"You're crazy!"

"Will you put Satan out? Will you rip the beast from your womb and cast him back into Hell where he belongs?"

"No! Never! And don't ever call here again!"

Her skin crawling, she slammed the heavy receiver down and hurried outside, away from the phone before it could ring again.

3

Grace unwound the handkerchief from around the mouthpiece of the receiver and stuffed it into her pocket.

That settles that.

She had hated speaking to Carol like that, but she had to know if the poor girl could be frightened into resolving the problem on her own. Obviously she could not. So now Grace's course was set.

She walked back to the front of her apartment where thirteen people waited in her cramped living room. There was Brother Robert, Martin, and the ten members of the Chosen who had been miraculously marked by the Spirit in Martin's apartment last night. They were dressed in sweaters and jackets and slacks and jeans—and all had bandages on their hands. Like Grace's, their wounds had stopped bleeding within an hour of the miracle.

Grace wondered if they had spent the entire night awake like her, staring at her palms, her feet, inspecting the stab wound under her left breast, assuring and reassuring herself that the wounds were real, that she truly had been touched by God.

Mr. Veilleur was there too. He alone had unbandaged hands. They were all waiting, all staring at her with expectant looks in their eyes.

Without fanfare or ceremony, much of the burden of leadership of the Chosen had passed to her. Grace felt strong, imbued with holy purpose. She knew what the Lord wanted her to do, and as much as her heart recoiled from what was to come, she was ready to obey. The others, Brother Robert among them, were behind her. The monk had stepped aside— gladly, it seemed—to allow her to decide the next move. Grace was receiving guidance from on high. The Spirit was with her. They all knew that and yielded to it.

Only Mr. Veilleur withheld his allegiance.

"She's home," she said. "At the mansion. It's time for us to act. Our mission today is the reason we were touched by the Spirit. It is the purpose for which we were brought together. The Spirit is with us today. It has made us the instruments of God. Let us go."

They rose as one and began filing out the door.

All except Mr. Veilleur. The sight of him sitting there immobile while everyone else mustered for action triggered a flow of syllables she did not understand. She heard herself speaking in what he had called the Old Tongue.

"Not this time," he said, answering in English. "You've had enough use of me. I'm out of it now. Out of it for good."

"What did I say?" Grace asked, momentarily unsure of herself for the first time since yesterday's miracle.

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Veilleur said.

"You're not coming with us?"

"No."

"You think we're wrong?"

"What I think doesn't matter. Do what you have to do. I understand. I've been there. Besides, this 'stigmata' you've all incurred has achieved its purpose. All doubt has been cast aside. You're all inflamed with holy purpose."

"Are you saying we're wrong?"

"Absolutely not. I'm merely saying you must go without me."

"What if I don't go? What if I do nothing? What if I turn my back to the calling of the Lord and allow the—allow Carol's baby to be born? What will that child do to us, to the world, when he's born?"

"It won't be what he will do to the world so much as what the world will do to itself. He will have little effect at first, although his very presence will cause those living on the knife edge of violence and evil to fall into the abyss. But as he grows older he will steadily draw strength from the ambient evil and degradation of life around him. And the day will come—as it inevitably must—when he realizes that his power is unopposed. Once he knows that, he will let in all the lunatic darkness stalking the edges of what we call civilization."

"You said something about what the world will do to itself. Will he make us all depraved and evil?"

Mr. Veilleur shook his head. "No. That's not how the game is played."

"Game?" Suddenly she was furious with him. Carol's husband was dead and she was going to have to perform an abortion on her niece and he had the nerve— "How can you call this a game?"

"I don't think of it as a game, but I have a feeling they do."

"They?"

"The powers that are playing with us. I think… I don't know for sure, but after all these years I've come to the conclusion that we're some sort of prize in a contest between two incomprehensibly huge opposing powers. Not the big prize. Maybe just a side bet. Nothing of any great value, just something one side wants simply because the other side seems interested and may find useful someday."

Grace wanted to block her ears against this heresy.

"But God, Satan—"

"Call them whatever you wish. The side we might call Good doesn't really give a damn about us. It merely wishes to oppose the other side. But the other side is truly harmful. It feeds on fear and hate and violence. But it doesn't cause them, for forcing you to do evil gains it nothing. The evil must rise from within."

"Because we're evil due to Original Sin."

"I've never understood why people buy that Original Sin business. It's just the Church's way of making you feel guilty from day one. It means it's a sin to be born—patently ridiculous. No, we're not evil. But we have a huge capacity for evil."

Grace didn't want to hear, but she couldn't help listening. And as she listened, she sensed the sincerity behind his words.

"And so its agent here—the Presence I mentioned the other day—will strive to make it easier for you to defile yourselves and each other. He will clear the path for all that is base within you to come to the fore, facilitate the actions that destroy the bonds of love and trust and family and simple decency that enrich your lives and feelings for each other. And once each and every one of you is divided from each and every other one, when you all have become mentally, physically, and emotionally brutalized islands of despair, when you have each descended into your own private hell, then he will merge you all into one hell on earth."

"But how bad—?"

"A gentle skim of the history of mankind, even the sanitized accounts preserved in commonly used texts, can give you some idea of man's capacity for what is called 'inhumanity.' That only scratches the surface of what will come. The horrors of daily life will make the Nazi death camps seem like a vacation resort."

Grace closed her eyes in an attempt to envision the future he spoke of, but her imagination failed her. And then suddenly she saw it. The whole apocalyptic vista appeared in her mind—she felt it, touched it, tasted the misery and depravity that lay ahead. She cried out and opened her eyes.

Mr. Veilleur was staring at her, nodding grimly.

"And you won't help us stop him?" she cried.

"No. I'm old. And I've had enough of fighting. I have only a few years left. All I want is to live them out in peace. I can't add to your effort. Only you can do what needs to be done. But I wish you luck today. And don't let anything frighten you off."

"Frighten… ?"

"Yes. You may see things. You may find yourself confronted with your worst fears, your deepest guilts. Ignore them. They can't harm you. Just do what you've been chosen to do."

He accompanied her down to the street where the Chosen waited by their cars. He shook hands with her, then turned and began walking uptown.

As she got into Martin's car to head for Monroe—with a planned stop at a hardware store along the way—Grace watched the older man's retreating figure and could not shake the feeling that she would never see him again.