‘This is north,’ said Epstein, as his young man started the car, Liat standing by an open rear door, their departure now imminent. ‘This place. Planes crash here, and are slowly sucked into the ground. Killers come here, and meet their end. Dark angels spread their wings above its ground, and are brought down by their enemies. And you, you are here. I used to believe that it was you to whom they were drawn in this place, but now I think that I may have been wrong. There is something else here. It called to Malphas, and it tried to hide that plane. It calls to them all, even if they’re unaware of its voice. That is what Liat believes, and now that is what I believe.’
We shook hands.
‘It is a shame about that list,’ said Epstein, and while his right hand clasped mine tightly, he rested his left hand upon both, and his eyes searched my face for any hint that what he suspected might well be true: whatever was in the bag at the bottom of that dark pond, it was not the list. ‘You know, I sent some of my people into the interior to search for it, but to no avail. It seems that body of water is very deep. Let’s just hope that the list rests in a safe place.’
‘I can think we can be sure of that,’ I replied.
They left me then. I faced the north, as though, from where I stood, I might see far, far beyond, deep into the darkness of the Great North Woods.
The woods, and whatever lay buried deep beneath them.
Buried, and waiting.
Acknowledgements
As always, I am indebted to a number of individuals who helped to make this book better than it might otherwise have been. I would like to thank my fellow author, Paul Doiron (www.pauldoiron.com), who, in addition to being a very fine writer, is also the editor of
I am very fortunate to be surrounded by people, most of them women, who are much smarter than I am, and who have taken it upon themselves to look after my odd little books and, by extension, me. I would be very lost without my editors, Sue Fletcher at Hodder & Stoughton and Emily Bestler at Atria, and all who work alongside them: Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood, Lucy Hale, Auriol Bishop, Jamie Hodder-Williams and the fine sales reps at Hodder; and Judith Curr, Louise Burke, Carolyn Reidy, Caroline Porter, David Brown, and the sales teams at Atria and Pocket. My friend Clair Lamb has made my life immeasurably easier by taking on the thankless role of publicist, assistant, and general organizer of all things book-related, assisted by the patently gifted Madeira James, who looks after my website, and, until recently, Jayne Doherty, who has since moved on to sunnier marital climes. My thanks, too, as always, to my agent, Darley Anderson, without whom I would not be in the fortunate position of being published, and his team: Clare Wallace, Mary Darby, Sophie Gordon, Vicki Le Feuvre, Andrea Messent, Camilla Wray, Rosanna Bellingham, Peter Colegrove and, in Los Angeles, my film agent, Steve Fisher.
Finally, the people at home have to put up with a lot. To my lovely Jennie, to Cameron and Alistair, and to the two dogs, Sasha and Coco, who keep me company in my office, my love and thanks.
Copyright © Bad Dog Books Limited 2012
The right of John Connolly to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 75646 3
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