Read Online Frostbite (Modern Knights Book 1) by Joshua Bader - Free Book Online
Authors: Joshua Bader
Tags: Urban Fantasy
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spit out, she poured a shot of Listerine and swished it around with a sense of determined desperation.
The trip to Oklahoma was not her favorite expedition with the BSID. She had been looking forward to a trip to the pumpkin patch with her nieces this weekend in New York, not a gruesomely weird case in Oklahoma. Picking up and leaving at the drop of a hat came with the territory of hunting serial killers and rapists. Andrea had dreams of becoming the FBI’s first female director and the BSID was a good career path for her to use to get there. But Oklahoma was making her seriously rethink her life’s direction.
The crime photos had been nasty, but not the worst she had ever seen. The trouble didn’t really start till they got to the lake to investigate the suspect’s vehicle. Andrea usually had a sharp memory, but she could barely recall the lake at all. A thick fog had settled over that part of her brain. When she tried, all she could think of was that thick leather bound book…and the terror that it conjured inside of her. It was insane to think that decorated Special Agent Devereaux could be scared of a book, but that one particular tome...
She must be getting sick. That was the simplest explanation: some bad food on the plane or an armrest she should have sanitized, but didn’t. But agents didn’t let illness interfere with their job. Andrea had absolutely bombed the interview with the suspect, Colin Fisher. Her questions, or what she could remember of them, had been all over the place. Without plan, without direction, Fisher had easily stayed ahead of her. He had gotten away with murder once from all indications…and her sickness was helping him do it again.
She stared long into the bathroom mirror after she spewed out the mouthwash. Her hazel eyes, a mixture of brown, green, and gold stared back at her, the same as they had from every mirror for as long as she could remember. Andrea hoped that whatever had gotten into her system was out of it now. She needed to be at her very best for the rest of this investigation.
PART THREE
Faeries, coworkers, and wendigoes, oh my!
“Finding a dragon is usually the easy part, just follow the path of razed towns and smoldering farms. The hard part comes after you catch up to her.”
- Jadim Cartarssi, Novice Dragonslayer
1
I expected to have difficulty cashing Valente’s check. As it turned out, that was the easiest thing I did all day. All of my past experience with banks told me that an out-of-state driver’s license plus no personal account plus a check of that magnitude would equal nothing but trouble. It had started out that way, too…until the branch manager made one phone call. From the speed and grace he demonstrated after he hung up, I decided the bank must have belonged to a subsidiary of Valente International. In less than twenty minutes, I had ten grand in my pocket, along with a debit card electronically linked to the rest of it. I just hoped that the dead wouldn’t start asking to borrow money from me while I was trying to work the ATM.
Duchess was supposed to meet me at my hotel room the next morning with the items I had requested from Lucien, most notably, the original letter. I’ve had a little practice with psychometry and, in theory, the letter could be used as a magical tether tracing back to the person who wrote it. It was a Foresight task and I was reasonably proficient with those. It was the theoretical part that bothered me. I knew enough to connect the attacks with the idea of a wendigo, but I had never seen one, let alone killed one.
“Good thing it’s only killing Valente employees…oh, wait.”
“I didn’t hear you telling me not to take his check.”
“That was before I knew it was going to involve actual work. I was hoping he had been cursed with erectile dysfunction or something lame like that. You know, burn some incense, slip some Viagra in his Kool-Aid, chant a little and call it a day.”
“Yeah, well,
The trip to Oklahoma was not her favorite expedition with the BSID. She had been looking forward to a trip to the pumpkin patch with her nieces this weekend in New York, not a gruesomely weird case in Oklahoma. Picking up and leaving at the drop of a hat came with the territory of hunting serial killers and rapists. Andrea had dreams of becoming the FBI’s first female director and the BSID was a good career path for her to use to get there. But Oklahoma was making her seriously rethink her life’s direction.
The crime photos had been nasty, but not the worst she had ever seen. The trouble didn’t really start till they got to the lake to investigate the suspect’s vehicle. Andrea usually had a sharp memory, but she could barely recall the lake at all. A thick fog had settled over that part of her brain. When she tried, all she could think of was that thick leather bound book…and the terror that it conjured inside of her. It was insane to think that decorated Special Agent Devereaux could be scared of a book, but that one particular tome...
She must be getting sick. That was the simplest explanation: some bad food on the plane or an armrest she should have sanitized, but didn’t. But agents didn’t let illness interfere with their job. Andrea had absolutely bombed the interview with the suspect, Colin Fisher. Her questions, or what she could remember of them, had been all over the place. Without plan, without direction, Fisher had easily stayed ahead of her. He had gotten away with murder once from all indications…and her sickness was helping him do it again.
She stared long into the bathroom mirror after she spewed out the mouthwash. Her hazel eyes, a mixture of brown, green, and gold stared back at her, the same as they had from every mirror for as long as she could remember. Andrea hoped that whatever had gotten into her system was out of it now. She needed to be at her very best for the rest of this investigation.
PART THREE
Faeries, coworkers, and wendigoes, oh my!
“Finding a dragon is usually the easy part, just follow the path of razed towns and smoldering farms. The hard part comes after you catch up to her.”
- Jadim Cartarssi, Novice Dragonslayer
1
I expected to have difficulty cashing Valente’s check. As it turned out, that was the easiest thing I did all day. All of my past experience with banks told me that an out-of-state driver’s license plus no personal account plus a check of that magnitude would equal nothing but trouble. It had started out that way, too…until the branch manager made one phone call. From the speed and grace he demonstrated after he hung up, I decided the bank must have belonged to a subsidiary of Valente International. In less than twenty minutes, I had ten grand in my pocket, along with a debit card electronically linked to the rest of it. I just hoped that the dead wouldn’t start asking to borrow money from me while I was trying to work the ATM.
Duchess was supposed to meet me at my hotel room the next morning with the items I had requested from Lucien, most notably, the original letter. I’ve had a little practice with psychometry and, in theory, the letter could be used as a magical tether tracing back to the person who wrote it. It was a Foresight task and I was reasonably proficient with those. It was the theoretical part that bothered me. I knew enough to connect the attacks with the idea of a wendigo, but I had never seen one, let alone killed one.
“Good thing it’s only killing Valente employees…oh, wait.”
“I didn’t hear you telling me not to take his check.”
“That was before I knew it was going to involve actual work. I was hoping he had been cursed with erectile dysfunction or something lame like that. You know, burn some incense, slip some Viagra in his Kool-Aid, chant a little and call it a day.”
“Yeah, well,
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