The Belial Library (The Belial Series) by R.D. Brady Read Free Book Online Page A

the ground.  He pointed at them.  “Eenie, meenie, minee, mo, who will tell me what they know?”
    “Hugo!”
    He growled at the interruption.  For God's sake, the kid was worse than a two-year old.  He looked over his shoulder.  Warren ran towards him, his face blotchy from the exertion.  “What is it?”
    “It’s Sanford,” Warren panted out.  “He’s dead.”
    Hugo went still, his fist clenched.  “What did you say?”
    “Sanford.  There’s a knife sticking out of his chest." 
    Hugo's eyes narrowed to slits as he looked back at the villagers.  Sanford had been his lieutenant for over five years.  He wasn’t easy to take down.  He reached down and yanked up a girl around the age of six.  He held a gun to her head while he stared at the group.  “Where would they have taken her?”
    “No, don’t hurt her,” her mother pleaded.
    “This is the last time I’ll ask.  Where would they have taken her?”  He pressed the gun harder into the little girl’s temple and she cried out.  “3, 2 –”
    “The church.”  A man called out.  “They would have taken her to the church.”
    Hugo pushed the girl back towards her mother.  She collapsed in her mother’s arms sobbing.  Hugo watched them for a moment.  Pitiful.  He raised his gun and shot the man who had spoken.  He turned and walked away.
    Warren had to run to keep up with him.  “Why’d you shoot him?  He told you what you wanted.”
    “But I had to ask twice.”  He glanced over at Warren.  “Take a group to the church while I finish here.  If you find the target, hold her.  I’ll question her when I get there.”
    Warren ran off towards the trucks with a nod, practically skipping in his excitement.  He’d lost Sanford and now he was saddled with this man-child.  Hugo beckoned his second lieutenant over.  He came on a run, halting in front of him.  “Yes, sir.”
    Hugo smiled.  Now this was how a soldier should respond.  “It’s time to clean up the village.”
    His second looked at him, unblinking.  “Yes, sir.  What type of cleanup will this be?”
    “Complete.  No witnesses.”
     
     

    CHAPTER 8
     
    Baltimore, Maryland
     
    Henry Chandler, CEO of the Chandler Group, flipped through the reports on his desk.  The project in Milan was on schedule and should be wrapped up shortly.  Their consultation with the scientists at the Hadron collider had gone well and it looked as if a new contract would be signed soon.  Pushing the files to the right side of his desk, he pulled over a white file with a single word on it: Montana. 
    Leaning back in his chair, the file in his lap, he carefully flipped his purple-striped tie over his shoulder.  He had a meeting with a potential client this afternoon, hence the more formal look of black slacks and crisp white shirt.  He preferred jeans and a t-shirt, but he knew as the head of the Chandler Group, he needed to present a certain image.
    He flipped past the opening summary and stopped on page two, assessing the latest progress on the dig.  Father Patrick seemed to have the project well in hand.  He'd put out a press release with some initial findings and gotten the expected pushback.  He smiled thinking of his conversation with Patrick this morning.  The priest was definitely enjoying being in the thick of things. 
    He scanned the rest of the report.  Nothing about the superhumans.  There’d been precious little information about them on any of the monoliths in Montana.  They knew they were fallen angels, that they’d ushered in a world of violence and strife.  But they had learned nothing more about them from the ancient site.
    And nothing more about you, either , a thought whispered from the back of his mind.  The thoughts had been harder to shut out since Montana.  He’d known what he could do since he was a teenager.   But he never knew why.  Was he one of them? 
    His parents had known.   ‘ Don’t let anyone know what he is .’  Had