Demon on a Distant Shore Read Online Free PDF

omission, but to the shade of a dead woman. I was not here to be companionable. I hoped to observe a paranormal event.
    Although I couldn’t tell from her face, the lilt in her voice let me I know she washappy to see me. She got lonely as she stood in her couple of feet of space with her shopping cart. At most she could take a few steps in any direction. The days were not so bad, when the plaza swarmed with people as they went to and from the theatre and sports center, the restaurants and bars, but she had little to watch at night when Clarion closed down.
    She was better off than some. She had Irving. I waved at Irving Prentice where he stood on the corner of Twenty-First and Temple, a skinny, hunched figure in a business suit, the twisted victim of a hit and run. People who milled around me as they left the Megaplex theatre would think I waved at some living person across the street.
    Irving would miss Brenda.
    The event I awaited normally took place late at night on a weekday. I checked my watch. Perhaps they were running late. This particular event couldn’t be rushed.
    I plunged my hands in my coat pockets as a breeze slid cool air over my exposed skin, and wished I wore a warmer jacket. The sidewalks cleared as people got in their cars and drove away. Pretty soon just a few automobiles broke the silence of the streets. Restaurant staff came from the back of Murphy’s Tavern and the Mexicali Grill and drove off or walked away to the nearest bus stop. The streets got that chilly nighttime feel typical of late August, even though days were still hot.
    The white globes of street lamps shone like small moons which illuminated the facades of the old buildings on Temple and Twenty-First, but left the block-length expanse of dirt and rubble on the north in the dark. They should put up a wall, because when the wind blows strong, it whips dry, powdered dirt into the plaza.
    Brenda made a sound in her throat to get my attention. She expected conversation, but I stood there woodenly. I smiled, opened my mouth to speak and instead my jaw dropped.
    Not a white light, but silver. It didn’t come for her, it came from inside her. It suffused her entire body as if emanating from the pores of her skin. I cannot describe it any other way. She glowed silver. Tears leaked from her widened eyes.
    I couldn’t speak. A shade, one of my shades, whose expression never changes - her face reflected an emotion in direct contrast to that she wore when she died. She wept. Her hands rose to touch her face. She held one finger before her eyes, a teardrop glistening on the tip.
    “You knew.” Even her voice sounded different, gentle, the hoarseness gone. “Thank you.”
    She faded inside the silver. She turned to mist and disappeared until the silver shape of a body remained, which feathered at the edges and wisped away in the night sky.
    I stood alone outside the Megaplex.
    Bill Moore, the man who killed Brenda, had just died of lethal injection in Utah State Penitentiary.
    My eyes stung. That neon lighting’s a bitch.

Chapter Four
     
    We were lucky, we got a Thursday flight, and I have to say I enjoyed flying first class. If only the flight were not so damned long.
    Five in the morning is a god-awful time to get off a plane when you have not slept for twenty-four hours and the entire day stretches ahead. Because of the seven-hour time difference, it was Friday morning, when my wristwatch told me ten PM Thursday. I felt as if we had lost a day.
    Surprise number one: British police were all over the place, inside and outside the airport terminals. They wore flat-brimmed caps, bullet-proof vests and carried automatic weapons. Where were the British Bobbies with their funny knobbed helmets?
    When the Immigration officer asked why we came to England, Royal told her we were on vacation. So we were officially under cover . But what if one of those gun-toting cops questioned us and we slipped up? Would they shoot us on the spot or drag us off to the