The first coffee I gulped barely caressed the sides of my throat and I moved on to my second. I didn’t have much of an appetite for the sandwiches Bryce had ordered, but the coffee was damn good, and well received. I felt a spark ignite inside me as the caffeine kicked in. I reached for a third mug. Then I got down to what was important. Luke Rickard would be coming soon—there was no doubt in my mind—and I wanted to be ready for him. My SIG-Sauer demanded attention.

Chapter 40

40

Nineteen eighty-two.

That was the year the serpent first wormed its way up from his bowel and coiled a nest in his gut. He remembered it well.

He was hiding in the woodshed, safe among the cobwebs and spiders and the smell of pine resin, listening to the shrieking of his mother and the man he’d been ordered to call Father as they fought drunkenly inside the cabin. The screaming was nothing new. It had gone on almost since the first day that Etienne Pagnon had moved in. Usually eight-year-old Luke would lie low until the arguing stopped and Mother and Etienne disappeared inside her room. Then the other noises would start. But this time it was different. This time the yelling had gone on for much longer.

He heard a crash as though furniture had been thrown over and splintered on the hardwood floor. Then there was no more screaming.

He waited.

At Etienne’s drunken stumbling, Mother would usually rant at him for his clumsiness. But Mother was silent.

From his hiding place, Luke crept forward and placed an eye to a knothole in the shed wall. He blinked slowly, peering through the evening gloom toward the only home he’d known in all of his life. Dull light from the overhead bulb in the living room was blocked by a ragged blanket nailed over the window, but the blanket was threadbare and he could see a swelling shadow moving slowly for the front door. Luke ducked back, fearful of being seen.

He held his breath, listening. He heard the latch lift and the door creak open on rusty hinges and heavy footfall down the steps. There was a thud. Then followed a sound the likes of which he’d never heard before, like a wild beast howling at the sky in open-throated fury. Luke huddled back, as though the noise itself was alive and would find him in his hiding place. The howl petered out, became a bark that turned to a series of grunts; Luke realized he was listening to laughter.

As silently as he could, he crept back to the knothole and peered out.