"But why did you—do you—think that?"
He shrugged, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I don't know. I'm just speaking for myself here, but for me it was a feeling… an overwhelming feeling, almost like a summons, that I should come here right now."
Brother Robert saw the other new arrivals nod in agreement. Suddenly he was thrilled. Something was happening here. The Spirit was gathering them together—Martin, Grace, these ten especially devout members of the Chosen, and himself—in one place for a reason.
But why?
He decided to reveal to them the moral dilemma with which he and Martin and Grace had been wrestling before their arrival. Perhaps they had been called here to provide him with a solution.
But first he needed Grace's permission. He turned to the corner where she remained seated.
"Grace," he said, "may I share with our brethren what we have learned about the Antichrist, and about you, and about the remedy you have proposed?"
She nodded, then lowered her eyes to gaze at her folded hands.
Brother Robert told them then about Carol Stevens's pregnancy, that she carried the child of Dr. Hanley's soulless clone, and about what they believed to be the true nature of that child. He saw the fear and wonder in their eyes as they listened, then saw it turn to revulsion when he told them what Grace had revealed about herself.
Murmurs of "No" and "It can't be true" slipped through the room as they rejected the thought that one of their number could have had such a past.
Grace's voice suddenly cut through the babble.
"It's true!" she said. She had risen from her chair and was now moving toward the center of the room. "I told myself I was helping those girls, saving them from shame and disgrace, saving them from someone else who might butcher them or even kill them with infection. And maybe that was true to some extent. But I was also doing it for the money, and simply for the thrill of doing it!"
The ones who had been called here backed away from her, as if mere proximity might taint them. But Brother Robert saw the pain in her face as she poured out the secret she had locked up for so long.
"I didn't think of the consequences to those unborn children, those tiny souls. I simply thought of myself as a courageous problem solver. It never occurred to me how many lives I was destroying. But there came a time when my perspective changed. I became unable to dehumanize them any longer, to reduce them mentally to mere bits of tissue by calling them embryos and fetuses. I saw them as children—and I had murdered them! I returned to the church… and I've been atoning for my sins ever since." She sobbed. "Please forgive me!"
"It's not up to us to forgive you," Juan Ortega said softly. "That's in God's hands."
"But perhaps," Grace said, "I am already in God's hands. Perhaps I am to be his weapon against the Antichrist. That is why he brought me to you. Because I have the skills to prevent his enemy from being born! I can abort the Antichrist while he is small and helpless. And I can do it without harming the innocent woman who harbors him!"
A shocked babble of voices filled the room. Cries of "No!" and "Never!" Louise Farmer turned and started down the hall toward the front door, saying, "I'm not listening to any more of this!"
As Brother Robert raised his hands to quiet them he felt the hardwood floor ripple under his feet.
And somewhere on the second story of the brownstone a door slammed with a sound like a shotgun blast.
Everyone froze in place and listened in awed silence as, one by one, every door in the brownstone slammed shut.
Brother Robert felt the floorboards ripple again. The others must have noticed it, too, for they all looked down at their feet. Suddenly the air seemed charged with electricity. He felt his face tingle, felt the hairs on his arms and legs stand up. The tension in the room was building quickly, inexorably.
Something was going to happen! Brother Robert didn't know whether to cower or to open his arms and accept it.
And then there was a light. It hovered in midair for a moment in the center of the room over Grace, a flickering tongue of flame, and then it began to expand. And brighten. There came a silent explosion of brightness, filling the room with an intolerable, staggering brilliance that spiked into Brother Robert's eyes, making him cry out with the pain.
And as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.
Brother Robert shook his head and tried to blink away the purple splotches swirling and floating before his eyes. Finally he could see again. He saw the others squinting and stumbling around the room. Some were crying, some were praying. Brother Robert too felt the urge to pray, for he had just witnessed a miracle… but what did it mean?
As he folded his hands together he noticed that they were wet. He looked down. Blood. His hands were slick with it, both palms and backs smeared with red. Shocked, wondering where and how he could have cut himself, he turned to look at the others and felt his foot slip.
More blood. Both his feet were bleeding.
And then he knew. Brother Robert felt the strength go out of him like the air from a ruptured balloon. He dropped to his knees.
He examined his hands closely. There, in the center of each palm, was an oval opening, oozing blood. He touched the right wound with the little finger of his left hand. There was no pain, not even when he probed it. He felt his fingernail slide between the edges of the skin. He pushed it farther through the warm, wet flesh within until it emerged on the other side. He stared dumbly at the red, glistening fingertip protruding from the back of his hand.
He snatched his finger free and fought a wave of nausea. Then he pulled aside the scapular and ran his hand over the left side of his chest, not caring that he smeared the fabric of his robe with blood. Yes! His skin was wet under there! He had the chest wound as well.
A nail hole in each hand and foot, and a spear wound in the chest! All five wounds of the crucified Christ!
The Stigmata!
He struggled to his feet to show the others, and that was when he became aware of the bedlam around him. There were cries and prayers and chaos. And blood. He was shocked to see the blood on all of them. All of them!
Amid the panicked cries and wondering murmurs, Grace Nevins stood straight and still, her rotund figure an eye of calm in the center of the storm. She held out her punctured palms to him as her voice cut through the clamor.
"The Spirit has spoken," she said. "We know what we must do."
Filled with wonder and unable to find another explanation, Brother Robert bowed his head in devotion and accepted the will of the Lord.
Twenty-two
Sunday, March 17
1
So it is done.
Jonah watched Carol as she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. Morning sunlight streaked the coverlet as Emma fussed over her, adjusting the slim straps of the new sundress she had bought for her daughter-in-law.
He knew now that the first step had been successfully completed. He had sensed it for the past month but had dared not allow himself to rejoice until he had absolute proof.
The only blot on his mood was his failure to fulfill the vision that had led him to Grace Nevins's apartment. He had so wanted to batter her skull until it was soft as a beach ball, but had failed. So he'd unleashed some of his fury upon her belongings.
But none of that mattered.
The One was alive. That was what really mattered.
The One he had awaited all these years had become flesh. The first step had been taken. The next task was to usher the One safely into the world. When that was done, he would guard the One as he grew to maturity. When the One reached the full level of his powers, no further guarding, no further assistance of any kind would be necessary.