The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,37

you ask me.”

“Nobody asked, buzzkill,” Cecilia huffed.

Lucy wondered aloud as arcs of electricity crackled overhead and spread outward against the starless sky, lighting it up like a mad-scientist laboratory. Streaks of cool white, red-orange, and phosphorescent blue blinking as they enervated the canopy of clouds.

“Looks like a spiderweb to me,” she said. “A trap.”

“That’s comforting,” Cecilia said.

“Or a CAT scan,” Agnes continued. “Veins and arteries of the sky. A CAT scan of heaven.”

“So romantic.” CeCe laughed.

“Thanks,” Agnes replied, without the least bit of irony.

Lucy suddenly felt the downy hair she resented having to bleach begin to stand on end. She looked up and around, as if for a ghost, and then to the others for verification that something had changed inside the room. She watched them open and close their jaws in a futile effort to fight the sudden pressure drop in their ears, and she did likewise. Lucy reached for her brow and Agnes for her bandaged wrists, the swelling becoming infinitely more painful. The air was electric and they tingled like antennae.

Wave upon wave of thunderclouds broke directly over the church, heaving grapefruit-size hail down without and within. The temperature in the building dropped almost instantly and the girls curled into tight balls, under assault from the frozen sleet, which was falling down around them.

A fierce rattle hummed through the building. They could feel the vibrations creep up their feet and into their legs. Another thundercrack and they shuddered, instinctively reaching for their ears. The candle flames waxed brightly, fed by the influx of oxygen, then waned almost to nothing, nearly extinguished in a fusillade of wind. One more lightning strike, stronger, brighter, and closer than before, was followed by the distant sound of shattering glass that almost seemed to come from behind the altar. And just as quickly as it came, the hail expended itself, replaced by a hard and cold rain.

“Wait here,” Sebastian ordered, leaping to his feet. “I’m going to check that out.”

“I’ll come with you,” Cecilia said.

“No,” Sebastian said firmly, taking them aback.

“I want to help you.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Be careful,” Agnes called after him.

Sebastian disappeared into the darkness. They could hear him walking and then lost him in the sounds of the stormy night. A door creaked at the front of the church and the familiar sound of a latch catching and then silence. He was gone.

“Help him?” Lucy scoffed, mocking Cecilia. “You were just looking to be alone with him.”

Cecilia rolled her eyes and changed the subject. There was more joke than spite in the comment and there was a noticeable thaw in the chilly distance between them.

With Sebastian gone, the girls felt more compelled to speak their minds, the dark, the cold, the uncertainty scratching at their stubbornness, wearing on them like a hair shirt.

“Do you think he stole these?” CeCe asked, fondling her bracelet.

“I don’t really care,” Lucy said. “I love it.”

“Okay, but why us?” CeCe asked. “We don’t know one another or him.”

They each gave it some quiet consideration until Agnes piped up. “But what about what he said? About them leading us here? I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never been to this church before in my life. And suddenly, it seemed like the exact right place to go.”

“Maybe he’s a freak,” Cecilia said. “Probably just gave these out to the first three chicks he came across at the hospital.”

“You don’t really think that,” Agnes said.

“People do all kinds of crazy shit,” Lucy responded.

“Like sneaking into churches at night?” Agnes quipped.

“Why are you defending him?” Cecilia asked.

“I’m not,” Agnes said. “I just don’t see why we shouldn’t believe him.”

“Why?” Lucy barked. “How about he’s a total stranger, for a start.”

“That doesn’t make him a liar. I don’t know you, either, but I’m listening.”

“He’s not being up-front, Agnes,” Cecilia challenged. “I mean, what’s he doing here? Really?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Agnes answered. “I’m sure there’s no great mystery.”

“I might give him a pass on that one for now,” Lucy countered. “We don’t even know why we’re here.”

Agnes raised her arm and brandished her chaplet proudly, like some fresh ink. “This is why.”

“Do you just believe everything a guy tells you without questioning anything?” Cecilia asked.

“I’m just saying, maybe they are really meant for us.”

“And I’m just saying I’m here for—what was it, three days?”

“Three Days of Darkness,” Lucy said, mocking the weatherman from the radio.

“Ye of little faith,” Agnes said sharply.

“Ye of little maturity,” Cecilia spit back.

They both looked at each other, overtired, oversensitive, and over the