The detective came out of the room and lit three cigarettes. One for Mathukia and two for himself. When he examined Churchwood's body that morning, Dr Mathukia said that he had never seen such horrific injuries inflicted on a human being. However, it was the look of terror frozen into his lifeless features which disturbed him above anything. Afterwards, Mathukia, normally a very staid and placid person, went home and cried himself to sleep.

Some half a century earlier in Guatemala City, on the so called Day Of The Clay Idols, six people had been brutally slain. On that spring morning, each had woken to find clay statues placed outside their front doors. The statues depicted a child on it's knees with a sword stuck through each arm. It's arms were raised out in front and it's head flung back, as if the child were offering himself to something of great power.

Sixteen years later, in a small town just six miles north of Oslo, another six statues, another six victims. Like the Guatemalan six, all were brutally slain.

In an area of town known as Madagascar, Stretton lay on his bed with a cigarette in his hand, examining the statue he had found that morning outside his house. The child's eyes had a lifeless expression. It was an unnerving, gruesome little thing which he wanted to throw away, but wished to show it to Langlond first. Just then, the phone by his bedside rang. He put down the idol and answered. The voice on the other end startled him. In a tone as cold as stone it said:

"I Am Coming To Get You, My Friend"

The caller then hung up.

Stretton pondered this before drifting off to sleep. His last thought being

"Not before I kill you first, my friend"

**

Detective Emerson leaned towards him “What did this message say?”

Langlond sighed, glanced at the ceiling, affected a grimace-like smile before replying.

“Minerin Monoya”

Emerson allowed this piece of information to absorb for a few seconds, analizing it in his mind.

“And that’s the last thing you heard from him before he died?”

“Yes”

On the bus going home Langlond stared at the middle aged woman sitting in front of him and imagined clubbing her to death. He shook this thought out of his mind with a sharp intake of breath, shaking his head from side to side. Grimacing, he stared up at the ceiling and whispered “Fuck”. Shaking to his senses, he looked out of the window and said “Shit, ..I mean..Piss”.
Grimacing, he stared up at the ceiling and said “Fuck”.

His mind wandered to the female desk sergeant he'd encountered that morning. She really needed bringing down a peg or two. He imagined anally fucking her without lubricant, hearing her muffle screams of pain while she came, then withdrawing is cock and ejaculating into her face.

Sex was only about one thing - domination, and women needed to be put in their place. In fact, he truelly believed, this is what all women wanted. There had been two occasions in his life when girls had confessed to him, immediately before intercourse, that they were bitches normally, and now wanted to be punished. Not physically, just with cock. He enjoyed the feeling of power which this scenario had given him, and observed afterwards that he had felt absolutely no emotion while fucking them.

Langlond had known many girls in his time, and loved only a couple of them. However, he had felt nothing for any of them compared to what he felt for Kristi. There were times when he would actually whisper her name without meaning to, and thoughts of her would consume his whole brain. Every ounce of grey matter totally focused on her. He actually believed that she was an angel, and the first time he fucked her, he felt like he was indeed fucking an angel. Because of this, he had preferred to think of it as making love rather than fucking, feeling it was inappropriate to fuck an angel. But after the second time, he decided that angels too, just loved to be fucked as much as anyone else. Possibly more.

Yet Kristi was no angel. He knew that now. For an angel could not, would not, be capable of killing so many young children, so brutally.

**

The first thing Hershal Stretton saw the next morning was the first thing he saw every morning when he awoke.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I

was was the inscription written across the ceiling above his bed. He had done many questionable things in his life, many horrible things, but aside from the great deal of heroin he consumed, his consious was soothed by the belief that it was all for the benefit of The Greater Good.

During the night he'd had another of his strange dreams. It began with him walking through a doorway into a very dark, very cold room which had tiny white lights in the ceiling. Then there had been a brilliant flash and when he'd come to his senses he was flying through space at tremendous speed. Then a huge impact, after which he found himself lying still on the ground in some barren, dark landscape. Upon waking, as often happened after such dreams, he had a feeling of enlightment as if all the secrets of the universe were suddenly revealed to him.
Then a feeling of depression as this enlightenment vanished within a few moments.

Moments later he felt his mind (and heart) darken, as his thoughts turned to the horrific day which lay ahead.

**