The Gathering Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

specifically to a past manifestation of the Okulam. Without The Gospel of Shadows , it was all they had to go on.
    Bishop Gagnon crossed the room and laid a hand on Father Jack’s shoulder. There was no strength in the old man’s grasp and barely any weight to his touch. It was as though the Bishop were little more than a ghost, haunting Father Jack.
    “Not to put any pressure on you, my friend,” the old man said, and now the wrathful glare was replaced by a kind, tired smile.
    “Of course not,” Father Jack replied with a nervous chuckle. Then he collected himself, took a deep breath, and met the Bishop’s gaze again. “All right, Michel. Time to get back to work, I suppose.”
    “I trust your intuition, Jack. Your mind. You’ll work it out.”
    “What if I don’t?”
    “Then the President will have to firebomb the whole town to keep the Okulam from spreading.”
    “But no pressure,” Father Jack whispered.
    Bishop Gagnon gazed at him a moment longer and then turned to walk from the office. Father Jack slid into his chair, eyes going once more to the charred manuscript, but abruptly he turned and called after the Bishop.
    The old man paused at the door and turned to face him.
    “I’ll get to the bottom of this, Michel. I will work it out. But I want you to think very carefully about your stance on my request to speak to the mage. If you’d let me speak to him before . . .”
    Bishop Gagnon scowled. Father Jack had not finished his last sentence, but the old man knew what he had been about to say.
    “My policy regarding the man you call the mage is costing lives, is that what you’re telling me, Father?”
    The priest stared at him. “Yes. It is.”
    The Bishop faltered, dropped his gaze, and Father Jack could see the old man’s throat moving as he swallowed. At length the Bishop glanced up at him again.
    “You know who he is, this man? What he is? What he’s responsible for?”
    Father Jack would not look away. “I know he may well be the only reason the darkness has not already swallowed the world.”
    A kind of bark issued from the old man’s throat that might have been laughter. “If the darkness does ‘swallow the world,’ as you put it, he’ll be the man to blame.”
    The priest took off his glasses once more and rubbed at his tired eyes. “With all due respect—”
    “To hell with your respect,” the Bishop snapped, hatred and revulsion in his voice. Not for the priest, Father Jack knew that, but for the mage, and for the truth the old man was being forced to face. His stubbornness had already cost so many lives.
    “Fine,” Bishop Gagnon said. “You make sense of those pages, Jack. When the situation in Hidalgo is dealt with, you have my permission to approach the mage. For all the good it will do you. Perhaps meeting him in person will help you realize that this ‘man’ is not the noble warrior you think him to be.
    “Peter Octavian is a monster.”

 

2
    Blood red roses.
    Peter Octavian took a step back from his canvas and narrowed his eyes as he studied the painting upon which he had toiled for the past three days; a single tree in the gardens of Constantinople, nightingales roosting in its branches. And beneath it, a tangle of wild rose bushes that seemed set to strangle the trunk of that lone tree.
    He frowned deeply as he stared at those roses. Blood red, yes, but that was wrong. The color was all wrong but at first he could not decide how to fix it. Peter closed his eyes, his mind skipping back across centuries to another springtime, to a city under siege, and he could still see those roses as clearly as if he had walked among them yesterday. He could hear the nightingales sing and feel the breeze, and beneath the overriding odor of ox dung, he could still catch the lingering scent of those roses.
    His eyes opened and Octavian stared at the painting again. With a slow nod, he moved toward the easel, palette in his left hand. He dipped his brush into a small glob of black