Read Online Reliquary by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child - Free Book Online Page A

answer. “There is another place. A shunned place. Twelve months ago, rumors began to emerge, rumors that this place had become occupied. Then the killings began. Our people began disappearing. At first, we sent out search parties. Most of the victims were never found. But those we did find had their flesh eaten, their heads ripped from their bodies.”
    “Wait a minute,” Smithback said. “Their flesh eaten ? You mean there is a group of cannibals down here, murdering people and stealing their heads?” Perhaps Mephisto was nuts, after all. Once again, Smithback began to wonder how he would return to the surface.
    “I do not appreciate the doubting tone in your voice, scriblerian,” Mephisto replied. “That is exactly what I mean. Tail Gunner?”
    “Yes?” said a voice in Smithback’s ear. The journalist jumped to one side, neighing in surprise and fright.
    “How did he get back here?” Smithback gasped.
    “There are many ways through my kingdom,” came the voice of Mephisto. “And living here, in lovely darkness, our night vision becomes acute.”
    Smithback swallowed. “Look,” he said, “it isn’t that I don’t believe you. I just--”
    “Be silent!” Mephisto warned. “We have spoken long enough. Tail Gunner, return him to the surface.”
    “But what about the reward?” Smithback asked, surprised. “Isn’t that why you brought me here?”
    “Have you heard nothing I told you?” came the hiss. “Your money is useless to me. It is the safety of my people I care about. Return to your world, write your article. Tell those on the surface what I have told you. Tell them that whatever killed Pamela Wisher is also killing my people. And the killings must stop.” The disembodied voice seemed farther away now, echoing through the dark corridors beneath Smithback’s feet. “Otherwise,” he added with a fearful intensity, “we will find other ways to make our voices heard.”
    “But I need--” Smithback began.
    A hand closed around his elbow. “Mephisto has gone,” came the voice of Tail Gunner beside him. “I’ll take you topside.”

= 7 =
    Lieutenant D’Agosta sat in his cramped, glass-sided office, fingering the cigar in his breast pocket and eyeing a stack of reports about the Humboldt Kill dive. Instead of closing one case, he now had two cases, both wide open. As usual, nobody knew nothing, nobody saw nothing. The boyfriend was prostrate with grief and useless as an eyewitness. The father was long dead. The mother was as uncommunicative and remote as an ice goddess. He frowned; the whole Pamela Wisher business felt like nitroglycerine to him.
    His eye traveled from the stack of reports to the NO SMOKING sign outside his door, and the frown deepened. It and a dozen like it had gone up around the precinct station just the week before.
    He slid the cigar out of his pocket and removed its plastic wrapping. No law against chewing on the thing, at any rate. He rolled it lovingly between thumb and index finger for a moment, examining the wrapper with a critical eye. Then he placed it in his mouth.
    He sat for a moment, motionless. Then, with a curse, he jerked open the top drawer of his desk, hunted around until he located a kitchen match, and lit it on the sole of his shoe. He applied the flame to the end of the cigar and sat back with a sigh, listening to the faint crackle of tobacco as he drew in the smoke and bled it slowly out his nose.
    The internal phone rang shrilly.
    “Yes?” D’Agosta answered. Couldn’t be a complaint already. He’d just lit up.
    “Lieutenant?” came the voice of the departmental secretary. “There’s a Sergeant Hayward here to see you.”
    D’Agosta grunted and sat up in his chair. “Who?”
    “Sergeant Hayward. Says it’s by your request.”
    “I didn’t ask for any Sergeant Hayward--”
    A uniformed woman appeared in the open doorway. Almost instinctively, D’Agosta took in the salient features: petite, thin, heavy breasts, jet black hair against