The Blood of the Lamb

by Thomas F Monteleone

Cooper swiveled his chair away from a desk so big it could have had its own heli-pad and toward an electronic console that rose up out of the floor at the touch of a button. It had more switches, slides, and touch-pads than a mixing board, plus an ultra-rez NEC monitor; it gave him total control of all the gear in both rooms. A special comm-link connected Cooper to his hawks. Behind him, flanking him like members of a wedding party, awaited a flock of aides. Some of them sat, prepared to make notes on radio-enabled laptops that transmitted to a nearby mainframe; others stood around, trying to look ready to serve in any capacity.

  Yessireebob. It surely was fun havin’ a lot of money.

  He picked up a thin, wrapper-cured El Cajón cigar, specially “imported” from Cuba, paused to savor its aroma. Three fingers of Maker’s Mark bourbon slowly melted a single ice cube in a snifter at his right hand. The Reverend’s father had schooled him on the medicinal properties of Maker’s Mark many years ago. Daddy was still pickin’ and pokin’ at ninety-one, so maybe he knew somethin’ the doctors don’t, Freemason thought.

  One of his aides, a young buck named Addison who looked like an FBI agent, had a butane lighter flaring before Freemason could get the cigar to his lips. On the screens, the network logos were fading to black and the talking heads of the Grand Old Anchormen were staring out at the world. Their lips were moving but no sound penetrated the glass wall—Freemason had the gain damped down. He didn’t really give a fart in a windstorm for what they were saying—that’s why he paid his staff. They scanned the day’s events, gleaning the wheat from the chaff, and providing the Reverend with material for his nightly satellite broadcasts. There was always plenty of controversial stuff, always something that could be twisted and turned and polished up for his use. Anything truly unusual would be brought directly to his attention.

  He took his first pull of the El Cajón. It was as sweet as a young girl’s quim. A sip of his iced Mark produced in his mouth a light, woodsy bouquet. Lord, life was good. Cooper looked idly at the screens as the anchors oozed into their lead stories of the night—skirmishes in South Africa as the civil war raged on. The story didn’t seem on the face of it to be a message from the Lord, but what did the Reverend know of such things?

  Freemason didn’t concern himself with interpreting the news. That’s why he paid writers. Ten of the sharpest Bible scholars in the South worked their buns down to their ass-bones hooking up references from Scripture with whatever was going on in the world. And my, those bright little boys and girls were good! They gave the Reverend the meanest, cleanest sermons in the Industry. There wasn’t a telepreacher on the sats with half as many viewers. His Church of the Holy Satellite Tabernacle chewed up all the other teleministries for breakfast.

  Freemason was mighty proud of that. His audience spanned the globe, and the money they sent him had created a monolith of power and influence and just plain opulence for Freemason and his coterie. He was riding the crest of a new wave of televangelism because his programming related directly to current events—and because he’d helped launch what he called “apocalyptic thinking.” All his shows were linked, however subtly or overtly, to the coming millennium and the possible End Of The World.

  For some reason, a lot of people found that a subject of great interest.

  The lead story faded from the screens as the networks segued into their next segments. Unity of coverage disintegrated as the news divisions began to cater to their different priorities, different political/social leanings. It was no secret, Freemason thought, that the media’d been controlled by a buncha Hebes and homosexuals since World War II.

  As he brought his snifter to his lips, he heard a change in the silence in his headset. Someone had opened the channel.

  “Reverend,” said Number Three, seated below the CBS screen, “I think we have something here. I’ll punch it up on replay/delay for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re going to want to see the whole thing yourself. It’s a network exclusive.”

  “Well, let’s get on with it, boy!”

  “We’re cued up now—here it comes…”

  Freemason stared at his personal monitor, where the image of a New Yorky-looking woman appeared. She radiated health and sexiness. Her eyes were full and wide and green as the sea; her face was framed by a mane of auburn hair. She looked at the camera like she was making love to it, and Freemason Cooper was immediately in lust with her. Like every other on-site reporter, she wore a jump-suit and photographer’s vest, but he quasi-uniform couldn’t conceal the sensuous lines of her body. Whoever she was, she was all woman. Just the way the Reverend liked ’em.

  As if in answer to his prayers, an ID print-over appeared across the bottom of the screen:

  Marion Windsor—Courtesy WEVN-TV and WPIX-TV

  “The violence and bloodshed which has plagued the Yusang Motor Corporation plant in Evansville, Indiana, for the past two days has come to an abrupt end. Last night, just after midnight, Central Time, an assemblage of enraged workers planned a final assault on Yusang’s front gates. Harassed by police and riot-control units from the fire department, what began as a peaceful demonstration against new company policies escalated into an ugly siege…”

  While Marion Windsor spoke, the screen displayed close-up video of tactical police mixing it up with a huge crowd of blue-collars. Water-cannon crisscrossed the crowd, battering the strikers like bowling pins. It was a familiar tableau—what made it special? Freemason was about to buzz Number Three and give his hole a good reaming when Marion Windsor came to the meat of her story:

  “…and more deaths were certain to follow, until the sudden appearance of a young man named Peter Carenza, a parish priest from Brooklyn, New York, changed everything…”

  The video displayed a tall, sinewy man with dark hair and dark eyes standing atop a platform on a forklift. This was a priest!? He looked like a telephone lineman. The crowd surged beneath him like a cruel sea. He was speaking, but his words were blanketed by the narration. The look of cool determination in the young man’s eyes disturbed Freemason deeply.

  Windsor described the violence that ensued due to a mistakenly ignited car bomb. The video, amazingly clear given the circumstances, showed flares, bullets, and a hellacious rainstorm. Lightning flashed and danced against the industrial background.

  Freemason watched as the young priest was enveloped by what could only be called a halo of light. Green fire danced along the metal fence and water tower behind him. A stunned silence gripped the crowd and a sense of awe and fear penetrated the Hat screen of the video monitor. Iciness touched Freemason’s gut.

  “…Something wondrous has happened in Evansville…”

  A brief childhood memory flared. Cooper, aged five or six, bouncing along in the shotgun seat of his daddy’s Chevrolet DeLuxe. Rain dappled the windshield as they jounced along a rutted country road; the little plastic statue of Jesus on the dashboard gave off a sick green shine. Lightning flashed, and Freemason remembered being scared by that little statue. He told his daddy, and the old man had just cackled as he wrestled with the steering wheel. Then the memory short-circuited and was gone. But for an instant, it had been painfully clear.

  Freemason rubbed his lips with the back of his hand; the urge for a sluice of bourbon was overpowering, but he couldn’t break his attention from the screen. Carenza raised an arm toward the water tower behind him and lightning blasted it!

  Un-goddamned-believable.

  Freemason’s trembling fingers found the snifter, grabbed it. Bringing it to his lips, which had become suddenly cracked and desert-dry, he sucked down the liquor’s woodsy bite.

  “…and the violence which has wracked this small, industrial city is over. This is Marion Windsor, reporting on the scene, in Evansville, Indiana.”

  Tilting his head, Cooper knocked back the rest of the bourbon and whipped his chair around, reaching for the decanter at the corner of his flight-deck desk. God-damn-it-to-hellfire, what was that all about? Why were his h
ands shaking? His heart thudding?

  Take it easy, he thought.

  Turning slowly, he glanced back at his aides. They all sported the same dazed, what-did-I-just-see look. No one spoke. “You want a file copy of that, Reverend?” Number Three’s voice filled his headset.

  “Yes,” said Freemason, “that’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve got a follow-up on that Evansville piece!” Number One piped in. “Want the feed?”

  “Roll tape, Number One,” said Freemason.

  Normally he got a charge out of the whole media-blitz session. He loved using all the industry buzzwords and playing like he was a director or something. But suddenly, he was just going through the motions. He couldn’t shake the image of that young guy, glowing in the dark.

  Hastily-shot video of a striker filled the small monitor screen. The worker spoke into a mike held by an off-camera interviewer.

  “…nothin’ like it, man, you know…I mean, here’s this kinda wimpy guy, you know, and he’s standin’ up there, and, like, I saw him zap that water tower, man!”

  “What do you mean—‘zap’?” asked the unseen reporter. “I mean, like, you know, he blasted it! You know, like a wizard, man. Like those guys inna cartoons.”

  The image was replaced by that of a young woman in firefighter’s gear.

  “It was an amazing experience. Like being in church. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was an amazing guy.”

  “Did you see where he went? Find out who he was?”

  “No, I didn’t…but I’d like to see him again.”

  “If you knew where he was, would you go after him? Seek him out?”

  “Yes…I think I would.”

  Another sloppy video edit, and another broad, midwestern face filled the screen. Same hand-mike and anonymous interviewer.

  “…like a religious experience. Like when I was saved. It was kinda like that. First time I had the same feelin’.”

  Another quick-edit and the video portrayed the young-old faces of a biker couple. The boy was weathered, long-haired, and wrapped in leather. His companion was a wispy blonde whose features were on the hard side of beauty.

  “…I know ’im,” said the boy. “He saved me and Laureen here.”

  “Saved you?”

  “You bet. I hurt my hand tryin’ to rob a place and Peter healed me—look!”

  The boy exhibited a perfectly normal hand to the camera.

  “You can say whatever you want, but I’m tellin’ y’all—this guy’s real.”

  “Meaning…?”

  The boy stared into the camera, his almost constant leer fading. “Meanin’ he’s what we’ve all been waitin’ for. You saw what he did here tonight. Only one guy can do somethin’ like that—and that’s Jesus!”

  Freemason punched a key on his master-board, and the NEC darkened. He’d seen enough of that shit. Damned media, tryin’ to make that priest look like some kind of savior. He’d have to review the tapes, but it sure as hellfire sounded like some kind of publicity stunt. ’Course it wasn’t like the Catholics to get involved in that sort of thing. The Papists had been soft-pedaling the turn of the century and the whole Millennial Movement for a damned good reason—they didn’t want to be identified with the mainly fundamentalist churches backing the whole thing.

  He couldn’t blame them. The Church of Rome, despite being as corrupt as anybody else, had parlayed its investments, its political and technological connections well. The Papists were a strong force in the religious world. As much as Freemason hated them, he had to respect their staying power.

  But if this circus stunt in Evansville was some new Vatican strategy—something to stir up the sheep and get their attention away from the satellite ministry—well, hellfire, he couldn’t let them fuck around like that.

  Raising a single finger brought a pair of aides to his side.

  “I want more research on that Evansville story,” he said. “Find out everything you can.”

  “You got it, Reverend,” said a woman dressed in a prim business suit. Her name was Melody, and although she looked a little wholesome for Freemason’s taste, he was thinking of playing a tune or two with her.

  He smiled and winked at her. She returned the smile and moved back to her laptop. The other staffer, a cracker-jack fellow named Billingsly, still awaited his orders.

  “I’m going to need a strong piece on this Evansville thing,” Cooper said. “Get all the poop you can from Melody, and write me a real ripper. You hear? I want to punch a few holes in this guy’s sails before he even gets started.”

  “You can count on it, Reverend.” The aide nodded, slipped away.

  Freemason returned his attention to the overview of the media blitz. His hawks had all four screens running separate stories now, circling over new, juicy pieces of what the sheep called “news.” The only thing interesting was the earthquake that had rocked Beijing, killing ten thousand Chinks. Served the heathens right, he thought.

  As the nation geared up for another evening of prime-time narcolepsy, Freemason dismissed his cadre of aides. In a flurry of activity, sliding panels of burnished oak moved to conceal the electronic gear, bookcases maneuvered on floor-and-ceiling tracks to cover the glass wall, the control panel sank into the floor. His staff slowly filed out of the room, leaving him alone. He poured another three fingers of Maker’s Mark from his desk decanter, added a single cube of ice, and lifted the snifter to his aquiline nose for a long, savory inhalation. He allowed himself only three cigars per day and he’d expended his last one during the blitz. But damn, he wanted to fire up one more tonight!

  He couldn’t get the image of the priest, with the light shining all around him, out of his mind. It was probably a bunch of hokum, but for some reason, Freemason was letting it rub his fur the wrong way.

  A short, pudgy man entered the room through a side door. He wore a tan western shirt and tailored jeans, accented by rattlesnake Dingos. The style did not flatter his bowling-pin body, but he walked with the confidence of a man who did not care about his appearance. Though his face was doughy, his features were a bit pinched. He would have been bald except for about forty strands he insisted on plastering across the top of his head. Preston J. Pierce sat at Freemason’s right hand. His official title was Chairman of the Board of CHST, Inc., but he was actually a little bit of everything from Freemason’s chief procurer to financial advisor.

  “Evenin’, Mason…how’d the blitz go?”

  “Okay, I suppose.”

  Preston looked at him askew, poured himself a dollop of bourbon over lots of ice, squirted in some Coke from the dispenser at the wet bar.

  “That doesn’t sound promisin’. What’s the matter, Reverend?”

  Freemason quickly recounted the Evansville incident and the reactions from the sheep.

  Preston sipped his weak drink, nodded. “I’d say that’s a development which bears some watchin’.”

  “Yeah, I know. Put some of our boys on this guy. See if they can find him, keep an eye on him for a while.”

  Preston winked, gestured OK with his right hand.

  “Your steam bath’s ready.”

  Freemason sighed heavily. “Oh yes, who is it tonight?”

  “Stephanie June.”

  “The redhead with all the freckles?”

  “You remember well,” said Preston with a wonderfully perverse smile.

  Freemason knocked back the rest of his drink, stood up behind his desk and stretched his six-four frame. He felt oddly tense, wary. Even the promise of Stephanie June couldn’t get his mind off the video of the rose-petal snowstorm and that priest standin’ up there like that goddamned glow-in-the-dark Jesus. He could almost smell the rank stink of nicotine in the cab of Daddy’s old pickup.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rome, Italy—Etienne

  * * *

  October 15, 1998

  Why would the Abbess do such a thing to her?!

  The images from the video she had been shown had stained her visi
on. No matter where in the white infirmary room she looked, the specter of the man called Peter Carenza took shape and filmy substance. A man, and yet more—and less—than a man. Like looking at a ghost. She saw him everywhere, yet she knew she was not crazy.

  Falling back into the safety and softness of her pillows, Etienne squeezed shut her eyes…and still she could see him. A man, dressed in black—but where his head should have been was a dark swirl like the black rose she’d seen in the garden.

  Holy Mary! What was happening to her?!

  She’d asked her Abbess to grant her an audience with the Holy Father. Only God’s authority on Earth could understand what she’d seen. In the depths of her soul, Etienne knew that God was talking to her, giving her a message that must be delivered.

  Why would Victorianna not listen to her?

  Blinking her eyes, Etienne saw something new taking shape against the stark white wall opposite her bed, like a film being projected through a gauzy lens. A fuzzy image of the Great Wall of China, snaking across hilly terrain, punctuated by battlements and towers. Suddenly the hills beneath the Wall shook, became almost fluid. Waves of force pulsed through the earth and the Great Wall cracked and fractured like the frail shell of a dove’s egg. So fierce were the shock waves that the wall seemed to explode. A hailstorm of fragments rained down on the countryside while the earth continued to sway and tremble. The sky darkened from the dust and debris thrown into the air.

  Etienne could hear the cries of animals and people rising up in a chorus of agony and terror.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Vatican City—Lareggia

  * * *

  November 1, 1998

  Paolo Cardinal Lareggia stood at his office window overlooking the Via della Fondamenta. It had been raining all morning, and the stone buildings looked stained and dreary. But the bad weather did not deter small knots of tourists from making their appointed rounds. Their umbrellas and rain-gear speckled the gray pavements with dashes of bright color. The contrasts mirrored Lareggia’s own emotions.