Read Online Grand Junction by Maurice G. Dantec - Free Book Online

not speak. He looks in turn at each of the members of the Council, sitting here in their excuse for a city hall, this old Quebecois school bus found one day, full of dead children, south of the river.
    “And so someone has betrayed my trust, and, even worse, taken unwise risks.”
    The voice holds the almost indifferent calm of an assassin ready to deliver the deathblow.
    “So you can easily imagine that I am not happy at all.”
    Link watches the members of the Council.
    They don’t look very happy, either.
    “I wanted to talk to you about it as soon as possible. Right now we’re only dealing with rumors.”
    “I’m sick of this, Gabriel. We agreed that I would be kept updated about each visit, especially the important ones. Your friend hasn’t been to see me.”
    “We don’t know yet what this is really about, Sheriff Langlois, or even what to do, or how; I assure you, that’s why I talked to Judith about it.”
    “Yeah,” grumbles the sheriff, “that’s the best thing you’ve done, because she told her parents right away. And her parents, as you know, are Council members.”
    Again, Link looks out of the corner of his eye at each of the men and women sitting around the table in the center of the remodeled school bus and taking up almost its entire length.
    He recognizes Judith’s parents, sitting on either side of the young woman, and their friends the Sommervilles, an evangelical pastor and his wife. Father Newman is there, too, and Mrs. Kirkpatrick, the deacon. And there is Lady van Harpel, his mother’s best friend, who moved to Deadlink two years ago when masses of refugees overtook the small valley where she had been parking her mobile home.
    And then there is the sheriff. The block of granite. The Man of Classical Law. He is accompanied by his first adjunct, a solid fellow from Alberta called Slade Orange Vernier.
    And to top it all off, at the other end of the table, facing the sheriff, who is presiding over the assembly, is Link’s own father, Milan Djordjevic.
    His father, who is looking at him with his clear eyes, two opalescent pearls that fix him with an indecipherable mixture of compassion and hardness.
    His father, who is not very happy, either, but who knows that Link is doing what he can, with his scanty childish resources, to survive on his own.
    His father, who knows he is afraid. Of his own powers as much as of what they must fight.
    His father, who knows he is exactly right to be afraid.
    “Are these isolated cases, or are we looking at an epidemic in progress? Or the threat of one?”
    “Like I told you, Sheriff, we don’t know anything yet. My friend told me about two cases that both happened last week. If it started in October there have definitely been others. But how many, is the big question.”
    “A question we need to answer as soon as possible.”
    “My friends are looking, Sheriff. You know as well as I do that what they look for, they find.”
    Langlois’ black gaze plunges into Link’s own. The fact that he is only twelve years old means nothing, Link knows. In Heavy Metal Valley, you stop being a child after the first twenty-four hours of your life.
    “It would be in your interest to keep me informed and to respect procedures, Gabriel.”
    A heavy silence falls like a leaden sky over the school bus and the Council table. Langlois’ last remark is one that needs no additional commentary.
    Then the sheriff inclines his head in Milan Djordjevic’s direction, at the other end of the table.
    “And now we will move on to the second subject that involves us. Or rather … that involves Mr. Djordjevic.”
    Link watches his father with unfeigned curiosity. The man’s face is imperturbable; a very slight smile plays at the corners of his mouth.
    “The confirmation is valid, Sheriff,” Milan Djordjevic says. “The Vatican’s holographic seal has been identified.”
    Sheriff Langlois says nothing. Clearly, the ball is in Link’s father’s camp.
    “The convoy leaves