Grendel #31

Orion Assante is busy setting up operations in his Mt. Rushmore base.  Sherri Caniff visits him and wishes him good luck.  People on the outside are starting to organize and call themselves Orion's Sword.  He starts putting out regular pirate videos against the Church.
 
Mother Aimee has a new plan to disgrace the Assantes.  Orion and his sisters have an incestuous relationship, which was normal for a time after an AIDS epidemic.  However now it is rare, and it is illegal for them to have a child.  She starts spreading rumors that they are pregnant.
 
Innocent wants the sun gun to be ready for Easter, which is coming soon.  He puts pressure on his top scientist to make sure it's ready.  He now has all the supplies he needs.
 
Zebra and Kierch are looking for Pellon Cross.  They interrogate people at the Church, where he was last seen, but they don't reveal anything.
 
Orion continues to press Neki and Cesti to move out and join him in exile.  They won't do it.  He manages to secretly visit them one last time.  Finally he persuades them to leave the next day.

Meanwhile, Grendel is causing havoc at the Tower.  Every day it's a new scheme: making candles that won't burn, except for some that explode.  Making the bells ring unstoppably.  Attracting birds to poop all over the Church.  Making special communion wafers that are emetics. Making a giant cross vibrate into pieces.
 
Mother Aimee has a new idea.  Neki has the same name as her mother, who was not excommunicated from the Church; she could be arrested, and they could pretend it was all a mix-up. 
 
Orion tries to get into the top of the Tower undercover, but the area of the sun-gun is locked.
 
Neki and Cesti finally leave, but C.O.P. chases them.  They accidentally crash into a trash truck and die.
 
Orion's assistant Fadi figures out that Eppy is Grendel, based on his perfect science scores in school years ago.  Orion goes off to find him.
 
Zebra and Kierch finally find Cross, who has completed his transformation into a vampire.  He attacks them, and transforms both of them into vampires as well.
 
The animal metaphor, which seems to stand in for the sisters, involves two cats.  They are strays, and clean each other, then run out of their building when it is demolished by a wrecking ball.  They run around on the streets until they see the fireball created by the sisters' crash.