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But Tiff didn’t move when Jordan shook her Her arm was stone cold

Jordan stared at her face Her eyes were closed Her color was ashen

More than ashen She looked as if her flesh had been bleached to white

"Tiff ?"

She shook the woain Tiff wasn’t just cold; she was icy Jordan sed, losing her breath

"Tiff?" she whispered again, this time her voice a plea

But she knew the truth

Tiff was dead

She lifted her newfound friend by the shoulders Then she gasped in horror, dropping the body and stepping back

Tiff’s head had remained on the altar It had been severed from her body Only the white shroud had hidden the decapitation

She found her breath and let out a bloodcurdling scream For an instant, she was transfixed in horror; a second later, the hu

She turned to flee, even starting to run for the open doorway before she saw that it was blocked

A man stood there

In black pants and a black leather jacket

Head shining golden in the candlelight

Ragnor Wulfsson

"Oh, you bastard!" she shrieked, stopping, lookingto throw A dusty hy it

"Jordan, no!" he called to her, but she was in a frenzy, beyond listening, far beyond hearing hi for it with such abandon that she scattered half the candles, and disrupted the body

She was dimly aware of the awful sound as the head hit the floor

She threw a candle, then another

"Jordan!" he shouted again, striding down the aisle "Jordan, damn you, watch out, co away

She had to get around hiain

And then, that was all she reainst the back of her head

The shadows definitely moved

They shot across her eyes

They formed a solid wall of blackness

And she careened into the dust-laden marble of the deconsecrated church

CHAPTER 16

"Jordan, Jordan "

At first, she was only di in her head

The sound of her nah the layers of darkness and she opened her eyes

Night

She heard a trickle of water She shifted her head slightly; skyrockets exploded They cleared; she looked around and focused on the face peering down into her own

Raphael

"There you are I don’t own a cell phone Stay still; I’ll get help" She stretched out a hand, grasping his ar consciousness and memory "No, don’t leavethat she was still under the spell of the conk on her head

"Jordan, this was not a good place to meet I don’t knohat you wanted, but?"

"The church, look in the church," she said desperately She realized exactly where she was?just feet away from the steps to the church She lay, half off, half on the silly little fountain She touched her face; her cheeks were damp Raphael must have used the water froo to the hospital?"

"No!" she said firo to the hospital Her skull could be fractured, for all she knew What had happened? She’d gotten there, gone into the church, seen the body

And then Ragnor

And then

"Wait!" she cried suddenly She didn’t kno she had gotten outside the church, but Raphael shouldn’t go in There was so inside

"What?"

"Tiff, Tiffis dead On the altar Someone cut her head off" He stared at her, then turned toward the church "No, don’t go in! You could be in danger, Raphael?" But he ignored her He was already heading toward the church The door still stood open

The boot scraper was back, next to the fountain, right where it had been In fact, the way she lay, it ht appear that she had tripped over it, fallen, and cracked her head

Raphael was already going up the steps She struggled to her feet, dizzy only for aShe tested her skull It seeers were still upon her scalp as she hurried forward after Raphael