I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and peered into the darkness beyond the wall. Once in Egypt I had been in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings when the lights failed. I remember standing in that small space, engulfed not just in darkness, but in a total absence of light. I had felt as if the world had been snuffed out. As I tried to tease something from the void beyond the fence, that feeling returned. What held darker secrets? The pharaoh?s tomb or the blackness inside that wall?

The X marks something. It?s in there. Go.

I retraced my steps to the corner and down the fence to the side gate. How could I disengage the lock? I was playing the light over the metal bars, searching for an answer, when lightning lit the scene like a camera flash. I smelled ozone in the air and felt a tingling in my scalp and hands. In the brief burst of light I spied a sign to the right of the gates.

By the flashlight beam it looked to be a small metal plaque bolted to the bars. Though rusted and obscured, the message was clear. Entr #233;e interdite. Entrance forbidden. Keep out. I held the light close and tried to make out the smaller print below. Something de Montreal. It looked like Archduke. Archduke de Montreal? I didn?t think there was one.

I peered at a tiny circle below the writing. Gently, I dislodged some rust with my thumbnail. An emblem began to appear, resembling a crest or coat of arms that looked vaguely familiar. Then it hit me. Archdiocese. Archdiocese of Montreal. Of course. This was church property, probably an abandoned convent or monastery. Quebec was peppered with them.

Okay, Brennan, you?re Catholic. Protected on church property. Full-court press. Where were these clich #233;s coming from? Pumping out with the rushes of adrenaline that alternated with the trembling apprehension.

I stuck the flashlight into my jeans, took the chain in my right hand, and grasped a rusty metal upright with my left. I was about to yank, but there was no resistance. Link by link the chain slithered through the bars, looping over my wrist like a snake coiling onto a branch. I let go of the gate and reeled in the chain with both hands. It didn?t come loose completely, but stopped when the padlock wedged between the bars. I looked at it in disbelief. It was hooked through the last link, but the prongs had been left unclasped.

I unhooked the lock, pulled the rest of the chain through the bars, and stared at them both. The wind had stopped during my labors, leaving an unsettling hush. The quiet pounded on my ears.

I looped the chain over the right gate, and pulled the left one toward me. The hinges seemed to scream in the void left by the wind. No other sound breached the silence. No frogs. No crickets. No distant train whistles. It was as if the universe were holding its breath, awaiting the storm?s next move.

The gate moved grudgingly and I passed through, easing it closed behind me. I followed a roadbed, my shoes making soft crunching sounds on the gravel. I kept the light roving from the road to the thicket of trees on each side. After ten yards I stopped and directed the beam upward. The branches, ominously still, were interlaced in an arch above my head.

Here?s the church. Here?s the steeple. Great. My mind had switched to children?s rhymes. I was shivering from tension and wound up with enough energy to repaint the Pentagon. You?re losing it, Brennan, I warned myself. Think about Claudel. No. Think about Gagnon and Trottier and Adkins.

I turned to my right and swept the beam as far as it would reach, allowing it to linger briefly on each of the trees bordering the road. They marched along in endless rank. When I did the same on my left, I thought I saw a narrow break about ten yards up.

I kept the beam focused on that spot and crept forward. What looked like a gap wasn?t. The trees didn?t break rank, yet the place looked different somehow, disturbed. Then it struck me. It wasn?t the trees, it was the underbrush. The ground cover was sparse and patchy, and the vines and creepers looked stunted compared with those nearby. Like a clearing partly overgrown again.

They?re younger, I thought. More recent. I shone the light in all directions. The undersized vegetation seemed to flow in a narrow strip, like a stream meandering through the trees. Or a path. I gripped the flashlight tighter and followed the diversion. As I took my first step, the storm broke.

The steady drizzle gave way to a sudden torrent, and the trees burst into motion, leaping and diving like a thousand kites. Lightning flashed and thunder responded, over and over, like demon creatures seeking each other. Snap. Where are you? Boom. Over here. The wind returned with full fury, driving the water sideways.

Water soaked my clothes and plastered my hair to my head. It streamed down my face, blurred my vision, and stung the abrasion on my cheek. Blinking, I tucked some loose hair behind my ears and ran a hand over my eyes. I pulled out a shirttail and held it over the flashlight to try to keep the water from getting inside the casing.

Hunching my shoulders, I edged up the path, oblivious of everything beyond the ten-foot diameter of my pale yellow beacon. I swung the beam back and forth across the path, allowing it to probe the woods on either side, like a dog on a leash, sniffing and poking its way along.

In about fifty feet I spotted it. Looking back, I realize that an instant synapse occurred, that in a nanosecond my brain linked the visual input of the moment to a past experience recently stored. At some level of awareness I knew what I was seeing before my conscious mind developed the picture.

As I closed in and the beam teased its find from the covering darkness, recognition broke the surface. I could taste my stomach contents in my throat.

In the wobbling shaft of light I saw a brown plastic garbage bag poking through the dirt and leaves, its open end twisted and tied back unto itself. The knot rose from the earth like a sea lion surfacing for air.

I watched rain pound down on the bag and the surrounding soil. The water nibbled at the edges of the shallow burial, turning the dirt to mud and slowly but persistently uncovering the hole. I could feel a weakness at the back of my knees as more of the bag was exposed.

A flash of lightning snapped me out of my reverie. I jumped more than stepped toward the bag, and bent down to examine it. Tucking the flashlight back into my jeans, I grabbed the knotted end of the bag and pulled. It was still buried too deep to budge. I tried to undo the knot, but my wet fingers got a poor grip on wet plastic. It wouldn?t give. I placed my nose close to the sealed opening and inhaled. Mud and plastic. No other smell.

I made a small perforation in the bag with my thumbnail and sniffed again. Though faint, the odor was identifiable. The sweet, fetid smell of rotted flesh and damp bone. Before I could decide on flight or fury, a twig snapped and I sensed movement behind me. As I tried to leap sideways, lightning flashed inside my head, sending me plunging back into that pharaoh?s tomb.