DEATH (The Justice Cycle Book 1) by J Kiefer (best classic books to read TXT) 📗

Jared’s eyes were squeezed shut. His face was contorted in an expression of intense anguish. Steve had no idea how it was possible that his brother was alive. It all felt surreal, like he was trapped in some sort of low-budget horror film or something. In fact, this whole day had been one long walk into the paranormal and the bizarre. Perhaps he was having some sort of psychotic break, but he decided to go with it either way.

“I will not!” his brother suddenly shouted.

“He is going to kill you,” the voice in his mind rasped. “You must destroy him first.”

Kill me? Steve thought. I suppose it does make sense.

Why else would his brother come back from the dead?

Well, maybe to see Dana, he surmised. Only a fool like his brother would rise from the grave just to save a girl. The girl he could never see as anything more than a friend until it was too late. Maybe instead of a revenge movie, he was in some ridiculous paranormal romance story instead.

It was time to put an end to Jared, this time for good. He reached inside to his unseen benefactor and allowed him to once again provide him with demonic power. The shadows coalesced around him and this time his muscles expanded and swelled from the unrestrained power.

With a roar of defiance, he ripped his trapped arm free and sprung at his brother. Steve’s shout brought Jared back to his senses just in time to see both of his fists bearing down on his face. Before he could react to the sudden attack, Steve struck him square in the jaw with a double-fisted uppercut that sent him careening through the air.

Steve threw his arm forward and a line of shadow energy surged from his fingertips and rocketed toward Jared. The shadow took on the form of a large tentacle with thousands of two-inch-long barbs protruding from it. The tentacle wrapped around Jared’s leg and bit deep into his calf. Steve pulled his arm down, redirecting his brother’s momentum and sending him hurtling toward the ground.

Jared struck the road so hard that he put a man-sized divot in the asphalt. He could feel Tzedakah screaming mentally at him, but his voice was distant and distorted as if it were trying to reach him through water. Before he was able to sort out why his connection to Tzedakah was strained, he felt himself being flung up into the air once again.

Steve repeatedly slammed his brother into the ground like a rag doll, cracking the road in several places. Jared was not taking any real damage from the continuous beating, but his broken connection to Tzedakah made it impossible for him to counter it. Over and over again he smashed into the ground before Steve finally let go of him and sent him hurtling through the air.

Dana and Lee came barreling around the bend in the road just in time to see him being launched in their direction. Dana slammed on the breaks and the car swerved and stuttered, halting just before an airborne Jared flew past their windshield. He hit the ground a few feet from the stopped car and tumbled toward the river.

Before either of them could process what happened, Steve lunged past them using the hood of Dana’s car as a springboard. The car rocked as he launched off it with so much force that he caused the frame to bend and the windows to shatter.

Steam poured from the car’s hood and both airbags went off. Dana’s heart was beating out of her chest. The front of her car was flattened, and both front tires had exploded.

“What the hell was that?” she asked.

“It looked like a man and then possibly another man,” Lee said with his usual calm demeanor. Other than a few small cuts and bruises, he seemed none the worse for wear.

“I know it was a man,” Dana snapped. “Gosh Lee, what exactly did you do in the military? Nothing, and I mean nothing, seems to rattle you.”

He just looked at her and shrugged. “The usual things.”

Lee, who had completely recovered from the shock of the accident, pointed to a woman who was sitting on the sidewalk only a few meters from them. “I think we may have a civilian hurt over there, ma’am.”

Dana peered through the broken glass in the direction where Lee was pointing. Just as he had said, there was a woman sitting on the sidewalk, clutching her leg and crying for help. She might have heard the lady’s cries if it wasn’t for the loud ringing in her ears.

Lee popped out of the car and rushed to where the woman sat. Dana, on the other hand, gingerly extricated herself from the crushed car, and made her way over.

Lee had his hand pressed firmly on one of her upper thighs and with his other hand, he was fumbling through one of his pants pockets. Before long, he retrieved a rolled-up bandage and gently started wrapping it around her injured leg. The woman was pale from loss of blood and shock, but otherwise not in any immediate danger.

Dana looked for the two men who had disappeared by the river. What in the world was going on? If Lee had not confirmed that he had also seen them, she would not have believed her own eyes. It just wasn’t possible, was it?

“Promise me you won’t engage them,” Johansson had said.

That son of a bitch knew what was going on and he had refused to tell her. Had he known that something was off even back during the Stalker investigation? Come to think of it, she didn’t remember anyone calling in the FBI in the first place. Johansson just showed up out of the blue. That was not how interagency relations worked. No one had questioned it because he was FBI.

Moreover, he had brushed them off when they had gone to the city to check into the investigation. At the time she had