Embrace the Night

Page 53



neat rows, and she imagined the monks sitting there in the high-backed wooden chairs, eating in silence while one of the brothers read to them from the scriptures. She saw another spider web, and there was a nest of some kind in the massive stone fireplace.

She went from room to room, expecting to find Gabriel, or at least some sign of him, but there was nothing anywhere to indicate that he lived in the abbey. No food in the kitchens, no clothing in any of the rooms, nothing.

Toward the back of the monastery, she found a narrow door. Thinking it led outside, she opened it to find a long stone stairway. Darkness rose up to meet her; darkness and a dank, musty smell.

Curious, she placed one hand on the wall and took a step down. Her breathing seemed suddenly loud as she took another step, and then another, until she came to a second door.

She tried the latch, but it was locked.

She stood there for a long moment, her senses reeling. Gabriel's image rose in her mind, and with it a vision of darkness, a foreboding coupled with a strong feeling of pain and anguish.

"Gabriel?"

Was he in there? Hurt, maybe?

She tried the latch again, turning it this way and that.
Go back .

She whirled around, her hand pressed over her heart. She fully expected to find someone standing behind her, but there was no one there. Had the words come from her own mind then, a warning from some sixth sense, or had they been spoken by some unseen entity?

She glanced at the door again, felt the hair rise along her arms. She took a step backward and then, overcome by a sudden overwhelming sense of evil, she bolted up the stairs and ran for the sanctuary of her room.

Inside, she slammed the door, then stood there, breathing heavily.

Gradually, her heartbeat returned to normal, and she told herself she had imagined the whole thing, that she was just letting her imagination get the best of her. But she didn't believe it. Not for a moment. She had sensed evil, something so sinister, so dark, that it had touched her most primal fear and sent her running for the safety of her room as though her very soul were in danger.

She wished that Gabriel was there to soothe her fears, to assure her that all was well. She wondered again why there was no food in the kitchens, why she had found nothing to indicate his presence.

Surely if he lived here, she would have found clothing, a razor, a hairbrush, something.

Curling up in his chair with the book of poetry, she determined to ask him where he spent his days. She wanted to know how he earned his living, and why he lived here, in this cold place. And maybe, if she could summon the nerve, she would ask him what evil lurked at the bottom of the stairs.