...Kevin glanced around at a stooped man with the ruddy face, heavy gray stubble and oversized coat of someone used to living on the street. From his own early religious training, Kevin vaguely registered the truth of what the man was saying. It was considered a scandal for the wafer, kept on the altar, to fall to the floor or come to harm in any other way. But—
“I’m sure it’s not a sacrilege if he can’t prevent it,” Kevin said. “It’s not like he set the place on fire, is it? What happened, anyhow?”
The homeless man’s watery eyes lit up with a sense of importance, the knowledge that he was a valuable source of news. “Damned church slid! I was inside when it started. Thought it was an earthquake! Then Father Lou came runnin’ up…Look, they’re gonna let him in.”
The firefighters had begun reeling the enormous hoses back out of the church, as if they’d decided the blaze was dead. A few of them conferred on the chewed-up lawn, then one accompanied Father Lou toward the front door as an official escort.
“That’ll make him feel better,” said the homeless man. “Been fussin’ about that silly host for an hour! S’cuse me for sayin’ it, but if God was so worried about that wafer, would he’ve pushed his own church downhill?”
Kevin didn’t try to answer that one.
He’d finally remembered why he was there, set up his tripod, made adjustments for the low light and begun snapping shots. He took the broken façade of the church, angling some views to include the gawkers. They encompassed both sexes and all ages, including a few babies in their mothers’ arms and toddlers on their fathers’ shoulders. If what the homeless man said about the incident was true, Kevin could hardly blame the onlookers. It wasn’t every day you saw a massive building decide to relocate of its own accord.
Still looking through his lens, Kevin felt a subway-like vibration rattle through the sidewalk beneath his feet.
“There she goes again.” crowed the homeless man, squirming with trepidation. “Better hurry up, Father!”
Kevin lowered his camera and dropped his jaw, hardly able to believe his eyes. The church quaked and groaned like a living, suffering thing. Then sloped forward at an even more acute angle, ramming up more black earth and broken concrete.
Even the most rabid spectators leaped back from the barricades. The cops and firemen still on the front lawn scattered, too.
Father Lou and his escort showed up in the front doorway, both clinging to the limestone blocks that framed the entrance to keep their footing. The steps were so thoroughly crumbled by now that Kevin held his breath, wondering how the two men would reach the ground safely. The young, limber fireman jumped down first, then half-lifted the older priest over the debris. Father Lou clasped a small, book-like case tightly to the chest of his black wool coat.
The homeless man kept up his sardonic commentary. “He’s got it. Glory be, the day is saved! Now at least we won’t have no curse on our heads. Though looks to me like we got one already, heh?”
“Pretty amazing,” Kevin had to admit. He’d gotten off a couple of good shots of the priest and the fireman crawling down over the concrete rubble. He could already picture it on the Trib’s front page.
The two men had started running across the church’s front lawn, scuffed up now like a dirty brown shag rug, when the structure gave another quake. Above the rumble Kevin heard, this time, an odd squeaking—like bad brakes, only louder. A few people gasped and pointed upward at the dawn-reddened sky.
In black silhouette, the ornate cross on top of the steeple nodded heavily forward.
“Shit,” Kevin said aloud, “that thing’s gonna fall!”
Neither the fireman nor the priest seemed to notice, probably still too close to the building to see the steeple. But the homeless man next to Kevin spied the danger. He broke through the police barrier, still limping as he went.
“Father Lou,” he screamed, “hurry up! Run!”
The priest looked up, spotted the toppling cross and put on a burst of speed. In his panic, though, he tripped on a fallen piece of masonry. The homeless man hitched his way forward as if to grab Father Lou and drag him to safety.
The big, golden missile sailed through the air in what felt to Kevin like slow motion, upending on the way. The three figures in its path—the priest, Father Lou and the homeless man—all froze in terror.
The crowd swept forward around Kevin, blocking his view and almost knocking over his tripod. He snatched his camera to save it. At the same moment, he felt the ground under his feet shudder as the cross hit with the force of a giant hammer.
The onlookers, spattered with dark earth, sprang backward again as a single creature. Men shouted and women and children shrieked.
Over the thinning crowd, Kevin finally saw where the cross had landed. His stomach seized up in horror...