Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival (12 page)

After Nadia’s casket was
entombed, a Second Line ensued, where mourners danced down the street to jazz
music, waving white handkerchiefs to bid farewell to the dead.  The sisters did
not partake in the Second Line, choosing instead to go back to the convent.  Cee
Cee and Ruby were into it, waving their handkerchiefs to the beat of the music,
tears in their eyes.  I walked back with Cee Cee, but refrained from feeling as
elated as the others felt, and it looked like Miles had made the same decision.

We were at the convent for almost two hours.  It
had been nearly two weeks since Nadia’s death.  Miles pushed me harder, and I
let him.  Tonight, he had me trying to heal every person who came in.  I
managed to cure a fractured wrist, bring down a very high fever and stop a bad
case of chronic hiccups, among other ailments.  I even healed someone’s best
egg-laying chicken that had been attacked by a neighbor’s dog.  I had made a
special note to remind myself to tell Lyla about that one.

Though some part of me
believed it was all just a coincidence.  The wrist was probably nearly healed
anyway, and the old man with the fever had probably gotten over the worst of it
before he came in.  As for the hiccups, chronic cases have been known to
suddenly stop.  Just coincidences.  It seemed Nadia’s death was having more of
an effect on my confidence than I thought.

I wearily looked out at
the remaining line of people waiting to be cured of whatever it was they had.  It
took a lot out of me to heal the dozen or so people I did, and I was becoming
exhausted, feeling the power draining from my core.

The monotony was soon
broken with the sound of the back door swinging open.  Sisters Wendy, Alice and
Melanie rushed in, carrying Sarah, the middle-aged woman I recognized as the
homeless lady who slept across the street from the convent.  She was covered in
blood and so were the sisters’ white habits.

“She was hit by a car!  They
just kept driving,” said Sister Wendy as she and the other two laid her down at
Miles’ feet.

“You should have called
911!  She needs to get to a hospital,” I said, frustrated that they moved her
instead of keeping her stable.

Sister Melanie looked up
at Miles with pleading eyes.  “Can you help her?”

“It’s not too late,” he
said.  He then turned to me.  “Leigh.  Hurry.”

“Me?!  I—”

“Hurry!” he commanded.  I
stood there for a moment longer, dumbfounded.  He kneeled next to Sarah and
pulled me down next to him.  He forced my hand over her heart and left it there
as he took his hand away.  “Concentrate,” he instructed.

My mind was a flurry.  I
tried to assess the situation, trying to get my head in order.  “We—we need a
blanket and some bandages and—”

Miles stopped me, putting
both hands on either side of my face.  He looked me in the eyes and softly
said, “Just focus on stopping the bleeding.”

I slowly nodded, my
concentration becoming sharper.  I looked down at Sarah and my hand on her
heart.  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.  I pictured a blue flame between
my hand and her heart.  Slowly, my hand started to heat up, but it did not
hurt.  It was much more intense than the mere tingling I had with the small
ailments I cured earlier in the night.  My hand could have been touching the
sun for all I knew, except for the complete lack of pain.  I opened my eyes
again, concentrating on where my hand was and was vaguely aware of the sisters
beside me, their heads bowed in prayer.  The remaining people in line were
doing the same.

After a few moments,
Sarah began to stir.  Her breathing began to regulate, and the blood subsided.  Her
eyes stayed closed, but I could tell her pain was decreasing.  I felt my hand
cooling off.  I slowly removed it.  When I did, I felt very weak.  I sat back,
wanting to rest on the floor.  Miles propped me up.

“She can make it until
the ambulance gets here,” he said to the sisters.  Sister Wendy left to make
the call, while the other two tried to comfort Sarah, who was still barely conscious.

Suddenly, there was a
round of applause from the small line of people.  I looked over at Miles who
smiled back at me, looking happy for the first time since I met him.

Since I was still a
little weak from helping Sarah, Miles healed the rest of the sick after the
ambulance took her away.  After the last person left for the night, Miles told
me to go back to Cee Cee’s and get a good night’s rest because there was more
work to do the next day.

I put on my coat and
headed for the door while Miles chatted with sisters Alice and Melanie, who had
changed into clean clothes. Instead of leaving through the back door of the chapel,
I had a change of plans.  The door to the bell tower stairwell was ajar.  I
snuck in, shutting the door behind me.  I slowly ascended the wooden steps that
spiraled upward in the narrow column of the tower.  When I finally reached the
massive bell, I carefully stepped aside, near the ledge, and looked out onto
the city as she lay restless and guarded beneath a blanket of February stars.

My breath puffed up
around me as I thought about what I had just done.  Was it safe to call it a
miracle?  I had seen Clothilde save Lyla with my own eyes.  I knew what
paladins were capable of, but did I ever really believe that I possessed such a
power?  Somehow, doing it with my own hands made it real now; this ability was
tangible.  I could save people now, like a superhero.  I chuckled at that
thought, and then laughed out loud when I pictured myself in spandex and a
cape.  Now, high above the city, I could hear Clothilde’s voice in my head,
fussing at me, “
Come down from there ‘fore I switch you good!
”  I smiled
at that as I stepped back from the ledge with this newfound elation at my
ability.

As I turned toward the
spiral stairwell, I was startled to see one of the sisters standing on the
other side of the stairwell, her back to me, head bent as if in prayer.  I
recognized her little wooden cross hanging off to the side of her woolen belt.  “Sorry,
Sister Adele.  I know I shouldn’t be up here.  I’ll head out now.  Have a good
night.”

I took one step down the
stairwell, but stopped short as Sister Adele grasped my arm with an icy,
withered hand.  “Sister?” I asked, startled.

“Your kind will not
survive.  As we rise, you will fall,” said Sister Adele, the woman who had
never uttered a word, not even when she was a baby.  She removed her hand,
bringing both hands to her belt, which she proceeded to unbuckle.  Her head
remained bowed, her habit preventing me from seeing her face.  Letting her belt
fall to the platform, she turned her back to me and faced the night sky.  She
removed her habit and dropped her garment to the platform, revealing her stark,
naked body before me.

But it wasn’t Sister
Adele’s body.

As soon as I realized
that, the creature fanned out her white, veined, marbled wings and then turned
to me.  She looked like a statue; a beautiful, demonic Venus with vibrant red
hair—a ball of fire—that framed her ghostly face and matched her ruby eyes.  She
looked at me as though she had not eaten in weeks.  There was a glee in her red
eyes, and she smiled.  It was clear that I was a prize she had just won.

I quickly started down
the stairwell, but she was too fast for me.  She caught me by the arm, that
same cold grasp as before, and started to drag me across the small platform and
off the ledge.  I screamed as loudly as I could as I tried to hold onto the
railing.  She was too strong.  I weakly grabbed at the rope of the bell.  It
gave one loud
Dong!
before I had to let go.  The last thing I could grab
was a beam that supported the roof of the bell tower.

I held on with one hand
as her long nails sliced into my other arm.  I managed to wrap one of my legs
around the beam and kicked hard with my other leg.  I could have sworn I heard
her laughing as she pulled me harder.

I was slipping.  I felt I
could hold on no longer.

I heard steps quickly
approaching from the stairwell.  It took everything I had in me to hold on.  Then
I saw Miles come up from the stairwell and onto the platform.  He wasted no
time in reaching out for me.  He pulled me back toward the platform as best he
could, but the she pulled back harder.  It felt like my limbs were being torn
apart.

A loud
Bang!
shot
through the night.  I felt a small force rush past my head.  A split second
later, the angel released me, and Miles pulled me back onto the platform.  I
heard a great scream of pain.  I turned back to see the angel, who now held her
arm, trying to cover a large gash with her hand.  There should have been blood
gushing from that wound, but there was not one drop.

I looked behind me to see
Sister Alice with a shotgun aimed at the angel, ready to fire once more.  The
angel snarled, tears forming in her cold, angry eyes, and flew up into the
night sky, disappearing into the city.

I gazed, wide-eyed and
panting, out at the sky.  “Sister Adele was one of them?” I said in disbelief.

“Adele is dead,” said
Sister Alice gravely.  “Sister Arlene found her body just a few moments ago.  She
came to tell us, and we told her that we had just seen her going into the bell
tower.  We knew something was wrong.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.  “It
looks like the Watchers are out to get everyone.”

“That wasn’t a Watcher
angel,” said Miles, placing his hand over my arm to heal my wound.  “That was a
Nephyl.”

“A what?”

“I’ll tell you later, but
I think you should stay at my house tonight.  I don’t want you alone at Cee
Cee’s.”

“Where is she?”

“She phoned me a little
while ago saying there was an emergency with one of her clients.  She’s not
sure when she’ll be back home.”

I didn’t argue with him.  He
followed me to Cee Cee’s so that I could pick up a few things, and then we went
back to his house.

“The bedroom at the end
of the upstairs hall on the right is mine.  You can use any of the other rooms.
 Please make yourself comfortable,” he said.

He started to retire for
the evening.  “What are Nephyls?” I asked.

He stopped, turned to me
and sighed.  “The children of the Grigori.  When the Watcher Angels—the
Grigori—were sent to Earth to protect the humans, they wound up mating with the
women, despite being forbidden to do so.  The children they produced were
called Nephilim.  They were supposed to be these giant angel-human hybrids,
standing over seven feet tall, but that was quite an exaggeration.”  He smiled
at that.  “We think maybe it’s because humans were so much shorter back then,
but who really knows?”

“And Sam?  The man from
Cee Cee’s shop.  Was he a Nephyl?”

He shook his head.  “Sam
is actually Samyaza, a Watcher Angel who has been around since the beginning
when they were sent down to protect the humans.”  He reflected for a moment.  “The
Watcher Angels are, perhaps, God’s biggest mistake.  He made them powerful, yet
with human emotions and freedoms.  Their emotions have turned bitter over the centuries
as they felt abandoned by Heaven.

“Samyaza became their
leader when they decided to take the human women and create more Nephilim.  Soon,
a legion of Nephilim roamed the Earth, wreaking havoc and destruction.  They
were Dark Ones from the very beginning; inheriting the insatiable hunger for
power that their fathers had.

“Eventually, God sent the
great flood to rid the world of the Nephilim and the humans who stood with
them.  It killed off many Nephilim because they are considerably weaker than their
fathers, thanks to their human DNA, but many still remained.  They went into
hiding, scattered all over the world.”

“What about the good
angels?  Do they step in to help?”

He shook his head.  “That’s
why we’re here.  They protect Heaven.  We protect Earth.”

“Do they all look like
the one who killed Sister Adele and attacked me?”

“Some do have a strange
appearance; others look human, except for their wings.  That’s a dominate trait
from their fathers.  They all have them.”

“She didn’t even bleed.”

“They have different
abilities.  I would try to get some sleep.  We’ll have another long day
tomorrow.”  That ended the conversation.

I took my things
upstairs.  There were five bedrooms.  I chose the one on the opposite end of
the hall from Miles.  I unpacked my overnight bag and got ready for bed.  I
turned off the ceiling light, but left on the small lamp on the night stand.  I
was much too frazzled to sleep in the dark.

I climbed into bed and
turned away from the lamp so the light wouldn’t be in my eyes.  I faced the
window which overlooked the back yard.  The hunter-green curtains were drawn,
but there was a crack in them.  This made me a little uncomfortable.  I didn’t
like the idea of anything being able to peek in on me.

I got out of bed and went
to the window to completely shut the curtains.  Through the narrow sliver of
glass, I saw a pair of headlights approach the driveway on the other side of
the backyard fence.  Soon, Noah’s Charger came into view.  I watched as he
parked his car in his driveway and got out.  He went around to the passenger
side, opened the door, and pulled out a cardboard box with a St.
Geneviève
’s
label on it.  Nadia’s
belongings, I assumed.

With a heavy sign, I
started to pull the curtains shut, but something caught my eye down in the
garden below my window.  I could barely make out anything in the moonlight, but
I knew I saw something move.  I strained my eyes and watched closely.  More
movement near the fountain; a figure moving toward the greenhouse.

I froze, a lump in my
throat, my eyes wide.  A light went on in the greenhouse, illuminating a tall
Creole of color with long, flowing black hair.

Ruby.

I eased a bit, but now I
wondered what she was doing at this hour.  Did Miles just give her the go-ahead
to raid his greenhouse anytime, or was she purposely hiding?  
I don’t know
what you’re doing here, but I’m going to find out
, was what she had said to
me on the way back from St. Roch.  Now I felt the same way.

Without a second thought,
I hurried to put on my jeans, shoes and a long-sleeve T-shirt, and hurried
downstairs into the kitchen.  I opened the back door a crack and peeked out
toward the greenhouse.  It was hard to see from this far away, but I could make
out her blurry outline through the condensation on the glass walls at the back
of the building.