Twilight Fall

"Mein Mädchen." He laced his fingers through hers and drew her to him. His mouth touched hers gently before he looked into her eyes. "You are my fire now."



Liling moved into the curve of his arm and walked back with him to their home.



"Did you see the way that girl juggled fire?" Alexandra said to Michael as they watched Jaus and his sygkenis disappear into the mansion. "Before we leave, I have got to get a blood sample from her."



Michael glanced down at the melted copper slugs on the blackened, scorched rocks where Liling had stood. "I would not recommend boiling it."



Phillipe met them inside the mansion and handed an envelope to Alex. "These are the reports you wanted, Alexandra. In French and English."



"Thanks, Phil." She carried them toward the lab, stopped, and turned back around. "John's probably sleeping. Want to go to our bedroom and read stuff in French for me?"



He put his arm around her waist. "As long as I can do other things in French to you later."



"Lecher."



He nodded. "And proud of it."



Back in their room. Alexandra separated the contents of the envelope and handed a stack of papers written in French to Cyprien. "Phillipe got me copies of the arson reports on those jardin the Brethren burned out." She skimmed through the translated reports. "These say the police never recovered any bodies from the scene of the fire. Same on yours?"



He studied the original documents. "Yes. They must have been removed and buried by the Kyn's human servants in that area."



She shook her head. "No, all the jardin's tresori fled the area with the survivors. Phil double-checked."



He tried to think of another explanation, but failed. "Someone removed them before the humans could."



"Read the incident report dated October fifteenth."



"One of the local people reported seeing men in dark clothing at the scene just after the fire." He skipped through several paragraphs of nonsense questions from the interrogating officer. "The eyewitness claimed they were looting the property, because he saw them carrying out bags and loading them onto a truck."



"Uh-huh." Alex checked her own translated copy. "Want to guess how big the bags were?"



He looked up from the report. "You believe the Brethren are stealing the bodies of dead Kyn?"



"Why would they want them?"



"Trophies."



"I don't know." She rubbed the back of her neck. "We know the Kyn can survive terrible wounds. Gabriel Seran was tortured daily for years. They even blinded him with copper-tainted holy water, and yet he eventually healed and regained his vision." She scowled. "Although I still don't know exactly why he healed. Anyway, what if they weren't dead? What if they were just really well-done?"



"The Brethren are committed to our destruction. Alexandra," he reminded her. "They would not try to save victims from a fire they set themselves."



"That's it." She took in a deep breath and covered her mouth with her hand, then gestured outward. "What if they're not setting the fires to kill the Kyn? What if they only want to incapacitate them long enough to transport them somewhere, keep them prisoner?"



"C'est impossible." Cyprien did not even want to think of all the Kyn who had been burned to death over the centuries. "We would know if they were doing such things."



"The Brethren haven't burned Kyn since they rounded most of you up back in the fourteenth century, when the church condemned the Templars to death. Phil told me that," she said. "Since then they've attacked with copper weapons, tortured, and beheaded you guys, but that's about it. Or it was, until three years ago. How many jardin have they burned since then?"



He thought for a moment. "All of the attacks on the jardin in Italy and France were arson. Ten or fifteen, at least."



"All the fires were set during the day, while the Kyn were inside and at rest, right?"



"How did you know that?"



"Remember when I talked to those refugees at the Realm?" she asked. "They all kept describing the same thing: The Brethren attacked them without warning, trapping them inside their homes and trying to burn them alive. Never anything else. No other type of attack. I bet if you check reports for every Kyn-related arson in France and Italy, you'll find the authorities never recovered any remains at all."



"If that is so, it means the Brethren could have captured and imprisoned dozens of Kyn." Michael shook his head. "No. I do not believe it."



"What if I'm right?"



"If you are," he said, his eyes turning pure amber, "then we will find them and set them free."



Alex thought about the wild theory she had spun for John about the orphanage, the theory that she suddenly didn't want to research anymore. "I need to put John in the hospital, somewhere he can see specialists and get the treatment he needs, and where the Brethren can't get at him. Do you think that rehab place where Val hid Luisa has room for one more patient?"



The unnatural lighting retreated into the clouds and died away as quickly as the booming thunder. The Asian girl who had made the fire dance walked back up the shore to embrace Jaus. John could see no sign of the other two.



Whatever this confrontation had been about, it seemed over.



The storm over the lake flattened and thinned out until the stars appeared again. The moon, its snide smile beaming down at the city, seemed to be congratulating itself for surviving the near-apocalypse. The wind blew its last, disgusted huff at the lake before settling down into a mild breeze.



John stepped back from the windows and let the curtain fall back into place. Over time he fell as if he'd become a voyeur to the strange battles of the Darkyn, but this one he was sure would defy explanation even among their ranks.



Depression dragged at him. He had no business being here or watching this. He was human, and Alexandra was not. It was time to accept that, and what was happening to him.



Tomorrow he would not convince Jaus to go with him to meet the archbishop Hightower, ever eager to spin his web of lies around his surrogate son, would have agreed to meet him anywhere. But John was tired of clinging to the edge of reason and fighting for truth. The truth was ugly and painful and destroyed too much. It had taken John's faith and his peace of mind. It had forced him to ally himself with monsters. Confronting his old mentor and finally learning what the Brethren had done to him and Alex might send him over into the abyss.



He felt his shrunken stomach tightening and sweat running down the sides of his face. He needed a shower and a meal. He walked into the bathroom and stopped at the sink to splash cold water on his face.



He straightened and stared at his pale reflection. The attack had left his eyes with a strange cast; he still looked feverish. He squeezed his eyes shut as pain spread from his knotted gut up through his chest.



He had run out of time.



John knew he couldn't stay in this place, not if he was dying. And from the way she had behaved since discovering his malaria, and the way he felt now, the end was closing in. He had inflicted enough pain on Alexandra; he would not force her to watch him die and blame herself for not saving him.



The confrontation down by the lake had distracted the guards, making it easy for John to slip out of the house. He went to Jaus's massive garage, took a set of keys from the neatly labeled wall rack, and stole one of his Porsches.



John drove north out of the city, stopping once to get directions to the Saint Benedict Catholic Adoption Agency. He parked across the street and watched a pair of patrol cops talking to a worried-looking woman wearing a black dress and a modified nun's veil over her silver hair. When she glanced across the street. John started the Porsche and left.



He realized it was a Sunday when he saw a group of people walking into a Methodist church. The family had four little girls, each wearing a ruffled dress and a flowery hat. More people followed, and John saw why the services were so well attended when he read the small sign posted on the front lawn of the church. It was Palm Sunday, a communion service.



How long had it been since he had prayed in the house of God?



John found a parking spot in the crowded lot, and followed the faithful into the church. All he knew about Methodists was that they liked to sing and eat. He didn't try to sit down in the crowded church, but found a place to stand at the back. The pews filled rapidly, and latecomers had to come and stand beside him.



The sanctuary was beautiful. Potted lilies, honoring the upcoming Easter holiday, lined the aisles and decorated the altar. A three-foot-tall rabbit stood on one side of the altar, guarding a giant basket filled with multicolored plastic eggs. An enormous aluminum cross hung suspended over the center of the altar, but the savior's corpse was markedly absent. Instead, a stylized red flame wound around the cross, a more palatable symbol of the sacrifice God's son had made for the sins of the world.



"Is this your first time here, dear?" a smiling matron in a powder blue twinset and pearls asked him. When John nodded, she pressed a happy-face sticker with the word visitor on John's lapel. "We're having a bagel breakfast in the fellowship hall after services," she said. "You're welcome to join us." She moved on to the next man standing.



John watched a young, smiling minister make a remarkably casual entrance with his lay leaders, and the service began with a large choir offering a joyous hymn. The accompanying organist missed a few notes, but the congregation didn't seem to mind. Every person in the church held a hymnal and sang along.



The minister offered prayers, and then a lengthy but energetic sermon on charity and forgiveness. The way he grinned and gestured emphasized his enthusiasm.



"Albert Einstein said, 'We must learn to see the world anew,'" the minister said. "Our Lord God wants us to make the world new. When we are generous, when we forgive, we remove some of the darkness from the world. We bring His word and His light to those who have dwelled away from it for too long."