by Skye Knizley
“I don’t like that she keeps shooting my probationary agents before they get out of training. I’ve had three quit in the nine months I’ve been contracting with her,” Weyland snapped back.
Mercy turned from her conversation with the pilots. “Stop taking rookies into the field. Five minutes to dust off.”
Mercy Cullen was the team’s medic. She was five and a half feet of dark-haired beauty with a medkit draped across her belly and a compound longbow over her shoulder.
“What’s a dust off?” Aspen asked Kane.
Kane looked at her and the smile was gone. “The Pave-Hawk will hover instead of land, and we rappel to the deck. It’s the fastest way to get to the ship’s bridge, we don’t have to walk the whole length of the ship.”
Aspen felt butterflies dancing in her belly. “You mean slide down ropes into the darkness and hope the floor is still there. Really?”
“What’s the matter, Rook? Afraid of falling?” Brody asked.
“Actually, yes,” Aspen said. “Any reasonable person would be.”
“Three minutes,” the pilot said.
As the team began to gather their gear, Aspen looked out the window. Cutting a swath through the darkness below was the cruise ship Crescent Star. She’d been constructed in the mid-1970s to be a luxury cruise ship plying the north Atlantic between New York and London. She was almost a thousand feet long and weighed 225,000 tons, making her one of the largest ships constructed at the time. When she’d vanished forty years ago, she’d been a beautiful white star that shined on the ocean with sunlight reflecting off her blue pools and red-painted stacks. Now, she looked like something out of a nightmare. The Pave-Hawk was circling from the starboard and Aspen could see dark stains around the portholes, huge, gaping sections of torn railing and decks that looked almost awash with blood.
“Come on, Agent Kincaid. Time to earn our paychecks,” Kane said.
“Aspen,” Aspen replied. “I’m not an agent.”
Kane clipped her into the harness. “As you wish, Aspen. Come.”
Brody opened the door and leaned out, his Mp5 submachine gun at the ready.
“I’m going first, then you, kid,” he said.
Aspen sighed. “Brody, don’t call me ‘kid’ unless you want to spend the next three days hopping and eating flies, okay? Aspen is fine.”
Brody paled slightly and looked at Kane. “She can’t do that, can she?”
Kane shrugged. “Her file says she’s the most powerful witch in the Midwest and the blood-mate of a vampire Fürstin. She can nuke New York, for all I know.”
Brody looked back at her and Aspen winked. He frowned and lowered himself over the sill. “I’m not getting paid enough for this shit. Geronimo!”
He jumped backward and Aspen watched him descend to the deck. When his boots touched wood he unclipped his rope and spun, weapon at the ready. After a moment he raised a hand in the ‘all clear’ signal and Aspen lowered herself over the side.
“Just remember your training, Aspen,” Kane said.
“Yeah, two weeks at Quantico and another with Raven on a confidence course. I’m an expert at falling on my ass,” Aspen muttered.
She looked back and let herself fall. The rope slid through her hands and she felt a sickening moment of weightlessness before she remembered to use her other hand to brake. She slowed and her boots touched deck with just a moment of nausea. When she was down, Brody unclipped her and resumed his guard position. Aspen waved at Mercy, who was next in line and drew her Javelina ten-millimeter pistol. She took a guard stance opposite Brody and tried not to vomit. To distract herself from the dregs of her acrophobia, she let her senses do their thing. This was a crime scene, after all.
They were in the pool area at the center of the ship, between the fore and aft towers. Brody was covering the starboard bow, while she was facing port-aft. Aspen squatted and examined the deck, which was stained and wet with blood. By all accounts the ship had been missing for forty-plus years. There was no way the deck should be covered in wet blood. With the north Atlantic storms, it should have been washed clean of even dried blood, leaving nothing but stains in the wood. Boot prints led through the blood toward the bow of the ship and she touched one with her gloved finger; it came away wet and dripping with crimson.
She straightened and looked over her shoulder. Mercy had touched down and drawn her pistol, using it to cover the port side of the deck. Above, Ford was on the ropes, with Kane watching from the door. From the look on her face, Weyland was as afraid of heights as Aspen was.
Aspen turned her attention back to the deck, her curiosity overcoming her nervousness. The pool, once blue and glistening, was now awash with the blood and offal of at least six people, their bodies in various states of decay that belied the length of time they’d been missing. Lounge chairs coated in blood and slime were arranged around the area, along with a bar and half a dozen cabanas. More corpses lay on the lounge chairs wrapped in lengths of barbed wire, pierced with metal implements or otherwise tortured and left in positions bordering on the erotic, as if some sort of torture-porn orgy had been happening at the time of their deaths. She didn’t want to think what might be inside the cabanas, the blood-soaked drinks on the bar were bad enough.
What the hell happened here? she wondered.
She almost jumped out of her skin when Kane tapped her shoulder.
“Ready to go, Aspen?” he asked.
Aspen shook her head. “Not really, what happened here?”
Kane looked at the pool. “Unknown at this time. According to the file, the ship vanished in 1971 on her return cruise from England. She reappeared a few days ago and a team led aboard hasn’t been heard from in nine hours. Our first priority is to find them and stop this ship, you can investigate afterward.”
“Right,” Aspen said.
She took a deep breath and turned back to the team. “Brody, take point and head toward the bow. Kane, you watch our butts. But first…”
She spread her hands and muttered a spell under her breath. The floor around them glowed and Brody jumped back in surprise.
“What the hell was that?” he yelled.
“A protection spell. I don’t want whatever happened to them to happen to us,” Aspen said.
“Oh…uh…thanks,” Brody said.
“It’s why I’m here. Come on, let’s go.”
Brody shouldered his MP5 and moved into the lead. Aspen took another look at the carnage behind them and followed, pistol ready.
CHAPTER THREE
Seattle, FBI Training Range
The pistol range was dead at this hour; the cold cinderblock walls were dimly lit by a handful of safety lamps that cast yellow shadows in the corners and gave the range the appearance of an abandoned building. Raven Storm stood in the center of the range beside a red target dummy that had seen better days. She was dressed in black pants tucked into boots that kissed her knees and a black tank top that left her muscular arms and her Laugh Now Cry Later tattoo bare, even with her shoulder holster. Her black leather jacket hung on the galvanized railing behind her. On the shelf in front of her was a pistol she didn’t recognize. She picked up the FBI-issue Sig-Sauer P220 and looked at it with disdain. “What is this?”
“The weapon you’re required to pass this test with,” Weaver replied.
Mack Weaver was the current Seattle instructor. Short, with brown hair, brown eyes and the kind of face most people forgot after twenty minutes. Raven thought he looked like every jerk that had tried to date her in high school. He acted like one, too.
Raven made a face. “I’m already qualified with it and I don’t carry one as a sidearm. I’d be better off throwing rocks.”
Weaver smirked. “I am well aware that Agent King lets you carry that cannon of yours. But here, we play by the book or we don’t play at all.”
Raven glared at him then
took the weapon and faced downrange with it by her side. She could feel her hand shaking and willed it to stop. Then, in a smooth motion she pushed the dummy so it fell backwards and raised the pistol. Her focus narrowed on the target twenty feet away and in that moment she saw her father’s face. Her aim faltered and she lowered the weapon, unfired.
“What’s wrong, Storm?” Weaver asked. “Do you still see you father?”
Raven ignored him and tried again. She pushed the dummy and raised the pistol, every motion natural and practiced. Until she tried to pull the trigger. She couldn’t; The blank face of the target, every target, was Mason Storm. She set the Sig on the counter and closed her eyes.
Weaver picked up the Sig. “Go home, Storm. You aren’t ready yet, you may never be.”
Raven looked at him with his smug self-satisfied smirk, and she wanted to hit him, wanted to be furious. But she just felt sick. She’d been shooting since she was ten years old, this drill had been beaten into her so much it was second nature to her. At least it had been until a month ago.
She shrugged into her jacket and walked away. Outside, the sun was just coming up over the city and it made her wince. Nothing was worse than sunlight when you were a night person who hadn’t had a full eight hours of sleep in weeks. She put her sunglasses on and slid behind the wheel of her black and red 1967 Shelby GT500. The custom-built engine grumbled to life, but even the throaty roar she trusted with her life couldn’t shake the dead feeling in her stomach. Today, it was just a noise.
Forty minutes later she pulled into a space behind a non-descript white building on Third Avenue. The FBI building was technically on the other side, but they owned the unmarked building, the parking lot full of black sedans and, in fact, most of the block. Raven climbed out of the Shelby and hurried toward the back entrance. She waved her security badge at the clock and pushed through into back foyer, a small room that always smelled of old socks and cheese. A Marine behind an old desk sat up and offered a smile. “Good morning, Agent Storm.”
Raven handed him her badge and he scanned it through the system. “Good morning, Jimmy. Is King in?”
Jimmy handed her badge back. “He never went home, I think he’s in his office.”
“Thanks.”
He buzzed her through the magnetic door and she walked down the hall to the bank of elevators. At this hour, the building was as silent as a tomb and the elevator’s normally soft ‘ding’ echoed up and down the corridor and made Raven jump. She stepped inside and rode to the basement, where the denizens of Section Thirteen lurked. The doors opened on a hallway bare of anything except the silver stars of dead agents and glass doors that bore the eagle and stake insignia of Section Thirteen. The everpresent Marine, Blake, was seated at the desk beside the doors. He stood and opened them for her and she smiled a thank you before stepping into the cool, dark office on the other side. The office consisted of two rows of army surplus desks on top of pale blue carpet and surrounded by walls covered with fake wood paneling. On one side was a row of closed in offices, one occupied by Abraham King, another by Mason Storm and the rest empty. Raven paused to drop her jacket off at her desk, which had another stack of UFO files on it, and turned toward King’s office, which was as spartan as the quarters on a Submarine, with nothing but a desk, sideboard and three chairs. The old man was inside, staring at the computer monitor. On the screen Raven could see Aspen dressed in black BDU’s and a tactical vest. Behind her was a team of agents and Marines that Raven didn’t recognize. By the look of it, they were nearing the bow of the ship. On the monitor, Aspen paused and squatted to examine the body of a young man. Or what was left of him.
“I think we found Agent Rand,” Aspen said. “His legs have been torn off and one arm is broken in at least two places, severe trauma to the soft tissue of the face. The impact didn’t kill him, though. Judging from the amount of fluids, I would say he bled out.”
“Was he conscious when it happened?” the man with the camera asked.
Aspen shook her head. “I doubt it, Kane. With this much trauma he’d have been in shock and likely fell unconscious within seconds.”
“What about Wade and Brian?” King asked. “They were killed nearby.”
Aspen looked at the camera. “I’ve got more blood than could possibly have come from Rand, and some drag marks. Whatever killed them took their remains.”
King nodded to himself. “Any idea what it was?”
“Big and mean is all I have, Agent King. It was brutally strong, though, not even Raven in full vamp could do this,” Aspen said.
“Acknowledged. Proceed to the bridge, King out,” King said.
“Right, boss.”
The screen went dim and Raven saw Aspen follow a different man up the stairs. After a moment she realized King was talking to her.
“What?”
King frowned. “I asked what you were doing here so early. Did you pass your exam?”
Raven shook her head. “No. I’ve got a psyche eval in a couple of hours. Tell me about that ship.”
“Agent Storm, that ship is need to know,” King said.
Raven sat down. “Abraham, my familiar, my fiancé, is on that ship. I need to know.”
King lowered his eyes. “Her name is Crescent Star, she was built in 1970 and launched in 1971 as a sort of new Titanic, providing luxury transatlantic cruises. She vanished on the return trip from England, all hands and passengers gone. I participated in a three-week long search for her that winter and we never found anything.”
He fiddled with a file on his desk. “Two days ago she crashed through a pleasure yacht and was spotted off the coast of Iceland with blood streaked on her sides and upper decks. A team was dispatched; they vanished. I was called and immediately sent a special response team. As you saw on the video, they were killed as well—”
“And you sent Aspen out there? Have you lost your damn mind?” Raven yelled.
King raised his eyes. “I did what was necessary. I believe the threat is magikal and she is the best I have.”
Raven couldn’t argue that point. Aspen was always knowledgeable and in the last two years she’d become one of the most powerful Wicca she’d ever heard of.
“You should have sent me with her,” she said.
King shook his head. “You aren’t ready, Raven.”
“Fine. Then send my sister, she’s—”
“On assignment with Levac,” King finished. “I have sent her with Mr. Kane and a team with almost as much success as your father. She is in the best hands I have available, Raven.”
Raven paced away. She wanted to be there. The fact King was right just made her angrier. “What about Dad?”
“His wound is healed, if that is what you are asking. He is still in a healing coma, though. Asok believes he will come out of it any day. He always does,” King replied.
Raven turned. “Just how many times has my father died?”
King shrugged. “I have no idea. Six, that I know of in the last decade, including his injury in Chicago, but he’s far older than he looks.”
“I guessed that, he hasn’t aged in fifteen years. He makes Dick Clark look ancient.”
King smiled. “Older, even than that. It is not my place to tell you, and I won’t. He owes you an explanation. I never agreed with him or your mother in hiding his survival from you, or keeping you from Sable. Family is important.”
Raven shrugged. “I’m not sure my sister and I would have gotten along.”
“She is different from you, but a good agent. In time I suspect the wounds will heal and you will be as you should. But for now, you should rest and get ready for your evaluation. I have need of you in the field as soon as you are ready,” King replied.
Raven felt like the floor was opening beneath her. “You’re sending me home?”
“Report back after your evaluation with Dr. Clark,” King sa
id.
“Fine. Keep me informed about Aspen,” Raven said.
She paused in the doorway. “King, if anything happens to her, I will kill you.”
“I know,” King said.
Raven nodded and walked toward the elevator, trying to ignore the yawning pit of fear in her belly.
II
Chicago, Illinois: 8:00 a.m.
The sun was a solid orb of gold and orange shining off the spires of Chicago like it was some medieval fortress standing the test of time. To most, it would have been a beautiful December morning. Rupert Levac looked up at it and just felt annoyed; it had been a long night and it looked like it was going to be an even longer day.
He pushed through the door to the Donut Vault and spotted Sable Tempeste sitting in a booth near the back. She had a chocolate eclair in her hand and was looking at something on the table. Levac couldn’t get over the similarities between Sable and Raven. Both were powerful, gorgeous, tough and decent detectives. They also shared an interesting sense of style. Sable was dressed in leather pants matched with a red sweater and a black necklace from which dangled a silver cross. He knew without looking that she was concealing a Smith and Wesson revolver loaded with .44 specials and had a number of knives hidden in her boots.
He shook his head and dropped into the booth opposite, where a cup of coffee was waiting for him.
“G’morning, Rupert,” Sable said without looking up.
Levac sipped is coffee. “Hi Sable. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait till after a solid eight hours?”
“We’ve got a new assignment from King. We’re supposed to look into Chicago Shipbuilding, specifically the last ship they designed, a cruise ship called Crescent Star,” Sable said.
Levac picked up a powdered donut from the tray on the table. “A cruise ship? What do we know about cruise ships?”
Sable shrugged. “Not a lot. But this one is interesting. News reports say she vanished in 1971 without any trace of survivors. According to King, she rammed through a schooner three days ago. He wants to know everything we can find about the ship.”
