The Blood of the Lamb

by Thomas F Monteleone

  “But being a man has not, right?” She wanted to reach across the table to take his hand again, but she resisted. Even though she found him ever more desirable, she knew she couldn’t let anything happen between them. One priest in any woman’s lifetime was enough.

  He stared into her eyes, said nothing.

  Silence—and a bond—grew between them. Daniel was such a sweet, innocent, loving man. Marion wanted him as much as she’d ever wanted any man before Peter, but some sense of essential wrongness allowed her to remain in control.

  “Marion,” Dan said finally, a touch of desperation coloring his words. “What are we going to do?”

  She smiled, squeezed his hand, withdrew her own. “We learn to live with it, deal with it.”

  Just then, the waitress appeared, hesitated as though she sensed she was interrupting an important conversation, then said, “Excuse me, folks, but we’re getting ready to close up.”

  Looking around the bar, Marion realized that the piano music had stopped and the patrons had all vanished.

  “I’m sorry. We were so busy talking, we hadn’t noticed.”

  “That’s okay,” said the waitress as she offered them their check.

  Marion nodded, signed off on her room number. Standing up, she smiled perfunctorily. “Daniel, I think we’ll have to finish this later.”

  “Marion,” he said quickly, as he rose to follow her, “I’m sorry if I’ve said anything to offend you.”

  “Daniel, don’t apologize. It’s okay,” she said in a firm whisper.

  “I’ve…I’ve got to get all this worked out, Marion. Don’t leave me hanging out to dry like this…” He looked uncomfortably around the hotel lobby.

  “Daniel, it’s pretty late.”

  “But—”

  “But you still need to talk,” she said.

  Anger and despair mixed in his voice. “Think about it: I’ve flown halfway across the country, drunk too much, and bared my soul for what I can tell is a lost cause—Marion, I don’t know what to do next and I’m scared as hell!”

  The image of the little boy lost overwhelmed her. She couldn’t just cut him loose.

  “All right,” she said. “Come on, we can talk in my room.” That seemed to stun him a bit, but he walked silently with her to the elevators and joined her in the car with another couple. He said nothing until she stopped at her room and searched her purse for her key.

  “Marion, I don’t think—”

  Pausing, she looked straight at him. “Dan, I’m tired. I want to go to sleep, but I can’t get through the night without helping you, without listening until you get used to the feelings you’ve let out of their boxes.”

  She unlocked the door and entered the suite. He moved to the bar and fixed a bourbon and soda, then started talking.

  It was impossible for her to listen silently to his ramblings, but she knew he had to say everything, once and for all. A few times she interjected opinions or observations, but mainly she let him roll on. Gradually, as he grew more comfortable with knowing that they would not consummate any shared feelings or desires, and that it was all right to bare your feelings to someone you could trust, he grew less panicked, less terrified.

  Finally, he paused to make yet another drink, and she used the chance to call it a night.

  “Dan, I think it’s getting too late for much more. I’m exhausted.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised and not the least bit tired. So much for jet lag.

  “Plus it just occurred to me that maybe we wouldn’t want anyone to find us like this.”

  Dan sat down beside her on the couch, glanced at the digital clock on the end table and its 2:33 AM message. “It’s so late,” he said. “Who would bother us now?”

  Before she could answer him, the door swung open slowly, silently, to reveal the lean, rigid silhouette of Peter Carenza.

  “How about me…?” he said softly.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Colorado Springs, Colorado—Carenza

  * * *

  October 24, 1999

  Marion jumped from the bed, oddly holding her hand in front of her face.

  “Peter! What are you doing here?” There was the merest suggestion of distress in her voice.

  “Well, speak of the Devil, eh?” Daniel Ellington looked up at Peter with a foggy smile.

  Peter’s first reaction, when he’d approached the room and heard their voices within, had been rage. He’d entered, wanting to confront them while the sweet, hot rush of blazing hate and anger novaed within him.

  But seeing the two of them fully clothed had defused him. And that reaction bothered him, then angered him again. Had he wanted to find them in bed? Confusion spiraled through his thoughts, sending off sparks of doubt which did nothing to soothe his rancor.

  He raised his right hand, pointed at her, then him. The unconscious power, the taproot of force that ran deep into the core of his being tingled, then throbbed. A few months earlier, he wouldn’t have recognized it, wouldn’t have been able to harness it, rein it in, and opt to use or not use it. His hand trembled; the fury that quaked in his mind begged for release, screamed for an instant of the purest wrath. Like a trigger straining against the invisible fulcrum beyond which it would trip, his will battled itself.

  Daniel looked into his eyes, past the finger that pointed steadily at the center of his chest. Clearly, Ellington instantly recognized the conflict taking place in the core of his friend’s soul.

  “I could kill you,” said Peter. “Both of you…” His words tumbled into the dim abyss of the room, their echo leaving a chill in the memories of the listeners.

  Shakily, Daniel stood. He weaved slightly and his eyes had trouble focusing. He raised one arm in a parody of Peter’s biblical pose and pointed at Peter. He looked silly, and Peter wondered if his own stance appeared as laughable.

  “Yeah right, pal!” Daniel said in a loud, slurred voice. “You’re gonna kill us—for what? Since when is having a conversation against divine law?”

  “Peter,” said Marion quickly. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see that there’s nothing going on here?”

  He realized she was speaking the truth and started to lower his arm. The anger that boiled in him had begun to subside when Daniel spoke again.

  “Just a Goddamned second!” He lurched forward, still pointing absurdly at Peter. “What business is it of yours anyway—if there was anything going on? God or no God, you don’t own either of us!”

  “We’ve had this discussion before, Daniel,” said Peter, trying to stay calm.

  “Yeah, right. Free will and all that jazz.” Daniel spoke in clipped, half-drunk tones flecked with disdain. “Does God run everything on puppet strings—including me and you—or do we really make our own choices, in life and love? Who runs the world?”

  “That’s enough,” Peter said. It was all clear to him, suddenly. Daniel was betraying him, plain and simple. He was cutting himself loose from Peter’s authority, betraying the trust they’d built up. In one thing Daniel was right—his relationship with Marion, whatever it was, did not matter. It was the turning away from Peter which he could not be allowed to do.

  “‘Enough’? Oh, has my Lord spoken? Can you command me whenever you want?” Daniel laughed. “Last time I checked that was bullshit—and you know it as well as I.”

  Daniel was dismissing him. Him.

  Dismissal.

  Betrayal.

  The same thing.

  He looked at his friend and his former rage flared into life.

  “Maybe you should have checked more recently…” he said through semi-clenched teeth.

  “Dan, Peter…please!” Marion’s voice had trembled up at least one notch.

  Dan lumbered forward, an uncharacteristic, arrogant snarl on his face, raised arm still pointing at Peter, whose own arm had dropped to his side, fist clenched. Dan’s face flushed as he unleashed his own anger.

  “I don’t know what’s happening to you, Peter
, but it’s not pretty. Just who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “That’s enough, Dan.” Peter stood his ground as Dan moved close enough to touch him. He could feel his friend’s hot breath as Dan half-screamed his words.

  “You don’t own us, Peter! Do you understand that?”

  “Dan! Peter!” Marion’s voice seemed to be coming to him from a great distance. All his senses and his emotions were honed to a fine focus on Daniel Ellington.

  Rage capered across Peter’s mind, doing a war-dance on his reason, and he began to see Dan as an adversary, an enemy. Dan’s pale, florid face, puffing and glaring in anger, seemed to pulse like a beacon that propelled Peter to a darker level of hate.

  “Dan. Do yourself a favor: get away from me. Right now.” He bit off each word.

  “No, Peter! Do yourself a favor and you get out of here. Nobody asked you to come waltzing in here in the middle of the damn night, anyway!” He shoved Peter with his outstretched hand.

  Peter stumbled backward from the contact. For an instant, he had the strange sensation of falling forward, as though being sucked into a maelstrom. To quell the sensation, he hardened his gaze upon Daniel, who loomed over him, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  Peter reached out to him, but not with a real, physical hand. Just as an amputee might feel myriad sensations in a severed limb, so did Peter feel power and strength in an invisible, psychically empowered hand that stretched out toward Daniel. The light in the room dimmed as though slowed in its flight and the sound of Marion’s and Dan’s voices distorted into a basso moan. Peter sucked in a desperate breath. With his invisible hand he reached up and into Dan’s chest. A cold shock spiked through him as his fingers touched the hot, greasy knot of Dan’s heart, pulsing like a piece of wet and slippery machinery.

  He could feel Dan’s heart.

  From that first instant of recognition, he stopped thinking about what he was doing. Instead of pushing Dan away from him, it was so much easier to simply squeeze, to feel the obscene throbbing lump of his heart go berserk under the sudden pressure, to feel the valves shudder insanely into frantic dysrhythmia.

  Daniel Ellington staggered back, his face twisted abruptly into a snarl of torment. He screamed and dropped to his knees. His eyes bulged in their sockets as though air was being pumped into his head and he clutched at his chest, his arm like the spastic flipper of a skull-clubbed seal.

  Peter leaned forward and squeezed harder.

  Daniel’s scream dribbled away until it was nothing more than a pitiful mewling sound. He wrenched about on one knee and reached out to Marion with a stiff, palsied arm. He held the stance for an instant until his eyes rolled deep into his skull and he collapsed to the floor.

  The sensation of the invisible arm vanished; even the memory of it seemed less than nothing.

  For an immeasurable instant, there was no sound, no movement. The tableau of Marion standing above the twisted corpse of Daniel Ellington burned in Peter’s mind like a sepia photograph ready to burst into flame.

  The spell was broken by the low-pitched keening sound which escaped from Marion like the air from a dying balloon. It was a sound of shock and mourning. She dropped down beside Daniel, touched his stilled form, and began to cry. “Help him! Peter, help him! Do something!”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  She looked at him and seemed to know he spoke the truth.

  “Daniel, ohmiGod, Daniel! Daniel…” She whispered his name, her body rocking back and forth over Daniel’s still form. She looked like Peter’s idea of a mythic Irish sin-eater preparing to do her dirty job.

  Stepping away, Peter realized that he felt nothing.

  That place within himself where his emotions normally churned was strangely dark and empty. The coldness seeping into him terrified him. He waited expectantly, for what he assumed would be a vile bilge-like wash of remorse and dread.

  But he felt nothing…

  After what seemed an eternity Marion looked up at him. “Call for help! Hurry!”

  He moved to the phone as though in a trance, dialed the desk and asked for emergency medical assistance. Turning, he looked at Marion with a blank expression.

  “Did you do this?” she asked in clipped tones. “Did you kill him, Peter?”

  “He must have had a heart attack. He got too excited, too crazy. I can’t be held responsible.”

  “I can’t believe this…I can’t believe this.” Marion continued to slowly rock back and forth. Peter watched her, all the while searching for his true feelings and marveling at the total absence within him.

  Had he really killed his best friend? Was it possible he could kill someone so easily?

  No, that was absurd. Impossible. The delusion that he’d had…an invisible, killing arm…

  No.

  A ragged knocking at the door chopped off the thought. Peter looked at his watch—ten minutes gone, lost in the aftershock of the event. He opened the door and the paramedic team burst past him, homing in on Daniel’s crumpled form.

  Without another word, Peter slipped out of the room and down the long hallway to the lobby. The hotel corridor was as quiet and still as Daniel’s heart. Even the sound of Peter’s footsteps were absorbed in the thick pile of the carpet.

  The solitary night clerk at the Clarion’s registration desk recognized him immediately and flashed him a surprised but nonetheless solicitous smile.

  “Father Peter…Is everything all right?”

  “Actually, no,” he said softly.

  “What else can we do to help?”

  “Could you please call the trailer at the Vernon Ranch? Have them send the helicopter.”

  “Now, Father? You want the ’copter right now?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have to take a little trip. Tell them I’ll be on the roof.”

  Angling down toward the scrubland like a hungry, broken-winged insect, the chopper skipped over the rough terrain of southwestern Colorado. They’d been flying through the purple night, the rising sun chasing their tail rotor, for more than an hour. Peter sat next to the pilot, absorbing the cool, dark turbulence of the flight. He sat back, eyes half closed, allowing his senses and his proximity awareness to merge with the metal body of the aircraft, so that he might encompass the miracle of flying even more completely. The sensation was exhilarating, but more importantly, it kept his mind free of thought.

  There would be plenty of time for thinking.

  “That was Dove Creek back there,” said the pilot, who, now that he was fully awake, could not resist throwing in bits of tour-guide trivia. Like most Colorado natives, he loved his state.

  Peter nodded but said nothing.

  “Zane Grey used to live there!” the pilot yelled over the syncopated drone of the rotors. “That’s where he wrote Riders of the Purple Sage.”

  Peter nodded again, looked down at the terrain that passed beneath them—an endless puzzle of ravines and basins, buttes and jagged ridges.

  “How much farther did’ja wanna go, Father?”

  Peter exhaled slowly. “Get me to some desert. I want to see the desert at sunrise.”

  The pilot shook his head. “Desert? What for?”

  “I’ve never done it before.”

  The pilot shrugged and yelled above the engine noise. “You know you’re payin’ me triple-overtime for this middle-a-the-night flyin’, don’t you?!”

  “Just worry about the desert,” said Peter. “I’ll worry about the money.”

  “You’re the boss, Father!” The pilot leaned on the stick, pulling the chopper into a left turn that yanked it almost due south.

  “Any suggestions?” asked Peter.

  “Tuba City’s about another half-hour to the southwest. That’n Echo Cliffs. From there you can see the Painted Desert and Marble Canyon.”

  Peter nodded and the pilot chunked the throttle all the way up. The Bell Sky-Breaker jumped up to top speed and Peter settled back in his seat.

  He watched the ’copter lift u
p, hover for a moment like a curious mosquito, then dart upward and tilt toward the north. The pilot had tried to argue against leaving him on the desolate ridge east of Echo Cliffs. Though Peter had instructed him to return in six hours, before the sun grew too brutal, the pilot had forced him to take a canteen full of water.

  Down the sloping terrain to the south, the ghostly, moonlit sea of the Painted Desert seemed to beckon to him. To the east, the peaks of the distant Chuska Mountains had already begun to glow with the first fragments of the new day. The western night sky was still a deep, bottomless blue, but that would be changing soon. Peter looked around him, satisfied that he was utterly alone—the first time in a long time that no one was within striking distance of him. No highways, no cars, no lights or other distractions. Nothing to violate the utter quiet of the desert. Not even the chirping of an insect or rustle of a foraging lizard. The solitude cleared his mind like a breath of cold air.

  Just who in the world was Peter Carenza anymore? As he replayed the scene in the hotel room, he realized how ludicrous it would seem to other clerics. There he was—a priest, enraged, and ready to kill his best friend—also a priest—for wanting to have sex with his…his what? His lover? His girlfriend? His whore?

  Did he have any more right to her than Daniel? He smiled ironically. Priests don’t have lovers or girlfriends.

  So maybe he wasn’t much of a priest any longer…?

  But why? Because he’d grown too powerful for such a simple office?

  Part of him didn’t care. He didn’t need any of them, did he? He didn’t need a damned thing. He could do whatever he wanted, so where would all this soul-searching eventually get him? What good was it?

  He smiled ironically, bittersweetly, although not really amused that he could think so harshly. And what about Daniel? Had he actually felt Daniel’s heart beating in an invisible hand? Or was it the illusion his unconscious insisted it must be? Guilt washed over him like dirty rain. He shivered as though from a fever, looked up into the boundless night. Sometimes, when he was free of all distractions, of all the clamor and attention that suited around him, he could almost feel the changes churning within his soul. He could actually sense the coming together of new elements, new aspects to his very nature.