Gabriel's Ghost Read Online Free PDF

Their telepathy, their Ragkiril mind talents, depended on eye contact with their victims. With their own kind, it was their primary means of communication.
    Megan Sybil Baker - 19
    I saw the cane, grasped by six fingers. And let the dagger wrap itself around my wrist. He couldn’t hurt me. He own kind wanted him dead. Oddly, I felt a small pang of kinship with him. I knew what it was like to be rejected by people who were supposed to love you.
    “We were just having a nice cup of tea.” Drogue sounded immensely relieved. “Please, all, sit and join us?”
    I noticed, not for the first time, the spotlessness of his kitchen. The blood bath my dagger could have created would have been hell to clean up.
    * * *
    His name was Frayne Ackravaro Ren Elt. Sully performed the introduction. Ren was his birth name, Elt the name of his grandmother. Frayne, his mother and Ackravaro, his clan-of-region.
    He answered to Ren.
    In spite of his size, and his blindness, he moved gracefully to the round table, selected a chair, sat. Drogue handed out fresh cups of tea.
    I sat across from him, with Sully on my left, and tried to make sense of this. I’d never known Englarians to associate with Stolorths. They were even more fanatically opposed to telepaths than the Empire was.
    “Again, I apologize, Captain Bergren. I sensed no disquiet in your presence—”
    “How can you sense if you’re blind?” My caution resurfaced. My Non-Human Cultures class had been known to be wrong.
    “My blindness negates those aspects you fear, my mind-speech with my people. As well as any threat you may feel I present to yours. But my empathic abilities remain.”
    “And are put to use through prayer and meditation, as taught by Abbot Eng,” Drogue added. “Brother Ren is a fine example of the results of studying the purity of thought. His blindness, through the grace of the Abbot, has become a gift.”
    My academy class was very wrong. Englarians didn’t view all Stolorths as soul-stealers. And blind Stolorths did survive to adulthood.
    “So you sensed my presence? As, what?”
    “Human female, inquisitive variety.” Sully raised his cup as if in mock salute. “Drink up. We have a shuttle to catch.”
    “We?” I wasn’t questioning Sully’s participation. I realized for the first time there were to be two more: Drogue and Ren. The latter still worried me but I understood the pressures of a flight schedule.
    “We.” Sully laid a stack of ID cards on the table, spread them with the flair of a dealer in a casino.
    Apt, I thought. We were placing bets with our lives.
    Four cards, all bearing the crossed arch symbol of the Englarian clergy. Drogue picked them up, one by one, examined them.
    I finished my tea and stood, damning Sully for not telling me of his plans.
    Drogue ushered me to a back room, complete with a lavatory and a wide couch. A wooden-fronted closet was half open. Tan-gray tunics and robes filled it. I had a feeling I was to be Brother Chaz.
    Megan Sybil Baker - 20
    “We have you logged as Sister Berri.” Drogue rifled through the closet, pulled out a cowled robe, and held it up against me. If I had to run for it, I’d trip, fall on my face. But other than that, it was fine.
    A shift-like gown went underneath. My boots I could keep. My clothing and jacket Drogue said to leave on the couch. It would be bundled with the luggage on the shuttle.
    I found a wide-toothed comb on a dresser, ran it briskly through my hair while I stood in front of a large mirror. The room stared back at me in reverse. The arched doorway was directly behind me. On one wall, there was a wooden replica of the arch-and-stave. On the other was an artist’s rendering of Abbot Eng, stave raised, about to kill a soul-stealer. It was one of the more common depictions, showing the imaginary demon in its true form, wings splayed wide. Legends claimed that soul-stealers were not only telepaths, but shape-shifters that could hide their true form and masquerade as