Chapter 20 - The Crimson Communion
The sound was not the sharp crack of a handgun; it was the deafening, percussive roar of a heavy .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle.
The high-velocity round tore through the magnificent multi-colored glass portraying the Archangel casting out Satan, obliterating the stone lintel in an explosion of masonry and lead.
The archbishop was hit by the falling debris, collapsing backward against the high altar with a cry of pain.
Before the sound could even bounce off the vaulted ceiling, Arthur tackled me to the marble floor, his massive frame shielding my body entirely, absorbing the impact as shards of multi-colored glass rained down upon us like razor-sharp hail.
"Sniper! North bell tower!" someone screamed through a tactical radio in the front row.
Sirens instantly wailed outside on Michigan Avenue, but they were cut short by the hollow, concussive crump of car bombs detonating in the square outside.
The cathedral doors were blown inward by the blast wave, sending heavy bronze leaves hurtling into the back pews, turning the grand entry into an inferno of fire, smoke, and shattered timbers.
Screams tore through the sanctuary as four hundred high-society guests and mobsters scrambled over one another, trampling flower arrangements and mahogany kneelers in their panic to reach the blocked side exits.
"Arthur!" I shouted, coughing on the sudden billow of sulfurous smoke that rolled down the center aisle.
Arthur rose to his knees, his wedding tuxedo torn, a jagged cut across his forehead bleeding crimson into his left eye, but his expression was that of an archangel of death.
He drew a black Glock from beneath his tailored jacket, racking the slide with a single, vicious motion.
"Gable! Status!" Arthur roared into the chaos.
Thomas Gable ran up the altar steps, his service weapon drawn, his face streaked with soot.
"The perimeter is breached!" Gable shouted over the deafening rattle of automatic weapon fire echoing from the plaza outside. "It’s not the East Coast Commission, Vance! It’s not Moretti!"
"Who is it?!" I demanded, kicking off my high-heeled bridal shoes and ripping the heavy silk train from my gown with the ceramic blade drawn from my thigh.
Gable looked at me, his eyes wide with an incomprehensible, gut-wrenching dread.
"It’s Marcus," Gable choked out. "Marcus Vance is alive."
The name hit Arthur like a physical blow, his entire body locking up in profound, paralyzed disbelief.
"That's impossible," Arthur whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in his life. "I buried him. I put two rounds in his chest and watched him go into the marsh!"
Suddenly, the cathedral’s massive pipe organ, which had been silent since the explosion, let out a single, shrieking, discordant chord.
The sound echoed through the smoke, silencing the screams of the fleeing crowd with its horrific, theatrical cruelty.
At the top of the choir loft, stepping through the billowing black smoke where the organist had fled, stood a figure in a torn officer's trench coat.
Half of his face was a grotesque lattice of third-degree burn scars and surgical skin grafts; his left eye was milky white and dead, but his right eye burned with a demonic, unquenchable malice.
It was Marcus Vance.
He held a remote control in his left hand, and resting on his right shoulder was a military-grade rocket launcher aimed directly down at the high altar where Arthur and I stood.
"Welcome to the family, little maid!" Marcus’s voice boomed through the cathedral's public address system, ragged, mechanical, distorted through an artificial voice box in his scarred throat.
Arthur stepped fully in front of me, leveling his pistol at the choir loft fifty feet above, his voice shaking with absolute, murderous fury.
"Marcus!" Arthur roared.
Marcus laughed—a wet, metallic sound that sent ice plunging into the center of my heart.
"You took my throne, cousin!" Marcus screamed, his thumb hovering over the red firing toggle of the launcher. "Now let's see how well your whore cleans your blood when there is no basement left to hide in!"
His thumb pressed down.
May you like
The launcher ignited in a blinding flash of white rocket fuel.
And in that split second between the flash of the warhead and the end of the world, Arthur turned, threw his arms around me, and dove toward the stone steps of the crypt—as the entire cathedral exploded into blinding, deafening white light.
