‘It’s still pretty, Preacher. Y’all had the prettiest hair. For a boy.’
She continued to brush Roland Hannah’s hair in long, careful strokes. Byrne made eye contact with Gabriel, who seemed to be edging off his chair. Byrne saw the boy look into the darkness of the basement, toward the stairs. He was getting ready to run. When Gabriel looked back at Byrne, Byrne shook his head. It was too risky. Mary Longstreet was just a few feet away, and the knives were very sharp. He’d never make it.
Still, Gabriel got ever closer to the edge of his seat.
When Mary Longstreet finished brushing Roland Hannah’s hair, she placed the hairbrush on her chair, then drew one of the knives from her waistband, the dagger tipped with blood. One by one she extinguished the candles. When she had snuffed all but two, she positioned herself behind Gabriel.
‘Ruby?’ Byrne asked.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘If I can.’
Byrne glanced at Roland Hannah, then back at the woman. ‘I want you to take me instead.’
She looked at Byrne with curiosity. ‘You? The devil’s not in you.’
In that moment Byrne felt the weight of his own sins, just as he knew that it didn’t matter anymore. None of it — the job, the visions, the anguish over the city he loved, the sadness that in all that time he had not made a difference. The only person in this room who mattered was Gabriel.
‘You don’t know the things I’ve done,’ Byrne said.
The woman stared at Byrne for a long moment. She lay the dagger gently on Roland Hannah’s right shoulder. ‘Don’t you understand, detective?’
‘Understand what?’
‘The Preacher is Philadelphia,’ she said. ‘He’s the sixth church of the Apocalypse.’
Byrne saw the candlelight dance on the keened edge of the blade. He had to keep her talking. ‘I do understand. But what of the last church?’
Mary Longstreet’s eyes softened, and Byrne knew. She was the last church. When Roland Hannah was dead she would take her own life.
‘I can’t let you do this,’ Byrne said.
Whatever softness had come to Mary Longstreet was instantly replaced by a red rage.
‘You have no say in the matter, sir.’ In an instant she stepped behind Gabriel, put the blade to his throat. ‘Maybe the boy is Philadelphia. Maybe this is how it will be.’
‘Don’t,’ Byrne said.
She flipped the knife, reversing it in her grip. It seemed to be a long-practiced, expert move. She touched it to the boy’s forehead. ‘I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem.’
For a moment Mary Longstreet’s words echoed off the stone basement walls, unanswered. Then:
‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.’
Mary Longstreet’s eyes flashed at the sound of the voice. It was Roland Hannah’s.
‘You! You don’t talk, Preacher,’ she said. ‘You don’t talk at all.’
‘We can be together again, Mary Elizabeth,’ Roland said. ‘Don’t you see? We can leave this wretched place.’
‘No, sir.’
‘We can found a new church. A church of our own. Together.’
Byrne saw Mary Longstreet’s eyes lose focus. For a moment it seemed she couldn’t hear or see anything, that her vacant stare was cast inward, at a place back in time.
‘You can be my eyes,’ Roland said.
Roland Hannah stood up, took a hesitating step forward, his hands stretched in front of him. Mary Longstreet didn’t move, didn’t try to stop him.
‘You’ve always been special to me, Mary Elizabeth. You know that. Ever since I set eyes on you that first time in Brandonville. Remember?’
Mary Longstreet’s hands began to tremble. Byrne saw the tip of the blade pierce the skin on Gabriel’s forehead. A trickle of blood ran down the boy’s face in a twisted rivulet.
Byrne knew he had to act. He stood up, slowly walked across the circle. He held out his hand. ‘Ruby?’
The woman said nothing.
‘I will kill the Preacher for you.’
‘That is a task for my son,’ she said. ‘He has waited a long time.’ She put the blade to Gabriel’s throat. ‘I’d thank you kindly to sit down now, sir.’
As Byrne took a step back he noticed movement in the vastness of the basement, shadows growing on the candlelit walls.
Jessica and Maria Caruso were in the room, guns drawn. Byrne saw other figures in the darkness. There had to be a dozen officers.
Mary Longstreet saw them, too.
In one fluid motion Byrne spun and knocked the knife from Mary Longstreet’s hand. Just as quickly she drew the other dagger. She danced to her left with blinding speed and drew the blade across Roland Hannah’s throat. Hannah’s body jerked and thrashed, spastic in its death throes. He put his hands to his throat, but he couldn’t stanch the bleeding. As blood spurted across the circle, extinguishing one of the remaining candles, Mary Longstreet flung herself at Gabriel. Byrne dove in front of the boy. The dagger entered the right side of Byrne’s stomach, slashing clean through. The pain was white fire.
But it didn’t stop Byrne. He reached for the hand that held the weapon and tried to turn the woman around.
In the madness of the moment Byrne saw Jessica run toward them. Hands slicked with blood, Byrne lost his grip on the woman. Mary Longstreet pivoted, regained her footing, and slashed wildly at Jessica. As Byrne fell to the floor he saw the wound open in Jessica’s shoulder, above her Kevlar vest.
No, Byrne thought.
No.
Then, as blackness descended, and the last of his will fell away, a hellish fury came to the cathedral basement. Gunfire roared. The smell of cordite and blood filled the air.
For Kevin Byrne it all faded to a distant past, a time when he was just a young boy, and these walls held more mysteries than answers.
SIXTY-ONE
Jessica couldn’t hear. The gunfire had stolen all sound. She was on her back, saw feet moving around her, heard muffled shouts and commands. She looked to her right and saw the body of Roland Hannah, his throat savaged. There could be no question. He was dead.
Jessica tried to sit up but the pain was too great. She saw Gabriel on his side, just a few feet away, his face streaked with blood. She did not know where the woman was. But right now neither of them were her priority. In the fog and confusion she found Byrne. He too was covered in blood, but not moving.
Jessica gathered all her energy and crawled across the cold stone floor.
With the last of her strength she reached Byrne, put two fingers to his neck. There was a pulse, but it was faint. She saw steam rising from his open wound, felt the life force leaving his body. She held him close.
In the distance she heard the sirens.
‘Hold on, Kevin,’ she whispered. ‘Hold on.’
Jessica closed her eyes, waiting, and in that moment heard the heartbeat of angels.
SIXTY-TWO
When Christ appeared on Patmos, an island off the coast of Greece, he sent his disciple John to visit the seven churches in Asia, and said:
‘Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’
Seven churches. She is the last.
Ruby sits in the final pew at St Gedeon’s, the same place her boy sat so many years ago. In her hand is a birth certificate, dotted with blood and tears. Now they would know his name.
Gedeon Mark Longstreet.
He would no longer be The Boy in the Red Coat. He would no longer be a cipher. When he died that day, in that clinic in Doylestown, she had spirited his small body away, and come to Philadelphia. She brought him to this church, the namesake of his patron saint.