Deluge

Auf der Suche nach einem Killer kommt Cade in die Stadt Athlone, in der es seit zwei Jahren ununterbrochen regnet. Dort lebt eine Gruppe fortschrittlicher Druiden, die der festen Ansicht sind, ihre Stadt sei verflucht. Cade dagegen hält das schlechte Wetter für ein weiteres Experiment der Gua. Und tatsächlich stößt er bald darauf auf einen Gua-Agenten.

Foster arrives in a town where it has been raining for two years. - - - Quatrain 64, Century 8. "The slayer flees to the shadow of Olympus / Where a mother' s tears wash away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice / Until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched." The Olympus that Nostradamus foresaw was Olympia, Washington, where convicted mass murderer Glenn Harris had escaped from police custody three weeks earlier. I pegged Harris as the "slayer" from the quatrain, and figured "the shadow" of Olympia laid just to the east... in a small lumber town called Athlone. That's where I hoped a mass murderer would lead me to aliens. It rained incessantly in Athlone and I was soaked to the bone right away. I posed as a bounty hunter looking for Harris' reward. The sheriff denied knowing anything about the killer. When I told the sheriff I'd ask around town, he firmly explained that I wasn't welcome. The local bar wasn't much help either. Tough crowd with cold shoulders.