Free The Gatekeeper's Sons (The Gatekeeper's Trilogy) by Eva Pohler

laughed. “You’re not the marrying kind, Hip. I can see that.”
     
    The next morning after breakfast, Carol drove Therese to the Durango Police Department. Lieutenant Hobson met them at the front desk and escorted them into a dimly lit room that smelled like her father’s cigars. Through a window on one wall, they could see six men being led into an adjacent room. Each wore a number around his neck. Two of the men were tall and the others closer to average size. One h ad a big belly. All six men had dark skin and beards, though the beards were of varying lengths and tidiness. Therese recognized the face she had seen the day of the shooting. Seeing him sent shivers all down her spine and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She could barely breathe. There was no question in her mind. He was there the night of the shooting.
    Had he killed her parents? She looked at him with hatred and fear as tears slid down her cheeks. Had he been responsible for ruining her life forever? She wanted to break through the glass and strangle him. “Number four,” she finally said with confidence. “Definitely number four.”
    “You’re sure?” the lieutenant asked.
    “Positive.”
    The lieutenant spoke into a machine and said, “Thanks. You can lead them out now.”
    As the men turned to follow the officer out of the small chamber, Therese saw a reflection in the window of a woman standing behind her. The reflection appeared out of nowhere and looked exactly like the woman in the woods from the day before—the woman who called her name and may or may not have been carrying a snake. There was definitel y a large bird perched on the shoulder of the woman in the reflection, and the woman was smiling and nodding, apparently at Therese. Therese quickly turned, gasping, but there was no one behind her.
    “What’s wrong?” Carol asked, standing beside her.
    “What? Oh, nothing. Can we go home now?”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Ten: Setting Up
     
    Late at night, Than listened for her voice among the multitude praying to him. So many voices all at once, “Please don’t take my son! He’s all I have!” and “Don’t let the cancer take her. Help her to recover.” As if he had a choice. People are born, they live, and they die, and there was little the gods could do to alter their experiences. In many ways, Than thought, the gods were the slaves of humans, each with a duty to help maintain the world and to keep all of its creation in balance. The gods served the world and its inhabitants, not the other way around.
    At last he heard her voice echoing above the mountains of Colorado. He flew to her and listened.
    “I hope my parents feel no pain,” Therese whispered, and her voice lifted up to him and into the clouds like sweet, soft music, like something his mother might have once sung to him. “I hope my dream was true, and they really are in the beautiful Elysian Fields, perfectly happy.”
    Than looked down upon Therese where she sat on her bed with her little dog. “I miss them, Clifford,” she said out loud. “I miss them so much!” She hugged her dog and sobbed.
    A knock at her bedroom door brought her beautiful face up again. “Yes?”
    “Can I come in?” A woman, a redhead, too, stood behind the door.
    As Therese and the other woman spoke, Than wondered if he were acting too hastily in his decision to pursue Therese. She was, after all, the one and only girl he had ever met alive. Once he changed into mortal form, he could meet other girls and make a more informed decision. What was so special about Therese? As soon as he had asked himself the question, he answered it: she was the only soul in the centuries of his existence to have willed herself to the outskirts of the Underworld and to get close enough to him to touch him. This alone set her apart. Also. she hadn’t come to him in a proud, arrogant, threatening way. She hadn’t realized she had left the dream world and was