And You Will Find Love

A bobby's shrill whistle startled her as it sounded from some distance away. "Here, now!" the rain-coated policeman called to her. "Don't go in there, Lass! It's not safe!"

Barbara did not need anyone to tell her that. But she had felt safe there, once, in Stephen's arms. Stephen who truly loved her and she loved in return, though their love was hopeless.

That love was lost to her now, and the churchyard was her last refuge, the last place she could try to escape the two men who were now after her. She knew what her fate would be if her pursuer, the handsome one, caught her. He'd take her, then probably kill her. How could he not take his revenge on her like that, after she had revealed his terrible secret, exposing it to the world?

The other -- No Face -- she did not know what he intended doing to her. She did not even know what she had done to cause him to stalk her so relentlessly, no matter where she went. She just knew that the very sight of him had frightened her for years. Yet, she did not know who he was; just that at times he was there, to watch her and wait his time for whatever he would do to her.

Ignoring the warning of the bobby, Barbara ran into the dark, damp churchyard. She wound her way among the tombstones that lay there, some of them broken and fallen, without having seen the sign to one side of the iron gate at its entrance that read:

DANGER

STAY OUT!

UNEXPLODED BOMB

Moments later, as she searched for a hiding place among the shadows of the churchyard, she heard footsteps behind her and muffled angry grumbling. Were they from one man, or two?, she wondered.

Hiding in the shadows under a densely vine-covered stone half-arch that had not completely crumbled in the courtyard, she desperately hoped it was the bobby's footsteps and grumbling she had heard, and he would be there to save her. But then she heard the high-pitched pulsating siren of an ambulance or fire engine. From her hiding place she saw that the bobby who had just entered the churchyard was now going back out of it, following the sound of the emergency vehicle's wailing.

Barbara's heart sank as she felt alone again. Alone except for the footsteps that meant one of her pursuers was close-by; perhaps they both were.

Anxious moments later, in the glow of a lamplight at the courtyard entrance where she had passed only moments before, she saw the man she feared would violate and then kill her. Tall, slender, incredibly handsome with thick blue-black hair and azure blue eyes, he wore a dark suit and, except for seeing his face in the lamp glow, he looked like a walking shadow.