Free Embrace the Night by Amanda Ashley

asleep.
Chapter Eight
    With the power of his mind, Gabriel willed Sara to sleep throughout the next day.
    He rose with the onset of dusk. Changed his clothes. Left the catacombs, bound for the orphanage.
    Dissolving into mist, he entered the building that had been Sara's home for the past thirteen years. In all that time, he had never ventured into any room but hers. The acrid smell of smoke hung over the house.
    He moved down the hallway, peering into the kitchen, the parlor. A large room filled with books and toys, easels and paints, was located at the end of the hallway. Inside, two nuns watched over a dozen children engaged in a variety of activities.
    Instinctively, he passed by the chapel, and the small rooms where the nuns slept.
    The upstairs was mostly bedrooms. The room above Sara's was only a blackened shell. Part of the floor had burned away; he could see where the flames had burned their way down the wall behind Sara's bed. It was a miracle she had survived, that she hadn't been burned even worse than she was.
    He found several of the nuns gathered together in a small upstairs room, quietly discussing the fire, and the condition of one of the children who had been badly burned. He heard Sara's name mentioned several times.
    And then Sister Mary Josepha entered the room.
    "I spoke to Father Andre," she said. "He thinks I imagined the whole thing. But I didn't! I know what I saw." Tears welled in the old nun's eyes. "He took Sara Jayne," she said, her voice filled with despair. "That monster took her."
    "Perhaps we should notify the police," one of the nuns suggested.
    "What could they do against such evil?" Sister Mary Josepha shook her head. "They probably wouldn't believe me any more than the good father did."
    "We must do something," another nun said.
    "But what?" Sister Mary Josepha shook her head again. "I was powerless against him." She clutched the cross that dangled from a braided rope around her waist. "I've never felt such evil. Oh, my poor Sara, to be at that fiend's mercy."
     
    An hour later, he entered the monastery. He freed Sara's mind from sleep as he locked the door behind him.
    She was yawning when he entered the room.
    Sara smiled at him uncertainly. "Where have you been?" she asked as he removed his cloak.
    "I went to the orphanage," Gabriel replied, dropping his cloak on the foot of the bed. "How do you feel?"
    "All right." She glanced away, afraid to ask questions, afraid of the answers.
    "None of the sisters was badly hurt," Gabriel said, answering the unspoken question in Sara's eyes. "One child was badly burned. One died."
    "Who?"
    "I didn't ask her name."
    Sara closed her eyes, murmuring a silent prayer for the child's soul, giving thanks that no other lives had been lost.
    "Sara?"
    She looked up at him through eyes shiny with unshed tears, grateful that the nuns who had cared for her had been spared.
    "Are you all right?"
    She nodded, blinking back her tears. "Does Sister Mary Josepha know where I am?"
    Gabriel shook his head. "No, I didn't have a chance to speak to her. I learned of the fire from someone else. No one seems to know how it started."
    "Do you think I could send her a message and let her know I'm all right?"
    "If you wish."
    "You never told me why you brought me here."
    "Does it matter?"
    She blinked up at him, confused by the peculiar light in his eyes, by the sudden warmth that suffused her. Of course it didn't matter, she thought; she'd rather be here, with him, than anywhere else.
    "No, but…" She plucked nervously at the bed-clothes. "I can't believe I slept the whole day."
    "You needed the rest."
    She made a soft sound of assent. "And now I need to… you know."
    With a nod, he carried her into the monk's cell, waiting in the corridor while she relieved herself. It would be so easy, he thought, so easy to mold her mind to his way of thinking, to make her long to stay with him always. He could arrange it so she would be content to sleep days so that she might spend