The Night Church Part 39

People were screaming, rus.h.i.+ng away from the altar and the smoking snout of the gun. Mary and Franklin moved close together, quite unconcerned about the weapon a few feet from their heads. They held hands, the old man and his faithful helper.

"All right, listen to me! Shut up and listen, all of you!" It was Mike. He came around the altar. Patricia's eyes filled with tears. She had never been so glad to see anybody in her life.

He came through the stillness that had followed his shout, and pointed the gun directly at Patricia's belly.

"You cut her loose and bring us a raincoat."

A horrified gasp came from the crowd.

Mike c.o.c.ked the pistol. His eyes met hers. "Do it. Or she dies."

Silence. Far back in the church there was a single panicky scream. "Cut her loose," Franklin said.

Patricia got up on wobbly legs. Mike helped her into the raincoat. He half-carried her across the sanctuary, through the sacristy, and out into the parking lot. His car was there. He put her in, then got in himself.

She was so grateful and so sad and so frightened that she could hardly think, could hardly talk. She sat as still as stone while he started the car and drove away.

This was escape! She should be glad. But she wept bitter tears.

"Let's just try and remember the Jonathan we knew."

"Oh, Mike, he's dead. Dead! Dead! And I loved him so." And I loved him so."

Mike drove on beneath the yellow ranks of streetlights. They picked up speed on the Grand Central Parkway. They were heading west. "Do you need a doctor?"

"He didn't" hurt me. He wanted to but he fought it. You should have seen him, Mike, how he fought himself!"

Mike covered her hand with his own big paw. They reached the outskirts of the city and went into the dark beyond, on and on, toward anywhere as long as it was far away.

Patricia began to allow herself to think of ordinary life again, of places far from the dominion of the Night Church.

There would be one such place, she felt sure, where she could find peace and safety enough to raise the child.

For there would be a child. And it would not be the child of the monster. Surely Jonathan had preserved enough of himself to defeat the plans of the Night Church-she just knew it, could feel it in her singing blood. A little baby, the precious last of Jonathan.

In his name, she would bear this child.

Mary and Franklin remained behind after their stunned congregation had left the church. "We'll have to tell them," Mary said. "They're in despair."

"Let it be a test of their faith. They'll find out soon enough."

It had all gone so very well. Perfectly, in fact. Well, almost. "Banion drew his pistol before the insemination."

"That was a near thing. I must have given him the autosuggestion at the wrong moment. But there was defin-itely a complete insemination. She's pregnant. And the father was not Jonathan. The father was the monstrum." monstrum."

"But she believes otherwise."

"Of course. She'll bear the child as Jonathan's baby."

Mary put her arm around the old man. He was stooped, trembling with the weight of his years. The next great ritual of the Church would be his funeral, she suspected, on some moonless night not too far from now. He has come the full distance, and now he is tired.

"I wish them well," he said in his age-soft voice.

"Mike will do an excellent job of protecting her. You can count on that."

He coughed. "I'm exhausted."

She certainly didn't want him to keel over without giving her the last critical piece of information. "Where are they going, Franklin? You'd better tell me."

"I implanted a suggestion of Madison, Wisconsin."

"Name they'll use?"

"Edwards. And her gynecologist will be a young Doctor Jonas. He set himself up in practice last week. A good boy, from the Congregation Saint John Martyr in Milwaukee."

Mary locked the church behind them. The air was cool and clear. The morning star hung low in the east.

"Look there, Franklin. Lucifer."

Hand in hand they gazed at the star of the Night Church. Ordinary people called it Venus, but Lucifer was its proper name, and it was no star of love.

As predawn light spread over the quiet neighborhood Mary noticed an astonis.h.i.+ng change around the church. "Look, Franklin, there were demons with us."

"How do you know?"

His old eyes must not be able to see the trees. "The leaves-they went to autumn colors last night."

"So they did. Quite a wonder."

"Yes, a wonder." She watched dead leaves race down the sidewalk on an angry little breeze. How sweet was the world in silence.

Softly at first in her heart Mary heard the plainsong of the Night Church, then heard it rising triumphant from dark and hiding, to fill the world.

Aeterne rerum conditor.