Quoth’s fingers slipped into mine. “You look worried.”
I waved the paperback in front of my face. “Of course I am. Morrie’s in trouble and we’re going after a bloodthirsty, immortal vampire. That, and we’re about to commit a crime inside a church. I’m surprised you’re not more afraid for your immortal soul.”
“I’m not sure ravens have souls.” Quoth saw the horrified expression on my face and smiled. “I’m sorry, that was meant to be a joke.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “No,I’msorry. You should be at school now, learning about pretentious modern art and painting landscapes upside down in your underwear. Instead, you’re here with me.”
“Mina, I’ll always watch over you. School will wait. This is where I must be.”
The church parking lot was empty of cars. One of the wooden doors stood open, and a sign listed weekly services and invited anyone to enter to enjoy contemplative prayer. I poked my head around the door, but couldn’t see or hear anyone in the gloom. Not that that meant much these days.
“Father O’Sullivan?” I called out.
No answer.
“Come on.” Quoth squeezed my hand, tugging me into the church.
Candles lit sconces along the walls and flickered around the altar. Quoth led me straight to the apse, dragging me up the steps to the altar covered in its pristine white cloth.
“I did some reading up on Catholic mass, and the communion is kept in this tabernacle.” Quoth reached for a highly-adorned cupboard inlaid with gold, beside which burned a single candle. He reached inside and pulled out a bowl filled with communion wafers. “These must be for this evening’s Eucharist. Anything inside the tabernacle has been blessed.”
“Perfect.” I held open my bag while Quoth upended the dish into my purse. Wafers scattered across the floor, but most of them went into my purse. I stood up and glanced around. “Now, where’s the holy water—”
A sharp voice startled me. “What in the Devil’s name is going on here?”
Chapter Twenty
Iwhirled around. Father O’Sullivan stood at the door to the vestry, his arms folded and a dour expression on his face.
“Oh, hi, Father. I’m just…” I beamed up at him. “We were hoping to find you. I am currently writing a book where the main character is, er… Catholic. I’ve come across the term ‘cilice’ in my research, and I wondered if you could tell me about it.”
Father beamed. “I’m glad you thought to come to me, Mina. So many people have these strange notions about Catholics and our rituals and traditions. I’d be happy to talk to you about the cilice. It’s an item worn on the body to inflict pain for the sake of penance. In olden times, one might wear a ‘hairshirt’ garment made of rough cloth that irritated the skin, but now it’s more common to don a chain around the thigh with spikes that dig into the skin—”
As the two of us nodded along with Father O’Sullivan’s lecture, I pushed the sacramental wafers into the bottom of my satchel. We thanked him for the info and dashed out of there as fast as we could. Hand in hand, Quoth and I cut through a ramblers path to reach the next village over, where we entered another church. This one was empty, thank the goddesses, and I scooped all the wafers into my purse as Quoth filled a thermos with holy water.
On the way home, we stopped at the village market. They were all out of fresh garlic, so I grabbed several bottles of extra-strong garlic aioli.
Now we were ready to hunt a vampire.
We returned to find Heathcliff straightening a picture on the wall in the hallway, at the end of the row of tiny taxidermied heads of rodents Grimalkin and Quoth had killed. He turned two spotlights to point at his creation and stood back to admire his work. “What do you think?”
“What I think is that you’re not downstairs blocking up the tunnel, or setting up a meeting with Grant Hosking.”
“Hosking wouldn’t take my call, and I’ve already sorted the tunnel. I nailed three huge sheets of plywood over the hole, and I called Handy Andy to come and brick it up. He says he’ll be here next week, although he’s a handyman so he probably means next year. While I was at the hardware store I saw this shield and got the idea. What do you think?”
I stepped forward. On a large wooden shield, Heathcliff had mounted the busted ereader as though it were a hunting trophy. The trophy faced the door, so it would be the first thing customers saw when they entered.
“And you thought Morrie was the genius.” Heathcliff grinned. It was an odd sight – more terrifying than mirthful, with lots of bared teeth. I loved it – a wild smile for my wild boy.
“It’s… um…” I leaned in close to peer at the shield. Behind me, Quoth burst out laughing.
“Mina?” Heathcliff jabbed me.
“I… I have no words.”
Heathcliff threw his arm around my shoulders and led me toward the main room. “I think it makes our position on electronic reading and The-Store-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named clear. Come and see what else I’ve done while you were out on your walk.”
As we entered the room, Grimalkin tore around the corner, her paws batting a tiny blue object. Quoth lunged for it and came up with a pearl, which he dropped into my pocket.We’re going to be finding these things everywhere now.
