Ben Bracken: Origins (Ben Bracken Books 1 - 5) by Robert Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

vocal blast bouncing off every wall of the church - dominating and oddly painful. As he was rotating, the stained glass windows had created a lurid blurred zoetrope, that, strangely now he is stationary, is now etched on his retinas like rainbow vomit. And for some reason, his eyes can not see past the colored blobs and whirls. He shakes his head, but just can’t rearrange the color into something meaningful. The voice is still booming, but he can’t make out the words. He drops slowly to one knee, to try to regain some composure and his table leg clunks on the floor.
    Ben strains and takes a few deep breaths - long in and long out. Whenever he does this, he can almost feel the oxygen flood the recesses of his brain, and for a mere second, his vision comes back briefly - and he sees a snapshot of a statuesque light-haired woman standing by the altar in a red dress. As soon as his sight has had time to give him something to work with, the edges smudge, the borders blur, and he’s back to wading through a visual miasma.
    Something else has presented itself, which Ben sensed when he saw the woman. The incense ain’t incense. While he had that moment of clarity, he noticed that it was copal. While he was training for the armed forces, he had done some extremely remote time in Central America, learning survival techniques in jungle settings and that’s where he had come across it. Copal was frequently used by some indigenous societies in sweat lodge ceremonies - to aid in purification, and the driving out of demons. What the hell it is doing in North Wales is utterly beyond Ben, but there is something else nasty at play, and it has given itself away with a dark, bitter after-taste to the scent. LSD. Surprisingly, there is also a smaller sweetness on the furthermost tip of his tongue. Marijuana. As Ben’s tries to keep all his facets together, he can’t help his thoughts clouding darkly just as bad as his vision. Just what the fuck is going on here?
    Before he has finished his thought, he feels an awful sharp thud on the back of his head, as if he has been hit with something - he can’t tell what, but he can sure feel it. Warm begins to pour down the side of his head, onto his cheek, and he binds his eyes shut to beat back the pain and keep from getting what can only be his own blood in his eyes. The dizziness doubles.
    The voice ramps up in intensity, and he can make out the occasional word -
    ‘........purge.........hate...........worth...........pound.........outsider (‘that old chestnut’, Ben thinks).........fear.........price.........’
    Ben didn’t like any of those words, frankly. He still has no idea what is going on, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that if there is a young baby around these nutjobs, burning drugs and talking about a ‘purge’, that can only be a bad thing. If the child is up here, Ben knows he has to get it together. He’s not up on this dank hillside on a jolly.
    Abruptly, Ben sticks his fingers down his throat, triggering his gag reflex. Almost immediately, he throws up - a lot. Blackstoke Bitter drenches the steps at the bottom of the altar, splattering wetly against the stone of the church floor. For Ben, the taste is awful, but he has to get all that vile airborne concoction out of his body as quickly as he can, before he loses control altogether.
    The abrupt retching had cut short the woman’s ranting, but the woman’s voice punctuates the gagging once more, but this time bearing a venomous call to arms.
    ‘Punish this man. Punish him for questioning. Punish him for jeopardizing the purge! He does not want you to reach God - are you going to let him stop you from serving the Almighty?!’
    Ben is both pleased and not pleased. Pleased that he heard every word and his drug-blurred mindset allowed him to arrange the words correctly. However, he is most definitely not pleased at the prospect of being torn limb from limb by some angry senior citizens. From his crouch, he