Reign of Evil

The man nodded. “I expect they do. We can ring them up tomorrow morning.” He stepped forward and held out a hand. “Ian Waits. Commander Ian Waits. Retired Special Air Service. Your commander called me and asked that I look after you a bit.”

Walker should have known. Looking at the man now more carefully, he realized he’d been mistaken when he’d thought of him as skinny. That wasn’t the right word. “Lean.” “Wiry.” Those were better. He stood about five foot six or seven. His head was clean shaven, but in the dying light of the day Walker could make out scars on the man’s face and scalp. And his eyes were definitely the eyes of a military officer—someone who’d seen too much and didn’t miss a thing. Like Holmes’s.

He took Ian’s hand. “Jack Walker, but you already knew that.”

Ian nodded. “What happened here was egregious. We’ll sort this out. It might take a few days, but we’ll take care of it.” He turned to leave. “For now, however, let’s get to someplace warmer. We’ll have a pint and discuss our way ahead.”

Ian’s phone suddenly rang. He pulled it from his pocket and brought it to his ear. Walker couldn’t hear the conversation, but by the look on the man’s face it wasn’t anything good. When it was over, Ian stared at the phone, then slowly replaced it.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get your bag out of your car.”

“What? That’s my rental!”

Ian shook his head. “No reason to have two cars. I’ll have the rental company come pick it up. We have somewhere we need to be, anyway. It might have something to do with the murders. If nothing else, it should shed light on what happened.” Ian stepped out of the stone circle with long, quick strides.

Walker struggled to catch up. His head was spinning. “Who are we going to meet?”

“A seer we use from time to time.”

“A what?”

“A seer. A witch if you will.”

Walker put a hand on Ian’s arm to stop him. “Wait a moment. Who do you work for?”

Ian smiled, revealing a gold tooth on the lower left side of his mouth. “Section 9. We do what you do, only we do it here. Who’d you think I was? The welcome wagon?”

The man took off again, leaving Walker to stare at his receding back. Well, of course England would have its own group. Walker broke into a run to catch up.

CHAPTER 6

WOKING, ENGLAND. NIGHT.

They drove in silence for forty minutes before they pulled into the town of Woking. Walker noted the interspersed new and ancient architecture. It had begun to mist and Ian had put on the wipers. Through the prism of wet glass, the land seemed surreal. To think that twenty-four hours ago he’d thought that Jen was still alive and that the life they’d planned together was his definitive future. He squeezed his fists together until his knuckles cracked.

Laws had sent him a text with a few kind words and then a link to what was called the Kübler-Ross Model. It’s also referred to as the Five Stages of Grief, but Walker believed that Kübler-Ross had little to no idea what she was talking about. Her theory was that a person went through each of these stages in order and it was through these stages that a mourner felt at peace. According to her, they were denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If he was to build a model of stages, it would have at least ten stages, beginning and ending with rage and interspersed with enough anger to fuel movement to the next stage.

He reflected back to his last mission and how dangerous it had been for Jen. Not only could she have been killed by one of the Flayed Ones or the Los Zetas or the Obsidian Butterfly, but Ramon the werewolf could have killed her at any time. To think she survived all of that so she could die on a fucking vacation made him want to explode. What a sad fucking universe this turned out to be.

They passed a sign that read: “Horsell Moor” and Jack immediately thought of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Was the seer’s cabin somewhere on the moor? They turned onto Broomhall Road, a narrow way bordered on either side by shrubberies that blocked the views of the nearby homes. They reached the end of the road where a sign read: “Turning Point No Parking.” Ian turned the vehicle around, then parked.

Ian switched off the car. “It might say no parking, but no one’s going to mess with this car.”

“Do they know who it belongs to?”

“No, and that’s why they won’t mess with it. It only comes back as belonging to Her Majesty’s government with no other affiliation. They’re afraid they might piss someone off if they so much as give the car a parking ticket.”

“So you can drive however you want.”

“With impunity if we have to.” Ian opened the door. “Come on, let’s go.”