Free Blood of Angels by Reed Arvin Page A

palm trees and Egyptian writing everywhere I look. The sign may say the Downtown Presbyterian Church, but I feel very much as though I were outdoors, in some kind of Egyptian temple.
    The sanctuary is large and tall, with the ceilings thirty feet above me. The front of the room, where the altar is located, is a good hundred feet away. I walk toward it, the ancient, wooden floor creaking under my steps. Over everything is the palpable sense of dust and abandonment. I can feel in the air that this is a place of the past. The days when this place was filled with the city’s elite are long forgotten. Now, I think, it’s a haven for Fiona Towns and her band of delusiacs.
    I’m halfway to the front of the sanctuary when I hear a sound behind me. I turn, and a disheveled man is standing fifteen feet away, watching me calmly, as though he materialized out of thin air. “You’re Thomas Dennehy,” he says. He’s five foot ten, with gray eyes, black hair, a heavy beard and mustache, inexpensively framed glasses, and a Ft. Lauderdale Beach ball cap pulled down over his eyes. He’s practically invisible, enveloped in a too-large, well-worn trench coat, which makes no sense considering it’s ninety degrees outside. An addict, I think. Hard to tell his age, he’s so weathered. Thirty? Forty-five?
    â€œYou’re Thomas Dennehy,” he repeats. “Assistant district attorney of Davidson County.” The man has the pungent odor of a man a long time between showers.
    â€œDo I know you?”
    He smiles. “No. I help out Fiona. Odd jobs. There’s no staff anymore, you know.”
    â€œBig place,” I say. “Must keep you busy.”
    He looks at me silently for a while. “I’m not the janitor,” he says.
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œIt’s OK, Skippy. Sum me up by the clothes. Never mind.” Behind the glasses his eyes are angry, glittery dots.
    â€œListen, can you tell me if Ms. Towns is around?” I ask. “I’d like to speak to her.”
    He points to a door behind the altar, his gray eyes not blinking. “There’s a hallway to the pastor’s study,” he says. “Just knock.”
    â€œThanks.” He turns and glides away to the other side of the church, then passes through a doorway and vanishes.
    The floor at the front of the church is covered with worn carpet the color of blood. At the altar, I pass a large Celtic cross sitting on an old wooden table. The cross is made of iron, and there are runes written on it in a language I don’t recognize. I press open the door behind the altar, stepping through into a dingy but ordinary hallway beyond. The floor is industrial tile, and although it’s clean, it’s well worn. Only half the lights are illuminated. Saving on electricity. Word is there’s practically nobody left in this money pit. I walk forward, not sure where I’m going. Along the wall there are pictures of previous congregations, dating all the way back to some monochrome pictures from the early nineteen hundreds. The early crowds are dour and grim, dressed in dark clothes and serious expressions. Things get better in the forties and fifties; the congregations look happier, and the flattop haircuts in some remind me of my father. He would have looked at home in that crowd, except for the Bibles. In the late sixties the crowds become noticeably smaller, and by 1980 what was once a thriving enterprise is down to less than a hundred souls. They have a determined look, but there’s no denying the grim realities of so few in such a large space. The last picture is in 1987. Almost twenty years ago. Apparently, it got too bad to want to preserve in a photograph.
    I go up three short steps, turn left, and confront a large door made of dark, polished oak. I reach out and rap on the door, making a sharp echo in the empty hallway. I hear a female voice. “Come in.”
    I open the door, and Fiona