He noticed two—no, three—other people in the room: a new face, unconscious in a hospital bed, the man who had shot Carrie, and...Senator Arthur Crenshaw.  The killer and the senator stood transfixed before the onrushing doom.

And supine beside the bed...the Virgin.

Carrie must have spotted her, too, for she began moving toward the body—

—just as the windows exploded.

With a deafening crash every pane shattered into countless tiny daggers.  Dan leaped upon Carrie to shield her—she was already dead, he remembered as he pushed her to the floor and covered her, yet his protective instincts prevailed.  Instead of slashing everyone and everything in the room to ribbons, the glass shards blew outward, sucked into the swirl of the storm outside.

A thundering roar filled the room as warm seawater splashed against his back, soaking him.  Dan squeezed his eyes shut, encircled Carrie with his arms, and held her cold body tight against him...one last embrace...

Any second now...

But nothing happened.  The water continued to splatter him but the roar of the waterspout remained level.  Dan lifted his head and risked a peek.

It had backed off to a quarter mile or so, but remained out there in the mist, dominating the panoramic view, lit by flashes within and around it, swirling, twisting, a thousand yards wide, snaking from the sea to the sky, but moving no closer.

Dan rose and studied it.  For no reason he could explain, it occurred to Dan that it seemed to be...waiting.

Ahead of him, the senator and the murderer were struggling to their feet and staring at it through the empty window frames.

“What is that?” Senator Crenshaw cried.

“Not ‘what,’“ Carrie said as she rose to her feet behind Dan.  “Who.”

The senator turned and stared at her a moment.  He seemed about to ask her who she was, then decided that wasn’t important now.

“ ‘Who?’ “  He glanced back at the looming tower.  “All right, then...who is it?”

“It’s Him,” Carrie said, beaming.  She pointed to the Virgin.  “He’s come for His mother.”

The senator glanced at the Virgin, gasped, and gripped the edge of the hospital bed for support.  Dan looked to see what was wrong.

The Virgin was changing.

The seawater from the spout that had soaked into her robes, into her skin and hair was having a rejuvenating effect.  The blue of the fabric deepened, her hair darkened and thickened, and her face...the cheeks were filling out, the wrinkles fading as color surged into her skin.

The murderer cringed back and murmured something in Spanish as the senator leaned more heavily against the bed.  Carrie moved closer and dropped to her knees.  Dan glanced to his right and saw that Kesev, even the imperturbable Kesev, was gaping in awe.

And then the Virgin moved.

In a single smooth motion she sat up, then stood and faced them.

Dan saw Kesev drop to his knees not far from Carrie, but Dan remained standing, too overwhelmed to move.

She was small framed, almost petite.  Olive skin, deep, dark hair, Semitic features, not attractive by Dan’s tastes, but he sensed an inner beauty, and an undeniable strength radiating from her sharp brown eyes.

Those eyes were moving, finally fixing on Carrie, kneeling before her.  Smiling like a mother gazing upon a beloved child, she reached out and touched Carrie’s head.  “Dear one,” the Virgin said softly, her voice gentle, soothing.  “Rise, both of you. I am not to be worshipped.  We are almost through here.”

Kesev rose but Carrie remained on her knees.

The Virgin’s smile faded as she turned to Senator Crenshaw.

“Arthur,” she said.  “The prayermaker.”

Crenshaw held her gaze, but with obvious difficulty

“Emilio,” she said, frowning at the murderer.  “The killer.”

He turned away.

Then it was Dan’s turn.

A tiny smile curved her lips as she trapped his eyes with her own.

“Daniel.  The hunger-feeder.”

Dan felt lifted, exalted.  He sensed her approval and basked in it.

Finally she turned away and Dan felt the breath rush out of him.  He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.  She could have called him vow-breaker, fornicator, doubter...so many things.  But hunger-feeder...he’d take that any day.

Her expression was neutral as she faced Kesev.

“So, Iscariot...you broke another trust.”

Iscariot!  Dan’s mind reeled.  No...it couldn’t be!

“Mother, events conspired against me.  I beg your forgiveness.”

“It is not my place to forgive.”

“Perhaps it is I who should forgive!” Iscariot cried.  “Once again I have been used!  Used!”

“You are not alone in that,” the Virgin said pointedly.

Iscariot’s head snapped back, as if he been struck, but he recovered quickly.

“Perhaps not.  But it is I who have been reviled throughout the Christian Era.  And yet without me, there would be no Christian Era—no crucifixion, no resurrection.”

“You wish to be celebrated for betraying Him?”

“No.  Simply understood.  I believed in Him more than the others—I was led to believe He was divine.  I thought He would destroy the Romans—all of them—as soon as they dared to lay a hand on Him.  But he didn’t!  He allowed them to torture and kill him!  I was the one who was betrayed!  And I’ve spent nearly two thousand years paying for it, most of them alone, all of them miserable.  Haven’t I suffered enough?”

Her expression softened into sympathy.  “I decide nothing, Judas.  You know that.”

Judas Iscariot!  Of course!  It all fit.

They’d been reading the real Gospel of Judas.  The scroll’s author had mentioned being educated as a Pharisee, and of being an anti-Roman assassin, using a knife—they were called iscarii.  Judas Iscariot had been all those things.  And Kesev was Hebrew for...silver!

“But you hung yourself!” Dan blurted.

The man he’d known as Kesev looked at him and nodded slowly.  “Yes.  Many times.  But I am not allowed to die.”

“W-why are you here?” Crenshaw said.

The Virgin turned to him and pointed to Emilio.

“Because you told him to bring me here.”

“Yes-yes,” Crenshaw said quickly, “and I’m terribly sorry about that.  Grievously sorry.”  He pointed at the waterspout still roaring outside the empty window frames.  “But why is He here?”

Again the Virgin pointed to Emilio.

“Because you told him to bring me here.”

“No!” Emilio screamed.

He had a pistol—no silencer this time—and was holding it in a two-handed grip.  The wavering barrel was pointed at the Virgin.  A wild look filled his eyes; he crouched like a cornered animal as he let loose a rapid-fire stream of Spanish that Dan had difficulty following.  Something about all this being a treta, a trick, and he’d show them all.

Then he began pulling the trigger and firing at the Virgin.

The reports sounded sharp and rather pitiful against the towering roar from outside.  Dan didn’t know where the bullets went.  Emilio was firing madly, the empty brass casings flying through the air and bouncing along the floor, but the Virgin didn’t even flinch.  No holes appeared in her robes, and Dan saw no breakage in the area behind her.  The bullets just seemed to disappear after they left the muzzle.

Finally the hammer clinked on an empty chamber.  Emilio lowered the pistol stood staring at his untouched target.  With a feral whine he cocked his arm to throw it at her.

That was when the light went out.

Not the electricity—the light.  An instant blackness, darker than a tomb, darker than the back end of a cave in the deepest crevasse of the Marianas Trench.  Such an absolute absence of light that for an instant Dan panicked, unsure of up or down.

And then a scream—Emilio’s voice, filled with unbearable agony as it rose to a soul-tearing crescendo, and then faded slowly, as if he were falling away through space.