"He's not going to be happy." Artemis looked worried. "And as usual he'll blame everyone but himself."
"Poor Artemis."
He took a quick step toward her, index finger raised and jabbing toward her face.
"Don't think you'll get off free, Olivia. Especially when he learns how you've been hiding under a rock the whole time."
Olivia stiffened. The last thing she needed was to be on Franco's bad side, especially when she was short on serfs.
"I'm not the enemy, Artemis," she said, wrapping it in her most conciliatory tone.
"You're certainly not acting like an ally."
"Let's think about this logically. If he's not in the rectory, then he's out of it."
Artemis rolled his single eye. "Brilliant."
"Just follow along with me. If he's out, then he got out either under his own power or was carried out."
He shook his head. "I had one of your serfs watching the building all day. If his followers had found him there'd have been an outcry and lots of milling about. But he reported no unusual activity or even interest in the rectory."
"Which leaves us with one conclusion: the priest left the rectory without being seen."
"That means he's roaming the streets right now, looking to feed." Artemis rolled his eye again. "That's not good."
"Why not? Isn't that what Franco wanted?"
"He wanted the priest feeding on his followers, not random strangers. That defeats the whole purpose of this little exercise."
Olivia couldn't help smiling. "I believe it's looking more and more like I may get my full-scale attack on the church after all."
"What you'll get," Artemis shouted, "is your lazy cowardly ass out of this hole in the ground and out there looking for him!"
Olivia backed up a step. "It's too late now. Dawn's almost here."
Artemis pounded a fist against his thigh. "All right then. First thing after sunset. Me, you, and all your get on the street, looking. We need to find him before he goes feral. If we're too late he won't be able to tell us anything about his vigilantes."
Olivia slumped on the edge of her bed and wrung her hands. Outside? Searching? She'd never thought she'd be afraid of the night, but she was.
LACEY . . .
"What was it like being dead?"
Lacey couldn't help it. She had to ask.
After bandaging her thumb, they'd sat around for hours and hours telling their stories: what had happened to Joe after he'd been abducted, Carole telling how she'd escaped the vampire who'd been after her, and Lacey skimming over her gang rape that she couldn't remember too well anyway but describing in detail the odd events in the Post Office. No one had any explanation for what had gone down there.
Then they discussed how Joe might best wield himself against the enemy.
With all the talk, Lacey had found herself gradually getting used to the unthinkable: that her uncle had somehow died and risen from the grave without becoming one of the undead—not quite one of them, at least. He didn't look like himself, not with that unrecognizable, disfigured face, but the more he'd talked, the easier it became to accept that, though horribly changed, he was still his old self. The undead had changed his body, but the man within remained untouched.
And with that acceptance, the death question had grown in her mind. Now, with steely predawn light turning the black of the ocean to slate gray, the conversation had lagged. So .. .
Joe shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Are you sure? Think. Wasn't there a light or a voice or a presence or some indication that there's something out there?"
"Sorry, Lacey. I remember that feral biting and tearing at me, and the next thing I knew I was wrapped in a sheet under the sand. That's all. Nothing in between."
"Well, I guess that proves it then: this is it. There's no hereafter."
"Oh, but there is," Joe told her.
"You were dead and experienced nothing transcendental, so how can you say that?"
"Because I believe."
As much as she loved him—and even in the strange state he was in, Lacey still loved him—she found his resistance to reason exasperating.
"After all that's just happened to you, how can you possibly still believe in a provident god?"
Joe glanced at Carole. "Tell her, Carole."
Carole's brown eyes looked infinitely sad. "I don't think I can. God seems terribly far away these days."
The simple statement, delivered so matter-of-factly, seemed to shock Joe. He stared at Carole a moment, then sighed. "Yeah, He does, doesn't He. Almost as if He's forgotten about us. But we can't let ourselves think that way. It only leads to despair. We've got to believe that there's a purpose to all—"
"A purpose?" Lacey wanted to throw something. "What possible purpose could there be to all this worldwide death and misery?"
"Only God knows," Joe said.
Lacey snorted derisively. "Which means nobody knows."
Joe was looking at her. "Why did you ask me in the first place?"
"You mean, about what it was like being dead? Well, think about it: how many times do you get a chance to talk to someone who's been dead—someone who's not trying to rip out your throat, I mean?"
"Just idle curiosity?"
"Not idle. You're my uncle and I just. . . wanted to know."
"Would you have believed me if I told you I saw a light, or a golden stairway, or a glowing tunnel? Or how about pearly gates and St. Peter with the Book of Life in his hands?"
"Probably not."
"Then why ask at all?"