The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,36

this,” Lucy raged at the stranger, holding both girls tightly. “This outfit cost more than your house.”

As Cecilia and Lucy tugged at the girl, her sleeves rode up, revealing bandaged wrists and a bracelet. A bracelet almost identical to theirs. The two of them stared at each other in disbelief.

“It’s okay,” Lucy said to the girl, showing her own chaplet.

The sight of it seemed to calm the girl.

“I saw it,” she said quietly, “outside.”

“I know,” Lucy replied.

An unexpected flash of lightning, an earsplitting crack of thunder, a torrential downpour and explosion of darkness suddenly assaulted them.

“Blackout!” Cecilia shouted.

“I can’t see a thing!” Lucy screamed.

The three girls teetered at the edge of the staircase, completely disoriented by the fast-changing conditions, and nearly carried one another over the railing. Cecilia was losing her grip and Lucy her balance. A second before they tumbled, Sebastian reached out for them with both hands, steadying them, and dragged them inside. He looked up at the greenish black sky showing through the rent overhang and kicked the door closed.

Sebastian ran to them and immediately attended to the stranger, walking her gently to the votive stand where the flames of the other two red glass candles were still flickering.

“You’re okay,” he said, taking her hand in his.

He lit the third votive.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him.

“What’s your name?” Cecilia asked.

Sebastian pulled the girl’s cowl back and brushed the long, wet hair from her pale, luminous face. Her skin almost gave the appearance of being lit from within.

“Agnes.”

Lucy helped her take off her shearling poncho and replaced it with her now-dry trench coat. She was raw and battered by the night, wincing at even the most delicate touch.

“Are we going to die?” she asked through tears.

“You are safe here,” he promised her, smiling.

Overcome with relief and regret,

Agnes wept.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Cecilia said as the candles blazed, all three of them and Sebastian, cold and wet, huddled around the votive stand as they might a campfire, listening to the horror outside the church walls. Strangers, but oddly not.

“That’s a big question.” Sebastian studied them silently as the storm raged all around them, taking each of them in, their looks, their style, personalities, their quirks, strengths, and vulnerabilities. Cecilia nervously drumming on her thigh, Lucy obsessively examining each cuticle on her fingers, and Agnes huddled with her knees up, her shiver beginning to subside.

“We have time. Three days, in fact, according to the weather dudes,” Lucy said. “If we don’t kill each other first.”

Agnes and Cecilia looked over at Lucy, signaling that could be a distinct possibility. Without a change of clothes and any real food except for the junk food crap that Sebastian had in his backpack, all bets were off.

“Three days,” Sebastian echoed. “That will be enough time.”

“Enough time for what?” Cecilia prodded.

“For you to understand.”

Cecilia was spooked. “Now I’m not sure I really want to know.”

“I do,” Agnes said quietly.

“I’m really appreciative of the gift, but where did you get these bracelets?” Lucy asked. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“They were given to me,” Sebastian said.

Lucy was skeptical that the boy in front of her came from such a moneyed line. He’d have to be from royalty, aristocracy of some kind, to receive such an inheritance. “Passed down to you? These are, like, ancient, museum quality.”

“Why give them away?” CeCe pressed.

“Because they aren’t mine.”

“Okay, they were given to you, but they aren’t yours. I don’t get it. Is this some kind of Robin Hood thing?” Lucy asked.

“That’s all I can tell you right now.”

Sebastian sat back and leaned his head against the wall behind him. Their view of him was still distorted by the light and shadow from the flickering candles and lightning flashes, but they could see he had become suddenly pensive, the expression on his face pained. All of them were curious, but none of them dared pry any further. They were safe. For the moment.

Agnes looked up at the burst of light flashing through the apertures where stained glass was once fitted. The bolts were more frequent and violent now, and the thunder was getting louder. “Did you know that you can tell how close a storm is by counting the amount of time between a lightning flash and thunderclap?”

“I don’t need to count,” Cecilia answered.

“It’s close,” Sebastian said.

“So beautiful,” Agnes said, looking upward. “A living lava lamp.”

“Cosmic. Literally,” Cecilia noted, in appreciation. “You couldn’t buy a light show like that with all the money in the world.”

Lucy disagreed. “Probably could, if