Embrace the Night

Page 36



coming.

"He's coming…" Struggling through a morass of pain, Sara repeated the words again and again. "Lie still, child," Sister Mary Josepha said. "You must lie still."

"But he's… coming. I've… I've got to… be ready."

Sister Mary Josepha glanced up at Sister Mary Ynez. "Who's coming? Who can she talking about?"

Sister Mary Ynez shook her head. "Maybe she's thinking of her father. Will you stay with her while I look in on the others? I fear Elizabeth will not survive the night."

Sister Mary Josepha nodded. "Poor child," she murmured. And bowing her head, she began to pray.

Gabriel walked down the narrow hallway, his nostrils filling with the odor of alcohol and antiseptic, of strong carbolic and ether. Of blood. So much blood.

The hunger rose within him, stabbing at him, wrapping around him. Blood. Warm and sweet.

He turned down another hallway, and the lust for blood was overshadowed by pain. Sara's pain. She was unconscious, but her silent screams of agony reached out to him, tearing at his heart, his soul.

On silent feet, he approached the doorway. She was lying on a narrow bed, covered by a thin white sheet. An elderly nun sat in a straight-backed wooden chair beside the bed, a well-worn rosary clutched in her gnarled hands.

The nun glanced up as he stepped into the room, her rheumy blue eyes widening in horror. "What are you doing here?"

Gabriel said nothing, his guilt over what he was rising up to choke him in the face of the old nun's purity of heart and soul.

"Spawn of the devil," she whispered, "why are you here?"
Her words cut him to the quick. "I mean her no harm, Sister, I assure you."

Sister Mary Josepha clutched her rosary to her breast, her thumb caressing the ivory crucifix. "Be gone!" Gabriel shook his head. "I must see her, if only for a moment."

Though she was aged and small of stature, the nun bravely put herself between Gabriel and Sara. "You will not have her." Sister Mary Josepha lifted the crucifix, thrusting it toward him. "Be gone, I say!"

Gabriel took a step backward and then, drawing on his revenant power, he gazed deep into the nun's eyes, delving into her mind.