The Lawwell Rides Out: Prologue

Prologue

The phone began to ring around four in the morning, it was still dark. I was tired so I let it ring and it stopped. Five minutes later it rang again, and again and again until the wife complained and Tom Devine leaned over from the middle of the bed and answered it. 'It's for you,' he said and dropped it on my chest. I got up and took the call in the en-suite cursing myself for rising, knowing fine well that Devine would stretch out and take over my side of the bed.
'Jamaica Bridge, Clyde Street, now' said a mysterious voice and hung up.

Half an hour later I was stepping out of a taxi and approaching a group of men huddled under the Jamaica Street bridge, all of them looking up. One or two were police, I didn't recognise the others and one tall man in a long, black coat stayed in the shadows so I didn't get to see his face. I joined this group and squinted to see in the dark what it was that kept their attention and prevented even one of them from looking at me and wondering what I was doing there. Then I saw something that will stay with me forever; hanging from the pigeon netting under the bridge was a body, it's chest torn open, rib cage parted, ribs protruding horribly through the netting and innards hanging down, dripping gore onto the ground. One of the uniformed cops turned and ran towards the Clyde but was too late and vomited into a puddle, retching so much that he ended up on all fours. This set me off and I too turned but also couldn't hold it down and I fetched up puking all over my corduroy trousers and corduroy hush puppies.

As I mopped my mouth and chin with a hanky, I could see the man in the black great coat saying something to the others and whatever it was, they listened intently. I could just about make out his short blonde hair but that was all I saw before the next wave of nausea hit me. As I sat there, spitting the awful taste from my mouth, I overheard just the one word, 'Wormwood', then the man in the coat strode off from the main group and walked past me. It was at this point that I saw who it was and as I recognised him, he dropped a business card onto the ground before disappearing into the darkness beyond the bridges. I reached out and picked it up and gazed at it. It had a phone number and said simply, 'Jorg Albertz, Demon Hunter'.