Love in the Land of Fire, Brochu, Rebecca [best free novels .txt] 📗

Josiah bristles, his hands tightening around the steering bars of his transport at the thought of anyone getting the drop on him with all of his training and experience.

“I hardly think that’ll be necessary.”

“Necessary or not, it’s what’s going to happen. I know that you’re Crimson Elite and everything and normally I let you pretty much run wild but you’re right. There’s something different about this case. I’m not taking any chances.”

The channel between them is muted, but not terminated, before Josiah can protest any further and he knows that Eagan did it on purpose. He has little time to think about it because he’s rounding the next curve seconds later and the Charred District is looming in front of him in all of its desolate glory.

He spends precious seconds taking in the sight of the burned out ghost town in front of him before he once again bursts into action. His transport is powered down and he’s out and onto the ash-covered street moments after he enters the district. His best bet of finding Zweil’s trail is on foot where his transport can’t erase any evidence of the other man’s passage that might have been left in the ash on the ground.

One hand on the hilt of the rapier attached to his belt, the weapon that he’s always favored and is rarely without, Josiah moves forward. His eyes scan his surroundings and the ground in front of him automatically, constantly on the lookout for movement or tracks, anything that can lead him to Zweil. He’s also completely alert, ready to draw either his sword or the standard issue electric pistol that he’d received along with his badge.

1It takes him almost ten minutes to pick up the trail and when he does he’s covered in a fine layer of ash and even more impressed with Zweil. The other man had went through the pains of hiding his tracks as best he could, but Josiah finally manages to pick up the trail when he spots the place where pain or exhaustion had caught up with him. Zweil had gone down on a knee, and the hand he’d used to brace himself is outlined perfectly in the ash. Josiah feels relief well up within him at the first bit of tangible evidence that Zweil had gone this way.

The situation gets better for Josiah and worse for Zweil quickly after that initial discovery. After that the foot prints are perfectly clear and crisp and Josiah cannot help the way that his anxiety grows as he reads the tracks and sees the way Zweil gets more and more unsteady the further he goes. Something is wrong with Zweil; something has to be to make him so careless with his tracks when he’d been so meticulous before.

Josiah feels that anxiety gnaw at his gut so he picks up his pace, following the trail at a slow run.

It isn’t long before the trail ends and he finds himself staring up at the burned out remains of what was once a nice, if a bit modest for the area, house. What’s left of the walls bear the same scorch marks as the houses around it, the windows destroyed by what was once intense heat, and the front door is propped up almost comically against what’s left of its frame.

The tracks lead inside.

Josiah unholsters his electric pistol and slides his way up the front stairs to peek inside while giving himself as much cover as he can. He doesn’t actually believe that Zweil will be a danger to him but the years of training he’d undergone refuses to allow him to leave himself open in such a manner. He easily spots what appears to be the sole of a thick black leather boot, which he knows Zweil was wearing the last time he was seen, from around the corner of what must have once been the main living area in the house.

Josiah does his best to soften the rough tone of his voice when he calls out, to sound friendly and non-threatening despite the fact that he is armed and heavily trained.

“Rafe Zweil, this is Enforcer Marx. I need you to come out unarmed and with your hands up.”

He hears a worryingly wet cough and sees the boot shift just slightly before a husky voice that sends inappropriate shivers down his spine and straight to his cock calls out lowly to him.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to say no to that, Enforcer Marx. I don’t think I could move right now even if I absolutely had to. So if you want to talk to me either we keep yelling at each other or you bring your ass in here.”

Zweil’s short speech is followed by a round of equally wet and painful sounding coughs that cause the hair on the back of Josiah’s neck to stand up. Something is terribly wrong with Zweil and Josiah has a not so sneaking suspicion that the other man’s injuries are worse than he had thought. The only way he’ll be able to find out is to go inside.

His instincts tell him not to, that Zweil could be lying and ready to ambush him with any number of things, but he pushes them down and into the back of his mind. He needs to get to Zweil, to find out if he’s safe and to get his wounds treated as quickly as possible. So with a deep breath and a roll of his tense shoulders Josiah raises his pistol into a firing position and steps calmly up and into the remains of the house.

1Chapter Four

The remnants of the house are silent, almost eerily so, except for the occasional sound of Zweil letting loose another damp sounding cough or the quiet rustling of his clothes as he shifts