Storm (The Storm Chronicles Book 6) Read Free

the cup and sipped at the delicious chocolate within. “Why did Rupe go back to Chicago?”
    Aspen looked blank. “Because he lives there?”
    “Right…did he say anything about Sloan?”
    “She’s good, Ray. Rupe just needed to get home to her, he left kind of in a hurry to come cover us,” Aspen said.
    Raven slid down the wall and sat, her cup held in her hands. “When did things get so complicated, Asp?”
    Aspen sat beside her. “It’s not complicated, Ray. Just stirred up, at the moment. In a few days, everything will be back to normal. Or as normal as life gets for us, anyway.”
    Raven looked at her. Aspen, with her lavender hair, amazing eyes and Pagan style; she didn’t know what she would do without her. “Life hasn’t been normal for a long time, has it?”
    Aspen shrugged. “Maybe weird is normal for us. At least it is never boring, right?”
    “No, never boring,” Raven said with a chuckle. “Boring might be a nice change.”
    “Ray, I think you’d go stir crazy in a matter of hours. But if you want a vacation, I got this flyer for a wild west ranch out in Arizona...”
    “What would we do on a wild west ranch?” Raven asked.
    “I don’t know, wild west stuff? Ride horses, rope cattle, sleep under the stars…make love?”
    “It sounds wonderful, Asp,” Raven said. “And I promise, someday soon I will take you on vacation. But I think it is the last thing I need right now. I don’t think I would be very much fun at the moment.”
    She tossed her cup into the nearby receptacle. Aspen held hers up in one hand and looked at Raven, her eyes glowing blue. A second later the cup exploded in a wisp of smoke.
    “And that was?” Raven asked.
    Aspen grinned. “My version of recycling.”
    Raven laughed and climbed to her feet, then helped Aspen to stand.
    “So what now, love? Stay or go home?” Aspen asked.
    Raven looked out the window at Boston. Part of her wanted to stay, to be here when her father regained consciousness. The rest of her had no idea what she would say when he did. She might just end up shooting him again.
    “I’m tired of Boston, let’s go home.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Seattle, Tuesday One Month Later, Midnight.
    Abraham King sat at his desk far below the Seattle FBI field office, lit only by the flickering screen of his laptop. He wasn’t sure what time it was, he’d stopped thinking of things like clocks and sunlight as anything more than weapons years ago. But he’d been sitting alone for hours.
    He reached out with one gnarled hand and nudged his computer’s mouse back to the ‘play’ position and clicked the button. He hated computers; infernal things just this side of unholy. They distracted the living and aided the undead in their march toward the apocalypse, but like many tools he’d used over the decades, it was a necessary evil. The screen flickered and the video began playing. On the screen was the deck of the cruise ship Crescent Star . The wooden floor looked slick with blood, which it likely was. Two of his men had been ripped apart by something that hadn’t appeared on screen. Their flayed bodies, still partially clad in black tactical uniforms, were displayed on the screen for a moment as Special Agent McNally examined them.
    “There isn’t much left, sir,” he said. “Whatever it was, it tore them in half. We think the other parts went overboard. Proceeding forward to the bridge.”
    King fast-forwarded past further scenes of blood and death, all decades old, yet somehow fresh, and resumed play when the team reached the forward deck. They rounded the sundeck pool and started up the stairs to the bridge which sat at the high point of the forward deck. The ship shuddered beneath them as they climbed and McNally grabbed the rail to keep from falling to the deck below. The shuddering ceased and he and what was left of his team resumed their climb to the bridge. At the top of the stairs they spread into a skirmish line, weapons ready. King heard his own