The only thing that bothered him now was how little he cared.
A mist hung in the air as the sun rose, dew clinging to his boots. He felt a breeze of wind and tasted moisture. It was quiet in the clearing, filled with foreboding.
He walked through the overgrown street toward the Church. Broken shutters and roof tiles littered the dirt road as he went. It felt like a ghost town: empty, uninviting, and threatening.
The sun flitted through the trees overhead. It was eerily quiet, not even birds or insects chirping. They could feel the supernatural presence, the sheer wrongness of it, as easily as he could. Even the forest could sense something was amiss.
The Church was bigger up close, built on a hill and dwarfing the buildings around it. Part of the ceiling was caved in and it was covered in mold and vines. He guessed it to have been built in the middle of the nineteenth century. It must have been abandoned not long after.
He stepped past the spikes, barely noticing the grotesque expressions of pain and terror on the faces of his friends. He’d seen worse in his time.
He’d done worse in his time.
He moved to the door and slipped the snub nose revolver from his belt. It felt comfortable in his hand, ready and waiting to deal death.
The door was cracked. Inside, he heard the creaking of a board as someone strode across the floor.
“Whoever I find inside,” he said, “I will kill.”
A moment passed in silence, and then a silky, smooth voice came back to him. It was a voice he recognized instantly:
“That…”
The Reverend felt a shiver run down his spine and his heart skipped a beat. “No, no, no,” he muttered.
The door opened smoothly in front of him and he saw Abigail standing there, a lascivious smile on her face.
“…would be a shame,” she finished.
Pick up Raven’s Peak Today!
A quiet little mountain town is hiding a big problem. When the townsfolk of Raven’s Peak start acting crazy, Abigail Dressler is called upon to find out what is happening. She uncovers a demonic threat unlike any she’s ever faced and finds herself in a fight just to stay alive.
She rescues Haatim Arison from a terrifying fate and discovers that he has a family legacy in the supernatural that he knows nothing about. Now she’s forced to protect him, which is easy, and also trust him if she wants to save the townsfolk of Raven’s Peak. Trust, however, is considerably more difficult for someone who grew up living on the knife’s edge of danger.
Can they discover the cause of the town’s insanity and put a stop to it before it is too late?
The Ninth Circle (World on Fire - Side Jobs Book 1) Page 5