Dark Rain Read Free Page B

inhabitants practice sorcery, it could hardly be otherwise. But something like this, the same awful scene replicated over and over again …
    We were facing something different this time. Possibly a whole lot worse than we had ever encountered before.
    The thought was like a heavy weight, pressing down on me. I wondered whether I was strong enough to face this, whatever it was.
    Cassie seemed to understand. One of her hands went gently to my neck.
    “Take it easy, Ross.”
    “Right. How?” I muttered.
    “Usual drill. Deep breaths.”
    I tried a couple, but they didn’t even go down halfway.
    “Why’s it always us,” I asked, “who have to deal with all the really lousy stuff?”
    Her voice was still troubled, but was trying to sound practical.
    “I could have just ridden away. You could have just hung up on me. It’s gotta be someone, mister. What would you rather do, leave it all to the authorities?”
    As if to prove her point, two of my old colleagues – Matt Chalker and Davy Quinn – had emerged onto the street when we came out again. They were slumped against a squad car. Had their caps tipped back, their faces white as flour. Their hands were on their hips. And they were staring about them with wide, glassy eyes, like they were trying to imagine they were dreaming all of this.
    They’re not bad guys, and not entirely useless. It takes a lot of guts, let’s face it, to try and serve as a peace officer when the normal rules are all blown to hell. But guys like Matt and Davy – they’re not quick-witted or adaptable enough to deal with the way life here has become.
    Because the truth is, there may have always been strange happenings in Raine’s Landing. But they’ve gotten more frequent, the last few years. No one was sure why, but it was undeniable.
    It’s a handful of private individuals who really make a difference, these days. Myself. Cass. DuMarr. Willets, when he can be bothered. And, of course, the Little Girl. If anyone can keep a lid on things, it’s us. But the lid just kept on popping up, every time you turned your back.
    Matt Chalker finally noticed me, and called out, “Christ, Devries? Do you believe any of this?”
    Then he went back to his glassy staring, hands still on his hips.
    “Is Saul here?” I asked Cass quietly.
    And she nodded, her gaze steely by this time. As has already been noted, she doesn’t have an awful lot of time for most cops. But she respects a few, and he was one of them.
    “Fifth house on the left.”
    So I went across to consult with the Landing’s best and most reliable detective lieutenant.

TWO
     
     
    Think of Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein and you’ve pretty much got the measure, physically at least, of Detective Lieutenant Saul Hobart. Everything about him overly large and apparently ungainly. Big thick fingers. Massive feet. Shoulders you could rest a dishwasher on each of, and an enormous, bald domed head with stick-out ears and tightly packed, Chiclet-sized teeth. I am tall, but standing he tops me by several inches, except he’s always slightly hunched.
    He wasn’t standing now, however.
    He was sitting in the half-light of another living room, not dissimilar to the one I’d left. Same ordinary furniture, same extraordinary carnage. God Almighty, what on earth had hit this street? And was gazing at something in his broad palm. His head was bowed. He seemed entirely lost in thought, a saddened, brooding giant.
    He was dressed as smartly as a man that size could manage. A charcoal pinstriped suit. A knitted woolen tie of the same color. A crisp white shirt, and a pair of gleaming black shoes the size of miniature kayaks.
    The thing in his hand was a plastic doll with a sweetly smiling face, clad in a miniature pink frilly dress. Its owner … I looked quickly round me … wasn’t here. So she had to be upstairs in her bedroom, in her nursery. I already knew that no one had been spared. And so the little girl who owned the dolly, whatever her