Flames of Hope Read online

  Flames of Hope

  By

  Cassandra L Shaw

  Book Two of the Katoom Series

  By Cassandra L Shaw

  Book two of the Grave Robber Series.

  First published in 2017

  Copyright © Cassandra L Shaw 2017

  Published by Cassandra L Shaw

  The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved.

  Flames of Hope is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To all the wonderful people who step forward to give an abandoned animal

  love, care, and a forever home.

  Contents

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

  30. Chapter Thirty

  31. Chapter Thirty-One

  32. Chapter Thirty-Two

  33. Chapter Thirty-Three

  34. Chapter Thirty-Four

  35. Chapter Thirty-Five

  36. Chapter Thirty-Six

  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight

  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine

  About Cassandra

  A Note From Cassandra

  Cover design by: Two Horses Swift www.twohorsesswift.com

  Edited by www.demonfordetails.com

  Also by Cassandra L Shaw

  Grave Robber Series.

  Grave Robber for Hire

  Grave Robbing’s Gone to Hell

  Katoom Series

  Twin Flames

  Flames of Hope

  Romance & Reincarnation Novella Series

  To Love an Earl Twice

  The Ruins of Destiny

  Collisions of Time

  (and the collection of the three)

  “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

  while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” …

  Lao Tzu

  1

  Chapter One

  Montana’s soft early morning light gave Xylvar’s tiny aged kitchen a false cheery glow. He skimmed through the morning’s news releases, hunting for anything worth using his cyber skills on to research further. Sometimes his extra research uncovered information other people or groups were willing to pay a few credits for. He finished the local and western cyber newssheets, and started onto the eastern states when a headline made his heart jolt.

  Pulse pounding harder with every word, he read the entire news report. Hope a choke hold on his throat, he hunted for the hospital link number. He might be an ex-Special Ops assassin, expert at suppressing emotions and physical reactions, but his fingers trembled while he punched in the number for the clinic carrying out the experimental procedure.

  He’d sell his blackened soul to walk, to be a whole man once more.

  When he reached the specialist, the man spoke of miracles and then, in a single all-hope-knockdown, quoted the estimated total fees.

  In bold, frustrated strokes, Xylvar wrote the sum on a scrap of paper and bit back a bitter bark of laughter. The experimental spinal surgery didn’t just cost ten times more credits than he had, it was ten times more than he expected to earn in the next decade.

  He leaned back in his wheelchair to think. Only way for it, he’d have to ask for financial favors from the Injured Vets Pension Board. And that irked him to the sun and back. Before he talked himself out of groveling, he grabbed his personal link once more and rang the board. After all, he’d heard they funded medical treatments all the time.

  Xylvar disconnected from the fourth call and ran a shaking hand over his jaw.

  “Fuck me.” What else did he expect? He started to laugh, but cut the sound into another curse.

  Life didn’t give hope. His life was a rich compost brewed from fifty varieties of shit, and some bastard kept shoveling more onto his pile.

  And the pension board? Well, the guy at the other end of the conversation had sympathized, but experimental treatments were not on the help menu. Too risky, too many unknown dangers, and too many chances of the board being sued. And with those words, he crushed Xylvar’s only known chance to walk again.

  He had been offered more rehabilitation, training for office work, even a college education and a chance to participate in a para-sport team.

  And the real winner—more shrink time. Free.

  Wasn’t going there again. Some pinhead—the one the board already made him visit daily for six endless months—told him he wouldn’t mentally move on until he forgave himself and understood life still held meaning. That he needed to open himself to life to live.

  Cocksucker. Xylvar hadn’t seen a scrap of meaning in life since his early twenties. From what he observed and experienced since; you were born, you existed, and you died.

  Alone.

  Nothing new. He’d found himself in that state for most of his life, no matter what he once dreamed of.

  With the image of black curls and a sweet face haunting him, he spun his wheelchair to face the window. Using a long stick with a hook, he slid the window open, lifted the feeder off the tree branch and dragged it inside. Once he’d refilled it with seeds, nuts, and an apple cut into pieces, he guided the feeder back to the branch. A red squirrel scurried down the tree, picked up an apple chunk and crunched on it while he watched Xylvar.

  Xylvar eyeballed the drawer where he stowed the illegal antique revolver. When he bought it, within days of unsuccessfully completing spinal rehab, it had come with a single hollow-point bullet. No others could be bought, anywhere, or for any amount of money that he knew of.

  Didn’t matter. He only needed one.

  Impossible to miss his target.

  He knew of other ex-soldiers far worse off than he. But they had friends, family—lives to return to and hold onto. Just before he decided to enter the military, he’d cut off all contact with his friends and the woman he loved. So, he’d returned home to no one. No friends, no family, and the only woman he’d ever loved long ago ejected from his life. Jaz, a dream then, had become his nighttime torment for over a decade. She and Anthony would be married now, probably have a horde of children.

  Truth was, by signing on to become an assassin, he’d demonstrated his readiness for death.

  He just hadn’t died.

  And he remained disgustingly healthy.

  As the squirrel ate and his mate joined him, Xylvar stared at the figure he’d written on the paper and pulled open the drawer. A flick of his finger shoved aside the hand towel covering the dull shine of the gray gun. He picked up the cold metal piece and released the safety. A quick spin of the cylinder ended the ritual before he shoved the barrel in his mouth. The bigger of the two squirrels
met his gaze.

  “Meet you on the wild side.” Hopefully the next tenants would feed his little friends. He winked, pulled the hammer back—then let it go.

  Click.

  Xylvar nodded to his squirrel friends and put the gun away. Guess he’d live another day. After all, tomorrow was as good as any to live or die.

  2

  Chapter Two

  The Blood Drainer ducked into the eight-foot-tall crevice. Inside the cave, the air quickly shifted to cool and dry. He shivered as he slipped a small, flat, disc-shaped flashlight out of his trousers and turned it on.

  Finding the old map to this and several other hidden bunkers—in a dead man’s house—had been a timely godsend. Proof his ambitions were part of the greater scheme.

  The flashlight lit the way as he walked thirty feet farther into the cave, stopping in front of a doorway blasted through the rock wall. Scattered nearby, the bones and skulls from species long ago lost to the world lay in silent watch.

  He distastefully eyed a pale, hollow-eyed skull. He wasn’t here for archeological or paleontological reasons. His siren sang for power. And today power demanded Gold. Gold dust so fine it flowed in blood and oozed through the pores of a monster’s skin. Formed by some unknown alchemy in the marrow of the human subspecies, the Crea.

  And gold of 23-carat purity earned many credits.

  The Crea and the Eli landed on Earth in spherical airships nearly five hundred years ago. Although they were mostly human-looking, the godless creatures told stories of how humans evolved on a distant planet millions of years ago. But once they developed the technology to travel, the human species spread like a slow virus onto other life-sustaining planets throughout the galaxies.

  The Crea and the Eli said Earth humans originated on a far-off planet. Now every world capable of sustaining humanoid life housed at least one human subspecies, each with unique genetic, evolutionary transformations. Sometimes on a particular planet the variants resulted from crossbreeding with genetically similar creatures that somehow produced sexually viable young. Two of the subhuman results were the gold-bearing Crea, and the silver-riddled Eli from the dead planet of Elan.

  Proving to the Drainer that they weren’t truly human.

  The only real humans on Earth were the ones with the Pure genetics of the humans who dwelled on Earth before the Crea and Eli arrived with their befouled, alien DNA.

  But soon the world would again be occupied solely by the pure humans. The Pope, leader of the Pure movement, planned to eradicate all aliens inhabiting Earth, and to do so, he spent his time gathering followers and developing armies.

  And to hasten the purification of Earth, the movement needed money and recruits.

  The Drainer planned to become an integral force supporting the Pope. The Pope rewarded those who served him, who aided his cause generously. And those rewards were going to be the Drainer’s guaranteed route to unlimited wealth and—most of all—what he truly believed he was born for: power.

  Inside the blasted doorway, he took out the two keys he needed to disengage the old-fashioned locking systems he personally installed in the two-inch thick steel door. Braced for the stench inside, he entered the room, dodging copper pipes and wires from the solar-operated LED bulbs lighting the oppressive darkness with pinpoints of brightness. A small halo viewer ran one of the thousands of movies on a loop he supplied to keep his captives entertained…not because he cared about their well-being. Rather, with nothing else to focus on, they might seek and discover ways to escape.

  An escapee would destroy the lab, find help, and destroy him.

  In the past, someone had built the eight cells arrayed before him with a great deal of care. Currently only six were occupied, but soon there’d be enough to fill this bunker, plus another he’d prepared capable of imprisoning twelve.

  Each Crea had his or her own eight-foot by six-foot cell. Enough room for even the bigger monsters to lie down, but not large enough for one, even in its beast form, to gather enough momentum to smash free. The bars made to hold even the most furious of beasts, were made of thicker steel than those used in the usual Crea and Eli lockups.

  He walked to the end of the small hall, inserted the usual precautionary earplugs he’d stashed in his trouser pocket, and flicked on the full lighting, smirking while his prisoners cringed from the sudden brightness. He looked over at the farthest occupied cell and shuddered.

  The largest male of the group had turned beast in the van, but luckily the chains kept him imprisoned.

  The Drainer rubbed at a thick scab along his forearm. Even mid-turn and straining against the chains, before the Drainer fired a tranq dart accurately enough to penetrate the beast’s metallic skin, the male managed to slash open the Drainer’s arm with his claws.

  Until that night, the Drainer had never seen a turned Eli or Crea before. In beast form, the fuckers were hideous. Long-limbed, hunched slightly, their massive muscles roped like steel cords. The face before him was sort of bearlike, yet he could also see the non-turned male behind the monstrous, glowing, gold features.

  Truly a creature of evil.

  At least it didn’t matter to his gold-harvesting plans that the creature had turned. When jabbed with a strong enough needle, its blood still flowed from its vein into the separator.

  Once milked, the drainer thinned the blood with water from the small stream flowing through the back of the bunker. The gold, finer than any talc, but heavier than the thinned blood, settled to the bottom of the long glass tank he’d installed as part of his preparations.

  All so simple.

  He envisioned the piles of golden dust, the small ingots so easily sold on the black and open markets, and grinned.

  “Good morning, my cattle. Milking time.” He gave his usual soft grunt of laughter at his own humor.

  Some days he really loved being the more Pure, supreme being.

  The gold-coated beast hurled himself at the bars, stretching his massive, muscled arms through the gaps. His roar almost deafened the Drainer, even through his earplugs. He grabbed the pole he’d fitted with the strongest electro-prod known to the world and went to stand in front of a female’s cage.

  “Hello, my pretty.” Crea or not, in humanoid form, the female was beautiful. Such a shame she’d shred him to pieces if he tried to bed her.

  The Crea female’s exposed skin flashed gold, and her eyes turned burning metallic. She lurched away, but he managed to jab the electro-prod into her shoulder blade and flicked the on switch. A Blue light arced and crackled as the electric charge knocked her to the floor. The other five Crea in both beast and human form roared and screamed, smashing themselves against their bars.

  “So much drama. You’d think you’d be used to your fate by now.”

  “You’ll die, you bastard. We’ll escape and tear you into bite-sized chunks and feed you to the wolves. Grind your bones to dust. Nobody will even remember you existed.”

  “I’m pissing my boxers.” He lifted his top lip in cold sneer at the second male.

  Younger than the beast-turned male by about ten years, this one was more thickly roped with muscles, looked fitter, and his eye—colder than those of even the beast. In his rage, his gold rose and shimmered, his claws appearing and disappearing while he fought against turning beast, his face distorted with the effort.

  “Ah, fighting the turn, are we? No point in turning. There’s no escape, no release.” In the end, it didn’t worry the Drainer if the male turned, though he got some satisfaction when the monster shifted back to human form. Apparently returning was extremely painful, and the young male had turned several times.

  With the electro-prod still set on it highest setting, he blasted the female on the floor for another twenty seconds, giving him time to shoot her in the thigh with a tranq dart. She’d be out long enough for the Drainer to syphon a pint of blood, with time left to safely shove two days’ worth of food and water rations into the corner of her cell.

  Stock owners need to f
eed and water their beasts in order to get the best return.

  Another few days and he’d be able to deliver a pound of gold dust. He’d leave it as dust, rather than melt it into an ingot. Crea dust would increase his status, and his notoriety within the Pure movement.

  The female twitched while the last of the shock dissipated from her system.

  The Drainer smiled.

  3

  Chapter Three

  Xylvar angled his wheelchair for easier access to the dark beer the barman poured into a dull glass. Tapping a finger on the bar, he took a long sip, savoring one of the three things he still enjoyed…alcohol, food, and pissing people off. He took great pleasure from specializing in the last item.

  Eyeing the dusty, moth-eaten row of stuffed deer and bear heads, he reminded himself he hadn’t come for the rank décor or the stench of stale beer, piss, and sweat. He appraised the bar’s grim clientele, considering each as his potential target. At this time last night, he’d intercepted a self-destruct cyber message mid-destruct. Someone who frequented The Blue Bar was a Pure sympathizer.

  A man walked in and stood next to Xylvar. He dressed like an actor out of a stylized Western halo, only lacking a set of spurs and a tin star on his chest. They might be in Montana, but, considering they were surrounded by mid-poverty suburbia, the guy either had some mental problems, was a long way from home, or was trying to be something he wasn’t.