Read Online Syphon: Guardians of the Fractured Realms by Chad Kunego - Free Book Online Page A

heading in his direction, Samuel spun around and ran down the stairs, catapulting himself down the last several steps. He sprinted to the right and heading toward a nearby parked car. Ducking behind it, he glanced back toward the library door. Standing at the entrance were both guys, intently scanning the area. Ducking back down, he swore he could feel their gaze pass over the car. Pulling himself down into a tight ball, he hoped that they wouldn’t spot him. His arm seemed to get hot for a moment, then went back to normal. After a few minutes, he glanced back around the car. The men were nowhere to be seen. Taking a chance, he got up and sprinted away, effortlessly dodging people as he put distance between himself and the library. As he ran, he wondered what that creature had been, who the guys were, and what the strange tingling sensations he kept getting meant.

Chapter 9
    Cora read through the preliminary lab results from the warehouse incident again.
    “Frank, does any of this make sense to you?”
    Frank glanced up from his copy to look at her before looking back at the file.
    “Nope, not one bit. Maybe we should head down to see if they can explain it so it makes sense.”
    Cora glanced back down at the report. If what she was reading was accurate, then most of ash and dust that had been found at the scene came back as cremated remains, or something very similar to it.
    “Even though the ash resembles the material recovered after a cremation is performed, it’s missing some of the mineral content normally found in cremated human remains. They don’t give an estimate of how many cremated bodies worth of ash they recovered though.”
    “Well,” Cora said as she typed something into her computer, “assuming the ash they’ve recovered was, in fact, from cremated bodies, a quick search says that the average cremated body weighs between four to six pounds. The report mentioned they recovered at least a hundred pounds of the stuff and they’re still recovering more, so…”
    Cora punched some keys on a calculator.
    “Looks like somewhere in the ballpark of twenty bodies’ worth, give or take. Think there might be a local funeral home involved? Or maybe a vet if it turns out to be animal remains?”
    “Maybe, but it’s unlikely to be animal remains. I mean, how many people actually pay to cremate their pets. I’m leaning toward it being human remains since we also found intact bodies there.”
    Frank paused a moment to consider what she said.
    “Well, I could see a funeral home or crematorium sneaking one, maybe two bodies out, but twenty bodies worth of ash? I don’t buy it… This is something else.”
    “What about someone making their own crematorium?”
    Frank set his folder down, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Looking back up, he replied.
    “Cora, with all the weird stuff happening so far in this case, the fact that I’m considering the possibility of a perp building their own crematorium seems almost mundane. Honestly…”
    Frank got a strange look on his face. Then he picked up the folder and studied it a few minutes. Cora waited while he work through what he was thinking. She was fresh out of ideas anyway. After a few minutes, he looked up.
    “You said that the amount of ash worked out to around twenty bodies, right?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “And from this report, there was an additional forty-some odd bodies scattered around the warehouse as well, correct?”
    “Yeah, where you going with this Frank?”
    “Hear me out. Right now, the rough estimate is around at least sixty bodies in that warehouse, right?”
    “Yeah…?” she said, waving her hand in a hurry up and finish gesture.
    “Well, where did they all come from? Why haven’t we had a huge number of calls coming in reporting ‘Johnny’ missing, or ‘Sandy’ never coming home from her party?”
    “You know, now that you mention it, that is kinda strange. With that many bodies, you’d think we’d would of gotten at least a few