The Night Church Part 21

Chapter Thirteen.

PATRICIA LAY WATCHING suggestions of movement in the shadows on the ceiling. The room was unquiet, even at three o'clock in the morning. Father Goodwin had been up and down to the bathroom half a dozen times. He was overex-cited-which was to be expected, she supposed.

He snored now, his sleeping expression 6ne of deep sadness. In the cot beside his, Mike's breathing was thick and regular, a settled hound's. Mary was gone from her cot, no doubt forced into a walk by the heat and stuffiness. Across the room lay Jonathan, and Patricia wondered if he too might be awake.

The thought brought deep stirrings. Since their half-hour in bed Jonathan had grown more and more ardent. And she had too. In her daydreams she would kiss his rigid, silken member... then she would banish the fantasy. Which would promptly return.

Of the two of them, though, Patricia knew that Jonathan was the more enraptured. And why not-wasn't that in the nature of the male, to have explosive pa.s.sions? But how, then, could he think clearly about life with a paralyzed woman? And what if she needed more medical care? Would he accept the burden, just for love?

I want him to be as free as the wheat in the field.

Oh? The field that I dream about, where Death resides?

The scythe sighs and the Reaper sweats. He is a mad not of death amid the growing, fruiting, bursting fertility of humanity.

Is it love I wish for, or death?

Maybe I just ought to let him make love to me again and forget the rest. Maybe that physical contact is the only real thing, and all this thinking is just a waste of time that might be better spent in pleasure.

I want to go across the room and place my lips on his lips, and press my tongue between his teeth, and love him and love him until I melt into him.

I am free to die in Jonathan, free to let the living steel of him tear me apart.

G.o.d help me, I'm frightened.

The shadows seemed to move just then with a purpose of their own.

She was conscious that Jonathan had stirred in his bed. Fingers seemed to brush her face; she was suddenly frozen with terror. This must be another nightmare. She wasn't awake, she couldn't couldn't be, not if she felt this afraid over so little. be, not if she felt this afraid over so little.

Oh, he was moving-she knew he was moving.

The shadows on the ceiling were very slowly changing shape as he slipped inch by stealthy inch from his bed.

You will go with him.

"Is that you?" Her voice was like a rattle of leaves in the quiet. Mike snuffled, Father sighed.

Don't whisper so loud, you little fool!

Now I know he is on the floor. I hear his breath, hisss, hisss, hissssss, getting nearer and nearer. I see his shadow creeping.

You will go with him!

"I will go with him."

Far away someone was singing, the same few words again and again. And the wind made a deep note as it surged and flowed-through the ancient streets of the town.

"Patricia?" Jonathan said softly. Oh, seductive whis-perer, where have you come from?

And why do your eyes gleam so?

"You awake?"

"Mmm..."

"I-please-"

She knew what she had to do; slip from the bed, pull on her dress, let him carry her.

They went then through the black halls of the hotel, down the cobbled streets in the night wind, her dress hardly protecting her.

All she could think of was how his skin must taste, She was desperate, urgent to drop to her knees before him, to free the tight imprisoned purple arrow and pierce herself with it as she had in that time of beloved memory.

They moved through the night, beneath the stars and tossing trees.

We aren't in the town anymore. Where are we?

He was scary. His face was too sharp, his eyes too bright. There was fire in him, and she knew that if she tempted it too much it would kill her.

"Welcome to the domain of Our Lady," said an age-dried voice. A small, quick man moved in the dark.

You look familiar, old man.

He smiled. Behind him the ma.s.sive bronze doors of the Basilica of the Rosary opened just a crack.

"Come," he said.

Can this be real?

"Don't worry, you are certainly dreaming. What do you think? You must be dreaming!" He spoke with soft intensity.

"I'm not not dreaming." dreaming."

Her own voice startled her. She touched Jonathan's face. "I'm not either, my love," he said.

She felt, though, that she must be. Of course she was; she had to be.

The old, old man beckoned frantically from the doorway. Then they were inside and Patricia was stunned by the spectacle before her.

There were candles in the vast s.p.a.ce, candles by the thousands, points of light, crowds of points, reefs and blaz-ing cascades. Enormous curtains covered the windows.

The ocean of candlelit pews had the just-emptied look of a place where a procession began, and to which it would return. The air smelled of hot wax and people.

At the far end of the basilica there was a stairway. Below must be the grotto. The entrance was utterly black. After the blaze of the candles it was impossible to see.

There came from the foot of the stairs the sound of water.

As they descended the murmur grew to an echoing roar. In the caverns beneath Bernadette's little stream was a mad, frothing cataract. "The headwaters of the Holy River Al-pheus, where Parisfal drank of death. Go now, and give yourself to Alpheus." Go now, and give yourself to Alpheus."

Give herself to Death? She clung to Jonathan.

The only light came from the phosph.o.r.escent foam. Un-seen hands took Patricia, carried her forward, closer and closer to the surging water, as Jonathan rushed beside her. The water cascaded from the rocks, flooded through the chamber, then ran gurgling and complaining down the cre-va.s.se beyond.

"The river wants you," whispered the old man, and there sounded above the voice of the water a deeper, more terrible note, as of a great horn booming and booming, and with every boom the old man came a step closer to her and Jonathan.

"Take her, boy, down into the water."

"She'll drown!"

The old man's mouth moved but Patricia could not hear. At once a change came over Jonathan. He drew off his clothes. Now he was naked and his skin gleamed in the blue iridescence. He smiled a jack-o'-lantern grin.

Then she was in his arms, lying helpless against his naked flesh, and the water was coming up around her, seething and tugging and lapping, covering her midriff and her chest and her arms and then her face.

Now he ceased to carry her; instead he pressed her down with his hands. She went down and down and down into the freezing, grabbing dark.

Then his strong arms were gone.

She was tumbling, dashed again and again against the rocks. The current was holding her against the bottom.

Her arms were not strong enough to resist the power of the water. Only her legs could help her and they were useless.

If inhaled, a half a cup of water is enough to kill. But she had to breathe, she had had to inhale! A surge of agony swept her body. She tried to bring her hands to her face but it was no good; she was tumbling over and over, caught in a corner between the side and the bottom of the river. to inhale! A surge of agony swept her body. She tried to bring her hands to her face but it was no good; she was tumbling over and over, caught in a corner between the side and the bottom of the river.

This nightmare had to end. But how could it, when the water was so very cold and the bottom so very hard and her lungs bursting with desperate need?

G.o.d. G.o.d. G.o.d.

Her left foot sc.r.a.ped stone. She pushed, and for an instant the tumbling stopped. But then she was off again, worse than before. She knew that her mouth was going to open in a second and she was going to breathe, and that breath was going to be water.

Her foot connected solidly with the rough bottom, and this time she did stop tumbling. She drew her legs up under her and pressed with all her might-but how could she?-against the battering power of the backwash that held her.

She broke free.

The air was dank cave air, but it was air and it balmed her searing lungs.

She heard hiss-whoos.h.!.+ hiss-whoos.h.!.+ hiss-whoos.h.!.+ hiss-whoos.h.!.+ and saw what looked like a monstrous toad waddling toward her in the foam. Then he removed his face mask. It was a man in scuba gear. and saw what looked like a monstrous toad waddling toward her in the foam. Then he removed his face mask. It was a man in scuba gear.

"She's done it," he shouted over the water.

And the bone-deep note she had heard before boomed triumph.

Jonathan, naked still, came to her. Hand in hand they walked from the water. For the briefest of instants she had brushed his great hard stone of a thigh and heard him gasp and felt him stumble. She longed then to touch him more, to hold him delicately between her fingers, to spend long minutes just stroking his secret part.

Mary Banion gave them their clothes.

She walked in the darkness, between cliffs of a new sound. At first she did not know what it was, then she understood. There were throngs here, and they were clapping softly. Jonathan drew her forward. "I can't see a thing," he whispered.

"There's a glow over there. It must be from the candles upstairs."

Hand in hand they went toward the light.

As Patricia sank to deeper sleep she was aware that bells were ringing. But for the glory of those bells she dreamed no dream, sleeping on toward the forgetful dawn.

Chapter Fourteen.

WHEN THE KITCHEN exhaust fan beneath the window was turned on, Patricia awoke instantly. Her sleep had been troubled; she looked at her watch. Six thirty. Around her the others slept on.

She wished she had not dreamed she could walk. It was cruel to do that to oneself. The inner Patricia was furious with herself for the crippling, which made it hard for ordi-nary, everyday Patricia to get used to it.

"Good morning."

Jonathan whispered to her from his cot against the wall. Beside him Mike Banion snored softly. Father Goodwin lay twined in on himself. Mary, very still, was as pale as a lovely statue in her sleep. There was a round patch of bandage on her right arm, just below her shoulder. Patricia looked at it, reflecting idly that it was the only imperfection she had ever seen marring that perfect body. Even Mary wasn't immune to scratches and cuts.

Patricia raised her own arms, spread her hands, closed her eyes and waited a thousand eternities for Jonathan to cross the room and bend to her. "h.e.l.lo," he said. "You're cool. Shouldn't you be bed-warm?"

You have dared the wild waters, and you have won.

"Jonathan, take me out of here. I want us to be alone together."

"Darling, darling." They traded a lingering kiss.

Then they dressed, he pulling jeans on over his briefs, she grappling with a skirt and blouse, working her feet into a pair of flats, running a brush a few times through her hair.

He carried her to the wheelchair. When he sat her in it she writhed. The thing had claws, it grabbed her; the chair was hungry for her body.

He wheeled her down the dim, stuffy hallway, past end-less rows of little black doors with slats in them, beneath buzzing fluorescent rings, to the wide hospital-like lift. The main lobby was dark, n.o.body about at this hour. In front of the hotel was a still-bundled stack of French newspapers and a few copies of the International Herald Tribune. International Herald Tribune.

He wheeled her fast, almost running down the Rue Reine-Claire. "Where are we going?"

"There's a gate at the end of the street. It leads into the Domain of Our Lady. It'll be quiet there. On the map it looks like a park."

She had seen him in the plane poring over his Michelin. "You memorized the map in hope we could slip away, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I know all the exits."

"Love you so much."