Gianfranco Mancini’s Reviews > Blind Shadows > Status Update

Carl was similarly bristling with weapons by the time they shut the trunk and got back into the front of the cruiser. Griffin said, “If Jerry Wallace were here, this really would be like old times.” “He’s here,” Carl said, slapping his fist on his chest over his heart. Griffin nodded. “He is.” Carl said, “Lights and siren?” “Hell yeah.”

Running Code, the police called it when they drove with the lights and siren. Griffin had almost forgotten what that was like. He glanced to one side and saw an old cabin by the side of the road. A big, grinning Jack O’Lantern sat on the cabin’s front porch. Happy fucking Halloween, Griffin thought.

And the nameless Blackbourne turned back and looked at him for a moment, smiling as his malformed face slowly went back to where it was supposed to be. The man never spoke a word, but he grinned with a mouth full of teeth that seemed too large and too sharp for his face, and his eyes when he stared were an unsettling shade of blue and had too many pupils.
Jeff felt a powerful need to piss and to puke both.

“Are you calling me an asshole?” Adams took a step forward. “Did you wake my family?” Perez held out the warrant for the man to see. “We’re checking every house in the Hollow.” The man moved out of her way. “Good luck with that.” “What do you mean?” “There’s houses, and there’s houses.” Perez shook her head. “What do you mean?” “I expect you’ll find out soon enough.”

The sheriff had to die, no matter what Mother said. Otherwise the pain would come back and Jeb didn’t think he could take that again. Not this soon.
Jeb called and his brothers and sisters responded. Not all of them, of course, only a handful, some of the gifted who could walk both worlds. Despite the ghost of pain that still haunted him, Jeb licked his lips. He was hungry. He wondered what sheriff tasted like.

Merle headed for the door and Carl let him go. He held his breath until the bastard was through the threshold. He wasn’t watching as well as he should have. If he had been, he’d have seen the Blackbourne patriarch cut himself in the palm of his hand and let several fat drops hit the dirt of the parking lot. And if he’d been paying attention, things might have gone very differently.

“I won’t. I don’t suppose telling you to stay out of Blackbourne business would do any good?” “Probably not. Guess you’ll just have to try and kill me again.” “It could come to that, but personally I’d rather you stay alive.” “And why’s that?” Isaiah Blackbourne grinned a wide grin and Griffin could see his very sharp teeth. “I’d like for you to see what happens to your world when the path is opened.”

There are places in the woods where no sane human being would go without substantial backup. Tony got to see one of those places intimately before the spikes were pounded into his eyes and his scrotum. He also got to learn exactly how much a knife stroke can hurt well before he was blinded.

“Take the warning.” “What warning would that be?” “You saw it. The girl saw it.” “The writing on the floor? Neat trick. How did you manage it? I’m fascinated by this sort of thing.” “Take the warning,” the man gurgled. “Or what?” “We kill you.” “Why don’t you come into what light there is so I can see you?” “You don’t want to see us.”
“Try me.”

Griffin rang off. “Maybe something on the glyphs, Carl.” “Better than the feds are doing then. Who you got looking into them.” “A witch.” “Like pointy hat and nose with wart witch?” “More like hot twenty-five year old witch.” “I like her already. She know her stuff?” Griffin said, “She does. Charon has helped me with a couple of other cases that veered over into the Twilight Zone.”