The Templar Curse (Sean Wyatt #15)

by Ernest Dempsey

He knew that every person he’d killed had been a child once: innocent, kind, full of hope and joy. Somewhere along the line, that child had taken a turn. Maybe it was from parental abuse or neglect. It could have been a bully at school or a tragedy that rocked their world and turned it upside down. At some junction in the past, they’d chosen to become evil, but before that they were merely children. Sean wept for that. He hated it.

There was something beyond creepy in the orbs that stared back. It was a vacant, distant look, devoid of emotion. Sean had seen that look before in men, men who were disconnected from a world of love, peace, and joy. It was a look that belied a lifetime of pain and suffering, an upbringing that did little to foster goodwill to others, instead planting seeds of fear, anger, and hate.

Men like these were likely scooped up in their darkest moments, when their lives had hit rock bottom. It was how terrorist cells and gangs operated. They found the stragglers, the weak ones in the herd that couldn’t keep up or were too different to be drawn in by the mainstream. They were the forgotten, the castaways of society. Some were probably orphans. That was a common denominator for several higher-end special ops units. Even the Pony Express had preferred men without familial ties due to the inherent dangers involved in the job.