Gabriel took a deep breath, the fingers of his right hand clawing at the itchy raven tattooed on his chest. The edges of the painted bird burned. His skin crawled. The combination of sensations made it feel as if the black bird were struggling to fly free of his body, hungry for a life of its own.
He felt sickness rising in his craw.
It wasn’t the claustrophobic stairway or the height. It was fear. Fear like an illness sweeping through his system. He felt lightheaded, dizzy. Part of him felt less real somehow. As if he had already passed over into the land of dead souls. His body was on the edge of betraying him as he reached out for the brass handle that would open the timber door to the church roof. He was shaking. The stone steps beneath his feet gently rocking like the sea lapping at the shore, threatening to tip him all the way back down to earth.
He wasn’t ready but it didn’t matter, nothing he could have done would have been able to prepare him for what waited on the other side of the door.