Vessels by Kealan Patrick Burke

Author:Kealan Patrick Burke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror books, ghost, horror, mystery, supernatural, ghost story, series, paranormal, timmy quinn
Publisher: Kealan Patrick Burke
Published: 2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

BRENNAN'S FACE WAS a parody of human physiognomy. Though there were no candles left alight inside the chapel, occasionally the lightning would fill the windows and send echoes of electric fire in through the open door. In those brief flashes, Tim saw swatches of diseased flesh hanging from glistening bone, mildewed eyes catching the light and absorbing it, so that they gave off a faint blue glow. Filaments of hair poked from his otherwise scabrous dome of a skull, broken teeth crammed into a septic grin.

"You know the way," he said. "Or would you like me to take you by the hand?"

"No." Panic sped along his nerves. He should not be here. The Scholar was loose which meant everyone on the island was now in mortal danger. But what could he do about it? The only course of action available to him was to find whoever had strung up the priest, and sooner rather than later, and even that meant someone would die. But Brennan had not brought him here for that. He had brought him here for confession. He had brought him here to meet whatever the Curtain had made of his father.

He felt sick.

"How did you get free?"

Brennan, little more than a shadow against the dark, moved up the aisle toward the altar. "Your father understands, it seems. In return for my bringing you here, he cut me down. I envy the shred of empathy he has retained in death."

Tim was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps it had been his father's presence he had felt, and feared, outside this place. After so many years of dealing with the dead, of helping them find justice, of helping them to murder their murderers, he knew he should not still be so terrified of them. But if even on a subconscious level he had suspected his father might be waiting inside the chapel, it would justify the overwhelming dread he'd experienced standing in the building's shadow. There were things he did not need to see, nor want to. His father was one of them. But now that he knew The Scholar—who could just as easily have killed him and commenced his hunt—was telling the truth about what was inside the confessional, he was overcome with a desperate need to see his father, just once more, in the dark where he wouldn't have to see death's work. Perhaps all the regret and guilt that had festered inside him could be put to rest after all.

The wind raged through the door, pulling him from his thoughts. He could see nothing now, not even the lurching shape of The Scholar and it unnerved him, being in the dark with the dead man.

"Where are you?"

There was no answer. Arms held out before him, fingers testing the dark for obstacles, he walked a few steps and rammed his knee into the hard edge of a pew.

"Jesus Christ!"

A flare of lightning and he jerked away from the decayed face that was suddenly inches away from his own.

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