The directions she’d downloaded from MapQuest took her south of Allentown proper, through the borough of Emmaus. Emmaus was famous as the original home of the Moravian Church in Pennsylvania—an offshoot of Protestantism with its own unique customs, though not as severe as the Amish or the Mennonites. The one thing she remembered about the Moravians was that they had a special kind of cemetery called a God’s Acre. Instead of burying their dead in family groups, the Moravians filed them by age, gender, and marital status. She couldn’t remember why—maybe they wanted them filed appropriately for God when he came to get them again on Judgment Day. There were a lot of religious groups living their own way in the area. There were monasteries and retreats tucked away in the hills she drove through, and plenty of churches. When she finally found the side road she wanted, she headed down through a long copse of dead trees that ended in a stone wall surrounding what she took for either a museum or a rest home. The building stood four stories high and as wide as a city block. It was made of redbrick dressed with carved stone and studded everywhere with windows, some of them with Gothic arches. Ivy covered most of the face of the building, brown and dead now, but she could imagine it bright green in summertime. The building sat on a broad lawn of yellow grass that peeked up sporadically from under the snow. A number of stone monuments, a fountain, and a rustic gazebo stuck out of the snow here and there. Behind and to one side a stripe of water cut through the lawn, a creek full of pale stones.
There was no parking lot. A few very old and very nondescript cars sat on the lawn near the main gate in the wall, and she pulled in beside them. She got out and went to the gate, a huge wrought-?iron contraption surmounted by a simple cross. She started looking for a bell to ring, but before she found one someone came to let her in: a teenaged girl wearing a baggy dress and a parka two sizes too big for her.
“Hi, I’m Special Deputy Caxton,” she said to the girl.
The girl smiled broadly and nodded her head.
“I have an appointment. I mean, I’m supposed to speak with Raleigh Arkeley. She lives here, right?”
The girl smiled and nodded again. Apparently she didn’t speak much. Caxton looked up at the cross over the gate and wondered if she’d come to a convent or a nunnery and if everyone inside had taken a vow of silence. It would make it damned hard to interview Raleigh about her father.
“Can you take me to her?” Caxton asked.
The girl nodded again and then turned around and started trudging across the lawn. The hem of her dress dragged through the snow, but she didn’t seem to notice or mind. Caxton followed close behind.
Vampire Zero
Chapter 25.
Caxton was brought into the main hall of the huge building, an echoing cavern with marble floors and high columns. A spiral staircase in wrought iron rose from the rear of the hall while massive fireplaces on either side roared with heat and light. The only other illumination in the room came from standing candelabras. There didn’t seem to be any electric lights in the hall. Caxton wondered if the place was even on the power grid.
Her silent guide led her toward a door set in one side of the hall. The girl knocked once, hesitantly as if afraid of making too much noise, then stepped back quickly. She turned and smiled at Caxton again, with lots of teeth.
Someone beyond the door called, “Enter.” Caxton shrugged and pushed the door open, then walked into a small but pleasant little office. The walls were lined with crowded bookshelves, except where they were pierced by a broad window that looked out on the lawn and another, if much smaller, fireplace that crackled merrily. Behind a massive oak desk a young woman was seated, dressed in a severe black dress and with a white cloth over her hair.
“You’ll be Trooper Caxton, then,” the woman said, rising from where she sat to hold out one gloved hand. Caxton shook it. “Welcome to our little sanctuary. Raleigh has told us about you. I’m Sister Margot.”
“Sister?” Caxton asked. “I didn’t realize this was a convent. I guess I should have guessed from the—the clothes.”
“This place was a nunnery once, but it’s moved on with the times. The staff remain under holy orders but we’re purely nondenominational. As for this outfit I’m wearing…it’s commonly called a habit,” the woman said. “We like to say it’s the last habit we ever want to take up. Please, please sit down. Can I offer you something to drink?” She turned to where a plastic cooler sat next to the window. It looked distinctly wrong in the room, which otherwise might have been furnished in the previous century and never renovated.
“I’d love a Diet Coke,” Caxton said. It had been a long, thirsty ride.
“Sorry. We don’t take stimulants. How about apple juice?”
“Sure.” Caxton took the proffered bottle and twisted off its cap.
“It’s vital to stay hydrated.” She offered a bottle of water to the silent girl standing in the doorway.
“You’ve already met Violet, but of course she didn’t introduce herself.”
“Pleased to meet you both. I guess you know why I’m here.”
“Of course,” Sister Margot said. “Sister Raleigh will be down in a while. She’s currently engaged in a group therapy session that can’t be interrupted. In the meantime I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. We may look as if we’ve turned away from the world, and we have,” she giggled—behind Caxton Violet bubbled with mirth as well—“but we believe in hospitality as well, which includes cooperating with the authorities whenever we must. We also pay our taxes, quite regularly.”
“Good to hear it, though that’s not my department. Nice place you have here, by the way. All women, from what I hear. Must be very peaceful. So are you a Moravian? I never heard of Moravian nuns before.”
“Oh, no,” Sister Margot exclaimed. “There is no religion within these walls. When I want to pray, I actually step outside. We’re very careful not to exclude anyone.”
“Except men,” Caxton suggested.
Sister Margot shrugged. “They can be a distraction to the work we do here.”