Crow opened his eyes to bare slits and saw that the hulking part-time police officer was hunched over with his elbows on his knees reading the Bible, his lips moving and his face alight. Crow didn’t feel like a sermon from the village religious nut, so he closed his eyes and really tried to sleep. That didn’t work. So to pass the time he tried to catalog the damage to his body without actually moving. He could feel the stitches in his mouth, and by probing with his tongue he could feel three loose molars. The two bullet grazes on his sides—improbably one on each love handle—itched more than they hurt, but the rest of his body made up for it by hurting quite a lot. He felt like he’d been run over by a trolley.
Crow lay there in bed, in the false darkness of closed eyes, and relived all that Ruger had done. So much wreckage, so much harm. He heard a faint rustle as Tow-Truck Eddie turned the page of his Bible. Ubel Griswold sends his regards. Dear God, Crow thought.
(2)
Tow-Truck Eddie read and reread the same page and not one word registered. None of the elegant and symbolically complex phrases of St. John’s Revelations made a lick of sense to him even though he’d read every one of those pages over and over again to the point that his lips formed the words before his eyes even scanned them, but his conscious mind was not dwelling on the End Times or the opening of the Seals. Instead of Bible or page or word, what he saw was the face of the Beast. Not as he first saw it in a holy vision—disguised as it was in a costume of flesh with curly red hair and freckled apple-red cheeks and a child’s body—nor as he had seen it the other night on the road, a figure in hooded sweatshirt and jeans pedaling a bicycle along the black curves of Route A-32. No, the image that swam before Eddie’s eyes was the image he had seen just yesterday, right there in Pinelands Hospital, walking bold as the devil—and why should he not be as bold as that?—right out of the front doors just as Eddie and his partner, Norris Shanks, were coming in to sit a guard shift. The Beast had walked right past him, within reach, within arm’s length. Eddie could have killed him right there. Should have killed him.
I am the Sword of God, he thought, and was it not the very truth? Yet he had not done anything, had not acting out his own holy purpose because God Himself had spoken in his head and stayed his hand. Wait! Wait until you are alone! And he had stayed his hand, though it burned him that the end of his most sacred mission had been right there. What did it matter that there were other people around? Surely once the Beast had been killed his true nature and face would be revealed to all. Wasn’t that the point? To reveal the Beast so that the righteous would see and understand?
He wanted to drop to his knees while Malcolm Crow slept and beat his head on the floor seven times, to beg his Father to explain why his hand had been stayed. Could he risk it? Tow-Truck Eddie looked at the man in the bed and wondered if he was really asleep. A few minutes ago he had moved, but that could have just been shifting in his sleep. He was supposed to be drugged. Surely, he wouldn’t wake if Eddie went to his knees to pray. The nurse had already done her rounds and wouldn’t be back for an hour. He’d only need a few minutes, just a simple abasement and then his prayers.
There was the sound of footsteps and then a voice spoke in greeting just outside the door followed by a response. A conversation started, muffled by the closed door, but it was right outside. No, he thought, don’t risk it, too dangerous. Just wait, just wait, Father will speak to me. He will make His will known. Wait. You were told to wait. Be a good son. Wait. Wait. Then, like the taste of water on a parched tongue he heard his Father’s voice.
You are my son and in you I am well pleased.
Tow-Truck Eddie nearly cried aloud. He wanted so much to throw himself down on his face and weep, to tear at his clothes and hair, to beg forgiveness for his weakness and failure. His hands trembled and he almost dropped his Bible. “Father…” he whispered in his softest voice. “Forgive a sinner his transgressions.”
You are my beloved son. The voice rang in his head. You are my faithful servant, and you are my holy instrument on Earth. Do you know this? It was part of their litany and he knew it so well that tears filled his eyes.
“I—failed you, my Lord, my Father…”
You are the Sword of God. Do you know this? The words hit his brain as if the fist of God had punched right through his skull. Eddie had to bite his tongue to stifle the cry that rose like a boiling bubble in his chest. He dropped the Bible on his lap and clamped both hands over his mouth, staring at Crow, who stirred briefly and then settled. After a long minute while he watched to see that Crow was going to remain asleep and as the searing agony of God’s displeasure ebbed away like a reluctant tide, Eddie remained frozen there on the edge of his chair.
More gently now, God said, You are the Sword of God. Do you know this?
“Yes…yes, my Lord!” Eddie said in the tiniest of whispers.
When the Hand of Righteousness beholds the Beast, what is thy holy purpose?
“To destroy him, my Lord! I am the servant of God!”
And to this holy purpose do you dedicate yourself?
“I am the instrument of the Lord and His will is as my own. With my body, my heart, and my immortal soul shall I serve the will of the Lord.”
Then in my servant I am well pleased. But be ever vigilant for the Beast is clever and the Beast is quick, and to destroy him will be a test and a trial to you. Be not overconfident, be not complacent even in your power. The Sword of God is patient and he is strong.
“I will be patient as well as powerful, my Lord.”
The servants of the Beast are many and they are strong. Be silent, be secret. Be patient, and do not be deceived. The Beast may wear a child’s flesh but it is the Son of Perdition. There was a pause and Eddie tensed, certain that some great truth was about to be imparted. It is not death, not blood that will destroy the Beast. It is ritual.
Joy blossomed in Eddie’s chest as he finally, completely understood. Now he knew why God had stayed his hand yesterday. He could have killed the skin-suit the Beast wore, but unless he performed a blood ritual then the Beast’s spirit would simply find a new host. He closed his eyes against the welling of his joyful tears, nodding as understanding rose like a new sun in his heart. No, he had to take the Beast to some quiet place and then perform the ritual to its utmost conclusion, to the point where he tore the Eucharist from the Beast’s chest and tasted it, sealing the Final Covenant.
God whispered silkily into his mind. You are the Sword of God, and in you I am well pleased. Gratitude flooded through Eddie and he wept silently, his face in his hands.
(3)
Crow kept his eyes closed and listened to the faint mumblings as Tow-Truck Eddie spoke to himself. Is he praying? Of course he is, he told himself.
Then a few minutes later he thought, Is he crying? He listened and after a while he could clearly make out Eddie’s nearly silent sobs. Oh, that’s just peachy, Crow thought.
(4)
Mike Sweeney was fourteen years old. In eighty-eight days, on December 28, he would be fifteen, but he wasn’t entirely sure he would ever live that long. Until recently Mike seldom thought about the future because the future had always seemed like an impossible concept—the future was something that people got to if they had a sane life. There was nothing about Mike Sweeney’s life that was sane. Or safe.