Read The Darkness of God: Book Three of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy for Free Online Page A

envelope, thick with bills.
    “Here,” he said. “The credits are clean, good, and out of sequence, and it’s a pleasure to be part of your — organization.
    “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have plans to dine tonight. Perhaps at Mister Nakamura’s.”
    The two men left.
    Max came out of the bedroom. A gun was in his hand.
    “Why’d you pay them? I completely fail to understand your reasoning in allowing us to be victimized.”
    “Which is why you’re a Chitet and I’m a gambler,” Wolfe said. “Kristin! I’m starving to death!”
    “I see why you’re the ranker of the trio,” Wolfe said. “I don’t think Max had a clue.”
    “He’s a good man,” Kristin said defensively. “Maybe I realized the nature of the situation a little faster than he did because I’ve been around you more.”
    “Probably,” Wolfe said. “Crookedness can be contagious.”
    Kristin smiled. She wore a clinging gown, muted silver with deep burgundy flowers on it, low-cut, Empirewaisted, and utterly diaphanous. Under it was — perhaps — a sheer bodystocking.
    Wolfe wore a white short-waisted formal jacket, matching pants, black silk shirt, and a white throat scarf.
    He shifted position and moved the bomb at the base of his spine to a more comfortable position. “I once told somebody that I heard Time’s winged chariot at my back, but I never thought it’d end up as a literal expression,” he murmured.
    Kristin quirked an eyebrow.
    “Just a private thought,” Joshua said.
    Kristin cut a bite, chewed. “This is wonderful. What is it?”
    “On a Chitet menu, it’d no doubt appear as muscle tissue from a juvenile steer, wrapped in a shell of dough, with cow secretions, plus various fungi.”
    “Pish,” Kristin said. “That won’t affect my appetite. We do that kind of word game as play when we’re growing up.”
    “Play? What you’re tucking away if boeuf Wellington. Named after a general who was pretty good at waiting for his enemy to make the first mistake.”
    “Of course we play — I played — when I was a child. What do you think Chitet do? Just march up and down in formation and drone prime numbers at one another? We’re people, like any other,” Kristin said, a bit of heat in her voice. “We just happen to have a better way of thinking, of living than anybody else.”
    Wolfe started to say something but thought better of it. “Okay. I was wrong. You’re creatures of the sun, the light, and the dancing waves. Now eat your vegetables or I won’t read you any more Charles Peirce before bedtime.”
    “I know who he was,” Kristin said.
    “See my point?”
    Kristin looked puzzled. “No. I don’t.”
    “Never mind.”
    • • •
    Joshua heard music coming from another part of Nakamura’s as they strolled out of the restaurant.
    “Care to dance before we go to work?”
    “No,” Kristin said. “I never learned how. My creche didn’t see the point of doing anything when music played, anyway. It’s enough to simply appreciate it intellectually.”
    “Take that, Dionysus,” Wolfe said.
    “Precisely,” Kristin said. “The Apollonian side must control events, or everything is chaos.”
    “Sometimes chaos can be fun.”
    “And who is whose prisoner?” Kristin retorted.
    “Point and match to Guide Kristin,” Wolfe said.
    They continued into the casino.
    Joshua considered the half-full room as a formally clad man glided to him.
    “Mister Taylor? Welcome to Nakamura’s. Might I inquire as to your pleasure?”
    “Nothing right now,” Wolfe said. “But I do have a question. Is Mister Nakamura present?”
    “Mister Nakamura passed on over a year ago,” the pit boss said. “The club is currently held by a consortium of businessmen.”
    “I see,” Wolfe said. “Perhaps another time I might be interested in your tables. But not at the moment. Come on, Kristin. The Oasis calls.”
    • • •
    “This,” Wolfe said, “might become my home away from home.”
    “Why?” Kristin asked.