Excerpt: The Wey of Dolor

Frank led the way, his hand jammed in the pocket of his jacket, with Albreda following arm-in-arm with Tommy, who seemed content to tuck his cane under his arm and let her lead him.

"...big jagged bit of metal," Tommy was telling Albreda, who hung on every word, "came ripping across, just zip, like that. Never saw it coming. Or going," he added, and laughed. "Next thing I knew I was waking up to a nurse tellin' me I'd had a bit of a nose job, and the lights would always be out."

"But you've always been dim," said Frank over his shoulder.

"Pay no attention to that one," said Tommy to Albreda, "he's jealous of my natural charm."

"He can be mean," Albreda agreed.

"Oh, for the love of--you've known me all of three hours."

"Then our Albreda is a fine judge of character," said Tommy.

"Har har," said Frank. "We're here."

The ruins of St. Aubrey's looked even sadder in the daylight than they had at night. Shards of stained glass glinted from the pitted floor. The crater, partially hidden in shadow the night before, was a stark hole in the tattered ground.

"How is it?" said Tommy.

"Blown to pieces," said Frank.

Tommy whistled. "Shame. Used to be a fine little place."

Albreda let go of him and began to pick her way through the rubble toward the crater.

Frank leapt after her. "Hey! Don't go there, you'll kill yourself."

Tommy, on the sidewalk, sniffed and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Don't mind me," he called after them, rolling back on his heels. "I'll just wait here then. Here on the sidewalk. All by myself."

Albreda made it to the edge of the crater before Frank caught up with her. He grabbed her arm. "What do you think you're doing, running around in here? Trying to get hurt? You could--you could get lockjaw."

"I won't get hurt," she said. "Please let me go."

The "please" startled Frank. He let her go.

"I was down there," she said, pointing to the staircase. "I remember coming out of it. I have to see--" And she took off again, with Frank in resigned pursuit.

The staircase had been cleared off by then by the rescue crews, and a streak of blood on the staircase marked where Jones's body had been brought. Albreda bent to the red stain, frowning. Spreading her arms wide to keep her balance, she crept down the shallow staircase into the dark under the church. Frank, brow furrowed, followed.

The sunlight didn't penetrate very far inside, but it went far enough to show a long, low room mostly filled with fallen rocks. Albreda laid her hand on a broken stone. "I was here."

Frank, crouching, followed. "How the hell did you get here?"

"They put me here," she said, moving past the broken stone, letting her hand trail along its length.

Frank peered into the hollow. Someone must have put out a significant effort to carve out a person-sized hole in a stone that size. "Who?"

"All of them."