Grendel #33

Innocent feels good after hearing about the death of Orion's sisters, Neki and Cesti.  His plans are coming to fruition.  Easter, when he uses the Sun-Gun, is tomorrow.
 
Orion is devastated by his sister's deaths, but goes off to find Eppy Thatcher.  Eppy is gone, but Pellon Cross is just waking up.  They fight.  Cross is beating him when Orion holds up a cross made of two sticks.  Pellon suddenly remembers that it was Innocent who turned him into a vampire and goes off to find him.
 
Orion, stunned to find out that vampires are real, has Fadi research Christine Spar's book for their weaknesses.  He feels another connection to Christine.
 
Pellon climbs the Tower on the outside and breaks in.  Orion manages to get there too and blasts him with fire from a flammable canister of gas.  Pellon screams and jumps out of the tower to get away, since fire is one of vampires' only weaknesses.  He falls over a kilometer and survives.  Pellon meets up with Zebra and Kierch and together they continue to build an army of newly-created vampires several hundred strong. They march toward the Tower.
 
Orion finds Innocent's chief sun-gun scientist and interrogates him on the sun-gun.  It turns out that he found Innocent years ago when he was still in cat form.  Tujiro turned him into a vampire too, but he's too addled to be dangerous.  Now Orion knows the real plan for the sun-gun: to destroy the sun, not to make it only shine on the Tower, as Innocent had told Cross.  Orion runs out and gets his troops ready to attack, to destroy it.
 
Innocent finds out and sets up his guards as strongly as he can, but he still has to give the Easter service.  As it starts, Eppy's planted Grendel drug wafts over the audience, driving them insane and violent.  They riot.  The vampires arrive and battle the congregation, while Orion's forces attack the Tower as well.
 
Innocent opens the Sun-Gun at the top of the Tower and prepares to fire.  Just as he is about to insert the key, Eppy Thatcher flies up and and attacks him.  He's dressed in new, gaudy armor.  They battle furiously.  Orion has a guard shoot Mother Aimee, who tries to help Innocent.  Zebra and Kierch kill the hapless workers who were trying to trap the rat in previous issues.  Innocent's chief scientist manages to hit the activation button on the Sun-Gun just as Orion's forces explode its base, so it fires wildly as it topples. Eppy knocks Innocent into the path of the beam, disintegrating him.  Eppy also gets caught in the conflagration and apparently dies, falling to the ground on fire.
 
The collapsing Tower killed man underneath its rubble, but Pellon Cross and many of his fellow vampires survived.  Orion flew off, successful in his mission, but also becoming a new avatar for Grendel.
 
The animal metaphor in this issue shows an eagle (probably Orion) flying over the city, landing on a perch near Grendel as he waits before the Easter service, watching him.  Later the rat from previous issues peeks out of the wreckage of the Tower, only to be swept up and caught by the eagle, which flies away into the sunset.
 
This issues also features a band playing during the Easter services, its lyrics reflecting the corruption of the Church.  This band is a real band, Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra; their song is "Pushin' for Jesus."