In Plain Sight

Dejected, Alex cleaned off the purity stone and returned it to his kit. Putting on the oculus once more, he removed the ghostlight burner and replaced it with the silverlight. This time the room lit up and glowed so brightly it took Alex’s eye a moment to get used to it. There were handprints, vomit, and urine everywhere. The leaky roof ensured that any old evidence had been washed away, so this was all new.

From the look of it, there had been chaos in the room at some point. Handprints showed where people had crawled and eventually collapsed as they succumbed to the strange illness. It looked like there had been a fight of some kind as Alex found traces of blood on the floor and even a tooth.

The greatest concentration of hand and finger prints were around and on the heavy oak doors that separated the Great Hall from the foyer and the dormitories. From the look of it, the doors had been locked, trapping everyone inside. That didn’t make any sense, though. Father Harry carried a key to this door in his pocket. He couldn’t have been locked in.

All of this was interesting, but after examining every trace, Alex was no closer to learning what happened than when he started.

Time to talk to Sister Gwen.

He returned his oculus and lamp to his kit and made his way to the kitchen.

“Learn anything?” Callahan asked when he emerged into the foyer.

“Not very much,” Alex admitted. “I’m going to talk to Sister Gwen.”

Callahan turned and followed him into the kitchen, opening up his notebook. Sister Gwen was sitting at the little table where the brothers and sisters of the mission took their meals, wrapped in a blanket. She still had the mug of tea in her hands and her trembling had subsided.

“Alex,” she said when she saw him. “You have to help us.” Her voice was distant but firm.

“I will, Sister,” he said, sitting down next to her. “Tell me what happened after I left last night.”

She took a slow breath and looked up into Alex’s eyes. He saw fear there, and pain — two things of which he thought the old nun incapable.

“We just opened the doors for dinner,” she said in a small voice. “I get tired helping with the cooking, so Father … Father Clementine lets me take a nap in my room until nine, when he holds the evening service for the poor. The bells wake me up, but…” Tears welled up in her eyes and she squeezed them shut, sending the water trailing down her cheeks. “But there weren’t any bells. I didn’t wake up till after two in the morning.”

“Then what happened?” Alex coaxed her.

“I went downstairs to make sure the front door was locked, but it was wide open. There wasn’t anyone at the desk, so I went to see Father Clementine, but his room was empty. I looked, but no one was in their rooms. I came back down here to check the Great Hall but the doors were locked.”

“Is that unusual?” Callahan asked.

“No.” Sister Gwen shook her head. “Anyone who needs a place to sleep can stay here, but we lock them in.”

“A few years ago, one of the vagrants got up in the middle of the night and attacked a nun,” Alex explained. “They lock the doors ever since.”

“Since I couldn’t find Father Clementine, I went and got the spare key from his office. When I came down and opened the door…” She shook her head as if trying to find the words. “Everyone was in the Great Hall.” She looked pleadingly up into Alex’s eyes. “They were all dead. “ She looked down at the mug in her hands. “All dead.”

Alex clenched his fists, feeling the nails digging into his palms. He’d always seen Sister Gwen as a paragon of strength and faith. To see her like this made him want to beat someone soundly.

“I promise you, Sister Gwen,” Alex said, managing to hide the rage in his voice. “I’m going to find out what happened here, and if someone did this, I’m gong to make them suffer for it.”

She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly clear, her old strength suddenly back. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” she said, her voice full of its old power. “If someone did this, you prove it, and you give them to the police, you understand?”

“I do,” Alex lied with a nod, and he could feel the weight of the semi-automatic pistol under his jacket. He would find whoever did this, and when he did, he wouldn’t bother the police.

He looked up to find Callahan watching him intently. It was obvious from his face that he knew what Alex had been thinking.

“What now?” he said.

“I have to check something,” Alex said, more to himself. “Take care of her,” he told the policewoman.

Alex left the kitchen and went to the big doors that separated the Great Hall from the foyer. He turned his back to the door and walked across the narrow foyer to the cast iron radiator on the opposite wall. A boiler in the basement heated the building and the radiator. It had been modified to use enchanted boiler stones to heat the water, but the rest of the system still worked normally. Being careful not to burn his hand, Alex felt around under the hot iron fixture, until he found what he sought.