Blood-Born

Chapter XVIII - Part 2

Outside North Salem, Kentucky

Franklin Tombs was not amused when he stepped into the large two steeple church where he had been directed by the urgent cable only to have found that there were preparations under way for an upcoming funeral.

He had decided there was nothing left for him to pursue on his current investigation anyway, but this diversion was getting stranger by the minute.

A polished coffin lay beneath the center alter as a woman in black looked on from the front pew.

The dead man's widow, he surmised from the black lace and long strands of curled black hair neatly gathered that ran down the center of her back beneath a black bow.

Otherwise the church appeared empty, which also seemed odd given the close knit communities that he had witnessed while he had been through the state.

He would have expected the church to have been half full maybe, but empty not so much.

"Hrmph...!" An irritated voice exclaimed, as a dark haired preacher moved past only to stop and turn to shoo him toward the choir loft steps with one hand before he resumed his path up the aisle.

Guilt of some sort caused Tombs to remove his hat while the big man made his way up and around to the loft.

Another man sat alone while he appeared to watch the church activities below.

He wore a brown suit that matched his short hair exactly as the cable had suggested that he would, right down the mole on his right cheek.

Without an exact idea of what he was expected to do next, Tombs moved to join the man, while having left adequate space between them to appear as if they were just neighbors in passing.

The man reached into his vest pocket and removed a long envelope which he set on the seat of the pew between them.

"John Davis." He introduced himself without having offered to shake hands. "You appear to be the Franklin Tombs that everyone has told me about."

His smile appeared genuine with just a hint of mischief.

"Everyone...?" Tombs inquired as he picked up the envelope and placed it in his own vest pocket without having opened it.

The man turned back to the activities below.

"When not cavorting with agents of a service that doesn't really exist ... doing things that I can neither confirm nor deny ... I tend to stick to selling bibles and other publications to any and all who may be interested, including churches or those that support them."

Tombs simply smiled and shook his head.

"It's not every day that I get an urgent summons to meet someone during a funeral on such short notice." he mused.

"Oh, it's not..." The other man replied with a quiet laugh, "... an actual funeral ... Father Thomas arranged all of this so that we could meet and not seem as out of place as we might have otherwise appeared in a more public space."

"And the urgency...?"

"You'd have to ask her." Davis replied with a nod toward the woman in the front pew. "I was approached by her to contact you directly and get that envelope to you as soon as possible."

Tombs looked from the woman's back up to the large cross with the usual bloody depiction of Christ on the cross that hung from the wall at the front of the church.

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"Just that it came from a friend of the church who would rather remain anonymous to avoid possible persecution."