Finally awakening from his fever, Robert shares his dreams with the group (after all, it's truth they need to know). No one knows entirely what to make of them, except that if some of them represent Grimme, it's bad. They decide to head to the sermon and see what happens, prepared to leap into action if it turns out to be an evil ritual.
At the service Grimme speaks about evil everywhere and the evil diamond and the railroads and all his usual fire and brimstone preaching. After almost an hour of that there's a short break for hymns, then Grimme begins again. The cathedral is packed - people are standing and sitting in all the isles, and the pews are tight.
As the second sermon goes on (in much the same vein as the first) Robert hears distant thunder. Elder Tanner, looking for a sign, begins to feel that something is horribly wrong. He tries to gather himself to use his voice miracle, hoping that his miracles will work, and it works beyond what he asked for. From somewhere else a Voice speaks through him:
"They need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets!" (Which is 2 Nephi 25 for those of you familiar with the Book of Mormon)
At this, Grimme looks straight at him and says "The Devil is here!" Then all hell breaks loose, more literally than usual.
Demonic figures fall out of the vaults of the cathedral and tear into the congregation, flinging them like rag dolls. Grimme himself is beset by several, and strikes at them with his heavy Bible to some effect. James starts shooting, but discovers that the demons go down hard. He pauses to consecrate his bullets and has better luck. Joseph busies himself helping the wounded.
Tobey and Robert try to force their way forward to the altar, but it's hard going in the mass of people and takes them a while. Once they get there, Tobey brings her machete down on the diamond, cleaving it in two. There is a flash of light and everyone is thrown backwards off their feet. Grimme says in the flash, "I take this power and consecrate it!" There is a moment when Grimme is the only one standing, dazed, then pillars of fire shoot from the vaults and immolate the remaining demons (and anyone standing near them).
In the aftermath, the posse stays to help clean up. There are many wounded, who Tobey and Joseph help, and more dead, who James or Reverend Grimme perform last rites on. After they're mostly finished, they notice that the Revered has slipped away. A guardian angel tells them that he'll talk to them about their "problem" at supper time. An angel will be sent to their hotel to fetch them.
Also afterwards, Robert smokes some tobacco and travels into the spirit realms. There the air is filled with choking, salty smoke. He climbs the great Tree to get away from it, and sees the city laid out below, a wheel of smoke with the streets visible as a great pattern, the cathedral at the center. The streets almost seem to be growing outward as he watches, like roots. He calls to Eagle, who appears to him as a bird the size of a horse.
Eagle takes Robert on his back and flies back in time (or at least, this is how the vision presents itself) to just after the great quake. Robert sees Grimme leading a tattered band of followers. At the back of the group, some of them talk among themselves and sharpen knives. Night falls, and in the darkness Robert can hear Grimme and others screaming. In the morning, bloody bones are all that remain of some of Grimme and some of the others.
But the bones don't lie there. Flesh materializes out of the air onto one skeleton, organs and muscles appearing out of nowhere, skin, hair, rags of clothes knitting together... and Grimme steps forward, smiling, to reclaim his followers.
Robert talks with Eagle (in as much as you can talk to a spirit that won't speak) about it. Eagle doesn't much care about what white men do to each other, though it is clear that he doesn't approve of this. Robert thinks about destroying Grimme, but Eagle sends him an image of a fledgling trying to pick up a buffalo. Before Robert leaves, Crow (a trickster spirit) arrives, and tells him that Grimme can free Robert and his friends from their master... but they may not like it.
The group discusses the events and the visions and decides to seek out the rabbi they traveled to Lost Angels with for another opinion, as he seems wise. Also, they want to warn him that Grimme seems to be evil. They find Rabbi Toshev tending to a dying Jew in the tent city, but he takes the time to speak to them, and they tell him (mostly) everything they know about Grimme.
The Rabbi doesn't entirely know what to think about the whole thing. On specific points he is more sure. The streets and their shape seem to be some sort of powerful symbol, perhaps extending Grimme's power. When James protests that Grimme seemed so sincere, he posits that for some creatures, such as fallen angels, lies and the truth are inseparable. While he doesn't call Grimme a fallen angel per se, the posse starts using that classification.
After that meeting, they debate a bit about how to flee the city and what to do first, and settle on seeing Grimme before they go, mostly on the strength of James's hope that Grimme really is just deluded. Cady and Bart are detailed to book passage on a boat to Shan Fan, leaving this very evening.
Arriving at their hotel, they find that Grimme is out on the Rock (a prison in the harbor) and wants them to come to him there. They agree, and are taken to a chamber in the bedrock below the prison itself. It has been recently scrubbed clean, but the walls have holes as though some sort of fixtures were recently bolted there, and the candles are tallow and smell... strange...
They talk (well, James and Joseph talk, the other two keep their mouths shut and wonder why they came) to Grimme about how maybe he's misguided and that religion is complicated. In response, he gives them a lecture which they find they want to hear out about how religion is very basic, giving them the Evil Tour of the Bible (all the killing and smiting) in the process. There seems to be some hope for escaping without a real confrontation despite this, but then James asks Grimme if what's in the stew is pieces of people or pieces of Grimme. His answers never fully satisfy James, but he talks about consecrating flesh as the wafer is consecrated to be the body of the Savior and so on. Elder Tanner realizes that the reason he couldn't do his miracles before was that he had eaten of the church's stew.
The posse tries to turn down Grimme's help but he's mad now and decides to give it to them anyway, or at least give it to those who have eaten of his sacrament (James and Joseph, of the people there). He points at each of them and says "Brother I free you of your compulsion" before James shoots him in the arm, nearly blowing it off (James had consecrated his bullets against Grimme before setting off). Grimme bellows a huge cry of pain that shakes the entire island, a noise no human could make.For a moment it looks as though they will try to finish Grimme off, but Joseph again finds a Voice speaking though him:
"Fly you fools, fly!"
In the ensuing chaos the heroes escape, though Tobey takes a wound to her leg that would have crippled someone who wasn't already dead. They steal the ferry and ram it into the Lost Angels docks escaping the island. Bart and Cady have already encouraged their ship to leave quickly, and as soon as they are aboard the ship steams up the channel towards Shan Fan. Behind them they can still hear the earthshaking roar of the wounded Grimme.
Meg's account of the inexplicable events on the Rock:
We decided to go visit Grimme anyway. He was on the prison island, in a room made for horrible rituals, and we spent the next several minutes inexplicably taunting him. He gave us an evil backward sermon, and then James annoyed him some more until he said he can't force his help on us, but he can give it to those who've received his sacrament.
Meg: Tobey will spend the boat trip being unbelievably smug since she always said Grimme was evil, didn't eat the stew, and didn't want to get the diamond.