Fate had dealt Silas a healthy share of bad luck tonight, but God had solved it all with one miraculous twist. The vodka tasted terrible, but he drank it, feeling grateful. Silas felt the fiery throb transforming now to a prickling sting.
"The pain you feel is the blood rushing into your muscles." A mound of shredded duct tape lay on the floor beside the bloodless knife. A blurry image was leaning over him, offering a glass of liquid. "Take a drink," the tuxedoed man whispered, his accent French. the church that he and Silas had built with their own hands.
Instead he pictured a younger Bishop Aringarosa, standing before the small church in Spain. A piercing pain cut through his thighs now, and he felt the onset of that familiar undertow of disorientation - the body's defense mechanism against the pain.Īs the biting heat tore through all of his muscles now, Silas clenched his eyes tighter, determined that the final image of his life would not be of his own killer. Silas felt the biting warmth spreading across his back and shoulders and could picture his own blood, spilling out over his flesh. I was doing God's work.TheTeacher said he would protect me. He cried out, unable to believe he was going to die here in the back of this limousine, unable to defend himself. I have been praying all night for liberation.Now, as the knife descended, Silas clenched his eyes shut.Ī slash of pain tore through his shoulder blades. Even the physical pain of being bound Silas had turned into a spiritual exercise, asking the throb of his blood-starved muscles to remind him of the pain Christ endured. Silas could not believe that God had forsaken him. "Be still," Remy whispered, raising the blade. The monk recoiled, struggling against his bonds. Remy smiled and moved toward the back of the limousine. Remy turned and faced Silas, holding up the glimmering blade. The knife was usually employed to slice the lead foil from corks on fine bottles of wine, but it would serve a far more dramatic purpose this morning. Searching the bar, Remy found a standard service wine-opener and flicked open the sharp blade. He drank it in a single swallow and followed it with a second. He went to the limousine's wet bar, where he poured himself a Smirnoff vodka. Loosening his bow tie, Remy unbuttoned his high, starched, wing-tipped collar and felt as if he could breathe for the first time in years. After some initial struggles in the Range Rover, the monk seemed to have accepted his plight and given over his fate to a higher power. All evening Remy had been impressed with this trussed man's ability to stay calm. Sensing Remy's presence, the monk in the back emerged from a prayer-like trance, his red eyes looking more curious than fearful. He got out of the car, walked toward the rear, and climbed back into the limousine's main cabin where the monk was.
In a rubbish-strewn alley very close to Temple Church, Remy Legaludec pulled the Jaguar limousine to a stop behind a row of industrial waste bins.