by Jordan Dane
Text copyright ©2016 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Desiree Holt. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original The Omega Team remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Desiree Holt, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
In the Eyes of the Dead
An Omega Team Novella Series – Amazon Kindle Worlds
(A Ryker Townsend series/Omega Team crossover)
By Jordan Dane
In the Eyes of the Dead
(Ryker Townsend/Omega Team crossover novella)
He hunts killers through the eyes of the dead
In the throes of PTSD, FBI profiler Ryker Townsend is plagued by haunting nightmares from a case that nearly cost him his life. But when a dead girl breaks through his recurring dream—with a lurid vision of her charred corpse—Ryker braces for the horror to come.
On the eve of Halloween under a rare blood moon, Ryker and his team are called to investigate the mysterious deaths of four teens in Brownsville, a small Texas border town. He believes the deaths are linked, a sick prelude of a diabolical killer. With Día de los Muertos only days away, Ryker fights against time before a ritualistic serial killer culminates a masterpiece by butchering during a celebration to honor the dead.
One strong-willed woman stands in Ryker’s way.
Athena Madero, co-founder of the private security agency, Omega Team, has a personal stake in Ryker’s case—her precious niece is his top suspect. Athena will stop at nothing to defend her family and uncover the truth, even if it means taking on the FBI. But a powerful influence from the dark side of Santería—spawned across the Mexican border—stands at the heart of a sinister conspiracy. A mysterious holy man and his devoted followers force Ryker and Athena to join forces to uncover a tragic truth.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Dedication
To Stephanie
A true friend watches Erik Estrada in ‘Chupacabra vs the Alamo’ to the bitter end, proving that wine makes everything palatable.
Dear Readers,
The Omega Team series for Amazon Kindle Worlds will always hold a special place in my heart and not just because it’s the brainchild of my dear friend, Desiree Holt. I’d suffered a terrible tragedy in my life and hadn’t written in nearly two years. Desiree always knew how important writing had been to me. She remained a steadfast friend and niggled at me until I came out of hibernation and wrote HOT TARGET, the first of my three Omega Team books for her.
These books allowed me to explore my feelings and express my grief. I’ll be forever grateful to Desiree for nudging me with love. Some things are impossible to get over. Grief often forces you to redefine your existence in order to move on. But one constant in my life is my writing. It’s my northern star.
IN THE EYES OF THE DEAD is a crossover story combining Desiree’s Omega Team world with my Ryker Townsend series, my gifted FBI Profiler who sees through the retinas of the dead. I hope you like it and try my other books.
One of the biggest hurdles for an author is ‘visibility’ online. A rating or review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads is invaluable, and very much appreciated. Honest reviews and ratings boost a book’s placement in searches and that increases sales and discoverability. Please consider rating/reviewing this book and thank you for your support.
Jordan Dane
Sign Up for Jordan Dane’s Mailing List for Exclusive Content:
http://www.jordandane.com/mailing.php
Chapter 1
“The sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.”
Joel 2:31
Brownsville, Texas
Sunday, October 30
Selina Madero’s skin crawled at the distant rumble of voices and grating laughter. She didn’t find it natural to hate people, but she’d been pushed too far. The chosen writhed to music and the steady beat of nerve-wracking drums slithered under her skin because she wasn’t one of them.
She never would be. Selina knew that now.
Rusted barrels belched flames and one large pit of fire sent black smoke and ashes spiraling into the night sky as if evil spirits had found a portal between worlds. Under the blush of a blood moon, their bodies cast long shadows onto the trees edging a limestone grotto marred by their graffiti. A dried and rocky riverbed furrowed into the ground outside the cavern, desolate and dried up.
They’d brought food to place on a candlelit altar set up at the mouth of the shallow cave near the old riverbed, but no one ate. A guy hung two live chickens by their feet from a tether near the fire pit. Their white wings flapped in frenzy.
Selina shoved her thick glasses up her nose and cowered deeper into the shadows, afraid for what would come next. She whispered a prayer for strength to do what she came to do. Whatever these kids were up to, she hadn’t expected anything like this.
A chill raced down her arms.
She didn’t know who owned the ranch. For all she knew, someone had busted a gate. They had no respect. From what she saw, the kids went to Brownsville Memorial High School. In daylight she would know them, but tonight she’d come hunting for only one face—Allison Barstow.
“You can do this,” she muttered. “Do it and get out.”
Selina made up her mind not to be a coward. She forced her feet to move and crept along the embankment through dense brush to get closer. She kept her unflinching gaze on the grotto, until her eyes burned and her glasses fogged from the heat off her body. Thick weeds clung to her legs as if to stop her.
What are you doing, Selina? It’s wrong. Can’t you see that? She heard her mother’s voice in her head.
To block her guilt, she hunkered down behind a boulder and pulled a video camera from her backpack. She ran her fingers over a button to power it up. Her mom didn’t know what she’d planned, but Selina knew what her mother would’ve said if she’d suspected her only child had sneaked out of her bedroom window after midnight. Her over-protective mom would freak with worry. She never would’ve listened.
You don’t know her, momma, but you will.
She had to get Allison on video, especially now. Tonight would mark the end of the girl who made her life a living hell. It would be the big finale of everything Selina had done. She took a deep breath, leaned a shoulder against the boulder on the ridge to steady her hands, and raised the vid cam to her face. Through the video lens, she scanned the crowd and zoomed in on the drunken kids until she found Allison.
Before the camera came into focus on the face of her tormenter, Selina couldn’t stop her hands from shaking and her stomach hurt. Bright lights blinded her as tingles shot across her skin.
“Not now,” she whispered. She shut her eyes to fight the nausea and her blurring eyesight.
Whenever she grew tense or worried, stomach pain would make her sick. She breathed through her nose and blew out her mouth to fight the dry heaves. If she couldn’t control her nerves, Allison and the others would hear her or see her puke. Selina risked getting caught on foot to
sneak closer and had to be doubly careful after she’d ditched her bike in brush by the property gate.
If they found her, she knew about their cruelty. A taste of Allison’s vicious attacks came back to her in a rush.
***
A week ago
Selina stared down at another shocking text message sent to her new cell phone with tears filling her eyes.
You’re a waste of life. A loser.
I hope you burn in hell.
She had lied to her mom to get the new phone—too embarrassed to tell her the truth that the kids in school hated her—but the abuse wouldn’t stop. The anonymous messages ramped up as word must’ve spread through the school. The snickers behind her back, the torment in the halls and at gym, and the relentless stares—the backlash crushed her. When she looked up, kids snickered at her down the hall.
They know. Everyone knows.
Selina’s face burned with a rush of blood to her cheeks. She ran for the nearest bathroom and came face-to-face with Allison Barstow and she wanted to puke. Selina headed for a stall to hide, but one of Allison’s friends stood in her way. She clutched her backpack to her chest and didn’t look up as she waited for what would come.
Allison walked toward her.
“Haven’t you figured this out yet? You are nothing, because I say you are.”
Allison yanked Selina’s backpack from her arms and tossed it to one of her mindless drones who unzipped the pack and dumped everything onto the floor. Selina’s lunch was flushed down the toilet.
“Even your lame, loser friends know you’re poison. Whatever I can do to you, they’ll get it worse if they cross me. Unlike you, I have real friends who do whatever I say.”
Everything had started after she and her mom moved to Brownsville a year ago.
Anonymous cowards stalked her until she couldn’t be online anymore. They hacked into all her social media and hijacked her accounts. Once they got access to her online identity, they pretended to be her and sent horrible messages to her friends. Embarrassed and overwhelmed, she quit apologizing and shut down—her isolation complete.
“Why are you doing this?” Selina choked on the words and paid for speaking up.
Someone shoved her into a wall and choked her with an elbow. Angry faces surrounded her and mocked her crying. She convulsed with sobs and couldn’t breathe.
“Do the world a favor and off yourself. No one needs you in the gene pool. You’re damaged goods,” Allison said.
Stop it! That’s not true. In her head, Selina screamed those words, but she didn’t have the courage to say them aloud. Tears streamed down her face.
No one would help her. She had no proof and no witnesses willing to speak up, to say Allison had been behind the abuse. Even if she found evidence, the popular girl owned legions of kids who would lie for her and make Selina look like a sick and jealous stalker. Even school administrators and teachers had been duped.
Allison nudged her head and silently gave her order to let Selina go before they strangled her. She fell to her knees, dizzy.
“Kill yourself. No one cares. I bet even your mom would be better off without you.”
One by one, they left her alone, sobbing on the bathroom floor and gasping for air. After they were gone, she unleashed all the hurt. Her body twitched in uncontrollable spurts as she cried.
Allison had to be stopped from hurting anyone else.
***
This is the only way, Selina thought. Allison deserves it.
It wasn’t in her to fight back. Until the divorce of her parents, she had endured an abusive father who belittled her mother and raised his voice in anger over the smallest offenses. The steady diet of yelling and anger had made her sickness worse. She hated being such a coward.
That would change tonight. It had to.
She raised the camera and hit the record button again, to capture Allison in all her vicious glory. Allison and her brainless friends couldn’t resist the rare blood moon. They’d picked a place to meet after midnight, a stone grotto outside of town rumored to be haunted. Whatever they planned, no one dared talk about it.
But Selina couldn’t resist coming. It had been a good sign that she lived close enough to sneak away and ride her bike, without anyone knowing. That made it impossible to stay away. After her mom had picked the remote location to live, Selina swore she’d done it on purpose, to keep her only daughter to herself. Her mom had always been overprotective. Selina hated how far away she was from a mall or movie theater, until tonight.
“The sun will turn into darkness and the moon into blood,” Selina whispered words she’d memorized. “Are you ready to face God?”
She stopped recording only long enough to send a text message to Allison from an anonymous ID of her own.
After she sent the text, she hit the camera record button again. Through the lens she saw Allison get the message. The girl narrowed her eyes and gazed at her cell phone before she glared into the crowd. Her eyes shifted beyond the firelight and Selina could’ve sworn Allison knew exactly where she was.
She couldn’t catch her breath and the camera shook, but Selina didn’t turn it off. Everything had to be on video.
A crowd gathered around the fire pit. Faces drifted in and out of shadows and the yelling overpowered the drums and the music, with kids jumping to a frenzied rhythm. The chickens flapped their wings, desperate to be free. Selina shifted the camera and searched for Allison.
She’d lost her.
“Damn it.” she whispered.”Where are—?”
A blast erupted from the grotto. The intensity of it hit her like a searing punch. Selina shrieked and almost dropped the camera.
A massive fireball mushroomed from the pit and bodies dropped. Kids ran. Even with her ears ringing after the explosion, Selina heard muffled screams and the sound sent chills across her arms. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs, but something made her hold tight to the video camera until—
One scream made her shift the lens.
A body, engulfed in flames, ran from the pit with arms flailing until it collapsed. A boy yanked off his jacket and tried to put out the fire. Kids had scattered. No one stayed to help him.
“Someone call 9-1-1,” he screamed.
Selina didn’t want to look, but she kept the video on and zoomed in tighter. Something kept her rooted where she was, unable to do anything else. When the image focused, she gasped.
The face had melted like wax. The teeth were stark white against the charred skin, exposed like a skull. No one could survive getting burned like that. After she saw what was left of the clothes, she couldn’t breathe.
She knew.
“Oh, God.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
The body had to be Allison.
Selina lowered the camera and stopped recording. She fumbled for the power button as she stared at the horror.
“Momma. I didn’t…”
She shut her eyes tight and after Selina shoved the camera into her backpack—she ran.
***
An Hour Later
Selina reached for her bedroom window as she balanced on a branch of the massive oak tree outside her room. The unlocked window slid open with a soft hiss and she threw her backpack in first. It hit the floor with a thud. Selina crawled through the window, head first. Her shadow stretched across the carpet as she dropped onto the floor of her dark bedroom and got to her feet.
“Where were you?”
The sound came from behind her. She started and spun around. The voice of her mother came from the shadows. She couldn’t see her face in the dark.
“Momma…I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She didn’t finish before the tears came. With shaky fingers, she took off her glasses to wipe them dry. It gave her something to do, to avoid looking at her mom.
“You didn’t mean to what, Selina? Lie to me?”
Her mother carried an edge to her voice that gripped her heart. After her mom flicked on the lamp on her nightstand, she stood and c
rossed her arms. Selina had a hard time looking her in the eye.
“I didn’t exactly…lie.”
“You said you were going to bed. I call that lying.” Her mom stepped closer. “Answer my question. Where were you?”
Before Selina opened her mouth, her mother grabbed the backpack off the floor and yanked it open. She stared down into the bag before she pulled out the camera.
“What have you done, Selina? Tell me,” she demanded.
Selina had to tell her mother the truth. She just didn’t know how much of it to say.
She slumped onto the corner of her mattress and stared into the mirror on her dresser as she told her mom what she could about where she’d been tonight. She cried when she told her mother what happened. The shock of it came again in a cruel rush. She wanted to block the memory from her mind, but she wasn’t strong enough.
Selina prayed she couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to dream.
“Where did you get this camera? What’s on it, mi hija?”
“It belongs to the school. I borrowed it.” She took a ragged breath. “I’m recording some kids at school for a project. They’re bullies, momma. Someone had to stop…them.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say Allison’s name. Even in the safety of her own room, Selina had heard the girl’s screams and knew she’d never forget it. She couldn’t block the grotesque picture of the flailing arms and the body on fire. The black charred face.
“They were doing something bad, momma. It scared me.” She told her mother more—about the chickens and the drums and the altar with the candles—the things she didn’t understand.
But if she told her mom everything about Allison, she’d have to tell her mother what the bullying had done to her. The unrelenting isolation and the hate had made her think of ending it all, but how could she admit to her mom that she’d thought of suicide. Her mother had sacrificed too much for her. She worried enough. She didn’t deserve to hear everything, especially since there wasn’t anything her mother could do that wouldn’t make things worse.
