Consumed by Fire (40 page)

She wasn’t even going to think about what she was walking through on bare feet. Cut feet were really the least of her worries—a cut throat would be permanent. As she edged closer to the door, none of the shadowy forms around her moved.

She found the door by feel alone, and she rested her cheek against the cool, sweating metal, listening for the telltale sounds of voices, for traffic, for any sign of life. She was at the opposite end of the alley from where she’d been trapped—with any luck this door would open onto a major thoroughfare, and she’d take her chances with the police. Or maybe, just maybe, James would have discovered she was missing, and he was coming after her, coming to rescue her once more, as he had so many times before.

Or maybe he’d finally given up. She couldn’t count on rescue, either way. All she could do was try to rescue herself. She pushed at the bar across the door, and it opened slowly, with a creaking sound so loud she thought it would wake the entire neighborhood. She peered outside, ready to yank the door shut again, but all was silent. She stepped forward into the night and let the door close behind her, realizing too late that there was no way to get back in if she needed to.

She looked around her. The streets were still wet from the earlier rain, steam rose off the pavement, and the streetlights glistened in the puddles of water left from the drenching. She was in some sort of cul-de-sac—there were shuttered storefronts, a bar with noise and light streaming from it, and a small white Catholic church built of stone in such a state of disrepair it looked as if it had been abandoned years ago.

There’d be a phone in the bar. Someone could call the police for her. She started toward it, when three figures darted from the entrance, the overhead light illuminating their cold faces, and she knew they were the men who’d followed her into the basement of the abandoned building, the men who’d been after her since she’d escaped the apartment.

She froze, and it seemed to her she could see into their flat, dead eyes, even though that would have been impossible given the distance and the dark. She could recognize the silhouettes of guns though, and her immobility shattered. The church was her last chance—she sprinted across the littered street, ducking into the shadows, moving as swiftly and silently as she could, ignoring the shooting pain in her foot when she finally stepped on something sharp, stumbling up the front steps of the church and flinging herself at the doorway.

She half expected it to be locked, and when it opened beneath her icy fingers, she wanted to fall inside and fling herself on the floor crying “Sanctuary!” like some medieval thief. The door closed with a heavy thud behind her, and she staggered forward into the light.

It was a small church, with only a dozen rows of pews, but it was far from abandoned. The altar was filled with tall brightly lit candles and a black-robed priest stood there praying, his back to her. He turned at the sound of the door shutting, and looked at her ragged, barefoot appearance without any surprise at all. Then again, maybe she wasn’t that strange-looking for New Orleans in the small hours of the morning. There must be a need for a priest to be on duty.

“My child,” he said in a gentle, welcoming voice. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” He started down the aisle, his long robes swishing on the stone floor, his elderly face full of compassion. “You’ve hurt your foot. Give me your hand and I’ll help you to a seat.”

“I need you to call the police, Father,” she said, her voice cracked and shaking. “There are some men after me—we need to lock the church doors or they might hurt you as well.”

He smiled at her. “There’s no need. These streets are lawless, but everyone knows that the Church of the Blessed Martyr is protected. Come and let me see to your feet.” He took her hand in his. The skin was soft, but the hand was surprisingly strong, and he pulled her along to the front of the church, setting her down gently in the front pew. Candles were burning on the altar, a soft, reassuring glow, and she gasped in awe at the candlesticks. They were tall and ornate, and looked as if they might be solid gold.

“Is it safe to use those candlesticks? Won’t someone rob you?”

He glanced behind him, as if he’d forgotten them, and chuckled softly. “No one would dare rob this place. And you have a good eye, my child. Those are very old—from the time the French ruled New Orleans. Their value in gold is estimable, their historical value is beyond calculation. But no one would dare such sacrilege. Now you sit here while I get something to bathe your feet and call the police.”

“But if those men find me . . .”

“Don’t worry, my child. Trust me.” He disappeared, and she leaned back against the pew, trying to catch her breath and calm her racing heart. Would murderers and members of organized crime really respect the boundaries of a church? James and Claudia . . . Claude . . . certainly hadn’t when they carried out an execution in the tiny mountainside church.

Evangeline had left bloody footprints up the narrow center aisle of the tiny church. Her feet were filthy—if the men didn’t storm the church, she’d probably die of typhus or some hideous disease anyway. She ought to leave. She was putting that sweet old man in danger. Surely there’d be a way out the back, and she could keep running . . .

And leave a trail of blood wherever she went. She was about to rise when the old priest returned, this time with a richly embroidered drapery over his black robe, and he carried a tray with a heavy silver bowl of water, a little ewer of oil, a box, and a pile of linen cloths.

“I’ve called for help,” he said. “And now you must let me tend to you.” To her absolute horror, the old man knelt at her feet, placing the bowl in front of her.

“Father, no!” She protested, trying to rise, but he was in the way and she could scarcely knock him over.

“My daughter, this is a rite as old as time,” he said calmly, dripping some oil into the steaming water. “Just relax.” He took one of her feet and placed it in the basin, scooping up the water with his hands and pouring it over her. “Tell me, my child, are you a Catholic?”

“I’m afraid not. I wasn’t brought up in any particular religion.” She glanced nervously behind her, but the doors to the street remained shut. “Perhaps you shouldn’t . . .”

“Nonsense. Your parents’ failings were not your fault. Do you repent of your sins?”

At the moment she couldn’t think of any, except being stupid enough not to tell James she loved him. She hated the thought of dying without him knowing, but then, if she didn’t make it through the night, it would probably be easier on him if he didn’t know.

Then again, she didn’t want to make her death easy on him, and surely that was a sin in itself? She needed to humor the old man, though, or he’d never let her go, and they’d both be sitting ducks. “Yes, Father.”

“Then you are absolved, my child.” He made the sign of the cross, then removed her foot from the water and wrapped it with a heavy linen towel. He set it down on the stone and reached for her second foot. Blood filled the water, and the cut stung. The priest continued talking in a calm voice. It took her a moment to realize he was speaking in Latin, but the sound of his voice was as soothing as the touch of his hands. When he finished with her wounded foot and lifted it from the bowl, she could see the cut wasn’t nearly as bad as she feared, though it was still oozing; she wanted to protest that it was ruining the beautiful linen but decided it was a waste of time.

The priest had his own agenda. She wondered what he was saying in Latin. Some blessing or prayer for healing, she imagined. She’d studied Latin—her parents had insisted on it—but she hadn’t heard it spoken conversationally, and she had no idea what he was saying.

He dried his own hands on another towel—she felt sorry for the parish laundry—and then reached for a small case that lay on the tray. Opening it, he took out a small piece of almost paper-like substance. “Open your mouth, child, and let this dissolve. Don’t use your teeth.”

She looked at it warily. “I don’t want painkillers.”

His laugh was warm. “The only painkiller this contains is the Holy Spirit. Open.”

He had the voice of authority beneath his kindly tones, and she figured she needed all the help she could get as he placed the wafer into her mouth, continuing in Latin. Next came a tiny glass of sweet wine, and she decided this must be some Catholic form of healing. Odd that the priest would give communion to a non-Catholic, but she decided he must be a very sweet man. The act of kindness made her want to weep in her exhausted state, but she simply went along with his directions, unable to summon the energy to protest.

Where the hell were the police? He said he’d called them—how long could it possibly take? The priest kept on with his Latin, and some of it began to sound familiar.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
What sin had the priest committed? Oh, no, he was praying for her sins, wasn’t he? It was a good thing he didn’t know what she’d been doing with James Bishop or she’d probably be doomed to the fiery reaches of hell, at least according to the church.

When he was finished, she would leave. Even in the sanctity of a church she didn’t feel safe, but at the moment she couldn’t make herself move. She simply stared at the candle flame, mesmerized.

She could hear muted voices, and she sat up. “Is someone here?”

The priest finished the rest of the wine and put the small bottle back in the heavy silver case, which was ornately engraved and monogrammed. “Only some of my helpers.” He took the little ewer of oil again, poured some on his hand, reaching up to make a mark on her forehead. Blessing her, she supposed. She knew that the Catholic faith was big on ceremony but even this seemed extreme to her, and she was about to protest when he began speaking again in what was clearly a prayer, and she dutifully bowed her head, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

He’d switched to English somewhere along the way. “Through this holy unction and through the great goodness of His mercy, may God pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed . . .”

He’d already pardoned her so-called sins. “Unction?” she interrupted. “What are you doing?”

For a moment the old priest looked cross, interrupted mid-spate. “I am performing the holy rite of extreme unction.”

The tiny amount of wine in her stomach threatened to erupt. “Extreme unction? Isn’t that the last rites? Do you think I’m going to die?”

He made the sign of the cross over her, rising again. “No, my child,” he said kindly. “I know you’re going to die.”

Panic sliced through her, and she surged to her feet, shoving at the old man, but he remained solid and immovable. “I have asked my men to make it painless,” he continued in his entirely reasonable voice. “It’s an ugly business, but a necessity. The Committee must learn to keep out of our affairs and we will keep out of theirs. Your friends will come searching for you, but it will be too late: you will be dead, and when they touch you, this entire building will disappear.”

“By magic?” she said stupidly.

“No, dynamite.” He moved away from her, heading back to the altar, and when she rose, ready to run, she saw that the doors were now open, and the men were advancing down the center aisle, some in priests’ garb, some in street clothes, but they moved as a unit, purposeful, deadly.

She must be imagining the sound in the distance. Was it real, or had her mind simply given up in terror and she was hallucinating? Merlin would do anything to find her—she trusted him. If James and Ryder realized she was gone, they’d let Merlin out to find her.

She heard the bark, closer now, and she knew it was real—the familiar bay of a dog on the scent. The men had their guns drawn, even the three priests, and she had to find some way to stop them, to slow them down, long enough for Merlin to find her.

She rushed the altar, shoving the old man aside as she grabbed one of the heavy candlesticks. Wax dripped onto her hands and the ornate carving bit into her fingers, but she didn’t hesitate. “Come any closer and I’ll bash his head in, you motherfuckers.”

The priest looked up in shock. “This is a place of holy worship! You watch your language, young lady!”

She wanted to laugh, and she realized she was getting hysterical. The old man rose to his feet, but she kept herself behind him, out of range. They couldn’t shoot her without risking killing the priest, and she knew they wouldn’t.

The old man grabbed for her, but she kicked him. Big mistake—he went down, and she was an open target for the men advancing on her. One of them raised a gun at her, and she ducked behind the altar, rolling onto the floor, still clutching the huge, ornate candlestick, when she heard the eruption of gunfire, the familiar snarl of a furious animal, and she flattened herself against the stone.

“Angel!” James’s voice was laced with desperation.

“Angels won’t help you now, Bishop!” she heard the priest cry out, and she felt the hysterical laughter rise again. There was the sudden howl of a man in pain and she edged along the floor on her stomach, around the side of the altar.

It looked like a war zone, the blood and gunsmoke and bodies and noise. One of the younger priests lay spread-eagled in the middle of the floor, lying in a pool of blood, a gun near his outstretched hand, while another man was trying to fight off Merlin’s jaws clamped around his forearm. James was circling a priest, both of them armed with knives, the holy father looking even more dangerous than her murderous lover, and she almost screamed when the man lunged, slashing across James’s stomach, ripping through his shirt and drawing blood.

He’d made a mistake, though, overbalancing, and James caught his arm and pulled it straight up behind him, the sickening sound of cracking bone warring with the man’s scream of pain. He went down in a welter of black, and then James was on top of him, grappling with him. There was no sign of the old priest.

She could make out Ryder at the back of the church along with two of the men who’d taken turns guarding her. They were in the midst of a pitched battle, and she ducked her head in horror as one man fell back, his head seeming to explode from a hail of bullets. She couldn’t hide forever, and she scrambled to her feet, limp with relief when she saw Merlin astride the man he’d been chewing on, growling fiercely. She saw James slowly, methodically beating the shit out of the man who’d knifed him, though the priest wasn’t putting up much of a fight by this point; then she caught a glimpse of the black robes from the corner of her eye.