First and Only Read Online Free PDF Page A

home.’
    Steve spun round in the small
living room of the cottage. He was suddenly anxious, confused and furious. Was
this guy threatening him? He said he wanted to help. What the hell was going
on?
    ‘Mr Brennus,’ said Psimon. ‘I
have no desire to add to your troubles. I wouldn’t be calling you at all if I
didn’t think it was necessary.’ He paused allowing Steve to absorb what he was
saying. ‘But I really do need your help. And I’m not trying to intimidate you
either… I really can help sort things out with your wife and your little girl.’
    ‘How do you know about this?’
said Steve. ‘No one knows about this… Are you a friend of Paul’s? Did he put
you up to this?’ Steve knew he was ranting and he hated the sense of being in
the dark; of feeling so unnerved.
    ‘No one put me up to this, Mr
Brennus,’ said Psimon. ‘I will explain in more detail when we meet.’
    Steve gave a hollow laugh. ‘And
what makes you think I’m willing to meet you?’ He was suddenly calm and more
annoyed than ever.
    ‘You will agree to meet me
because you will want to know what I know. And…’ said Psimon. ‘You really could
do with the money.’
    There was a long and deeply
uncomfortable silence in which Steve tried to think of any way he could
possibly ignore this strange and infuriating guy on the other end of the
telephone. After almost a minute he knew there was not.
    ‘Where?’ he said… ‘When?’
    *
    Psimon put the phone down and
breathed a deep sigh of relief.
    There, he had done it. He had
made the call; faced his fear.
    It was the fear that made him
uncertain. It was the fear that clouded his view. For all his insight the fear
was like a black shadow that engulfed his mind. There were gaps in the shadow
and glimpses of what might lie beyond but the gaps were filled with pain and
what lay beyond seemed insubstantial. More like wishful thinking than concrete
reality. He drew his hands over his face. The trauma of the mysterious attack
was still evident in his trembling limbs but that was not the first time he had
experienced violence like that and he knew, with sickening certainty, that it
would not be the last. However, the growing intensity of the attacks was almost
more than he could bear. But bear it he must, for the next five days at least.
One way or another that would decide it.
    Decide the manner of his death
that is…
    Psimon rose from the chair and
limped through to the bathroom to examine his face in the mirror. His left eye
was badly swollen with a livid red mark across his temple. The spattering of
pockmarks was still intensely painful but even now they were beginning to fade.
A wave of exhaustion swept over him and he leaned heavily on the hand basin. He
had to remain strong; he had to remain focussed. It had taken many months to
plan the next five days, he could not lose it now. He was frightened and tired
and needed to get some sleep because tomorrow he was going to meet Steve
Brennus.
    Steve Brennus, the man that he
hoped would kill him.
     
    Chapter 4
     
    Lucifer was satisfied.
    Lucifer was sated.
    One less voice of heresy in a world of lies.
    Dressed in the filthy cassock and
cotta of an altar server Lucifer gazed at the inverted crucifix that hung
battered and splintered from the bare stone walls of his chapel. He was filled
with the glory of the chorus but slowly the ecstasy lifted from his mind. He
looked at the body of the heretic lying at his feet; the broken face, the
shattered knee, the smoking flesh. He bent down, removed the hose from the
shroud and sealed it with a plastic tie before lifting the body from the slick
and sticky paving stones. Soft hues from the stained-glass-window fell across
his massive form as, with apparent ease, he raised the man’s grotesquely
wrapped corpse high above the altar. The sleeves of his cassock fell back to
reveal powerful arms covered with a hatch work of scars, and lines of scripture
crudely tattooed or burned into the skin.
    With