A Whisper of Southern Lights Read Online Free PDF Page A

prison, Gabriel had felt fresh stabs of pain emanating from his old wounds. The hatred rose from deep within, familiar as his own heartbeat. But there was also caution and calm, born of his previous encounters with Temple. Neither of them had ever really won, but he knew one day, that would change. One day, he or Temple would be dead, and the world could be a very different place.
    Hatred and calmness. Anger and caution. They were strange mixes, and confusing. But one thing Gabriel knew he could trust for sure was the feeling in his wounds.
    He entered a small cell—designed for two people but holding eight—and slumped in a corner, shoulder-to-shoulder with a man with a burnt face. He closed his good eye and rested his head back against the wall. He had to think and plan. There was a man to find and a demon to fight once more.

    He dreamed about the Italian garden. There were bullet holes in the building and the garden’s boundary wall, leaves and bark blasted from the tree, and the place spoke to him like no other. The dead fruits on the tree resembled his two dead children, and the tree itself was his wife, tall and willowy. In death, she stretched out her arms out to protect her offspring, twisting around them and holding them away from harm. But good intentions cannot divert fate, or a blade, or a bullet or bomb. The fruits were large, ripe and rotten, ruptured by shrapnel and open to the elements. A crow sat on one branch, its beak wet with rancid flesh, and it seemed to laugh at Gabriel as he looked for a stone to throw at it.
    It’ll take more than a stone,
his wife’s voice said,
though the tree had not moved. It’ll take a change in things.
    “I don’t know where I am,” Gabriel said. “Am I in Changi Jail or here? Am I alive, or dead?” There was no answer from the tree or the land. “I’ve never really known where I am,” he went on, sad silence the only reply.
    And then leaves rustled against the breeze, grass swayed out of rhythm, grains of sand skittered uphill, and their combined whispers gave voice to something that had known about him forever. It was awe inspiring and terrifying, but more than anything, it gave Gabriel a brief, precious moment of peace.
    It felt as though he had been noticed.

    Gabriel awoke to find someone staring at him. Temple! He sat up, cringing against the pain of his empty eye, and the man reached out to touch his face.
    “Take it easy,” he said. “Here. A drink.”
    Gabriel closed his eye. Temple could be anyone, but he was not this man. There was too much kindness here for even the demon to impersonate.
    “Thank you.” He took the proffered bottle and drank deep. The water tasted foul but very good.
    “You were with the 18th?”
    Gabriel frowned, confused for a moment as the remnants of his dream and the real world collided. Then he felt the itch of his unfamiliar uniform. “No,” he said. “My uniform was ruined; I had to borrow these.” He drank some more.
This is important,
he thought.
I could use this man’s help, but he has to believe me.
If I make him suspicious
. . .
    “You’re wounded.” The man was looking at Gabriel’s face, and in the poor light, his eyes were wide. He seemed to have already sensed that there was something not quite right.
    “The eye is an old one,” Gabriel said. “The others . . . scars from past battles.”
    “Which ones?”
    “I was in France with the BEF. Hopped on a destroyer at Dunkirk and it was sunk half a mile out.”
    The man nodded, still eyeing Gabriel’s face.
    Gabriel had to take control of the conversation. “Surely you don’t think I’m one of them?”
    The man grinned. “Well, you don’t look like a Jap.”
    “Bastards.”
    “Aye, you’re right there. They killed my mate in front of me. He’d taken shrapnel in the leg and couldn’t walk, so . . .” The man’s stare moved over Gabriel’s shoulder and far away.
    “So, what now?” Gabriel asked.
    “I guess we stay here.”
    “I wonder for