A Whisper of Southern Lights Read Free

separated from Davey and Meloy, holding a position with Sergeant Snelling and several others.
    Around midafternoon, the Japanese surprised us and melted away into the jungle, leaving their dead behind. We would encounter these same troops several more times during our retreat to Singapore. They ambushed, engaged us in an hour or two of intense combat, then slipped away to prepare for the next fight.
    Thirty percent of our men were dead or injured.
    Later, when Davey came out of the jungle, I thought he’d been shot. His eyes were wide and glazed, hands grasping at his chest as though to dig out a bullet. “Meloy’s dead,” he said.
    “No! How?”
    “He took three with him. Grenade.”
    “What else?” Davey was distracted; I could see that. We’d all lost friends and continued to do so, but he and Meloy had not been especially close. Mad Meloy had not been close to anyone or anything except his own death.
Perhaps all the Japs are like
Meloy
, and that’s why they’ll win,
Davey had whispered to me one night.
    “Nothing,” Davey said.
    “Where’s Meloy now?”
    “I buried him.”
    “On your own?”
    Davey glared at me, his eyes coming to life again. “There was a man. And a snake,” he said, then he frowned and looked away. “In his eye.” Then he turned and left, offering no more answers.
    In the frantic retreat that followed, I had no opportunity to talk to Davey about Meloy’s fate and the man with a snake in his eye. And he never mentioned Mad Meloy to me again until that time just before he died.
    Or just after.

Three
    GABRIEL HID ON THE BANKS of the river overlooking Singapore Island and the bombed causeway connecting it to the mainland. He wore no uniform, which meant that he could be shot as a spy by either side. He carried no weapons; he had learned long before that it would take more than a blade or bullet to kill Temple. His eyepatch was black and studded with three small diamonds—a gift from a lady in Verona back in 1922—and his scar-pocked face resembled the landscape he hid within. He could smell burning and death, hear the sounds of battle from the island, and he knew that his man was over there right now.
Jack Sykes,
the land had whispered to him in Italy, and he had known instantly that this was the name of Temple’s next intended victim. It was also a man who posed some sort of danger to Temple. And that was why Gabriel had to find him.
    Of course, there was the possibility that he was going mad.
    Three aircraft passed overhead and crossed the strait, disappearing into the cloud of thick, oily smoke hanging above the northern part of the city. Gabriel saw the zeros on their wings and knew that they would be unleashing more death within seconds.
    His empty eye socket ached, and several miles back, a single, bloody tear had slipped from beneath the eyepatch.
    Temple is near,
he thought.
Maybe this side of the water, but more likely over there.
Looking for Sykes among the soldiers still fighting, or perhaps waiting until they’re all taken prisoner.

Looking for him to kill him.
    This time, there was no assassination. No money had changed hands; no contract had been set. Temple was doing this for himself, and that, more than anything, meant that Gabriel was closer to defeating him than ever before.
    But he had to be careful. The demon might not know for sure that he was there, but he’d be on his guard, as always. Gabriel would be expected.
    Blazing oil was slicking across the river and heading around the northern coast of Singapore. There were vague shapes here and there in the flames, and occasionally a smaller blast came from one of these shapes. Small-arms fire sounded all around. Mortar rounds fell, artillery thumped, shells whistled, Zeros streaked overhead and the confusion was aggravated by thick smoke rolling across the landscape.
    He heard the screams of the dying and the similar cries of those dealing death.
    Gabriel could move between the lines. After centuries seeking and