Darkborn Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Road Runner’s cannonballs. The small, pudgy head — not much space for a brain cavity — wobbled back and forth, faster and faster, a blur.
    “Do you find something funny about this, Mr. D’Angelo?” Gately said through clenched teeth.
    Bite him, Will thought. Open up your gummy old mouth and lower those vampire-priest’s choppers right on the asshole’s neck.
    But Gately was content to just put D’Angelo’s brain through his own blending process. Back and forth until — when Gately let go — D’Angelo stumbled forward like a top. The fullback threw out one rhino leg to break what might turn into a fall.
    His hands fluttered, helping him balance. Then D’Angelo looked up at Gately.
    And Will thought: He’s going to kill him. D’Angelo is going to kill the priest!
    But D’Angelo just looked down, and them mumbled the only word Gately ever wanted to hear.
    “Sorry, Father.”
    “Now get out of here!” Gately growled, the voice rich with phlegm and bloodlust.
    What a cleric! Will thought.
    And D’Angelo staggered out of the prison, humbled.
    Will guessed D’Angelo would think twice about gunning for him later. Not with Gately around to mete out such creative punishment. Gately turned to Will, who made his face as flat and impassive as possible.
    Maybe he’ll let me go early too, Will thought.
    But Gately just shook his head in disgust.
    The priest walked back into his office.
    A big Regulator clock, just within Will’s peripheral vision, clicked.
    It was 3:20. Will had forty more minutes of this garbage before he could leave.
    To meet up with his friends.
    And hear what had Kiff — crazy Kiff — so damned excited.
    Not knowing how everything about this day was falling together, in a certain way, like the clock he watched, pushing him toward something that he’d regret for the rest of his life.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    4
     
    It went silent the minute Will opened the door to Koko’s Luncheonette.
    One minute his friends were all laughing and talking. And the next, they stopped.
    As if their actions had been frozen for some picture.
    School chums. Senior year. Fall 1965.
    And Will wondered if maybe he should have gone home. He let the door slip through his fingers and it slammed shut.
    Mr. Kokovinis, over by the counter, talking to two men squatting in front of coffee cups, looked up.
    But then Tim said, loud enough for Mr. Koko himself to look over and shake his head, “Hey, Dunnigan! Get your butt over here!”
    And it was all there, in Tim’s words, his tone of voice. An acceptance, a sense of moving on , past whatever had happened that day. Will smiled, trying to pick up the mood tossed off by Tim as if it were a gently lobbed tennis ball .   .   . to be picked up and returned.
    He walked over to the booth, which was engulfed by a cloud of smoke.
    “What the hell happened?” Tim said. “Old Gately make you stand on one leg?”
    Will grinned and he sat down beside his friend. “No, but he sure the hell let D’Angelo off the hook.” Will shook his head. “Football practice. But at least Gately gave D’Angelo’s head a good rattle before letting him go.”
    “The Deadly Gately Blender! Great.’”
    Now Will looked up at the others. Narrio was smiling, listening. Mike never had much to say. But Whalen still wore his usual disgusted look that seemed less a pose and more the outward sign of one nasty kid. Will looked around, over to the counter and Mr. Koko, then back to the others.
    “Where’s Kiff?”
    Whalen took a drag on his cigarette and sneered., “Gone to check something. Told us to wait here. For you .” Whalen rolled his eyes. “Who knows what the hell he’s up to .   .   .”
    Narrio nodded. “I have to go soon.”
    It seemed as though Kiff’s great surprise was petering out. But then Tim tapped his arm.
    “Whoa. There he is,” Tim said. Will turned around and there was Kiff, dodging the traffic on Ocean Parkway. He looked demented, waving at them in midstream,