This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti Read Free Book Online Page B

end.
    Finally Hank answered, “No.”
    “He could sue you for damages, slander, defamation of character, mental anguish, who knows what else?”
    Hank drew a deep breath and called on the Lord for patience and wisdom.
    “You see the problem?” he said finally. “Too many people don’t know—or don’t want to know—what the truth is anymore. We don’t stand for something, so we fall for anything, and now guys like Lou get themselves into a fog where they can hurt their own families, start their own gossip, ruin their own reputations, make themselves miserable in their sin … and then look for someone else to blame! Just who’s doing what to whom?”
    Brummel only sighed. “We’ll talk it all out Friday night. You will be there?”
    “Yes, I will. I’ll be counseling somebody and then I’ll go in for the meeting. Ever done any counseling?”
    “No.”
    “It gives you a real respect for the truth when you have to help clean up lives that have been based on a lie. Think about it.”
    “Hank, I have other people’s wishes to think about.”
    Brummel hung up loudly and wiped the sweat from his palms.

CHAPTER 4
     
    COULD ANYONE HAVE seen him, the initial impression would not have been so much his reptilian, warted appearance as the way his figure seemed to absorb light and not return it, as if he were more a shadow than an object, a strange, animated hole in space. But this little spirit was invisible to the eyes of men, unseen and immaterial, drifting over the town, banking one way and then the other, guided by will and not wind, his swirling wings quivering in a grayish blur as they propelled him.
    He was like a high-strung little gargoyle, his hide a slimy, bottomless black, his body thin and spiderlike: half humanoid, half animal, totally demon. Two huge yellow cat-eyes bulged out of his face, darting to and fro, peering, searching. His breath came in short, sulfurous gasps, visible as glowing yellow vapor.
    He was carefully watching and following his charge, the driver of a brown Buick moving through the streets of Ashton far below.
    Marshall got out of the Clarion office just a little early that day. After all the morning’s confusion it was a surprise to find Tuesday’s Clarion already off to the printer and the staff gearing up for Friday. A small-town paper was just about the right pace … perhaps he could get to know his daughter again.
    Sandy. Yes sir, a beautiful redhead, their only child. She had nothing but potential, but had spent most of her childhood with an overtimemother and a hardly-there father. Marshall was successful in New York, all right, at just about everything except being the kind of father Sandy needed. She had always let him know about it, too, but as Kate said, the two of them were too much alike; her cries for love and attention always came out like stabs, and Marshall gave her attention all right, like dogs give to cats.
    No more fights, he kept telling himself, no more picking and scratching and hurting. Let her talk, let her spill how she feels, and don’t be harsh with her. Love her for who she is, let her be herself, don’t try to corral her.
    It was crazy how his love for her kept coming out like spite, with anger and cutting words. He knew he was only reaching for her, trying to bring her back. It just never worked. Ah well, Hogan, try, try again, and don’t blow it this time.
    He made a left turn and could see the college ahead. The Whitmore College campus looked like most American campuses—beautiful, with stately old buildings that made you feel learned just to look at them, wide, neatly-lawned plazas with walkways in carefully laid patterns of brick and stone, landscaping with rocks, greenery, statuary. It was everything a good college should be, right down to the fifteen-minute parking spaces. Marshall parked the Buick and set out in search of Stewart Hall, home of the Psychology Department and Sandy’s last class for the day.
    Whitmore was a