Zen and the Art of Vampires Read Online Free PDF Page B

the man who continued to urge me up the street. “Isn’t that the name of the woods outside of the town? The place with the ruins?”
    â€œWoods?” His blond brows pulled together. “I do not understand. Are you testing me?”
    I dug my heels in and stopped him a second time. He faced me with a puzzled expression, but I could see no signs of hostility or, worse, madness. He had to have me confused with someone else. “I’m sorry, Mattias, but I really do think you have the wrong person. I do not understand half of what you are saying.”
    â€œIt is I who am sorry. My English is not very good.”
    â€œYour English is better than mine. I meant you’re misinterpreting what I’m saying, and I haven’t a clue about your responses. For example, I don’t know where you’re taking me.”
    â€œHere,” he said, waving a hand at a building ahead of us. It was a small church made of grey stone that sat at the top of the street.
    I relaxed a smidgen at the sight of it, feeling that Mattias was no threat despite his confusion. “Is that your church?”
    â€œYes. We will go in now.”
    I hesitated, trying to figure out how to get through to him that I wasn’t the person he thought I was.
    â€œIt is all right,” he said, taking my hand and tugging me up the steps to the church door. “I am the sacristan. I am the sun.”
    â€œThe son of who?” I asked, eyeing the church carefully. It looked perfectly normal, not at all out of the ordinary.
    â€œNot ‘who’ . . . the sun. You know, the sun in the sky?” he said, pointing upward.
    â€œOh, the sun. You . . . er . . . you think you’re the sun?”
    â€œYes.”
    I switched my examination from the church to the man who was leading me into it. He still looked sane, but if he thought he was the sun, perhaps it would be wiser to let him think I was going along with his claims until I could slip away.
    The church did much to reassure my nerves. It, too, looked perfectly ordinary, and was pretty much as I had expected from my visits to other ancient Icelandic churches—a small anteroom that opened out into the main part of the church, narrow aisles running down the middle and on either side of two banks of pews. At the far end stood the altar. It wasn’t until I was halfway down the aisle that I realized that something was wrong. The church was decorated with the usual crosses and symbols of Christianity, but over these had been thrown small black cloths embroidered with silver crescent moons.
    â€œUh-oh,” I said, squirming out of Mattias’s grip. Had I stumbled onto some strange cult? Were there strange cults in Iceland? I had thought they were pagans before Christianity swept through Scandinavia—perhaps this was a pagan cult? “I think this is far enough.”
    â€œMattias?” A woman called out from the other end of the church, emerging from a room behind the altar. She was middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair, and eyes that practically snapped as she bustled down the aisle toward us. She continued in what I assumed was Icelandic.
    â€œKristjana, I bring the Zorya,” Mattias interrupted her. “She is English.”
    â€œAmerican, actually, although my name isn’t Zorya. It’s Pia, and I’m really terribly sorry to intrude, but I think Mattias has me mixed up with someone else,” I explained to the woman. She looked perfectly normal, perfectly sane and unremarkable, kind of a plump grandmotherly figure. All but her eyes, that is.
    Those intense dark eyes examined me for a moment before she asked Mattias a question.
    â€œI am sure,” he answered. “She bears the stone.”
    â€œYou mean this?” I asked, holding up the silk bookmark.
    Kristjana’s eyes widened for a moment, then she nodded. “You are very welcome to our sanctuary, Zorya.”
    â€œAhh, a light begins to