Bad Bones (Red Eye)
Author:
Graham Marks
Publication Date: May 4th 2015
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~
Some
things are best left buried. Gabe is feeling the pressure. His family
has money troubles, he's hardly talking to his dad, plus lowlife Benny
is on his case. Needing some space to think, he heads off into the hills
surrounding LA. And he suddenly stumbles across a secret that will
change everything. A shallow grave. Gabe doesn't think twice about
taking the gold bracelet he finds buried there. Even from the clutches
of skeletal hands. But he has no idea what he's awakening...A chilling
new story in the Red Eye series
I've been loving the Red Eye series so far, if you want to check out what I've thought about them,
Frozen Charlotte,
Sleepless,
Flesh and Blood and
Bad Bones. Today we have an extract from Bad Bones.
Overhead the owl flew up to the small window set into the back wall, near the roof. It landed and sat, head on one side, observing. Gabe glanced over his
shoulder and saw the coyotes, inside now and on the prowl, eyes fixed on him, their prey.
There was something almost human about the way these animals acted. He hadn’t noticed before, but they appeared to have no fear at all. Instead there
was a feeling of recognition, like they were saying, ‘We know who you are, we know all about you.’
Animals didn’t do that, tame or wild. It was the stuff of bad dreams. Like the ones he’d been having ever since he’d found the gold. But this – here, now – this was not anything he was going to wake up from.
Gabe tried and failed to swallow. He wiped away the sweat that ran down from his forehead and looked at Father Simon. It was all down to him that the man had come here to deal with Rafael, exorcise him or whatever it was good priests did to evil priests. The Father was grimacing, like he was in a great deal of pain, and that had to be his fault too.
Cecil LeBarron and his client had died because of him. Stella was… He didn’t want to think where Stella might be, but she was there because of him.
He, Gabe Mason, had to answer for all of it. If he had never found the gold, none of this would have occurred, no one would have had their throats ripped out, the world wouldn’t be going crazy and he and the Father would not be about to die.
“You, boy!”
Gabe turned his attention back to Rafael, astonished at the number of different thoughts a brain could process in such a short space of time, wondering when the torture would begin.
“Where is it – where is what belongs to me? What was taken from me should be returned!” Rafael, his head at a strange angle like he had a really bad crick in his neck, stared at Gabe, anger stoking the mad fire in his eyes.
“You are my chosen one. I recognized you, that is why I spared you, boy! You were sent, you came to find me again … and you wished and prayed so hard. I knew you would come. You were born for these majestic days. Through you I have been reborn – you who will be anointed again, you who will now walk in my shadow forever, drink the blood of life with me and feel the last beat of
a thousand thousand hearts! Why have you let me down?”
“I don’t know you!” Gabe couldn’t make any sense of what Rafael was saying – why was he making it sound like they’d met before? “I never wanted to be chosen, I never did!”
“Be very careful what you wish for, boy. A question cannot be unasked. A wish, once granted, can never be revoked.” Rafael smiled. “And now I have you
back, you are mine.”
Rafael’s mood seemed to change in the blink of an eye, one moment fired up with uncontained anger, the next placid and calm. It occurred to Gabe that
maybe being brought back to life did that to a person.
“I told you!” Gabe screamed. “I told you I don’t believe in you!”
“Did you not listen? Are you an imbecile – so stupid you cannot understand?” Rafael reared back. “I warned you, boy. I showed you what would happen if you do not do what I say… If I do not have what is mine returned to me. Yet still you came here empty-handed. Where is what is mine, boy? Where is it?”
