Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

inside, but the glow of the floodlights illuminated the stained glass of the windows and filled the interior with a grainy twilight. It looked almost as if a thin mist hung in the air.
    Will crossed the nave and climbed up the small spiraling stone staircase to the caretaker’s office. He took a spare key for the crypt gate and a large iron key for the side door, probably the same two keys he’d returned in 1989 before taking back to the earth again.
    He slipped the keys into his pocket, descended the steps, then opened up one of the storerooms, the door to which stood nearby, almost opposite the door up into the organ loft. He took two large candles, not because he needed them just yet, but because it was better to take little and often—things were less likely to be missed that way.
    He closed the door and stood for a moment, looking down the length of the nave. It was very still, the air hazy with the strange light from the windows, but there was a troubling feel about the place and Will couldn’t quite work out what it was.
    He heard something behind him, nothing distinct, but turned casually to look in that direction and immediately jumped in shock. One of the large candles dropped from his hand and rolled across the floor.
    The woman who’d tried to throw him out earlier that day was standing just a couple of meters away, staring at him with an expression that was somehow blank and intense at the same time. But something was very wrong.
    It was the same woman in almost every regard—the short gray hair, the tweed skirt and knitted sweater, the neatly laced leather shoes—but her scent was different. He could smell people the same way people could smell freshly baked bread. Earlier, this woman had been unmistakably human, but that presence had gone.
    He didn’t have time to react. With a sudden burst of violence, the woman jumped into the air and he felt her foot hit him square in the chest with the power of ten men. He flew backwards and knew that he would land awkwardly, but was too amazed to try to save himself— no one had ever struck him before, certainly not with a force like this.
    He landed with a crunching thud on the floor, his head hitting the stone. He felt the blow without registering any pain, but it left him disorientated for a second. He’d heard the keys fall out of his pocket as he’d landed, but astonishingly, he still clutched the other candle in his hand.
    Will tried to sit up, but was once more briefly shocked by the realization that he’d been kicked maybe six meters down the nave. His attacker was walking towards him with a look of violent determination.
    She was almost upon him and he knew he wouldn’t have time to get to his feet. Instead, he stayed on his back and curled up into a ball, springing out of it as she reached him, planting both feet into her chest, just as she had done to him.
    He scrambled upright as she shot backwards, keeping his eyes on her all the time. He was unnerved, perhaps even afraid, for the first time in centuries because he didn’t know what this was. The woman flew through the air, as far as he had flown himself, but he’d kicked her at a slight angle and her body smashed into one of the stone pillars, bouncing off it before hitting the floor.
    At that second, in the moment of impact, something even stranger happened. Her entire body seemed to melt into itself, forming a dark void, and as it landed on the floor, it was no longer a woman, but a wiry black dog.
    He recognized it immediately as one of the dogs that had slept by Jex’s stove, but he no more believed the vision before him was really that dog than he believed it was the woman he’d seen earlier in the day. The dog shook itself as if pepper had been put on its nose, and transformed again, shifting through a state of liquid confusion and emerging once more as the woman.
    Whatever creature this was, Will couldn’t understand why it was so