Soul Reborn (Key to the Cursed Book 1) (2 page)

Hands shaking, Lilly
over engaged the throttle on her lime green and ebony Ninja ZX. The four-hundred-pound
motorcycle’s front wheel lurched off the ground and propelled her and the bike through
streets filled with cars and pedestrians. Life, as usual, had reclaimed the
bustling city now that it was bathed in the protective ultraviolet light of the
sun.

The eerie encounter
with the dark reven chased her like a cold chill.

With skin black as
midnight, he was a stark contrast to any of the pale revens she had exorcized
in the last five years. It lightened to the human tone of olive, somehow
transforming under the heat of her body and revealing its unmarred and
perfectly structured features. Strong jaw and cheek line. Thick black hair and the
darkest eyes she had ever seen, which had the slightest hint of pain in them.

Kill it,
her mind had screamed. So, why the hell hadn’t she? The
warmth of arousal still surged through her body despite the chill against her
skin, and her lips burned as if she had been out on a cold winter’s day.

She’d almost
kissed
the damn thing.

Recalling the
events sent a coarse shiver down the length of her back. Unbalanced, the motorcycle’s
handlebar and gas tank grazed the side of a yellow cab, and left streaks of
green paint down its quarter panel. With no intentions of stopping, she gunned
it, leaving a high pitched squeal in her wake. The blare of the cabbie’s horn
and discharge of expletives trailed her down the street.

“Get over it,”
Lilly muttered.

This
thing
was highly intelligent and powerful. It had no fear of her, even as she held
the weapon against his chest. It definitely was testing her, but would it be so
foolish to put its life at risk? Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it couldn’t be
destroyed by usual means. If this was any indication of the things to come, the
huntresses were in a shitload of trouble.

She skidded to a
stop in the loose gravel in front the fortress’ entrance. With a flick of her
heel, she rested the bike on its kick stand.

The fortress’ large
iron gates loomed ahead with sentries on either side and two gunners on the
roof. Daylight hours were relatively safe, but her employer took no risks.
Built like a maximum security prison, a large impenetrable fence defended the
entire circumference of the compound.

Not to keep the
prisoners in, but to keep the undead out.

Lilly removed her
helmet and nodded to the sentry and security camera. A large hydraulic motor
engaged and pulled the massive door to the right.

She jogged up the
steps to the barracks. Black Eyed Peas blasted from one of the rooms several
corridors away. Lilly took long, urgent strides to her second-in-command’s
quarters. Without bothering to knock, she went straight to the stereo system in
her sister’s room and turned it off.

Kit whirled around
in her chair. “Hey!”

“We have a problem.”
Lilly paced back and forth, ignoring her sister’s scowl. She rubbed her arms to
relieve the residual chill.

“No kidding.” Kit
crossed her long legs wrapped in thigh high, black leather boots. “It’s been
five years and you are just figuring that out. I killed over twelve revens last
night by myself. Little bastards just kept coming.”

Lilly shot a look
at her sister. Kit’s sarcasm had long since lost its bite to the point Lilly
simply ignored it. “Jesus, Kit. How many times have I told you not to go out
alone? The cullings are going to become more dangerous. From now on, no one
will go out alone. A minimum of two hunters at all times.” Lilly paused and
folded her arms across her chest. “And yes,
you
will be with
me
,
little sister.”

Kit rolled her
eyes.

“Dad would haunt me
the rest of my life if anything happened to you. You are my responsibility. You
will just have to deal.”

“Fine.” Her sister scowled
again and sulked back in her chair. “Like he would care anyway,” Kit mumbled
under her breath.

Lilly glared at her
sister. Kit was twenty-five years old, but could act ten years younger if the
moment suited her. Especially, when it came to dealing with their father. Her
sister’s resentment hadn’t changed in the least— if anything, it had worsened
over the last five years. It was an argument they had a thousand times, but she
refused to engage her.

She had bigger
things on her mind right now.

Still rubbing her
arms, Lilly broke off their staring contest and resumed pacing. Not even a calm
cleansing breath rid her of the sensations the dark reven had left deep in her
abdomen and against her skin.

“What has you in
such a hissy?”

“We have a new
enemy.” Lilly’s heart drummed in her chest, remembering how close it was, and
what feeling it had elicited deep within her core. Just the thought of it
flushed her insides with warmth. “I’ve never seen a reven like this before.”

“Great, now they’re
mutating
?”

“I don’t know. Its
skin was black as tar, but the color shifted with the ambient changes in
temperature. It was only then that I could see the outline of tattoos on its
forearms, some type of symbols. It doesn’t make any sense. Revens don’t have
any higher brain function, but this one spoke to me. Its speech was heavily
accented, one I didn’t recognize.”

“No, fucking way!”
Kit jumped out of her chair, her long black hair fanning out in all directions.
“The bastard talked to you? You must have been hallucinating.” She paced, just as
Lilly was. “Are you absolutely
sure
it spoke?”

Lilly instinctively
drew her arms in tight around her. “It did more than that. It tried to kiss
me.”

Kit gasped. “What?”

Astonishment, then
anger flashed across her sister’s face. Lilly readied herself for the backlash.

“You let a reven
get that close to you—are you crazy?” Kit clamped her hands on her hips. “And
you fucking lecture
me
.”

Lilly sighed and
sat in the closest chair. “You’re right. It’s not that I wasn’t armed, but it
didn’t seem to care. And
that
is what’s concerning me.”

“You’re sure it was
a reven? Maybe it was something else?”

“I don’t know what
else it could be.” Lilly leaned forward and put her elbows on her leather
covered knees. “It was dead. No heartbeat, no breathing, no scent. And it was
colder than hell.”

She shivered. It
was also gorgeous in every sense of the word, with broad muscular shoulders and
chest, and those black eyes that were riveted on her. Her heart raced and a
renewed flush of warmth cascaded through her body.

Shit.
She needed to get laid, apparently.

“There’s no doubt
it was powerful. The stupid thing didn’t even flinch when I put my blade into
its chest,” Lilly said, biting at the edge of her fingernail.

“What did it want
from you?”

“I didn’t stick
around to find out. I sensed three more in the tunnel.” One larger than the
first but with glowing orange eyes. The huntress had become the hunted. She stood
up to adjust her sword and weapons belt. “I’ll warn the others. In the
meantime, where’s Kendra? Is she back yet?”

“No. She’ll be at
that stupid museum until dark. You think after all that’s happened, she’d at
least keep track of the damn time.” Kit crossed her arms over her chest. “I had
to escort her back to the fortress again yesterday because she didn’t show up
before nightfall. And you think I’m the one at risk.”

Lilly smiled. Their
youngest sister, Kendra, was like the absent minded professor. Smartest girl in
the world, but no common sense. Apparently a PhD didn’t have a disqualifier for
being oblivious, so Kit looked after Kendra, and Lilly looked out for all of
them. It had been that way since they were born, and more so now that their
father was dead and they had no mother to speak of.

“I’ll go check on
her. I need to see if she can identify the symbols tattooed on the reven’s body.
Maybe it will give us a clue as to what exactly it is and where it came from.”

After an hour and a
half debriefing with her boss, Lilly finally changed her clothes to go over to
the museum. She still had the cold sensation crawling against her skin and
needed to burn off the edge. Despite being utterly exhausted, she decided to walk
and get a little vitamin D in the process. With her night time occupation, she
rarely saw the sun. These were sleep and recovery hours for the Nehebkau.

In more appropriate
civilian attire of jeans and t-shirt, Lilly weaved her way through the busy New
York City streets. With her ball cap pulled tight and low over her shades, she scanned
the crowd.

Most civilians in
the city didn’t make eye contact, just scurried to their next destination.
There was limited amount of daylight now that summer had come to an end and the
days were getting shorter and shorter—not good for a city experiencing reven
outbreaks. The sirens would sound off an hour before twilight. Any civilians
unable to make it to safety had to report to a shelter with steel shutters, and
remain there until morning. Quite an undertaking for a city of this size.

Not everyone made
it.

Within a few blocks
of Fifth and Eighty-First Street Lilly felt the fine hairs stand up on the back
of her neck. Even in this large crowd she knew she was being followed.
Purposefully slowing her pace, she stopped at one of the stores that had a
window display. Behind her shades, she could easily track the flow of
pedestrians in the reflection of the glass, looking for the one who stopped or
hesitated.

The civilians moved
like a bubbling river.

Lilly shook her
head. Her paranoia had gotten the best of her, and rightly so, considering the
encounter with the dark reven. She glanced briefly again at the crowd before
jogging the rest of the way down the street and up the steps of the museum.

Perpetually holed
up in a dungeon full of artifacts, Kendra was the Egyptian antiquities
specialist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She walked in her father’s
footsteps with a love for archeology and had completed her doctorate at the age
of twenty-two. The smell of dusty old books choked Lilly’s fine senses as she
approached her little sister’s office.

The room under the
stairs had the same amount of space as a walk-in closet. At six-feet–tall,
Lilly had to duck to make it through the unusually small door. The desk was
covered with stacks of books so high she didn’t see Kendra sitting behind them.

“Kendra?”

She couldn’t help
but laugh when her sister’s head popped up, barely clearing the height of the
stacks.

“Is it dusk
already?” Kendra asked, bouncing around the edge of her desk.

Lilly looked down
in amusement at her barely five foot three sibling. Kendra’s long, auburn hair
was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail in a miserable attempt to keep the curls
contained. Hair stuck out everywhere.

“It’s ten in the
morning.”

Kendra frowned. “Oh.
I can never tell. As you can see, no windows.” She looked around with a
perplexed look on her face.

“I need your help.”

“Oh?” Kendra’s eyes
widened. Lilly rarely asked for help.

She slipped Kendra
the sketches she’d drawn of the reven’s tattoos. “Think you might recognize
these symbols?”

Taking the paper
from Lilly, Kendra squealed with delight. “Where did you find these?” She didn’t
even wait for an answer. Mumbling to herself in a string of phrases Lilly
couldn’t even begin to comprehend, her sister disappeared behind the stack of
books again.

She waited while Kendra
buried her head in several disheveled texts, her head bobbing back and forth
from the drawings to her reference materials. She scribbled down notes. When
Kendra pulled out a book at least four inches thick, Lilly knew it was time to
go. She walked out of the tiny office without saying goodbye. Kendra wouldn’t
notice her absence for several hours.

“Ready to be bait?”
Lilly asked, tightening down her black leather vest that came just above her
navel.

“Why is it me that
always has to act like the stupid female in distress?” Kit asked, shoving a
stick of gum into her mouth.

“Because, I’m in
charge.” Lilly walked over in her vest and pink panties to grab her pants. She
pulled the smooth leather up over her hips and then turned to her sister. “Plus,
I’m stronger than you. We need to take out as many of these bastards as we can.”

Lilly tossed Kit a
file with the latest intel. “Viper scouts detected a nest of revens just
outside the city limits. An estimated twenty, maybe twenty-five. We will travel
in the open to that location, set up, and then spring the trap. Viper team will
be a few short clicks away if we run into any trouble.”

“Twenty-five to two?
I like those odds,” Kit said. She blew a bubble, then sucked it back in her
mouth with a pop.

“I thought you
might. See, tagging along with your big sister won’t be so bad, now will it?” Lilly
adjusted her sister’s weapons belt. “Pull your hair back so it doesn’t obstruct
your view,” she said, tucking Kit’s silky black hair behind her ear. Although
she teased Kit about being the bait, she didn’t like the idea of her being down
in the cistern by herself.

“Yes, mother.”

Two hours later,
twilight fell upon the city. The perfect time to hunt revens. Lilly narrowed
her eyes and scanned the old water treatment plant. Her adrenaline kicked into
gear, activating her fight response. Her entire body on alert. She shifted her
weapons. Her pre-game ritual. With the chill from last night’s encounter
finally shaken off, her body ignited with heat.

It had happened the
same way each hunt since her conversion. Like fire in her veins it raced
through every cell of her body, starting at her spine and then wrapping around
her torso and into her extremities. Her skin flushed red with the rush of warmth.

Ironically, this
same heat drew the prey in front of her closer, like a fly to a dead body. Its
reddish eyes and pale skin flashed in the moonlight as it honed in on her
position.

Her eyes dilated in
response, brightening the darkened landscape. She could taste the acidic air of
the city on her tongue.

Short sword already
drawn, she sprinted to the prey. Each muscle contracted in a symphony of fluid
motion as she moved toward the target. There was no need to draw the hunt out. Kill
and move on. “Kit, eyes on target. How are you doing?”

A brief crackle of
static transmitted over the ear piece, then Kit answered, “I’ll be joining you
shortly with about fifteen flesh eaters in tow.”

“Roger. I’ll be
there in two mikes.” Lilly launched herself into the air over the railing and
swung the blade down in one quick motion. The reven’s head rolled across the
cement, eyes blinking, not comprehending it had been separated from its body. She
landed and roundhouse kicked the remaining standing body in the chest. It
slammed onto its back with arms clawing the air. She nailed her boot heel into
its chest to hold it still, then thrust the tip of her spear into its chest
cavity to carve up the motionless heart. Only then did the eyes close on the
decapitated head.

“N-ka-n-imAh,”
Lilly whispered in ancient Egyptian. Her father’s translation echoed in her
head.
An offering
for the ka of the revered.
“May your soul find
paradise in your rebirth.”

She leapt back up
on the ledge and moved into position. Perched above the cistern opening, Lilly
pulled the pin on the flash charge and waited for her sister.

An unfamiliar
coldness crept into her extremities and down her spine. Startled by the sudden
temperature change, she held onto the flash charge a little longer than she had
wanted. A few of the revens escaped out the opening after Kit.

Lilly raised her
hand to protect her eyes from the bright ignition of fire incinerating the
undead revens. A multitude of hollow screams emanated out of the tunnel. Flaming
bodies staggered out of the opening, along with the putrid smell of decayed,
burning flesh.

She leapt down and decapitated
three charred revens mid-air, and struck the fourth in the chest. Kit killed
one, and finished off another.

Lilly waited at the
opening with her weapon drawn, but no more revens charged out of the smoky
darkness. The reassurance did little to relieve the goose bumps that covered
her arms and neck.

“What the hell?” Lilly
muttered and scanned for the source among the dark shadows cast by the various
levels of concrete. Her concern about the chill abruptly ceased when revens rushed
out of adjacent openings. “Kit!”

Her sister had her
back to the swarm. Without hesitation, Lilly launched herself between her
sister and the overwhelming horde of hungry revens. “Twenty-five, my ass,” she
yelled, as Kit joined her. “We need to double back. Now!”

Kit nodded, too
occupied to form the words in her mouth. Despite her sister’s cocky attitude, Lilly
knew Kit’s limitations had been reached. She and her sister both pulled pins on
their grenades, and threw them into the undulating crowd of rotten flesh and
teeth. The revens disregarded the egg shaped charges and pushed forward,
climbing over each other to get to their next meal.

Lilly had just
reached the first landing when the first charge ignited followed by the second.
The spray of blood and flesh hit her back. A few steps ahead of her, Kit retreated
up the levels of concrete to create distance between them and the revens. By
this time, the undead filled the entire bowl of the aqueduct.

Her sister leapt
up, well out of reach of the revens before she stopped. “Holy, shit. We’ll need
a damn airstrike for this,” Kit said, as she holstered her blades in favor of
more grenades.

Lilly walked the six
inch wide ledge of concrete. The revens clawed at the grey cement trying to
scale the wall. Blood and skin spattered the concrete, like a freakish finger
painting. Kit chucked a few more flash charges into the surging crowd below.

Lilly dialed the
emergency line on her phone and sent their GPS coordinates. The phone vibrated
indicating the message had been received, and the fifteen minute countdown lit
up the phone display.

She grabbed her
sister’s arm. “Save them. Viper team is in route. Let’s seal up the outer rim so
the bastards can’t escape. They’ll be dropping an aerial assault in fifteen
minutes so we need to work quickly.”

Kit nodded and
headed in the other direction.

Lilly moved along the
concrete tight rope and placed charges along the walls that had exits. With the
last brick of C4, she leaned over to place the charge, careful to distribute
her weight evenly. Unexpectedly, she shivered and lost her balance on the wall.
Her heart rocketed in her chest. The thought of falling into a cauldron of
flesh eating undead was not her idea of going out with a bang.