forever,” he said, accusingly.
“We have to do what we have to do,” she responded impishly and smoothed down her red sweater and grey wool skirt, the same outfit she’d worn the first time he’d laid eyes on her. Her hair, freshly cut, was bobbed at the front and hung in a bang over her mischievous eyes, also the exact style she had been sporting when he first saw her on the aircraft. She grinned and her little pink tongue peaked between her lips teasingly at him.
“Boy, if we weren’t on Vatican grounds, you’d be in trouble young lady,” he said, sternly.
“Promises, promises.” She laughed. “Now we do have to display some decorum for Cardinal Malachi when he arrives.”
“Oh I’m sure he’ll just be happy to see us together,” Clay said.
“Nevertheless, I can’t turn from a novice into a tease in a few weeks.”
“It didn’t take a few weeks,” Clay responded. “You were sending me signals the moment you met me.”
“Was not.”
“Was too.”
They looked at each other grinning. Life was good and they were going to be married in the spring. They were there to ask for Cardinal Malachi’s blessing and if he would do the honor of marrying them. Maria had told Clay that the cardinal h
ad assured her that if she undertook the mission, whatever path in life she chose afterward would have the blessing of the church. And, she had chosen Clay.
But then, as it had so many times before, the moment arrived.
Maria took his hand and her expression became serious. “I love you Clay and I love to bring you these small moments of happiness that you seem to need so much, but it’s time to get on with life. If you truly love me, you will do this.”
He always hated this moment and the cruel finality it brought because it was always followed by the blackness of reality that invaded and smothered any goodness left in his heart.
“Clay?”
He didn’t respond.
“Clay,” Cardinal Malachi said again, as he shook the former detective’s shoulder.
Clay sat up straight in the noonday sun and looked around. He was sitting on a bench in a small Vatican garden. “W-What? Maria?” he asked, and then shook his head. A sad and embarrassed smile finally played on his lips.
Malachi looked at him sympathetically. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright.”
“Oh...how silly of me,” Clay said, standing up. “I fell asleep for a bit. I-I seem to be doing that lately. I can’t sleep at night but I fall asleep at the drop of a hat during the day.” He dropped back to a sitting position on the bench, spent and disappointed.
“And you’ve lost more weight, both signs of clinical depression, my friend. It’s been over a year now. Have you been seeing Doctor Couture regularly, as I asked?” The cardinal sat beside him on the bench.
Clay knew that the cardinal realized full well that he hadn’t been seeing the doctor. “Oh, I saw her for a bit, but she kept probing for details. You know, stuff I couldn’t very well tell her. At least, without being locked away in a rubber room.”
“But I said that you could be completely candid with Sandra. She has treated legions of priests who have been either physically or mentally damaged from performing exorcisms, or simply worn out from hearing about sin and evil day-after-day. The job of savings souls takes a terrible toll on mere mortals.” He smiled and continued. “She is also a believer in evil being able to manifest itself here on earth.”
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