Mark Edward Hall

Hey, boys and girls. This is the the long chapter I promised you, the last of my five chapters in five nights.  From here on out the heat is on for Doug and Annie as they race toward the final confrontation with the Collector and the startling conclusion to Soul Thief.

Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great holiday season.

Chapter 35

Doug was dreaming of his mother. Since her death he had dreamed of her often, so he was not surprised that he was dreaming of her now. What did surprise him was the nature of the dream. She was standing on the front porch of their new house—a house he had never seen let alone lived in, but in the years following his parent’s death had conjured its splendid image so many times that it had become real in his heart—and she was calling to him as he rode away on his bicycle.

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Five chapters in five nights. Here’s the fourth, chapter 34. Tomorrow night I will post chapter 35, a long bonus chapter. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 34

During the nights that followed the woman religiously came to him. She would stand by his bed and watch him sleep, sometimes for long stretches of time. After a while she would turn his bed covers down, unfasten his night shirt and place the object over his heart, holding it there, sometimes for hours, feeling his heart beat beneath her hand, feeling the intense, almost unbearable heat of the object as it went about its business of healing.

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Five chapters in five days. Here’s the third one, chapter 33.

Chapter 33

In the days that followed, as Doug became stronger, he and Lucy talked at length about the Collector. There were things in Doug’s immediate past that he could not recall and his frustration was growing because of it. His last clear memory was of being shot. He remembered Annie and him being driven from their home; he remembered the terrible confrontation with De Roché and his fight with Annie on the beach and their subsequent reconciliation. He remembered the dinner party, getting drunk and wandering into the forest behind De Roché manor and the things he’d seen there. Read more…

Note to readers.  I posted chapter thirty-one last night and I will post three more chapters, one each night for the next three nights as a Christmas bonus to my readers. Make sure you scroll down and read chapter 31 first.

Merry Christmas!

Chapter 32

“I cannot allow you to do anything that might jeopardize the health of your child,” Greta said.

Annie snorted a petulant little laugh. “Is that so?”

Greta stared icily. “Yes, that’s so.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

“Your father has instructed me—”

“I don’t give a fuck what he told you.” Annie turned on the woman, her eyes bright with fury. “Tell him if he wishes to hand out instructions he can come in here and do it himself. Well go, tell him. I’ll not take instructions from his whore.”

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Hey, kind readers, just a short note to let you know that I have decided to post the next five chapters, starting with chapter 31, and ending with chapter 35, one a day for the next five days. You can consider it my Christmas present to you all for cruising along with me on this dark adventure.

Marry Christmas!

Chapter 31

Lucy came back the next morning. In the interim Doug had eaten a small portion of solid food and had managed to sit up in his bed propped up against pillows. He looked down at his body in disgust, seeing how thin his arms were. His lateral muscles were all but gone and his abdominals were deflated to the point of emaciation. His upper body was wrapped in bandages so he could not see how bad the damage there was. He sighed in defeat, understanding that it would take him months of rehabilitation to get back to where he was before the shooting. Damn, he needed to be strong now. Not months from now. He had to find Annie. He had to set things right.

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Chapter 30

When Doug woke he felt nothing. He lay on his back with his arms resting like lengths of cordwood beside him. He could not lift them. It took him a very long time to open his eyes. When he did finally manage to get them open he saw nothing but white. In a short, panic-filled moment he believed he’d somehow been blinded. Then his eyes began to focus and he could see the ceiling above him, the room around him and the bed sheets that covered him. Everything was white, brilliantly so and nearly blinding. As his weary and watering eyes further focused he saw tubes running liquids into his arms, a panel with red and green lights winking on and off.

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