Thief of Souls Read Online Free PDF Page A

silently in the passenger seat, impassive and unconcerned as Dillon managed to evade one police checkpoint after another, until he finally slammed the brakes on his Land Rover, and slammed his fists on the steering wheel.
    â€œWhat’sa matter?” asked Carter.
    Dillon shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was no way out of town—every road was crawling with troopers. The news of his feats must be more widely known than he had suspected, to mobilize so many troopers to ferret him out. Bringing back the dead must have been an offense as serious as mass murder in the eyes of the law.
    A hundred yards ahead, the officers at the Harrison Street checkpoint took notice of Dillon’s car stopped suspiciously a hundred feet away from them.
    Carter yawned and brushed some morning crust from the corner of his eye. “We’ll get away from them,” said Carter. “You can get out of anything.”
    But it wasn’t that simple. Dillon silently cursed his luck. His talent for seeing patterns in the world around him was as acute as ever, but when it came to his own life, he was blind.He knew someone would eventually give away his secret, but he had thought he would have more time. And it probably wasn’t just the Jessups who had blown the whistle; other families must have come forward, too. He could imagine the most hardened of police investigators turned into blubbering morons when they saw the resurrected dead with their own eyes. No, they couldn’t catch him, or he’d never be able to complete his repair work. He had to get away.
    â€œWe’re smarter than them!” said Carter. “They’ll never catch us!”
    Dillon took a good look at the boy. Dillon couldn’t remember ever being that innocent. That trusting.
    â€œWe’re going to run, aren’t we?” Carter’s eyes were bright and eager. “Aren’t we? You won’t let them break us up—we’re a team, right?”
    Dillon knew what he had to do. Carter deserved more than an apprenticeship to a freak—Dillon owed him at least the chance at a normal life. And so, as the troopers approached, Dillon made no move to escape. Instead he quickly whipped up a new plan. A brilliant, brutal plan that would leave everyone better off.
    Well, almost everyone.
    T HE TROOPERS DRAGGED C ARTER, kicking and screaming, into one police car, and took Dillon off in another. Dillon offered no resistance. The two cars drove off, away from Burton, toward a saner part of the world where, presumably, Dillon would be “held for questioning.”
    The two state troopers in the front seat smelled of morning breath doused with black coffee. The older one, who drove the car, his graying hair cut in a tightly cropped butch, kept glaring at Dillon in the rearview mirror. His name tag read WELLER ,Dillon had noted. The stripes on his sleeve indicated that he was a sergeant.
    â€œYou’ve got the folks around here in one mighty uproar, son,” he said. “We don’t need any more uproars around here—the virus was enough trouble to last a lifetime.”
    â€œWhat are you charging me with?”
    Weller laughed smugly. “Does it matter? You’re obviously a runaway, and we’re well within the law to bring you into ‘protective custody.’ ”
    Dillon broke eye contact and gazed out the window.
    â€œAre you listening to me, son?” said Sergeant Weller.
    Dillon still didn’t answer him, but he did turn to catch Weller’s eyes once more as Weller watched him in the rearview mirror. Dillon studied Weller—the way he moved, the cadence and inflections of his voice. Dillon noticed the way the man held his shoulders, and judged the way he aggressively changed lanes. To anyone else, it wouldn’t have meant a thing, but to Dillon, the tale couldn’t have been clearer if it were painted on the man’s forehead. I can see patterns, he had told Carol