The Holy Assassin by Luis Miguel Rocha

Author:Luis Miguel Rocha [Rocha, Luis Miguel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Suspense
ISBN: 9780141959375
Google: uWRClGmizXAC
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2010-07-07T23:00:00+00:00

38

‘Good Lord, who could it be at this hour?’ protested the poor sister who had to dress as quickly as possible to attend the impatient person who’d been knocking insistently at the door of the Convent of the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the last five minutes. She even crossed herself when, still in bed, she looked at the clock and saw that it was ten minutes before five in the morning, fifty-five minutes before she’d get up for the first prayers before breakfast.

Whoever it was would have to listen to her reprimand since it was highly discourteous to disturb the sleep of the sisters, even more so when the evening before they’d had a night procession with candles in honor of Our Lady. The Marian Sanctuary stood some hundreds of feet from here, and today thousands of pilgrims were expected to come to show their devotion to the Virgin and her fruit conceived without sin.

The sister descended the stairs in a bad mood. It was the Mother Superior’s orders to open the door at any time. All the devout faithful had the right to a friendly word, meal, or refuge in case of necessity. But it wasn’t the Mother who had to get up at this hour and open the door, exposed to assault by some vagrant. No, she slept on an upper floor and said her first prayer of the day in the comfort of her room, coming down only for breakfast to give the orders of the day, which were always the same as every other day.

The sister got to the door, dressed in the pure blue robe of her order with a white head scarf she arranged to appear presentable to whoever was there. She opened a small square wicket in the door. She had to get up on a small box that once held fruit in order to reach the height of the opening, a little narrower than her head.

‘Who’s there?’ she asked in a disagreeable voice to discourage any levity on the part of whoever was there on the other side of the door.

‘Good evening,’ she heard a man say. ‘Pardon my showing up at such a late hour,’ he began to excuse himself in a gentle voice. ‘I meant to arrive sooner, but I was delayed.’

‘Who is the gentleman?’ The sister strained her eyes to make out the man who was speaking.

‘I’m Father Marius Ferris. I was planning to arrive last night to sleep under the sanctified roof of this convent.’

The sister was moved upon hearing his name and changed her attitude completely.

‘Marius Ferris? Escrivá’s disciple? My God!’

The prelate didn’t see the sister jump down from the fruit box or knock it out of the way with a well-aimed kick. He did hear all the sounds that accompanied these actions as well as the key working vigorously in the solid lock to reveal the friendly sister, a foot shorter than he thought, as soon as the door opened. Not everything is as it appears, thought the white-haired man whom the fawning sister invited to enter the convent.

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