****
“Damn,” cursed Barns, as the patrol car slowed to a stop. On the road in front of them stood Dark. The first impulse of the sheriff was to run him down, the second to draw his revolver and shoot him, but Fenster wouldn’t approve. Besides, he wasn’t sure that such actions would do anything other than get himself killed. So he simply climbed out of the squad car and hoped that he wouldn’t be butchered like the Larkin brothers.
“I have a message for you and your boss, Sheriff,” announced Dark, as he approached Barns, smiling his unfriendly smile. “I heard that the Tribe Shaman and the Goths may have been killed. Let it be clear that Johnny Goth must be mine.”
Barns swallowed. “I had nothing to do with it, but we heard from our inside people that Johnny has already been killed by fire,” said Barns, his throat suddenly dry. He was remembering what Dark had done to his cousins, and had to fight to keep both fear and anger under control.
“Fortunately for you, that is not the case. I saw Goth near here, alive and well, not ten minutes ago.”
“No kidding! And that’s the way you want him? Alive? That’s your message?”
“Unless you and your boss want to take his place?”
“Of course not. But you have got to cool it. All your killings have got people worked up. Hell, you’ve even killed kin of mine!”
Dark laughed. “I am Death. What did you expect?”
The squad car radio squealed, signaling a call, and causing Barns to glance at the squad car. When he looked for Dark again, he was gone. “Damn,” he commented.
The call was from his men waiting outside the Goth property. A very much alive Johnny Goth had just returned to the Goth place in an SUV, along with two old men from town. “Damn,” Barns repeated.