Free The Priest's Graveyard by Ted Dekker

problem?” I asked.
    “He knows that I know and yes, that could be a problem. He’s a brutal man who would think nothing of cutting my feet out from
     under me. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill everyone who knows.”
    My tower of strength was crumbling before my eyes. I didn’t know what to think, much less say. I set my fork down.
    “Kill?”
    “What do you do? You build everything up around you to keep out the wolves, then one sneaks in and just like that”—he snapped
     his fingers—“it’s over.”
    “Don’t say that!”
    “You see, this is where the law fails. I should know, right? Me and all my rules and laws.” He used his hands to make his
     points. “Don’t do this, don’t do that. Do it like this, do it like that. The law, the Ten Commandments, the police, me. And
     what’s it worth in the end? Nothing! A man like Bourque can run circles around the law. He can come in and snuff out someone
     like me with one pinch of his fingers.”
    “Please don’t say that!”
    “Sometimes I think the vigilante has it right. I’m tempted to reach out and teach Bourque a lesson myself.”
    “What vigilante?”
    “Some guy in the news. The point is, there comes a time when the law fails, and then you wish you could set things straight.”
    “Nothing’s going to happen,” I objected. “You’re just talking, right?”
    He looked at me, then nodded and offered an apologetic smile. “You’re right. I’m just blowing off steam.”
    Relieved, I tried to laugh.
    “You’re right,” he continued. “We have rules for a purpose. They keep us safe. Like religion, the law plays a vital role in
     people’s lives. And you, my reborn, are the greatest benefactor of that law.”
    I raised my glass and toasted the air. “Then to the law.”
    “To the law.”
    We drank.
    “But if the system ever fails you, Renee, then forget about the law and go after the pig with both guns blazing.”
    I stared.
    He flashed a grin, brown eyes bright beneath that halo of blond hair. “So to speak.”
    “I’ll fry Jonathan Bourque on a spit and bury his bones in the ocean,” I said.
    Lamont blinked at my boldness. “I don’t think you can fry on a spit. That would be roasting.”
    I lifted my glass. “To roasting,” I said.
    “To roasting.”
    He laughed, and we toasted.
    “Would you like to join me in our bed tonight?”
    Our bed. Not my bed or his bed. Our bed. Regardless of how I felt, there was only one polite response, particularly after such a wonderful treat.
    “Yes.”
    He nodded. “Wonderful. You should cleanse first.”
    “Yes.”
    Lamont sighed and stared out at the stars. “Such a beautiful night.”

7
    Today Danny would kill Cain Kellerman, his twelfth offender, nine of whom had been snuffed out.
    The mounting death toll was starting to give Danny nightmares. This was his cross to bear. Like a father committed to disciplining
     his child, he did not relish the punishment itself, only the good that would come of it.
    Danny sat in his Chevy Malibu at the curb just outside his cul-de-sac home in Lakewood’s Brentwood Estates. His modest single-story
     brick house was one of a hundred built in the tract around five models, and it was a perfect fit for him in many ways.
    For starters, the neighborhood was serene and beautiful compared with the war-ravaged Bosnia he’d left when he was eighteen,
     three years after his mother and sisters were brutally murdered by the likes of Cain Kellerman. Every day he thanked God for
     the blessing of such a beautiful country as this. Truly, most Americans did not know how fortunate they were to live in such
     luxury, free of Kellerman, who would be dead by the end of the day.
    Danny studied the three-by-five photograph of the dark-haired, blue-eyed man wearing black-plastic-framed glasses and felt
     not a hint of pity.
    Kellerman’s sin was offing young prostitutes after using them up. He trolled the streets for his victims, took them to a hotel,
     had his way