C E Martin [Stone Soldiers 02 Brothers in Stone (epub)

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.Then he touched the wallet of the dead man.Cletus Ferguson had been a drifter.He and his best friend, Pete, in the MOPAR hat, had been drifting from town to town, working a variety of odd jobs across the southwest for years.They lived in their truck, spent most of their money on beers and women, and hadn’t amounted to much in life.Victor thumbed through the wallet—there was half of a thousand-dollar bill mixed in with the ones and fives.Victor pulled it out and rubbed it with his fingers.“Hey, Nancy Drew!” Keegan said, breaking Victor’s concentration.“Stop looking for clues and get me some answers.The corpse is down there.”Victor looked down at his feet, where Keegan was pointing, at the body of Cletus.He sighed and handed the wallet and the torn half of the thousand-dollar bill to Keegan, then crouched down beside the corpse.Keegan pitched the wallet and money onto the floor, and crossed her arms impatiently.As soon as Victor touched Cletus’ forehead, the visions swept over him.He saw Cletus and Pete, arguing over who was going to pay for beer in the back of the shop, when the bells over the front door rang.A stranger had entered.The two women behind the counter greeted the stranger, then started asking him what he was doing.That had gotten Cletus and Pete’s attention.The two rednecks walked up to the front of the store, past a man trying to decide which potato chips to buy, just in time to see the stranger lock the front doors of the store.“Whatchoo doing, man?” Pete asked.The stranger turned to face Pete.He was average looking, with brown hair, and brown eyes.Thin and pale.“I’m picking up a bite or two to eat,” the brown-haired man said.“No man,” Cletus had said.“Why’d you lock the door, dumbass?”The brown-haired man suddenly rammed his hand into Pete’s chest, piercing the dirty flannel shirt and Pete’s skin.Blood sprayed out as the brown-haired man’s hand plunged deep into Pete’s torso.“Guh!” Pete said, blood coming from his mouth.The man’s arm was buried to the elbow inside of Pete.“What the f-?” Cletus started to say.He was stopped when the man’s other hand rammed into his chest, tearing through his flesh on its way into Cletus’ ribcage.Cletus felt a burning pain, and looked down to see the arm sticking out of his chest, buried almost to the elbow.Just as suddenly, the brown-haired man pulled both his arms free, Cletus’ heart in one hand, Pete’s in the other.The two rednecks collapsed to the floor, dead.***Victor gasped as he came out of the trance.The psychic impressions were so strong.So new.Not like the diner where the bodies had gone undiscovered for days, thanks to a closed sign on the door.“Well?” Keegan demanded.“Don’t leave me hanging here, Vic.”“It was him.”“No shit, it was him,” Keegan said, putting her hands on her hips.“All the bodies with their hearts ripped out kind of gave that away.”“No, I mean it was the same guy as at the diner,” Victor explained.“The same face.”“That doesn’t make any sense,” Keegan replied.The shapechanger they were hunting had the ability to change form, and had for nearly every killing up to now.His changing face had kept facial recognition from locating him on surveillance cameras.“He dragged the bodies back here,” Victor explained, pointing to Cletus and Pete, the two clerks and the potato chip man all sprawled dead on the floor by the beer cooler.“But he killed them over there.”“So he’s hiding his crime.We knew that back at the Diner,” Keegan said.It wasn’t a breaking revelation to her.“You’re sure it’s the same face?” Keegan asked.If the killer had found a face he liked, maybe they could find him now.“Can you sketch it for those badges?”Victor nodded.He reached into his jacket for his sketch pad and pencil.“Not here!” Keegan said.“Right,” Victor said, sounding far off.He was staring at something on the far side of the store, by the front windows.A shape?Victor pushed a very surprised Agent Keegan out of his way and walked toward the glass windows and the strange shape.It was more than a shape.It was a silhouette.Translucent, almost clear.The outline of a person.Hovering above the floor, as if watching Victor.The form remained in place, unmoving as Victor approached.Was it a reflection of the light?Fingers trembling, Victor reached up for the silhouette.Just as his fingers passed through what he thought would be air, the figure moved.With blinding speed, the figure recoiled, then shot off to Victor’s left.Flying, several feet above the ground, the figure streaked across the store, and out the open doors.In its wake, Victor could smell incense.CHAPTER SEVENJosie fell over backwards, onto her beanbag, the telepathic link between her, PJ and Daisy broken.She was sweating profusely and could feel her heart pounding in her chest.“What the hell was that!?” PJ demanded, jumping to his feet.He brushed imaginary somethings off his person and shook his hands repeatedly.“How did you do that?”Daisy reached across to Josie, laying a hand on the girl’s knee.“Are you okay, dear?”“How did she do that?” PJ was nearly hysterical.“PJ, hush!” Daisy said.Josie’s vision cleared.She hadn’t realized it was blurry [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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