Watcher of the Dark: A Jeremiah Hunt Supernatual Thriller (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) Read Online Free PDF

states going back a decade and more. When I’d escaped in the wake of Detective Stanton’s death, Doherty tracked me to New Orleans, where our next confrontation ended with him shooting me in the back. I’d escaped only by falling into the nearest canal and finding a drainage pipe to hide in. Even then it had been a close thing, for the blood loss and resulting infection had nearly done the job that the bullet hadn’t. If Dmitri hadn’t found me when he had, if Denise hadn’t been willing to risk her life, her very soul, to save me, I wouldn’t be here today.
    Doherty was as tenacious as a bloodhound. If he learned I was in L.A., my life would become infinitely more difficult. It seemed it was time to give up the ghost, no pun intended.
    I sighed and said, “Fine. I’m Hunt. What do you want?”
    The hold music continued for a moment, no doubt to prove just who was in charge around here, and then it was cut off with a click as the call was ended.
    “Good of you to come to your senses, Mr. Hunt. I would hate to have to involve the authorities in our business.”
    Our business? I was liking all this less by the minute.
    “You mind telling me who you are and what this is all about?”
    He chuckled. “Not at all. My name is Carlos Fuentes.”
    He paused, as if expecting me to recognize him, but I still didn’t have a clue as to who he was. The name was drawing a big fat goose egg for me.
    “I am the Magister of Los Angeles.”
    Ah. Now things were starting to make a little more sense.
    If Fuentes was telling the truth, then that meant that I’d come to the attention of just the kind of people I’d been trying to avoid.
    Denise taught me that the supernatural community in any given area is ruled by a kind of supernatural lord, or regent, if you will, known as a magister. The magister not only sets the laws within their territory but enforces them as well. Magisters do not have to be human, as I understood things, but those that were human were, more often than not, also highly skilled practitioners of the Art. That was one of the ways that they were able to keep the peace within the bounds of their territories. Imagine Gandalf with all his mystical power as a Mafia don with an army of foot soldiers to do his bidding and you’d have a pretty close approximation of what a human magister is capable of.
    Some, like the magister who rules the Boston metropolitan area from his home north of the city in Marblehead, are relatively benign. Denise introduced me to him during my search for Elizabeth, and, while he is incredibly powerful, and quite possibly inhuman to boot, I still felt comfortable in his presence.
    Not so with Fuentes. For all his civilized culture and veneer, he definitely gave me the creeps.
    Unfortunately for me, when I get nervous, I tend to mouth off.
    “Well, bully for you,” I said to him then. “Must be nice to be at the top, but what’s that got to do with me?”
    Fuentes ignored me, which was probably for the best but wasn’t a good sign of what was to come. He continued on as if he hadn’t heard me.
    “For weeks now all anyone can talk about is the blind street exorcist who fought Death to a standstill in what’s left of the Big Easy. Who used his trusty little harmonica to send the Grim Reaper’s ghostly army back across the Veil to the Other Side like the Pied Piper himself. Everywhere I go the name on everyone’s lips is that of Jeremiah Hunt.
    “Why is that? I wondered. After all, this is my city, is it not? Shouldn’t the only name on everyone’s lips be that of Carlos Fuentes?”
    His comments were growing decidedly more ominous, so I thought it best that I keep my mouth shut and wait for him to finish.
    That didn’t mean I had to just sit there and be idle, however.
    I was at a distinct disadvantage in not knowing where I was, who I was talking to, or even how many other people might be in the room with us, so I decided to rectify that situation. The easiest way for me to do so