The Watchers Read Online Free PDF

even touched one of her membranes, it might do the job. Her mouth lay open, her eyelids fluttering at the nearby commotion. Perhaps if he could send a stream of the liquid in the right place . . .
    He pressed his thumb on the plunger. Again the resistance came. He only managed a feeble spray, which arched through the air and landed on her wrist. Toxic stuff, to be sure.
    But was it enough?
    Suddenly his mind shattered like a branch snapped over an upraised knee, and his determination fell apart—simply fled into a void so deep that his unmoored soul could not follow. He broke from the task, turned away and began to run. He ran from the room, past the housekeeper’s body that now lay pitched forward on the living room carpet, out the door and into a cold rain lofted by a midnight sea breeze. He felt his feet labor like pistons beneath him, hardly making contact with the ground. He sensed the house and that hateful presence retreating while the night engulfed his long, furious strides.
    They had told him he served the greatest power in existence. Yet they had never warned him of this. He could not factor this, could not contemplate a power greater than the bloodlust of Mother Earth. And now having encountered it, he no longer wanted to go on, for its implications were too horrific to think about.
    He reached his van in just over a minute, panting now like a marathoner. In a flurry of motion he would soon forget completely, he climbed inside and sped away.
    The summons blinked over his pager before he had reached the end of the block. Congratulations, young Brother. Your honor awaits you .
    He read it once, then twice, and furrowed his eyebrows. Surely they had no idea. How could they possibly know already what had taken place? Not without his telling . . .
    THE HOUSE —FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
    Abigail awoke to a flurry of sensations: her father’s arms, chilly with the scent of car exhaust and the outdoors, clamped tight around her neck, his face pressed against hers, his voice broken and weeping. Only once before had she heard his voice that high-pitched, seen him that unhinged. Now commotion reigned all about her. Blue and red lights sweeping across her still-darkened ceiling. The screeching of police radios. A woman wailing in the next room.
    They all swept her up at once, and all she could think of were words from her childhood.
    â€œOh, Daddy! Make it go away!”
    â€œDarling, darling. Oh, baby. I’m so sorry I left. I wish I could—”
    â€œWhat happened, Daddy?” She heard her voice, soft and plaintive like that of a six-year-old, but tonight it did not bother her. At that moment, being adult and independent didn’t matter in the least.
    Then the memory started to return. A presence in her sleep. A dark and menacing terror just beyond her slumber. Danger as real and palpable as the air in her lungs.
    â€œThere was a man,” she panted. “In here. He wanted to kill me— I know it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t, was it? I sensed it.”
    Her father drew back and nodded at her, his face streaked with tears.
    â€œIt was so horrible, Daddy. I didn’t wake up. Not quite. But I knew. It was like a darkness. A personality. It was like . . . craving my death. I know that sounds bizarre, but I felt it. It was . . . I don’t know, all specific, like an actual person. It was that real. That close. And there was a struggle. I don’t understand, maybe someone else was here, maybe a lot of someones, but there was a fight. And he left. He did leave, didn’t he?”
    Her father nodded again, and the quiver in his lip told her that something worse was true, that an even darker thing had happened.
    â€œNarbeli? What about Narbeli?”
    Her father’s features disintegrated then, dissolved into an incoherent mask of twitching facial muscles, flowing tears, and uncontrolled sobs.
    Then she heard screaming, as wild as that of an animal, and realized it