Hounacier (Valducan Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

tinting nearly masked her screen-lit silhouette.
    "All right," Malcolm said, excitement tingling across his shoulders, adrenaline priming his senses. "Let's do it."
    The two men followed the dirt path back to the road and headed up the rough asphalt. A large sign warning that trespassers would be shot hung from a sturdy pipe-fence gate. They climbed over it and continued on a gravel drive. Gnarled trees hid the moon, only allowing scattered pools of pale light. Their footsteps crunched quietly. The drive turned, following the hill's curve. Malcolm watched the shaded woods for movement as Orlovski led just a few feet ahead.
    Seven months ago, Emily Anders, a student at MSU, went missing. Her family, desperate and frustrated at the police's lack of progress, turned to Daniel Hendricks, a local psychic.
    Daniel, who was one of the few legitimate psychics Malcolm had ever known, sensed a great and evil power at work. He saw a house, a tiny cell, and an image of a black form with emerald eyes. No one ever found Emily Anders.
    Four weeks ago, Tiffany Mayhew walked out of a coffee shop with a grande lowfat latte and never made it home. Two weeks later, her family turned to Daniel Hendricks. After feeling several of Tiffany's personal effects and visiting the parking lot where her car had been found, Daniel told the Mayhews that he couldn't get a good reading and returned their money. Fifteen minutes later, he emailed Malcolm what he had seen.
    Orlovski raised a hand and dropped to a knee. Crouching low, Malcolm hurried up beside him. A two-story house sat at the top of the hill, silhouetted against the sky like a castle on some cheap book cover. Pale yellow glowed from three of the blind-covered windows. Bluish light flickered through a fourth, likely a TV.
    Malcolm pulled open a Velcro pouch at his belt, careful to keep it quiet, and drew out a black metal tube. He extended a plastic antenna from one end and removed the lens cap from the other. He thumbed the button on the back. "Camera One is on." Malcolm unfolded the rubberized, segmented legs from the bottom and wrapped them around a slender tree. "Sam, you reading this?"
    Her voice came through the ear bud. "I have it."
    Malcolm peered down the top of the camera, aiming it as best he could. "You have the full house?"
    "Yes. Don't see anyone outside," Sam said. "Looks like a motion light at the right corner. Stay clear of it."
    "Thanks. We'll head around the side and set the second camera before going in. Let us know if you see anything."
    "Okay."
    Staying low, they skirted the edge of the clearing. As they passed behind a decrepit woodshed, Malcolm's foot hit an empty paint can, sending it skittering into the brush. Shit!
    The two men froze in a crouch, watching the house.
    Malcolm took five slow breaths then whispered, "Sam, everything clear?"
    "No movement."
    Orlovski shot a cocked eyebrow at Malcolm. Thirty seconds later, they continued on.
    Passing a blackened burn pile, they circled to the rear. Light shone through a back door window overlooking a narrow deck. A cinderblock building loomed twenty yards behind the house, its only opening a single metal door. A tin-roofed carport stood off to one side, sheltering the dark shape of a cargo van.
    Malcolm pointed to the van, and Orlovski pulled out a stubby night scope. He peered through the eyepiece, nodded, then offered it over. Taking the monocular, Malcolm studied the vehicle in shades of luminescent green.
    Daniel's vision in the parking lot had showed Tiffany Mayhew being dragged into the same windowless van, a long scrape along its left fender, license plate beginning with 'P3Y.' He'd seen the emerald-eyed shadow, a dark room, pain.
    The van was registered to an Arnold Hobb, whose last known address was a duplex in Ozark, just a few miles outside the city. It had taken the hunters just a week to track him down to the isolated house. Hobb was a hefty man, mid-thirties. Contractor. They'd seen him out with another man,