After almost all the life had run out of the sanctuary, Gabriel darted into his office. He grabbed Molly with one hand and Eliot with the other and ran for the narthex door. The flames curled along the sanctuary walls. The room was hot and filling with bitter smoke.
Gabriel glanced up at the stained glass image of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac’s face was growing longer and more grotesque in the heat. The boy’s eye began to droop down like a Dalí watch, his mouth a growing circle of darkness and silent anguish.
Gabriel forced himself to look away. He saw a human figure standing by a pew near the chancel. The smoke cleared for a moment and he got a good look.
Channa called to him. He sent Molly and Eliot out the door to safety with a prayer and then met his old friend in the aisle. When he reached Channa’s spot, she was gone, but he heard whimpering from the floor. Hips’s wheelchair tire was wedged under one of the pews. Gabriel caught the dog’s eyes—big and brown, filled with fear and confusion.
Gabriel tried to undo the straps on the wheelchair but quickly realized that there wasn’t enough time to take the contraption apart without tools. He hooked his fingers around the bottom lip of the pew and he pulled. Nothing. These pews had been bolted to the church floor for decades. His eyes found the hanging crucifix. “Not in Your sanctuary. This shall not be Your ram,” Gabriel begged. He pulled at the pew a final time.
Not even a millimeter. The pew would not give up a creak or groan or the slightest whisper of indulgence.
Hips was in full panic now, clawing at the pew that held him captive.
Gabriel dropped down and cradled the dog’s head in his arms. “I will not abandon you.”