R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T Read Online Free

yours.”
    “Just words,” I said. “Here are my words to you, beast: go fuck yourself .”
    I turned to walk away, or wake up, whichever was next. Rule was instantaneously in front of me, as if materializing from the dew of night. He blocked my way, leering with those curled, pointed, blackish teeth.
    “I could tear your soul from within. Right now. End it.”
    I pressed my nose against the gnarled flesh where his nose should have been. It felt tender and cold, like hamburger just pulled from the cooler.
    “Then do it,” I said. “I told you. I am not afraid of you.”
    Rule raised both his arms and the throng of demons descended all around me as a crowd suddenly swells and traps one of its own. The creatures were indeed hideous, and my courage began to wane.
    “With one passing thought I could release their rage; give them what they so desire,” he said, pallid eyes locked with my own. “They wouldn’t leave so much as a splinter of bone.”
    “End it, then,” I said.
    He lingered there, his hatred of me palpable.
    And then, without a breath of sound, the horde retreated into shadow, leaving only Father Rule and me.
    “Not here,” he whispered into my ear, wheezing through those mangled holes in the middle of his face. “Not until you’ve mourned the children.”
    With that, he vanished, leaving me to shiver against the cold of night.
     

-CHAPTER FOUR-
     
     
    THE VOICE had been directing Spence Grant’s actions for several months. It was difficult now, remembering when it had first begun to goad him along.
    His family didn’t know, though he always suspected Gloria—his wife and sweetheart since the eighth grade—might have wondered a bit about his odd behavior in the days leading up to the murders.
    Spence ignored the voice for more than a week. Maybe more than two. At first he honestly believed he was hearing something else. He thought he’d accidentally eavesdropped on one side of a nearby conversation, not unlike a baby monitor that picked up a stray signal. After all, it began as a whisper in the night, slightly more profound than the wind rustling a small scattering of leaves. He’d not understood exactly what was being said until a few nights later.
    You know things are not as they seem.
    And still he resisted. Only crazy people heard someone speaking who wasn’t there. And anyone who answered—or God forbid acted upon such ephemeral suggestion—was certifiable.
    But the voice made sense; that was the rub. A lot of sense.
    Things are not as they seem.
    The world has gone to Hell and no one is going to do anything about it.
    YOU need to do something about it, Spence.
    When the voice inside called him by name, that got his attention. Spence started thinking about what the voice was telling him. He thought about it a lot. And he also started smiling at the oddest moments.
    The voice spoke to him throughout the day, off and on, but mostly it serenaded him at night, in the dark, when the stresses of the day had dissipated like smoke in a stiff wind. It waited until his palate was cleansed—his canvas white and willing.
    Eventually he came to covet the voice. Depend upon it. Cleave to its wonderful logic. After a time it became clear the voice was one of purpose, one of mettle. It became clear it would dictate his way forward, and Spence wanted that. He needed direction.
    The first call to action played into Spence’s view of the world about him. It was necessary, the voice told him, to slake the thirst of one’s own needs.
    Spence Grant hated someone. A very putrid someone. A woman named Della Gerard. He was not alone in his hatred, he knew. Gerard was a nasty little woman, a crossing guard for the girls’ school in the morning who then directed the pickup of the children in the midafternoons.
    Half the township had it in for Della Gerard.
    The woman was a fine example of what occurred when a hen-pecked youth grew up and grabbed hold of even a sliver of power—a sconce of dominion over