Midnight Mass

"Carole!"

He struggled to his feet and looked around. Red . . . everything, including Joe, was splattered with red. The blast had shattered the observation windows and now a small gale rushed through the atrium.

Where was Carole? He staggered around, searching, but could find no recognizable trace of her. There had to be something left, something more than the bits of flesh clinging to the walls. Something glinted in a corner: a single bloody handcuff.

Gone . .. she was gone ... as if she'd never been.

Movement caught his eye. The get-guards had been tossed around by the blast but were recovering now. They were crawling back toward the stairwell, dragging Franco with them, and licking the blood from

the floor as they moved.

With a cry of rage in a voice he didn't recognize, Joe lurched toward them. His strength was leaking away like water down a drain. Had to do this while he still was able.

He grabbed Franco's ankle, ripped him free of the guards holding him, and dragged him toward the light. No hesitations, last words, no taunts, just finish the job he'd come here to do. He pulled Franco to his feet at the edge of the sunlit patch and shoved him forward with everything he had.

Franco must have been an old one because he burst into flame as soon as the light touched his skin. His scream was musical, at least to Joe. He spun as his skin charred to black and his eyes bubbled in his head, tried to lunge back to the shadows but his legs wouldn't support him. He collapsed in a flaming heap. Joe fell back against the nearest wall and slid to the floor, arms open wide to embrace his oncoming death.

LACEY . . .

Lacey and Considine had reached the eightieth floor and were headed for the final elevator bank when the building shook. Lacey saw glass and debris rain past the windows.

A sick certainty about what had just happened nearly drove Lacey to her knees.

"Oh, no! Carole!"

"Your friend?" Considine said. "What—?"

She waved off his questions as she leaned against a wall and sobbed. Oh, Carole. Did you have to? Did you really have to?

"Look," Considine said, "I know we decided to stay off the stairwell, but if there's been an explosion up on the deck, these elevators won't be trustworthy. We're going to have to take the stairs. You have a cross?"

Lacey pulled one out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Here. But I've got a feeling we're not going to need it."

He led her to the stairwell where they were backed up by a blast of smoke when they opened it. The air cleared quickly, however, propelled by the wind blowing through the doorway. The lights were still on, and they hurried up the steps.

"What's that stink?" Considine said.

"Dead vampires. Lots of them."

"Why should they be dead?"

Lacey gave him a quick explanation of get-death.

"No offense," he said, "but I'll believe that when I see it. Sounds too much like wishful thinking."

"That's how most people will react. Which is why we wanted to catch it on tape.

On the eighty-fifth-floor landing they came upon the piled rotting corpses of Franco's get.

"Believe me now?"

"Jesus Christ. It's true." He looked at her with wide eyes. "That means..."

"Yeah, that we're not beaten, that the living have still got a shot. But we have to get those tapes to people who can use them."

She led the way over the stinking cadavers, stepping around them when she could, and on them when she couldn't. The door to the Observation Deck had been blown off its hinges and the wind flowing through it carried most of the stink away.

Lacey hesitated at the door, afraid to go any further, but forced herself through. The carnage—the blood, the shattered marble, the stove-in elevator doors—stopped her in her tracks.

"Jesus God," Considine said behind her. "What happened here?"

Lacey said nothing, but she knew ... she could see the scene play out in her brain . .. Carole ran out of options and took Barrett with her.

In the sunlight she saw a pile of charred, smoking, semi-molten flesh. That would be Franco. But Joe .. . where was Joe?

"Uncle Joe?" she called. "Uncle—?"

And then she saw him, curled in the fetal position in a corner, face to the wall. He wasn't moving.

"Uncle Joe?" She hurried to him and turned him over. His eyes were closed and his scarred face was twisted into a mask of pain. "Uncle Joe, are you all right?"

He opened his eyes and sobbed, "I was supposed to die, not her! But I'm still here and she's not!"

Lacey didn't understand and didn't try to. He was weak as a newborn. She cradled him in her arms and they cried together. He had no tears but she had enough for both of them. They fell on his face, wetting his cheeks.

Behind them Lacey heard a clatter from the stairwell and recognized Leland's voice. "What the hell happened here?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out," Considine said. "Did you get it on tape?"

"The cameras here went dead but I switched to one of the deck cameras in time to catch Franco's meltdown. Also caught his guards dying like poisoned rats on the stairs. What happened to them?"

"Tell you later. Can you believe it? They did it! They liberated the building!"

"I'd say they damn near liberated the whole city."

"Hear that, Unk?" Lacey whispered. "We did it, you and me and Carole. And we can prove it."

Suddenly Considine was hovering over them.

"I just sent Leland downstairs. He's going to dupe the tape while Fowler finds a car for you two. We're going to put you on the road with a copy, then we're each going to get our families together and head west with our own copies. One of us has to get through."

"I don't think I can get downstairs," Joe said.

"You'll get down," Considine said. "I'm going to check the elevator. If it doesn't work, well, after what you just did, I'll carry you down on my back if need be."

As Considine moved away, Joe squeezed Lacey's arm.

"We can't leave Carole."

"Carole left us, Unk. And she didn't leave anything behind."

"Let me die," he whispered. "I want an end to this."

"I know you do, but—"

"I was Franco's get. I was supposed to die with him."

So that was the reason behind the "If anything happens to me" mantra ... He was pla

"I guess since you're not truly undead, you're not truly his get."

"But I am. I have to die."

"No way, Unk. You're going to see this through till the end. This is just a step, but we're on our way. We're going to push these slime bags back into the sea. And you and me, we're going to be there to see it."

"Carole was our conscience, Lacey. She made us whole and kept us on track. What will happen to us without her?"

"I'll tell you what'll happen. You and I will become the Terrible Two. We'll make those fuckers wish on the hell they come from that Sister Carole Hanarty was still alive to rein us in. They think they've seen trouble today? They haven't seen a goddamn thing."

She thought she saw him smile as he closed his eyes and slipped deep into daysleep.

"Hey!" Considine called from the other side of the atrium. "The elevator's still working."

"Give us half a minute," Lacey said.

She held her uncle tighter and rocked him like a baby.

* * *

version 1.0 sca

25/05/2006 version 1.0