The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,110

it.”

Sharpshooters had their itchy fingers poised on triggers, waiting for a clear shot. Any sudden moves and it was over. They all knew that.

“My heart is your heart,” Sebastian whispered to them, kissing each gently good-bye on the cheek. “Remember what I said. Remember me.”

“Your choice,” Frey said, backing farther away from the altar and the smoke.

His words echoed powerfully. “There was never a choice.”

Before they could restrain him, Sebastian broke through the girls’ human shield and lunged for Dr. Frey, who fell backward in his cowardly haste to retreat.

“I’ve got a shot,” a sniper said into his mouthpiece.

Murphy issued the command. “Take it.”

A prolonged, guttural scream from the altar and gasps from the crowd outside filled the room. And then silence. Complete silence.

Five shots rang out and struck Sebastian. He stumbled to the tiled floor, mortally wounded.

Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia rushed to him, surrounding him, comforting him and themselves, mourning him in the few seconds they had left together, brushing his hair from his eyes and covering his wounds with their hands, professing their undying love.

He was beautiful.

Serene.

If it weren’t for the blood leaving him, he would have seemed an athlete resting from fatigue, catching his breath. A scent of clove and roses emanated from him. His gaze was distant, turned to heaven. With his last breaths he looked at them and recited from the prayer of the Sacred Heart:

“I will come back again

and take you to Myself,

so that where I am

you also may be.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Agnes assured him through her sobs. “Always.”

He smiled and took one last breath.

Frey looked on at the wretched spectacle unsatisfied, having achieved only a partial victory.

“Ecce homo,” Frey said to them mockingly. “What do you see? A man. Just a man.”

“We’ll see you again, Doctor,” Cecilia vowed through bitter tears.

“You will,” he concurred. “One way or another.”

Frey dusted himself off and walked toward the exit. He spied Jesse’s cell phone on the floor and stepped on it. Crushing it and the evidence. He picked it up casually and placed it in his pocket, beneath notice in the confusion. He turned to see Jesse, still hiding in the pew.

“Coming with me?” the doctor asked him.

“No,” Jesse said.

Frey accepted Jesse’s answer with an expression of derision and disgust and made his way out into the waiting throng of cops, EMTs, and reporters, quick to offer his story of the events that had just transpired for the record.

The police and firefighters crashed in, guns drawn and hand axes at the ready.

“It’s over,” the police captain assured them. “You’re safe now.”

He was chilled by the girls’ blank stares and quickly left this business to his underlings.

Swelling hoses blasted rivers of water onto the burning embers fuming all around them. The runoff filled the holy water fonts, replenishing them, for the first time in years. One by one, the girls were helped up to their feet.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Agnes moaned, wiping the blood and cold sweat from his face with her garment.

“We’re not leaving him,” Lucy said, hugging her.

Lucy bent down and kissed his cheek and placed her hand on his.

“Rest easy,” she said. “No one will forget what you did here today. I will make sure of it.”

Finally, Cecilia bent down. She reached for his hand and noticed that he was holding a black rosary. It was small, like a child’s rosary, likely the one he received when he was an altar boy. The one he probably held on to in the psych ward all those years. He was gripping it so tight. She opened his hand and noticed that the crucifix was missing. Lost in the spray of gunshots. Cecilia took the rosary out of his hand and kissed it. She took out her earring and unfastened the charm that was dangling from it—miniature brass knuckles. She fastened it to the rosary where the crucifix was, put it around her neck, and kissed it again. Then she kissed him.

As they were escorted down the center aisle to the door, they stopped and looked back at Sebastian one last time.

And they saw it happen right in front of their eyes.

On his chest.

From each of the bullet holes.

One by one.

Arrows sprouted.

All doubt, all sorrow disappeared from them.

“Seeing is believing,” Lucy whispered.

“Saint Sebastian,” Cecilia said, awed by the vision.

Agnes ran back to him. And pulled Sebastian’s Legenda page from her pocket that she had taken from the chapel and left it next to him.

“My sacred heart,” she said, kissing him for the last time. “Pray