Part 43 (1/2)
”They're out there. Wanting something. Watching. Waiting.”
”Then stay inside. There is nothing else they can do.”
But the next day, the church caught fire.
The blaze began at dusk, and all the desperate measures to keep it standing were useless. By nightfall, it burned still, and the people were left to huddle around the fire in fear.
Ragnor stood guard, aware now, of the proximity of something ... someone. . .
A whisper of evil on the air.
Then they came.
They came in a flock, like wings of blackness. They shrilled the night air with their cries and the sounds of something beating against the air. They were nothing but shadows, and then they were real. Darkness and sensation, then a blinding vision of light in the flames.
The monks fought them with swords, strange warriors in brown robes and tonsured heads, battling the demons from above and around. They knew to go for the heads, and the enemy fell all around them. Some fell as flesh and bone, and others decayed before their eyes, and were like so much ash from the fire.
Yet when it was over, though the enemy lay all around them, so did their own. And in the darkness of the night, fire raged again as they cremated all the remains.
By light, Ragnor had to sleep. The monks and villagers set desperately to work; they built a church again, a sad structure, and the monks prayed and begged that their church be sanctified.
Ragnor awoke to find that he was not alone. Nari had come to him.
”I heard the call,” she told him and touched him gently on the cheek. She curled next to him, soothing his brow, then moving against him with an ever greater need until he came fully awake in a storm of hunger to be appeased only by the volatile pa.s.sion she offered.
Yet then, she did not remain beside him.
She moved suddenly, and he saw what she had done.
His sword lay across the earthen floor. They surrounded the foot of the pallet that was his bed. Their leader stepped forward into the room, his sword drawn, a snarl of a mocking smile curling his lips. Ragnor rose upon his elbows with amazement ”By all the G.o.ds ...
you!”
”Time to die, seventh son of the seventh son.”
Nari slipped around the other man. ”I'm so sorry, Ragnor. But we are not meant to consume the vile blood of rats and boars. You might have been the greatest power among us, but...”
Her voice trailed away.
She had set him up for destruction; she had planned it well.
”I'm sorry, Ragnor. In Valhalla, think to forgive me.”
The man with the sword stepped forward and Ragnor jumped up, naked, unarmed, but desperate to fight however long he could.
”Who wants to live forever?”
The sword made a strange silver slash against the twilight shadows haunting the room.
CHAPTER 18.
When she left the plane and cleared customs, Jordan was intent only on reaching the car rental desk.
As she walked, she tried to shake the feeling that she had been surrounded by beasts on the plane- and that anyone who glanced her way was a monster, intent on her destruction.
She had just signed her rental agreement when a woman came up to her. She was tall, lean, and attractive, with green eyes, auburn hair and a quick smile. She extended a hand.
”Miss Riley, my name is Jade DeVeau. I'm here to meet you.”
Jordan took the woman's hand, but as she did so, she felt that someone was behind her again. After her.
Paranoia!
But she had come this far. She smiled at the woman, but was afraid. How would this woman have known to meet her? Who was she? The cop who had written the book was named Canady.
She was probably a friend, a co-worker, someone sent to meet her. . . She had no intention of taking such a chance.
”How do you do,” Jordan murmured. She looked around. The airport was not very crowded. She felt a terrible unease. She wasn't going anywhere with this woman.
”My car is in the lot, through the parking garage-” the woman began.
”Great” Jordan interrupted. ”If you'll excuse me just a moment?” Jordan indicated the ladies room.
”Of course!” the other woman said.
Jordan pretended to head for the bathroom door.
The woman had taken a chair in the waiting area. Jordan just kept walking. She raced outside the airport, breathing heavily with the weight of her laptop and overnight bag. For once in her life, her prayers were answered-there was a taxi waiting. She didn't dare look for the bus that would take her to the car rental agency.
Once in the taxi, she sat back, relieved. Then she stiffened, trying to get a look at the driver in the rearview mirror. He was a dignified-looking, middle-aged black man. She still felt a sense of fear snaking into her. Then she saw the rosaries hanging from his mirror.
Did that mean he was . .. safe? She had to hope so; she needed to reach her car.
Trust only yourself!
The driver took her to the rental agency. She was a wreck as she got into the Honda and checked the map they had given her. She had been to New Orleans before, and she loved the city. But she wasn't that familiar with the streets.
And I'm not thinking clearly! I'm exhausted, and I'm frightened, and I may, after all, be really, truly, crazy.
She forced herself to concentrate on the road. She had already taken a wrong turn somewhere. She was on the outskirts of the French Quarter, but she needed to find the road to the old plantations.
She couldn't drive and read the map; she had to pull over. She tried to find the inside light switch, but could not. She stared around, then realized that she was outside the gates of one of the city's famed old cemeteries. Looking through the wrought iron, she could see winged angels, crosses, and the glowing shapes of a half dozen mausoleums. Fog was settling around the ground. Swirling, creating strange, eerie shapes.