Darkness of the Soul by Kaine Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

clustering around the door.
    Then he went into the black, accompanied by a final burst of pain that started just under his left shoulder and raced down his arm like dark lightning.
    *      *      *
    The killer whispered his good-bye into the handset and then racked the phone. All around him, the bustle of the casino continued, the happy idiots inside completely unaware of what walked the halls with them, blissfully ignorant of the power he’d pushed through the phone lines and likewise unaware of the energy he’d been siphoning from them as they milled about. They might notice it later, as headaches or aches and pains, and a few of the older ones might die in their sleep tonight, but this didn’t concern him. They wouldn’t be able to pick him from a lineup, point at him and exclaim, “This is the one,” and that was all that mattered for the moment.
    Smiling to himself, he walked toward the balcony, pushed through a gaggle of laughing college kids— Probably someone turned twenty-one last night, he thought—who did feel something when he passed, but they were deep in drunkenness already or still and so put it off on that rather than his presence.
    When he reached the large window—tamper proof and shatter resistant, of course, the better to dissuade suicides—he laid one hand on the glass and glared down at the pawnshop across the street and the two figures standing by the ancient-looking cruiser.
    “Hello, my friends. Not having much fun, are we? So sorry.”
    A few of the patrons, stopping to admire the view or simply standing about with a zombie-like look of “what happened?” on their faces, glanced at him oddly and then continued on with their business. People talking to themselves in casinos were generally better left alone, the consensus stated, and something about this man made most consider this very sage advice indeed.
    Parker and Drakanis, in the lot below, continued their discussion without noticing the man staring down at them. Parker didn’t notice at all, while Drakanis felt a brief tingle. It was there and then gone.
    “You okay?”
    Drakanis shook his head. “Goose over the grave. Let’s go.”
    The killer smiled down at them still, wishing they were closer, so that he could have a taste—just a taste, mind, else the thing that lived beyond the talu`shar would have his head—but knowing to do so now would be to risk their attention, and he was not yet ready for it.
    All in good time, though. Drakanis especially. He’ll be such fun to play with.
    He cracked his neck, the sounds as loud as gunshots, heard even over the constant ringing of the machines and the pants of those desperate and yet somehow certain that their luck would change any minute now. Then he started back the way he had come, following the labyrinthine trail back to the front doors. On a whim, he reached out and touched the shoulder of one particularly grim-looking player. A moment later, she was dealt a sequential royal flush, though by the time her own bell went off, she was too far gone to notice it, a stroke having taken her as soon as she’d seen the layout.
    “People really should take better care of themselves.” The killer laughed again, shaking his head and making “tsk-tsk” sounds, before stepping into the sunshine once more. He donned a pair of glasses he’d bought at the casino’s gift shop before making his calls and headed home. He had a lot of work to do and only so much time to do it in, after all.
    As he walked, he whistled to himself. The few people on the streets steered clear of him; it seemed the wisest choice.

Chapter 6 
    11:30 am, December 8, 1999
    “Well, that was a waste of a perfectly good morning.” Drakanis’s voice was sullen and despondent, nearly as bad as it had been in the morning when Parker first woke him up or before his “retirement.”
    Parker shrugged. “They’re not all winners, Mikey. At least we’ve got a signature, can compare it to whoever we pick