The Preacher

THE PREACHER NATHAN BURROWS This book and series is dedicated to the memory of Father Timothy. The Original Preacher. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Chapter 97 Chapter 98 Chapter 99 Chapter 100 Chapter 101 Chapter 102 Chapter 103 Chapter 104 Chapter 105 Chapter 106 Chapter 107 Chapter 108 Chapter 109 Chapter 110 Chapter 111 Chapter 112 Chapter 113 Chapter 114 Chapter 115 Chapter 116 Chapter 117 Chapter 118 Chapter 119 Chapter 120 Chapter 121 Chapter 122 Chapter 123 Chapter 124 Chapter 125 Chapter 126 Chapter 127 Chapter 128 Chapter 129 Chapter 130 Chapter 131 Chapter 132 Chapter 133 Chapter 134 Chapter 135 Chapter 136 Chapter 137 Chapter 138 Chapter 139 Chapter 140 Chapter 141 Chapter 142 Chapter 143 Join ‘Team Preacher’ Also by Nathan Burrows 1 The sun broke over the horizon, revealing a cluster of people huddled together on a small boat only just big enough to take their weight. They were split into two groups. The smaller group, formed of only two people, was distinguishable by their dark clothes and hair. Both male and somewhere between twenty and thirty, they were seated at the stern of the boat. The older of the two with his hand on the tiller of an outboard engine. His companion was smoking, blowing a plume into the new day before flicking his cigarette into the almost still waters of the English Channel. It disappeared with a hiss heard only by the seagulls circling the boat, looking for food. The larger group was, with a single exception, female. There were eight women, ranging in age from twelve or thirteen to perhaps mid-sixties. The matriarch of the group, if she was indeed that, was bowed. She clutched a shawl around her head with arthritic fingers. Her bright orange life-preserver gave the elderly woman a grotesque shape. The next youngest, by perhaps thirty or forty years, was sitting ramrod straight, staring at the coast that could now finally be seen in the distance. She couldn’t see much more than a dark line on the horizon above the sea, but she knew it was there. Being so close to it filled her heart with joy and trepidation in equal measure. This was her promised land, and perhaps the promised land of them all. She only knew a couple of her fellow passengers. Ana and Elene were sisters from the same village as the woman, a small collection of houses called Nakra in the north-west corner of Georgia. The village had been overshadowed by Mount Elbrus since man had first settled there. In recent months, it had not been the mountain that overshadowed the local population, but Russian forces building on the border between the Republic of Abkhazia, eager to take back what they thought was rightfully theirs. “Katya?” a girl’s voice whispered. It was Ana, the younger of the sisters, speaking in their native Georgian. The woman looked away from the horizon and at the young girl. Ana was only twelve, but already showed the striking beauty of many women from the area. They both shared the same features. Blonde hair, so fine it was almost wispy, and light green eyes, which in Katya’s case were surrounded by worry lines. Oval faces with rosy cheeks. “What is it, Ana?” Katya whispered. The man at the stern of the boat looked at her sharply. Katya was sure he only spoke Albanian and, of course, English. “How much longer will it be?” Ana said. She shivered and pulled her thin coat tighter around her narrow shoulders. “You see there?” Katya replied, nodding at the horizon. “That smudge above the sea? That’s England. We’re nearly there.” Katya watched as Ana exchanged whispers with Elene before turning her attention to the other passengers. The first rays of sunlight meant that she could finally see them properly, and her gaze was drawn to the solitary male of their group. He was wearing some sort of long robe, dark gray in color, and sandals over his bare feet. Seemingly unconcerned by the cold, when he met her eyes, she saw they were the same gray as his robe. His head was shaved, and the light glinted from the skin on his scalp. Between his sandalled feet was a small cloth bag. As they had boarded the boat on the coast of France the previous night, she had noticed him but paid him no attention, more concerned with securing her own single bag with everything she thought she needed crammed into it. Katya nodded at the man, but he didn’t respond, preferring instead to just look at her. She was used to men looking at her in a particular way, but this man’s expression wasn’t one of lust, or even interest. He was just looking at her. Katya opened her mouth and was about to say something when there was a loud voice from the stern.