Laws of Nature -2 by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page A

offered them to him.
    Her eyes went to Mol y's. "I've been sort of . . . keeping an eye out. On the Net. Like we talked about? I ran across this today."
    Courtney let Jack take the pages and sat down at the kitchen table, resting the cane against her leg. Mol y's gaze ticked from her to Jack and back again, wondering what she had found, but knowing exactly what it was al about. When Jack final y handed her the pages, Mol y hesitated only a moment. It was a news piece about the mutilation murder of a mailman in central Vermont.
    "It could be anything," she said, her voice sounding hol ow even to herself.
    Mol y glanced up at Courtney, but Jack was the one who replied.
    "It could be," he agreed.
    With a sigh, Mol y closed her eyes and dropped the pages on the table. When she opened them again, Jack was staring at her expectantly.
    "But it's probably them," she al owed, resigned to the truth of it.
    Jack reached out for her hand, gently lacing his fingers with hers. "There's only one way to know for sure."

CHAPTER 3
    It took almost an entire day for Jack and Molly to arrange everything for their trip north. The schedule at the pub had to be considerably altered to cover for their indefinite absence. It was a sort of reconnaissance trip - at least they tried to think of it as such. Bill and Courtney were eager to reassure them that it was unlikely they would actually find anything, that the acquisition of a cell phone for each of them was merely a precaution.
    Jack and Molly had spoken about the murders privately only once. The details sounded too familiar. While there were other explanations, now that they knew that Prowlers existed, it was natural to lay the blame for this new round of savagery on the ancient, monstrous race.
    Bill had explained to them that contemporary Prowlers had no real unity, no cohesive society, and yet there did exist a kind of loose network, a matrix of connections and information. There were Prowlers who were cruel and a few that were benevolent, but most, he explained, were simply animals, their lives dictated by instinct and necessity, not morality. Though he had been less than forthcoming with tales of his own past, it was obvious he still had connections to that dark, underground semi-society.
    The weapons were a testament to that. Bill did not tell them where he had acquired the guns he wanted them to take along - another precaution - and no one wanted to ask him. It was another part of his life, a link to his heritage that made them all uncomfortable. Ever since they had discovered that he was a Prowler, they were reluctant to ask him about his past. It was difficult enough to reconcile their love for the man with the knowledge of what he was.
    Once upon a time, Bill Cantwell had played football for the New England Patriots. Whenever Jack thought about that, he marveled at the man's control of his physical appearance. Prowlers had to concentrate in order to look human, and it was nothing short of miraculous that Bill had been able to play a game as brutal as professional football and never reveal his true form.
    They knew him as a former professional football player, a bartender, a friend. Yet it was clear that he was very old, perhaps centuries old. Before he had played for the Patriots, he must have been many other things. Logic indicated that Bill Cantwell was not even his real name, though that was something else no one wanted to ask him.
    It rained all of Thursday morning. It was nearly noon when Jack pulled his battered old Jeep into the narrow alley behind Bridget's. Molly was upstairs, double-checking what she had packed and putting a call in to her mother. Mrs. Hatcher was an alcoholic and worse, and lived in a shabby apartment in a run-down section of Dorchester. Molly called her rarely and went to see her even less. It was not that she didn't love her mother, Jack knew, but that the woman did not care if Molly called or not, could barely seem to remember she had a daughter. Contact