"Sanctuary!" he cried, his voice rough and hoass, as though it hadn't been used in a long time. "In God's name, sanctuary!"

For a long moment there was only silence, then I heard slow, steady footsteps approaching the church from outside. Measured, unhurried footsteps. The man in black heard them too, flinching at the sound, but he wouldn't look back; his mutilated face was fixed desperately on the altar. The footsteps stopped, just at the doorway to the church. A slow wind blew in from the night, gusting heavily down the aisle like someone breathing. The candles nearest the door guttered and went out. The wind reached me, even in my shadows, and slapped against my face, hot and sweaty like fever in the night. It smelled of attar, the perfume crushed out of roses, but sick and heavy, almost overpowering. The man in black whimpered before the altar. He tried to say sanctuary again, but he couldn't get his voice to work.

Another voice answered him, from the darkness beyond the church's doorway. Harsh and menacing, and yet soft and slow as bitter treacle, it sounded like several voices whispering together, in subtle harmonies that grated on the soul like fingernails drawn down a blackboard. It wasn't a human voice. It was both more and less than human.

"There is no sanctuary, here or anywhere, for such as you," it said, and the man in black trembled to hear it. "There is nowhere you can run where we cannot follow. Nowhere you can hide where we cannot find you. Give back what you have taken."