the script. ‘It’s not finished.’
He rose and went down to put on his sandals and a coat, and walked out onto the path and up the steps. Despite the chill of the night, he could feel the heat of the day through the soles of his sandals.
He remembered the way the old woman had shaken her head at him, and then as he was coming to the square where he had seen her. He drew a startled breath because he saw that the gate and the wooden door to the church were now wide open, and there were people inside. There were others arriving, wrapped in cloaks and gliding across the moonlit ground. He was standing in the shadows at the end of the path, his heart beating very fast.
Then he saw her sitting on the low stone wall under the eucalyptus trees, the woman in white. She now wore a long white coat belted at the waist and a scarf tied over her black hair. She beckoned to him, and even from so far away, he felt her eyes on his hot, tight skin. He sighed and moved towards her, hardly aware of his own will. As he approached, the night perfume of eucalyptus filled the air and he breathed it in, relishing the pungency of it.
She held out her hand to him, and when he took it, expecting her to draw him down beside her, she rose to look into his eyes.
‘I dreamed of you,’ he said. Some of the cloaked figures gliding into the church glanced over as if they heard his soft words, but he could not see their faces or expressions.
‘A seed was planted,’ she said. ‘Many seeds were planted, but only one will summon the stranger who will be the way and the gate.’
A shiver ran through Case. ‘What will happen to me?’
‘Once our kind was closer to humanity, but we are immortal and in all the long years began to diverge. We learned how to do without blood, and to live unnoticed among humanity. We became the guardians of humanity, but as we continue to live, so we continue to diverge, and humanity becomes ever more alien to us. Once a century, a human is consumed so that we may understand humanity well enough to care what becomes of it. That human is the stranger who, once consumed, is known, and through that one, all humanity.’
‘I am the stranger?’ he asked, but he knew. Here was the answer to his long searching and all of his journeys. He had been a witness all his life, and here at last was his audience. An ecstasy of terror and exaltation welled up in him.
‘Come,’ she said. ‘They are waiting.’ She took his hand and led him across the stony yard towards the church, where he could see people sitting facing the altar.
‘A church?’ he murmured, thinking of all the stories he had researched of vampires being repelled by crosses and holy water.
‘Where else do immortals belong but in a house built for an immortal who was killed by humans,’ said the woman, ‘an immortal whose blood is symbolically drunk again and again?’
His mouth was dry as she brought him into the church and to the front, where a man stood, facing the altar. He had the same quality of stillness as the woman, before he turned to face them.
‘I am Gabriel,’ said the man, and his eyes were the same pale, dazzling blue as the woman’s.
‘Are you an angel?’ asked Case.
‘I am as an angel,’ answered Gabriel. ‘And now, you must choose.’
‘Choose?’ asked Case. His lips felt stiff and cold.
‘What we would have of you is a gift and it is yours alone to give. But this is a dark gifting, for it will end the life of the giver. I think you have guessed that. And so now, you must decide if you can give.’
‘There were others?’ Case said, after what seemed a long time.
The figure nodded. ‘There were, and in each case, they gave their gift freely.’
‘If I decide I don’t want to die . . .’
‘You will leave this place unharmed,’ said Gabriel. ‘You will never see any of us again. You will not be hunted. Think on it, but you must decide before dawn, and that is near.’
Case blinked rapidly, and felt a strange desire to weep. He turned to a looming marble statue of a saint at whose feet lay a sheaf of flowers. The scent was heavy and sickening.