Death eBook 9.8.16 (2 page)

Chapter One

DEAN

As I looked out over the waking city from one of the tallest buildings in LA, I wondered, yet again, how many years I’d been around. It was truly too many to count. However, it wasn’t the passing thought of my age or the warm night keeping me awake into the early hours. With the rising sun, there was something else withholding me from my slumber.

A feeling deep in my chest told me something was coming.

What it was, I had no clue. Still, I knew I didn’t want to miss out on it. I somehow sensed a happy outcome could come from it.

I looked at the shadowed ground below, my unique vision affording me the luxury. I could do a lot of things no human could, as could my three brothers.

I leaned further forward over the edge
to get a better view of my black Ducati parked on the path below. Seeing no one was around it, I stood back and waited… for what, again, I had no clue. But the anticipation of that
something
to come was quickly getting on my nerves. It burned low in my stomach, annoying me. I wanted, whatever it was, to happen at that moment. However, wanting and having were two different things.

The air shifted behind me and I closed my eyes. “Brother, what are you doing here?”

“Can’t a worried sibling just be passing by?” Connor said with an amused tone. I didn’t need to ask how he’d found me; my brothers and I could sense each other and speak to one another through our mind link.

“I thought you’d be too busy escaping yet another strange woman’s house instead of being worried about me.” I glanced over my shoulder and grinned, letting him know I was joking.

He chuckled. “She passed out, happily exhausted, so it was easy to leave this time.” His grin dropped and he sighed. “You’ve been a sourpuss for a few days now, Dean. What’s up your ass?”

A smile formed on my mouth, a little of the tension easing. “I’m not the one who likes things up their ass.”

He moved up beside me and shoved my arm. “Hey now, I may sleep around—”

“A lot,” I interrupted.

He rolled his dark, almost black eyes at me. “A lot, but I’ve never done that. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. To each their own, I say. But at least if I stopped banging women you’d know something was wrong with me. So when the brother in this family who is usually fun and carefree, is suddenly not sleeping and has worry etched into his features, you know something is up. So spill.”

“You’re right, but fuck if I know what it is. I suppose you could call it a feeling.”

“Ooooh, are you getting all spiritual on me, brother? Next you’ll be foretelling my fortune.” Connor laughed.

It was my turn to shove him. “I can already tell you your fortune.” I cleared my throat and began, “Connor, aka Conquest of the four horsemen, you will contract a sexually transmitted disease and die a slow painful death where your dick will fall off.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, okay. Like that would happen.” He smiled, and then shook his hands out at his sides. “All right, let me have a go at this. Dean, aka Death of the four horsemen, you will…” I watched him as he thought of something good or just stupid. “…ah… you will receive a phone call that will change your world foreverrrrr,” he said in a weird-what-was-supposed-to-be-scary voice.

“Unlikely, douche.” I laughed, just as my mobile in my jeans back pocket rang. We turned to each other, our eyes wide, and then we burst out laughing. “You planned that, didn’t you?” I asked as I reached in and pulled it free.

Connor sobered and shook his head. “Uh, no, dude.”

I shook my head, not believing him for a moment. Connor was not only the male slut in our brotherhood, but the resident prankster. I pulled out my phone and saw the caller ID; it was one of our brothers. The oldest in fact, Warren, or War, the first horseman born and out of
c
the golden gate.

I answered with, “Warren, what bullshit are you going to spew?”

Connor coughed and choked, waving his hands wildly as he shook his head. Fuck, of course he would never have involved Warren in his prank. Warren was the broody, angry brother who didn’t know how to take a joke, let alone participate in one. He ran our detective agency where we all worked, which could explain why he was so hostile all the time. We had to deal with a lot of shit each day.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but stop pissing around with Connor and get your ass to Cedar Oaks Township. There was a train accident. All passengers died except one. I’ll be there soon to check the scene with you. Send Connor to the survivor’s house. Falcone will meet him there.”

For some reason I didn’t like that. In fact, my heart squeezed in pain at the thought of missing out on seeing the survivor.

“I want to deal with the survivor,” I stated. Only, I was fucking puzzled as to why.

“No,” Warren clipped out on a growl. “I need you at the site. You’ll be more useful there than anywhere and you know it.”

I did. It was my talent. I wasn’t called Death for no reason. I could talk to, see, and feel the dearly departed. But dammit to hell, a need had me wanting to fight my brother’s ruling and go to the house of the survivor.

The thought of Falcone, also known as Famine, our third horseman, at the house sort of calmed me. He was the quiet one, the book nerd who wouldn’t know if a gorgeous woman walked by or not. But for a reason I was yet to have an explanation for, I did not like the fact that Connor was going to the house.

Shit!

Rubbing my hand across my forehead, I fought with my inner self and snapped into the phone, “Fine. I’ll see you there.” I ended the call, and roughly placed it back in my pocket and turned to Connor. He was smiling, and I felt like punching him for it.

“You heard all that?”

“Yep,” he said and laughed. “I hope the survivor is a woman.”

I didn’t feel myself move. Next, I had my brother pinned by the neck and lifted; his feet swayed in the air. He gripped my hand. “What the fuck?” he coughed.

“Whoever it is, you leave them the fuck alone. Do not touch them,” I growled roughly. “Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, all right. Let me the fuck down.”

Christ.
What in the hell was I doing? I dropped Connor like a ton of bricks. He stumbled back but managed to stay on his feet.

“Sorry,” I offered.

“What was that about, dickhead?”

Starting for the side of the roof, I said over my shoulder, “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I really don’t know what came over me.” But I’d known I had to get my message across, even if it was my brother I was warning.

Because I knew I didn’t want anyone touching the survivor.

Maybe it was because the person had just been through an ordeal. I mean, one survivor out of what could be thousands of travelers was a big deal.

I could take a stab at the reason all night, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if any of my answers would be the right one.

My reaction was purely based on primal instinct.

“You know where to go?”
I asked into his mind.

“Yeah, wherever I feel Falcone at,”
he answered back in mine as he studied me. I let him for a second longer before I turned back to the edge of the roof and then jumped from it to the concrete sidewalk, forty stories below.

Still, that didn’t stop me from hearing Connor say,
“Where has my calm brother gone?”

* * * *

Warren stood out among any crowd. He was the largest out of all of us. Standing at seven feet and built like a fucking tank, anywhere we went, he was the first one people noticed, and knew to leave him alone. Most would take one look at the scowl on his scarred face and know he wasn’t to be messed with. Unless, of course, they were idiots and didn’t heed the warning from the scowl and instead either wanted to get to know him, like some women did, or wanted to prove themselves to others and take him on. Either situation led to failure.

He stood just on the outskirts of… disaster. Police, firemen, and emergency crew filled the area, doing what they had to do. I ignored all of them, my gaze falling upon the train. What shocked the fuck out of me was that the train looked mostly intact, except for three carriages out of twelve. The damaged three were only slightly twisted and bunched up.

How in the hell did this cause a death total of all passengers but one?

A shiver ran over my body.

No!

It couldn’t be.

Where were they all?

I turned and twisted, searching the area around me, and saw nothing.

How was this possible?

“Dean?” Warren called, concern showing in his voice. Once he was beside me, he asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing… there’s fucking nothing here, Warren. No ghosts, no bound spirits, nothing.”

His brows bunched. “There should be at least a few. Their deaths were traumatic.”

“How?”
I asked.

“Out loud, brother,” Warren warned. He only liked to use our mind link in desperate situations. He went on, “They’re not 100 percent sure, but they suspect a toxin was aboard and leaked throughout the train. Most bodies look decomposed. All have looks of horror upon their faces.”

“Warren,” I ground out his name, but I could see it on his pinched, worried face; he already suspected a certain someone, like I did, but he was still doubtful or hoping it wasn’t him.

He looked at me and saw I’d also caught on to his train of thought. “No, it couldn’t be. No.” He shook his head, tightly gripping the notepad in his hand.

“Look at all the evidence.” I pointed out the obvious.

“I may have thought it, but how? He’s been locked up for centuries . He couldn’t have escaped.”

“We need to know for certain,” I said.

“Fuck,” he cursed. “Fuck!” he yelled, catching strange looks from people around us.

Though, fuck definitely did fit. If it was who we both suspected, the world would not be the same. It would be turned upside down like it had centuries earlier. Because no one had expected our last and final brother to follow us.

The Navah made us. However, they also made a mistake. Our fifth brother, Kayne, aka Decay, had turned crazed. Even though it had pained us deeply, we’d had to lock him away so he could no longer harm himself or others; he had been sadly inflicted by his own gift of balance. It deteriorated both his mind and body. His gift could destroy so easily; all it took was a touch of his hand. From there, a person’s body would decay from within, and they’d die the most painful of deaths. His story, existence, had been wiped from any written word, and as the last of our civilization died, they took the only knowledge of Kayne with them. Well, almost. There was still the Order to contend with, but they had been silent for fifty years or so.

If our fifth brother had somehow been released, we would have to find him and entomb him once more, before he had a chance to play. Plus, we needed to figure out if there were Order members who had helped him.

Looking back to Warren, I said, “I’m going to take a look around, see if I can find anything. If I find nothing, you know for certain it is him.” Because he would have taken their souls within himself to gain more power, to heal himself enough to survive this world.

“Do that. I’ll continue with the interviews from the first to the scene.” Warren turned and started off until I called out to him.

“Who was the survivor?”

He glanced down at his notepad. “A Julie Michaels.”

“How did she survive him, brother?”

He shook his head. “I’m uncertain, but we need to find out. Hopefully Falcone and Connor will have some answers.”

Chapter Two

JULIE

BEEP… WOSH

BEEP… WOSH

BEEP… WOSH

I woke slowly to what I assumed, from the sounds of machines, was a hospital. Cracking my left eye open to be sure, I looked around.

And survey says… YES! Hospital for the win!

“Why in the H-E-double hockey sticks am I in the hospital?” I croaked softly as I cleared my throat a few times and opened my right eye to join my left.

To one side of my bed was a drawn curtain for privacy. To the left was a door, which was just opening. In walked an older-looking nurse in Scooby Doo scrubs.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. They were worried if you didn’t wake soon, you’d slip into a coma,” she announced distractedly.

“What happened?” I asked as she busied herself getting my blood pressure, temperature, and changing my empty IV fluid bags.

“Saline and antibiotics just in case,” she explained as I watched her dispose of said empties. The smart old goat had changed the subject on me.

“Am I sick?”
How in the heck did I end up in the hospital?

I thought over my day the best I could, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how or why I was there. The last thing I could recall was being at the library and snapping at Troy to stop staring at my tatas and instead concentrate on his calculus. Then I’d been counting the minutes until I’d be free to catch the train home.

“The train,” I whispered. Something about the train struck a nerve in my memory. But why? Then as quickly as the thought came, it was gone. Nothing. My mind was blank of anything after that night’s tutoring session.

I turned to the nurse and asked again, “Why am I here?”

“Sorry, hon, but you will have to wait for the doctor for answers. He’s the one who gets paid to talk. I only do the grunt work around here,” she answered with a wink on her way out of the room.

I had only enough time to assess that, besides some achy muscles and a mild headache, I seemed fine, before someone tapped on the door.

“Hi, my name’s Dr. Steven McMullan. I’m the doctor who was on call when you arrived.”

Holy hot Moses!
I think I may be drooling.
He turned slowly as he shut the door after he entered, giving me a shot of a sinfully tight tushy. He then made his way across the room, not stopping until he reached the bed,
my
bed. With a sexy smile and face usually reserved for billboard Jockey underwear models, he eased his cute tush onto the bed next to me, causing us to touch from hip to knee. Resting his closer hand on my upper thigh, he reached with his other to grasp my hand. We stayed like that a few moments longer than necessary, and I could say I was enjoying the feeling of comfort—until he broke my trance.