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getting to the last book of the Bible, but he had to save the biggie for the end: Revelation, the zealot’s favorite thrill ride.
    ‘‘A fourth of the earth. That’s one billion, five hundred million people, dead. Picture bodies stacked like cordwood in the streets of London and Paris. Imagine the beaches of Santa Barbara awash with bloated corpses.’’
    Their pinched faces pictured it. Some shook their heads; others nodded with a serves-them-right eagerness. Though I felt cold, sweat pinpricked my forehead.
    ‘‘And when bulldozers cart stinking bodies down Main Street, what will people do? They’ll cry, ‘Save me’ ’’—he fluttered his wrists—‘‘but they won’t turn to the Lord for help; they’ll turn to the strongman who claims he’ll rescue them. The Antichrist.’’
    He clenched the mike. ‘‘They’ll turn to the beast; oh, yes, they will, the filthy people of the world will run right to him. And soon .’’ He pointed to the showroom windows. ‘‘The beast is out there. Now, right now , working his way to power. That is the stone-cold ugly truth, people.’’
    A fidget spread through the congregation, like the wave in a stadium.
    ‘‘Now don’t get twitchy on me. Scripture tells us to have endurance. That means hanging tough, digging in, fighting the enemy. ’Cause if Satan expects some meek, peacenik Jesus, he’s in for a rude awakening. Jesus is no sissy. He will smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.’’
    He clenched his fist again. ‘‘A rod of iron.’’
    The baton twirlers sprinted back onto the stage, carrying a large scroll. They unfurled it with a flourish. It was a six-foot-by-four-foot cartoon, reworking The Last Supper as a scene from Platoon . It showed Christ and the Apostles in combat fatigues, with camouflage paint striping their faces, weapons at the ready. Beneath the drawing ran the tagline: He’s back . . . and this time, it’s scriptural .
    I gaped at it, appalled. Not because it depicted Jesus juiced on steroids and brandishing an M16. No. I stood horrified because it forced me to see the truth. Peter Wyoming did not speak in metaphors.
    He slapped the poster. ‘‘We, the Remnant, are that rod of iron.’’
    His face gleamed, grimacing. ‘‘We will suffer, and some of us will die. But get a load of what we win if we take this fight to the streets: We will reign with Christ a thousand years.’’ He raised the Bible high. ‘‘We have it in writing. We win this thing and we’ll be running the show for a thousand years! The millennium of the Lord!’’
    They cheered, they yelled, they jumped to their feet. The piano began banging. Wyoming stood with his chin raised, like Il Duce , and the choir started to sing.
    ‘‘ ‘He holds me in his arms, my Lord Jesus Christ. He cocks me and aims me, held tight to his side. He squeezes the trigger, and bullets go flying—’ ’’
    My eyes were stinging, my ears ringing as the music swelled into the refrain:
    ‘‘ ‘Lock and load! I am the weapon of the Lord. Lock and load! my savior cries—’ ’’
    He spread his arms. ‘‘Say it, people. What do you want?’’
    ‘‘Victory! ’ ’’ Their shout shook the room.
    My mouth had gone dry. The thought that Tabitha subscribed to this vision, and might want to subject Luke to it, nauseated me. The heat and noise and atavism pressed in, and I closed my eyes.
    When I opened them again, the slit-mouthed teenager was standing up, pointing at me. Her lips were moving but her words were smothered by the music and the frenzy.
    I felt my hands clenching at my sides. In my mind I heard Nikki’s words: about standing up to them, keeping it right in their face. I held motionless, watching the girl’s face stretch with anger as she realized no one had heard her. She jumped up on a chair.
    "Unbeliever!"
    She was five feet tall, weighed ninety pounds, and wore a ponytail tied back with a cascade of pastel ribbons. But she had a voice like