Well, trickled through my head this doubtless isn’t the first time the Adversary’s made an instrument of people who honestly believe they’re serving God. What about Jonathan Edwards, back in old New England? “The floors of hell are paved with the skulls of unbaptized children.” Who really was the Jehovah he called upon?
“What did you experience?” Marmiadon asked.
I might or might not have told him my revelation. Probably not; what good would that have done? A sound distracted us both?nearing footsteps, words.
“What if he hasn’t been here?”
“We’ll wait for some hours.”
“In this thin garb?”
“The cause of the Lord, brother.”
I stiffened. Two men coming: monks, from the noise of their sandals; big, from its volume on the stone. The adept I met upstairs must have grown suspicious; or Marmiadon’s invocation and its effect had registered elsewhere; or both. If I got caught?I’d been warned. And my existence was beyond price, until I could get home the information that might help rescue Val.
I turned the flash on myself. Marmiadon whimpered as I changed shape. It’s well I was in a hurry. Wolf, with wolf passions, I’d have torn his throat apart for what he’d done if there’d been time. Instead, I went out in a single gray streak.
The pair of monks didn’t see me through the gloom until I was almost on them. They were beefy for sure. One carried a stick, the other a forty‑five automatic. I darted between the legs of the latter, bowling him over. His buddy got a crack across my ribs with his cudgel. Pain slowed me for a moment. A bone may have been broken. It knitted with the speed of the were condition and I dashed on. The pistol barked. Slugs whanged nastily past. If they included argent rounds, a hit would stop me. I had to move!
Up the stairs I fled. The friars dropped from sight. But an alarm started ahead of me, bells crashing through the hymns. Did my pursuers have a walkie-talkie ball with them? Produced at Nornwell? I burst into the first‑floor hallway. There must be other exits than the main door, but I didn’t know them. A wolf can travel like bad news. I was through the curtain which screened off the choir vestry before any nightshifter had glanced out of an office or any sleepy monk arrived from another section.
The church was in a boil. I cracked the door to the aisle sufficiently for a look. The chant went on. But folk ran about in the nave, shouting. More to the point, a couple of them were closing doors to the vestibule. I couldn’t get out.
Feet slapped floor in the corridor. The Johnnies weren’t certain which way I’d skited, and were confused anyhow by this sudden unexplained emergency. Nevertheless, I’d scant time until someone thought to check here.
A possible tactic occurred to me. I didn’t consider the wherefores of it, which a wolf isn’t equipped to do. Trusting instinct, I slapped the switch on my flash with a forepaw. The blue entry‑room lights didn’t interfere with my reverting to human. Darting back to the vestry, I grabbed a surplice and threw it over my head. It fell nearly to my feet. They stayed bare, but maybe no one would notice.
Ascending to the choir loft in record time, I stopped in the archway entrance and studied the situation. Men and women stood grouped according to vocal range. They held hymnals. Spare books lay on a table. The view from here, down to the altar and up to the cupola, was breathtaking. But I’d no breath to spend.
I picked my spot, helped myself to a book, and moved solemnly forward.
I wouldn’t have gotten away with it under normal conditions. Conditions not being normal, the choir was agitated too, its attention continually pulled down to the excitement on the floor. The song kept wandering off key. I found a place on the edge of the baritones and opened my hymnal to the same page as my neighbor.
“Mephnounos Chemiath Aroura Maridon Elison,” he chanted. I’d better make noises likewise. The trouble was, I’d not had the rehearsals they gave to laymen who wanted to participate. I couldn’t even pronounce most of those words, let alone carry the tune.