The Revelation of Gabriel Adam by S.L. Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

last night returned, the reality now inseparable from the nightmare. “Fine, I guess. What’s that?” Gabe climbed over the center console to get into the passenger seat.
    “Documents. Passports. As well as a few other things we needed from a safety-deposit box.” He opened the envelope wide and offered a glimpse inside.
    Gabe caught a flash of pink and blue from two thick stacks of British pounds. A small fortune by his standards. “Passports? What do we need all this for?”
    His father stopped sorting the items in the envelope and took a deep breath, his gaze never leaving his lap. “I know our situation has come as a shock to you. All your questions will be answered in due course, but in the meantime you need to understand that what we do is for the best. We are leaving for England to meet a friend.”
    “I don’t have friends in England. I don’t even know anyone there, and you said all your family has passed on.”
    “Regardless, you do have friends there,” he said.
    “Okay. Sure. That sounds perfectly reasonable.” Gabe said, “Richard was murdered last night, in case you forgot. Murdered . He has a family. They need to be contacted, his school—”
    “I have a grave suspicion that Richard wasn’t the intended victim,” his dad interrupted. “This wasn’t a random act of violence against the church. Premeditated, by what I gather, and done so, as you apparently witnessed, with an unquestionable lack of humanity.” He exhaled, as if the words required effort to say. “The symbolism. It was a sign. Our lives are in danger. Particularly yours. That is why we must leave.”
    Particularly mine? “What about the police?” Gabe asked.
    “They will investigate, but their efforts will be futile. The police can’t help us. Nor can they protect us from who did that to the cathedral and Richard.”
    “What are you talking about? What’s going on? Look at me, for God’s sake.” Gabe watched his father, and for a moment he didn’t recognize him. Gone was the stoic man he’d known for so long, and with him, all his rational sensibilities Gabe would have expected during such a tragedy. Instead, he seemed nervous, even frightened.
    He kept his gaze on the dash and started the car. “You’ll find out soon enough, Gabriel.”
    Gabe didn’t understand, but pressing his father for more information seemed futile.
    They pulled away from the curb, presumably heading toward the airport.
    England. Strangely, it was New York that now felt foreign. Somebody wanted him dead, and on top of that, he was losing grip on reality with delusions about the end of the world. Delusions that looked as though they were coming true. Admittedly, leaving felt right. A fear had been growing inside him like a cancer since yesterday, and he wanted to get as far away from it as possible. Anywhere would be safer than here.
    Gabe had enjoyed being comfortably insignificant all his life, and now his life was important to somebody for the wrong reasons. The look in his father’s eyes offered no reassurance. If anything, it told him that this nightmare was going to get worse.
     
     

CHAPTER TWELVE
     
     
    From the large bay windows of the penthouse, Septis watched a trickle of smoke at the far end of the park rise into the afternoon sky. He stood shirtless and held the same knife he had driven into the boy at the cathedral. The dried remnants of the kill dulled the blade’s gleam, and as snow fell outside, he traced swirling, elaborate patterns, making shallow cuts in his chest with the sharpened edge. In the distance, the still-smoldering ruins of his work instilled in him a sense of accomplishment. But these feelings were nothing compared with the electric anticipation of what was to come.
    Black trails caught the wind and moved across the tops of the far-off neighboring buildings. Septis couldn’t help his dissatisfaction from the ease of it all. He had hoped for some sport in his effort; however, the boy proved no harder to