Chapter 49: The Hollow Sermon
The iron boundary pickets rattled against the stone mounting brackets as Genevieve Sterling threw the full weight of her mink coat against the gate, her boots slipping on the frozen ice sheet covering the apron. The blinding white glare from the xenon floodlights overhead bored into her face, washing out the shadows and revealing every smudge of black fireplace soot clinging to her skin. Her throat felt raw, scorched by the negative fifty degree draft, yet she forced her lungs to expand, drawing in the dry, razor sharp air that burned like fire.
She hooked her numb fingers around the frozen metal bars, squeezing with what little strength remained in her hands.
"Rowan!" she screamed, her voice breaking into a high, shrill wail that fought the eighty mile per
