Absolution Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncontrollable wave of panic erupted. He stared at Rice in disbelief. A nudge from his memory slowly filtered into his consciousness. With a silent click, it snapped in his brain. The right eye and hand had twitched of the man who'd killed his parents as he’d entered their home.
    He had written off that trait as belonging to someone elderly. Given Farley’s youth, he didn’t match the images in Luc’s memories. Yet there had always been something about Farley that had gnawed at him. Now he knew why.
    Rice crossed his arms over his chest with another uncertain glance at Fritz. “When he’s done, there’s nothing left but—”
    “A husk to blow away in the wind.” Luc swallowed hard and struggled to quell the sense of the déjà vu.
    “I see you’ve witnessed his handy work.”
    “Yeah, very close to home.” Literally. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the reality that the monster who’d invaded his home and killed his parents, the monster he had hunted for twenty years, the monster who’d haunted his nightmares since childhood, was Farley. Yet every word Rice had spoken synched with the heat of truth coursing through his body. “He’s mine.”
    Within a blink of an eye, Rice had him by the throat. “Sorry, kid. Not negotiable. I’ve tracked this son of a bitch for over two hundred years—thirty of my family, children, even infants were absorbed. What’d he get from you? Parents? A sibling or two?”
    Luc remained frozen. He could take the daemon, but a small part of the ice melted as the man vented his fury. Fury Luc understood too well. Not that he was willing to be manhandled by a daemon. He would give Rice one minute to release him and then let him experience the consequences of touching a Druid without permission.
    At Fritz’s low growl, Rice dropped his hold and stepped back with his hands raised, palms out. “Take a number and stand in line, Lucan.”
    Luc let the comment go. “How have you avoided Farley detecting you aren’t a norm?”
    “You think you’re the only ones with dampeners?” He glanced at Fritz and took a couple more steps backward. “If you two expect to save the healer, we need to get rid of Ted, Crocker, and Earl.”
    Luc met Fritz’s grin and sent him an image of what he wanted. “You ready to play?”
    “Oh, yeah. I love being a diverting diversion.”
     
    ***
     
    Luc faced the diner and watched the two bikers clomp across the street. Ted’s hands clasped four bags of food and Crocker juggled four extra-large, lidded Styrofoam cups of coffee. Probably never occurred to them to ask for a cardboard carrier. “Here they come.”
    “I thought we was gonna to meet at the van.” Ted tossed Luc and Rice their bags of food. “What’s the deal? Why you still here? Thought y’all was strategizin’.”
    “We were, until—” Luc jerked his thumb at Fritz. “I swear I saw it move. We’ve been standing here studying it for the past ten minutes.”
    “Bullshit. You two are up to somethin’. Farley’s right. Somethin’ ain’t right with you two,” Ted said.
    Well, that confirmed one suspicion, Luc thought.
    Crocker set the drinks on the ground and moved toward Fritz. “It’s a fucking statue.”
    Luc snorted. “That’s what I keep saying.” He watched Rice move behind Ted, his hand on the back of the man’s neck as he urged him forward.
    “If you don’t believe it, check him out yourself,” Rice said.
    “Crocker, you’re closest, do it,” Ted ordered.
    Fritz rose to his full seven-foot height. His wings unfurled. Brackish green fountain water dripped from the spiky tips and bony support cartilage. “Hello, boys. Or should I say goodbye.”
    Crocker staggered backwards. “He’s real?”
    “No shit, Sherlock,” Luc said.
    The men fumbled with their weapons, their wide-eyed gazes glued to Fritz.
    Rice grasped Ted’s head in his hands, jerked, and snapped his neck. With blinding speed, he swung to his right and fisted his hand in Crocker’s hair.