Electric Light (Blair Dubh Trilogy #3) by Heather Atkinson

popped into his head with gruesome clarity, destroying his concentration and resolve. He’d discovered the rifle during his time in the army and everything had finally fallen into place. That weapon felt like an extension of himself, like a fifth limb and he’d taken to his mission with gusto.
    He’d served his time in the army, gathering all the skills he needed to complete his mission. When he’d come out he was alone, having lost touch with the old uncles and aunts who had tormented him through his teenage years. This isolation was good though, it meant he was free to move from village to village, staying for a while, blending into the background, working out where the rottenness lay then eradicating it before it could spread. Often all that was needed to stop the rot were just one or two quiet little executions. That was until he’d come across the village in the north west highlands that had been almost as decayed as Blair Dubh - a paedophile teacher, a blackmailing old crone, a teenager who’d stabbed someone to death for fifty quid, the man who’d insisted on driving everywhere far too fast until he’d run over and killed a child. Scum. Useless, pathetic, wastes of space. The world was a much better place without them. But their evil had already infected others - the victims of the blackmailing crone had stooped to base behaviour to protect their dirty secrets, friends of the car driver blamed the dead child for being near a road in the first place, contacts of the paedo teacher used their influence to shield him from the consequences of his actions. They all had to go too. No one had ever linked him with the eight deaths in that village. He’d come and gone without anyone really noticing, using an alias, changing his appearance. His natural hair colour was actually a shocking red and very memorable. He’d dyed it for years, alternating between brown and blond, cutting it short and letting it grow, putting on weight and losing it again. He’d also used twelve different aliases. It was ridiculously easy to pretend to be someone else, even in the age of Big Brother, you just had to know how.
    Graeme looked out over the water, the thick black clouds rolling in ever closer, occasionally lit up from the inside by flashes from the storm they struggled to contain. The sea was whipped up into a fury, throwing the boats about in dock. Summer was coming to an end so there weren’t as many moored as there would have been at high season.
    It was all a sign, the wildness of nature once again guiding him. Every time he’d struck there had been a storm, just like the night his family was slaughtered, it was his cue to begin his great work. He had heard Blair Dubh was subject to frequent storms so it had amazed him that last year had passed without a single one.
    A fresh clap of thunder made his heart pump hard. For a moment he was back under that kitchen table, cowering, staring into the face of evil. He gripped the rifle tighter. It was time to begin.
    Soft voices were carried to him on the breeze - hushed voices, nothing more than whispers, which were full of mischief. Someone was up to something.
    Scanning the area Graeme spied a couple hand-in-hand hurrying up the hill towards the graveyard. Raising his binoculars he saw they were only young, probably late teens, both attractive. He didn’t recognise them, which meant they weren’t Blair Dubh residents. They looked around furtively before ducking into the graveyard, shielded from his view by the thick stone wall that marked its boundary.
    Curious, he followed, wondering what they were up to.
    Keeping low, he peered over the wall and saw the man leading the woman towards Father Logan’s grave, which had once been marked by a grand headstone but was now nothing more than a slight lump in the ground. The young couple lay down on it together and frantically began kissing and tugging at each other’s clothes.
    Graeme was livid. The village had attracted ghouls and