Blind Date

“Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…” He grinned, his bright eyes glittering with humor. She shook her head but laughed anyway. “Just kidding. Believe it or not, this place used to be a monastery.”

“From monastery to nightclub?” She wrinkled her nose at the long, warehouse-like side of the brick building. “That’s a stretch.”

“Well, not so far as you’d think,” he countered. “The monks who worked here made beer and wine and other various alcoholic beverages.”

Annie raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that sort of a conflict of interests for monks?”

“Nah.” Herman waved her question away. “Alcohol has rarely been off-limits in religion. Sex? Yes. Getting drunk? Not so much. Most religions throughout history have used alcohol, actually, in their rituals. You know, the whole bread and wine routine? The Greeks had Dionysus-one whole god devoted entirely to alcohol! Besides, haven’t you ever met an Irish Catholic priest?”

“Okay. I guess you have a point,” she admitted with a smile. “So these monks made booze and got ritually sloshed? Not a bad setup, when you think about it. What happened to them?”

“This place was a monastery and a distillery back before the Revolutionary War,” he explained. “But I think the Order of Gabriel went underground some time in the eighteen-hundreds.”

“The Order of Gabriel.” She repeated the words as they moved up together in line. Standing next to him was actually more effective in keeping her warm than his coat was. And she was grateful for his presence. “I’ve never heard of it. Wasn’t Gabriel the Angel of Death?”

“Yes.” Herman nodded, smiling as she edged a little closer to him in the chilly night air. “In some Christian doctrine, he was so called. He was also known as the Spirit of Truth.”

“Interesting…what happened to them? The monks, I mean?” Annie was curious, although she was a little incredulous at the turn their conversation had taken.

Herman shrugged. “The monastery closed down. During prohibition, the distillery became a factory. Styx bought it ten years ago and turned it into an after-hours club. As for the Order of Gabriel, they never disbanded. Rumor has it that they continue to protect the secret of life and death to this day, although no one knows where the sect is located anymore.”

“The secret of life and death?” Annie blinked up at him. “They protected the secret of life and death?”

He nodded, smiling at the stunned look on her face. “What else would the Order of Gabriel protect?”

“Why do I feel like I’ve just been plopped down into the middle of the Da Vinci Code?” she murmured, shaking her head and glancing toward the ever-nearing door with a little laugh. She spoke mostly to herself. “First bees and now secret monastic sects…I can’t imagine what’s next.”

“Bees?” He cocked his head at her, his smile bemused.

“Never mind.” It was Annie’s turn to wave his question away. “It’s a long story. So tell me, Herman…what is the secret of life and death?”

“Do you really want to know?” His question was casual, but his eyes were very serious and she found herself transfixed by his steady gaze.

Finally, she nodded. “I think I need to know.”

Leaning in to her, his whisper warmed her ear. “The secret is…death is not the end.”

Annie let his words sink in, trying to comprehend the fullness of them, and found that she couldn’t. Instead, she turned and asked him, “How do you know all of this?”

“Let’s just say I’m a bit of a trivia buff.” He winked and crossed his arms and Annie again glimpsed a fuller view of the black tattoo on his upper arm. She lifted the sleeve of his shirt slightly to reveal several strange characters that wrapped around his upper arm:???????.

Annie raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I bet you want to know what it says?”

She nodded, studying the tattoo. “Is it Greek?”

“It’s all Greek to me.” He winked. Leaning close, he whispered, “It says…Gabriel.”

“Why am I not surprised?” She smiled up at him. “Just a bit of a history buff, huh?”

“Hey, would you look at that! A lucky penny!” Herman stooped to pick it up off the ground. “What’s that old saying?”

Annie murmured it, a rhyme right out of childhood. “See a penny, pick it up, and all the day, you’ll have good luck?”

“That’s it!” He held the penny up to the light. It gleamed as he turned it from side to side. “Did you know there’s more to that saying?”

“No.” Annie shook her head and smiled. “But I bet you know it.”

He beamed. “I do! ‘See a penny, let it lay, and bad luck you’ll have all day.’”

“Good thing I’m not superstitious.” She pulled his coat around her, shivering and still somehow feeling cold, even though her body was warm enough now. “I don’t believe in black cats or broken mirrors or lucky pennies…or boozehound monks who protect the secret of life and death, for that matter.” Herman gave her a lop-sided smile. “My mother used to have another saying.”

“What’s that?”