Blood of the Lamb
Authors: Sam Cabot
Tags: #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural, #Thrillers, #General, #Speculative Fiction Suspense
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Copyright © 2013 by Carlos Dews and S. J. Rozan
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cabot, Sam.
Blood of the lamb : a novel of secrets / Sam Cabot.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60727-5
I. Title.
PS3603.A364B56 2013 2013015429
813'.6—dc23
Maps by Meighan Cavanaugh
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
April 21, 1992
He wasn’t prepared.
He never could have been. As the Fire rose in him he understood that.
They’d discussed it, so deeply and so long. The right thing, or wrong? She’d cautioned, counseled patience. But he knew what he wanted, knew with a certainty rock-solid and also rolling, cresting, an endless ocean wave. She wanted the same, he knew that, her restraint an attempt to protect him from irreparable error—if error it were. It wasn’t, he was sure: the reverse, it was the choice that could join them together, give each to the other in ways beyond, even, the love and the bond they already shared.
They decided; and once
whether
was behind them,
when
and
where
became simple. Now: this soft spring dusk, the sky fading from violet to onyx as it had the night she’d first revealed to him that this was possible. Here: in the parlor of her ancient home, a tower that had stood centuries upon this spot and watched Rome grow around it, watched the world change.
In the dark and silent room she lit no lamps, put on no music. The streetlight’s distant gleam, footsteps in the piazza below: “It’s enough,” she whispered. They’d had wine, velvety Barbaresco, but now the wineglasses stood forgotten. On a cloth of cobalt silk spread across an intricate carpet, she leaned over him, the pale streaks in her long black hair glittering in the dim light. Silver to his gold, as her green eyes were ocean to his sky. She paused for a moment, but she didn’t ask if he was sure; the time for that had passed. She brushed his lips once with hers. He was seized, suddenly, with a yearning to wrap his arms tight around her, to press her body against his, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t move.