Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

You can do this. For Diel. For Cara.

Noa calmed her breathing, then began to search the room, detaching herself from any memories that threatened to rise inside her. She felt along the stone walls, searching for any sign of a hidden door, a closet. She searched and searched, but there was nothing.

Despair and disappointment ate at her soul as she frantically searched further, only for her hands to remain empty. “It has to be here,” she whispered. “Think!”

Then her eyes fell on a statue of Mary Magdalene at the far side of the room. Hands clasped together in prayer, shawled and veiled, a wayward woman redeemed by Christ.

Shunned.

Mary Magdalene had been shunned by the people, by Judas, until Jesus brought her into his fold. Some scholars believed she had been possessed by a demon and Jesus’s faith had cast it from her flesh.

Noa ran across the room, conscious that at any moment someone might find her. She stopped at Mary Magdalene’s feet and roved her eyes over the veiled face.

Shunned. Veiled. Hidden from the world … Noa wondered if that was what this statue represented. Those who the Brethren believed should be removed from society, from view.

Then her gaze fixed on one particular part of the statue, a faint circular mark on Mary’s hand. To anyone else it would seem a chip in the statue, a minute section of eroded stone. But to Noa, it was a key. She pressed it down. The stone sank, then the statue split in two, revealing a perfectly concealed safe.

Noa’s heartbeat was a fast-paced hymn as she shined the flashlight on the single shelf. Wrapped in a red cloth was a large book. Her hands shook as she reached in and withdrew it. She moved the cloth and opened the red leather-backed cover.

Noa’s legs weakened when she saw, written in perfect calligraphy, the word “Shunned” on the title page. She slammed the book shut and closed the safe, leaving no sign that the ledger had been taken. Noa was as quick as lightning as she climbed the steps back to the main body of the church and away from the hellish devices that sat mockingly below. She burst through the door to the altar, when a shuffling sound came from behind her.

Noa whipped around, knife pulled from her belt. Her body braced for an attack as she clutched the ledger closer to her chest. She drew her knife high, readying to strike, but as she sliced down, a petite person in black blocked her wrist. Noa locked on a familiar pair of brown eyes, the rest of the face hidden behind a leather face covering just like her own.

“Beth.” Noa drew back her knife, adrenaline still surging around her body.

“You were taking too long.” Beth focused on the ledger in Noa’s hand. “You found it.” She sounded breathless with relief.

Noa allowed them a second of mutual happiness. “I found it,” she breathed, heart lighter, then froze as the church was swathed in bright light. She rushed across the room and peered through an old shutter. Her stomach dropped ten feet. A town car had pulled in to park at the church, and Noa watched, panic building, as Father Auguste and the twin priests stepped out.

“Shit,” Noa hissed when they headed for the door … the door that she had left unlocked. “Back room, now!” Noa said to Beth. They ran for the small office where the priest would once have dressed. Relief filled Noa when she saw that the room had a window small enough for her and Beth to fit through.

Noa pulled the shutters back and opened the window. She winced as it creaked, the old wooden window frame crumbling in her hands. She pushed Beth through first, and part of her panic subsided when Beth’s feet hit the tall grass and the cover of night wrapped around her black leather clothes. Noa placed her foot on the window ledge, ready to follow, but then she heard the church’s main door open and Auguste hiss, “Someone’s in here.”

“Come on,” Beth whispered anxiously, and Noa went to jump from the window. But when she heard the twins’ feet rushing around the church, searching, seeking, and Auguste’s heavy footfalls coming her way, she turned to Beth and pushed the ledger into her hands. Beth stepped back, unsteady from the force with which Noa had placed the book in her protection.

Decision made, a bolt of pure fear threatened to take Noa down, but she breathed deeply, smelling the grass on the wind, and let nature quell her nerves. “Take it. Get it home. Take it to Dinah. She’ll know what to do,” Noa said. Before Beth could argue, her brown eyes widening in realization of what Noa was doing, Noa shut the window and sealed the shutters closed, trapping Beth outside.