Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
A muffled gunshot shattered the quiet of the alley. Prince Shey ducked his head and searched the area. There were no signs of the people who had been chasing him. Was the gunshot not related to him? Or maybe it was a car backfiring…
A second muffled shot cut through the night. Closer this time. A heartbeat later, a sharp metallic ting echoed from a drainpipe not more than a couple of inches from his head. They’d spotted him.
Shey launched from his hiding spot, running full tilt through the alley. His heavy boots splashed through the puddles. Magic tingled in his fingertips as he debated pulling on the ball of energy nestled behind his heart. Even after the battle in the Ordas, his tie with Kaes remained strong. Kaes was free of the godstone that had bound him for centuries. Shey had expected the God of Storms to sever the tie between them since he no longer had any need of Shey’s assistance.
But the magic remained. Possibly as a gift for his help.
Shey didn’t want to think about the likely darker reasons Kaes might have chosen to share his magic with a human.
It was so tempting to use the magic now. To call down a ferocious storm or a thick fog to blanket the city. Yet, if these bastards were hunting people suspected of wielding magic, he didn’t want to give them an additional reason to pursue him.
Another shot rang out, and the bullet hit the bricks to his left, narrowly missing his shoulder. Shey turned right and cursed himself. Were they herding him?
He needed to get back to the busy thoroughfare. To find a place where people gathered, rushing about to complete their daily routines. He could hide in the crowd. At the very least, they wouldn’t keep shooting and risk causing a panic. Right?
At the next intersection, Shey took a left, praying it would lead him out of the cramped alleys. Bright lights dazzled his eyes only a hundred yards away. People passed on the sidewalk, carrying shopping bags of groceries and talking loudly to their companions. Civilization. Sanctuary.
A laugh of relief bubbled up in his throat, but it stopped there as sharp pain pierced his right shoulder blade. His breath caught, and his knees turned to water. With his next step, he was sinking. Sinking, darkness swallowing him up like a giant mouth eating the entire world. His foot never touched the wet, broken pavement.
It was too late.
CHAPTER 1
Adrian Westergren
Gods, he hated morgues.
The shitty lighting, the cracked stone floors, and the piercing scent of disinfectant and other chemicals that burned his nose didn’t come close to masking the lingering scent of death and decay. Life as a soldier had brought Adrian to a morgue once or twice. Training accidents and the occasional deadly fights with things that crawled out of the Ordas meant identifying comrades and saying last good-byes in the morgue.
It was a tradition in Erya for every person to be cremated, their remains planted into flowers and trees to continue the cycle of life and giving back to the planet. If you wanted to pay respects one last time to something with a face, you needed to do it at the morgue. Funerals were spent at the family’s home with the deceased in an urn. Afterward, the family and friends took the urn to where the ashes would be buried along with a sapling for the planting ceremony.
But this trip to the District #5 Bellcairn Morgue had no hope of being a tolerable experience. He and Haru had already visited the morgues for Districts #3 and #7 with no luck, for which he was grateful.
However, District #5 was another story. This morgue served the neighborhoods of Little Stip Garden District and Black Water Gate. From his early glimpses, these were not nice, affluent neighborhoods. These were places overflowing with desperate people barely scratching out a living. They were forgotten and perpetually marginalized. No funding. No support. No relief.
And that meant desperate people doing desperate things.
As a short, round man in a white coat escorted them past the front reception to the main examination room, Adrian winced to see the twin rows of corpses on metal gurneys, half-covered in white sheets. Small, rectangular metal doors lined two of the four walls, where bodies would be slid into refrigerated units until they could be dealt with permanently.
In the center of the room was a single metal table under a bright light. A man with thinning gray hair, in a white coat and a clear plastic protective face shield, was digging into the body of a deceased woman.
“There. That’s the medical examiner, Dr. Kohn. He can help you,” their guide said with a wave of his hand at the ghoul. With nothing more to resemble an introduction, he beat a hasty retreat out of the examination room, the double swinging doors shifting wildly behind him as he exited.