Ash storm chimera force.., p.1
Ash Storm (Chimera Force Book 2), page 1
ALSO BY J.R. PACE
Chimera Force Series
Book 1: Dark Soul
Book 2: Ash Storm
**
Mont Blanc Rescue Series
Book 1: Mountain Struggle
Book 2: Mountain Impact
Book 3: Mountain Trial
Book 4: Mountain Shadow
Book 5: Mountain Deadpoint
Book 6: Mountain Secret
Book 7: Mountain Target
**
Sharp’s Cove Series
Book 1: One Night Years Ago
Book 2: Two Favors Repaid
Book 3: Three Times Ablaze
Book 4: Four Cards Exposed
**
Standalone Novella
Cold and Bitter Snow
Ash Storm
Published by J.R. Pace
Copyright 2023 by J.R. Pace
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
Note to readers: This book contains adult scenes and language, and is intended for adult readers.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Preview: Chimera Force Book 3
Acknowledgments
I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
—William Edgar Stafford
1
Reka
Istanbul was meant to be the appetizer—a quick three-day pit stop, a chance to get over their jet lag before traveling on to Lake Salda, a place that had been described by the contest organizers as Turkey’s Maldives.
By their second day in Istanbul, Reka already knew she would have been happy to stay in the city for their entire ten-day holiday.
Maybe it was because it was her first time traveling outside the States, or because she hadn’t taken a holiday in the last five years, or because she was with her two best friends, or simply because Istanbul really was an incredible city, but Reka didn’t want to leave.
Each morning, they woke up to the relaxing prayer sounds coming from the nearby mosque. Then, after a leisurely breakfast, they went out to explore the city. The previous afternoon, they’d pampered themselves at a local hamam the hotel receptionist had recommended, a gleaming palace of warm marble and citrus-scented steam.
Reka thought of the goody bags they’d been given, filled with natural olive oil soaps and traditional Turkish cosmetics. She would try them all, except for the shampoo—her thick, frizzy hair didn’t respond well to new products, or to humidity for that matter, so this trip was already proving quite the challenge.
Although Reka loved her hair, sometimes she wished she had Chloe’s straight blond hair or Aileen’s wavy, bright auburn locks. She sneaked a look in their direction to confirm—and yes, both her friends looked like they’d just stepped out of the hairdresser’s.
Reka sighed, then smiled, her thoughts moving to the day ahead.
They still had to decide if, after their trip to the Grand Bazaar, they would look for another hamam or go back to their hotel to relax. Reka was probably the most athletic of the three, and even her feet were hurting from walking around so much. She couldn’t imagine what Chloe and Aileen felt like.
“This place is amazing, Chloe,” Aileen said, stopping at the entrance to the covered market.
“It really is,” Reka agreed. “I didn’t imagine it would be this big.”
“I told you!” Chloe said, flicking her blond hair out of her face. “Sixty-one streets and over four thousand shops.”
Reka and Aileen laughed. In the weeks before the trip, Chloe had read every single guidebook ever published about Turkey, including several old, out-of-print ones she’d gotten from friends. Of course, she was also the one who had won the travel magazine’s contest in the first place, and therefore the reason they were all here.
Originally, the prize had been a ten-day trip for two, but Chloe had managed to convince the organizers to make it a trip for the three of them if they flew economy instead of flying first-class and stayed together in the same room.
It was a running joke between them that sweet, mild-mannered Chloe could sweet-talk anyone into doing whatever she wanted.
“I’m so glad we’re all here,” Chloe said, taking their hands and squeezing tight.
Reka squeezed back. The three of them had met during their freshman year in college and even though they’d never shared a class together—Reka had been studying Psychology, Aileen had been a biology major, and Chloe had changed majors three times before settling on Comparative Literature—they’d been inseparable until they graduated.
And beyond.
Even now, five years after graduation, they still met up for dinner at least once a month, taking advantage of the fact that they all lived in Chicago. But it’d been years since they’d spent this much time together. It made Reka realized she’d missed it. And there was so much to do in Istanbul.
So much to do, and so much to see.
Reka was glad she had made time in her schedule for the trip. At first, she’d been hesitant, worried she’d fall behind on her publishing schedule, since she was contracted to write monthly articles for a number of psychology magazines, as well as to provide support on her specialty, emotions management, to several local schools. And that was on top of her sessions with patients.
To say she was busy was the understatement of the year, but a conversation with her mother had made her rethink things when she’d looked up from the vegetables she was slicing and quietly asked, “If not now, when?”
Reka was a long-distance runner, the kind who was always thinking of the next mile, and then the one after that. She was the same in life—there was always the next project, the next goal, the next thing she wanted to accomplish. It was a way of thinking that had helped her in life but, sometimes, it also made her miss out on things.
Not this time.
She wasn’t going to miss out on an instant of this amazing trip with her friends.
“Hold on,” Aileen said, bringing up her camera and snapping a shot of Chloe and Reka.
Though she enjoyed her job in a genetics lab, Reka knew Aileen’s real love was photography. She hoped one day her friend would be able to turn that love into a career.
“How many pictures have you taken already, Aileen?” Chloe laughed. “Aren’t you going to run out of space on your laptop?”
“Don’t worry, I brought extra memory sticks with me,” Aileen replied, sticking out her tongue. “Reka, can you get a bit closer to Chloe so you’re both standing right under that archway? There, right there!”
Reka, half a head taller than her friend, placed her arm around Chloe’s slim shoulders and squeezed gently. They knew better than to rush Aileen when she had her camera out.
As Aileen snapped away—and she claimed that was one of her secrets, taking many, many shots, so she never missed that perfect moment—Reka suddenly felt something strange. She looked around them, searching for the source of the unexpected discomfort, but saw nothing.
“Just a couple more!” said Aileen.
Keeping her smile firmly in place, Reka looked surreptitiously left and right—but no, there was nothing strange, nobody out of place. And then the feeling was gone, so fast it might never have happened. Except she’d learned caution from her uncle, a man Reka knew had spent more time around evil than he’d ever let on around the family. One of the things he’d taught her was never to ignore one of those strange feelings.
“Even your camera’s exhausted, Aileen. Let’s go,” she said quickly. She wanted to leave their current exposed position and get inside the market.
As well as enormous, the market was beautiful. Reka loved the arching hallways, the strange smells and sounds. They declined innumerable offers of fragrant, warm tea, because both Chloe and Aileen knew by now that taking tea from strangers was not something Reka felt comfortable doing.
Aileen stopped outside a shop to look at a beautifully patterned carpet in earthy tones.
“It’s handmade,” the shopkeeper said. Like most people here, he spoke perfect English. “Pure wool.”
&nbs
“I’ve seen your living room,” Reka whispered loudly. “You’d have to knock down your neighbor’s wall in order to fit that inside.”
“Maybe that would be a good thing,” Chloe said, laughing softly. “Her neighbor’s that hot doctor.”
“Yeah, the hot doctor who brings home a different woman every Friday night, like clockwork.” Aileen wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you.” She turned to the shopkeeper. “Thank you so much. It is too large for my house, but it’s beautiful.”
“A smaller one, perhaps?” the man said quickly, picking up on the opportunity.
Aileen laughed, as if realizing she’d stepped right into that one. “Maybe another time. Thank you, though.”
They walked on, stopping at various shops to look for souvenirs for people back home. With Aileen’s help, Reka bought a wide leather belt for her mother, which the merchant wrapped in a dainty linen bag. Of the three of them, only Aileen understood and enjoyed the art of bargaining. Chloe was too shy, and Reka too impatient, to do it successfully.
By the time Reka looked at her watch again, it was noon. It was easy to lose track of time inside this large, covered space. Once again, that odd feeling struck her—not just odd, but actually off—that something was wrong, and that they shouldn’t stay here any longer.
“Why don’t we find an exit and get some lunch?” she asked, suddenly wishing the place was less of a labyrinth. “You must have a few places bookmarked in the area, Chloe.”
“Actually, I do,” Chloe said, looking excitedly at her phone. “This place serves the best baklava in town, apparently.”
Aileen and Reka exchanged a quick look. They didn’t have the heart to tell Chloe that neither of them particularly liked the gloopy, sticky dessert.
“Okay, let’s go there,” Reka said, catching sight of an exit and herding her friends quickly in that direction.
She breathed a relieved sigh as they finally set foot outside the covered market. Out on the streets, the sun was shining in a way that reminded Reka of summer, even though it was still early March. She drank in the light and air greedily.
“This way,” Chloe said, leading with her phone.
They walked together down some stone steps and into a smaller, populated street full of shops that looked like they’d been left out of the Grand Bazaar by mistake. Reka saw a leather belt similar to the one she’d chosen for her mother, but decided not to check the price.
Chloe’s GPS sent them into a left turn leading into a smaller, more residential street. Colorful laundry hung from lines set out between the houses on either side of the street.
They were halfway down the street when Reka caught sight of a shadow in one of the doorways.
The feeling came back then—a hundredfold. She swallowed past the stone in her belly, looking for her voice. She didn’t want to alarm her friends, but this was no longer something she could keep to herself.
It was Chloe, ever sensitive to other people’s thoughts and feelings, who noticed first. “Are you okay, Reka? What’s going on?”
“We need to get out of here,” Reka said simply. She pulled her friends closer to her, one arm around each.
The shadow stepped out fully, becoming a man. He was tall, with dark brown hair and a thick mustache. Not young, not old, maybe five or ten years older than them. Dressed in light trousers and a brown tunic, he looked like any working man, except Reka had never seen a working man sporting that kind of bulk. The tunic stretching around his thick shoulders and barrel-shaped chest looked like it was ready to rip apart.
Reka turned to look around. Behind them and in front of them, the small street was completely empty.
Every muscle in her body tensed.
Play it cool.
“Keep going,” she hissed at her friends.
There are three of us and only one of him.
We just need to get past him.
Beside her, Chloe made a choked sound, but Reka didn’t stop to look at her friend.
And a part of her, the part that had been trained since childhood to be sociable, to look for the good in everyone, still couldn’t believe this was happening to her.
Maybe I’m misreading the situation.
Maybe he’s just a man on his way to work.
He’ll step aside and we’ll just—
A knife appeared in the man’s hand, disabusing her of any such notion. The large, curved blade glinted in the sunlight. But what really scared Reka, what sent her into breathless panic, was the change in his expression, how it went from cautious to hungry in the space of an instant.
As if he’s taken off a mask.
The man took a step closer to them, blocking their path.
Aileen screamed, driving Reka to action.
“There’s three of us,” she said breathlessly, as much to remind herself as anything else. “We split up and run back the way we came.”
She bodily turned her friends around, propelling them to action. After the initial push, Aileen bounded off down the street like a rabbit. Chloe, in her dainty ballerina shoes, struggled for a moment but finally found her footing and ran after Aileen.
Reka glanced behind them, then wished she hadn’t, because the man with the knife was running, too.
Fear spurred her on, and though Reka had never been a sprinter, she’d also never had this good a reason to sprint before. Her trainers hit the cobbled stones hard, each step reverberating against her shins as she pushed herself harder and harder.
She easily overtook Chloe and raced on, each step taking her closer to Aileen, who hesitated at the end of the street.
“Turn right, Aileen!”
Right, the way they’d come. They had to get back to the stores and the people.
And they were so close. So close, Reka could almost taste it.
Safety.
Freedom.
A small scream behind her stopped Reka short.
No.
Chloe was struggling in the man’s arms, her waif-like form jerking and hitting wildly as he pulled on her ponytail. When she was close enough, the man jerked on her elbow, pulling her back like it was no effort at all.
Aileen faltered, looking back at them, and Reka knew she was seconds away from running back to them. And Reka knew, intuitively, that was the worst possible outcome.
No.
“Keep going, Aileen! Get help!”
She didn’t wait to see if Aileen did as she’d asked.
She ran back, pulling her keys out of her small backpack as she did so, relieved that she’d forgotten to put them in the hotel room safe. Dropping the backpack on the dusty ground, she clutched the small pepper spray in her suddenly sweaty palm.
She prayed she remembered to use it—tried to think of how long ago her uncle had given it to her—then prayed pepper spray didn’t expire. She tightened her right hand around the small canister, leaving her thumb free to discharge the spray, and rushed at the two figures.
“Let her go!” she screamed, pressing the top firmly in short one-second bursts, the way her uncle had taught her. She directed the spray at the man’s face—since he was a head taller than Chloe, Reka figured she wasn’t likely to hit her friend.
She hit the jackpot with the third or fourth burst, which had the man howling and recoiling from them. His hold on Chloe loosened as he grabbed for his eyes.
Yes.
Reka stepped in closer, taking advantage of his temporary blindness to pull on Chloe’s arm and tug her away.
“Let’s go!” she cried out.
Chloe stared at her in horror, and it took Reka only an instant—but it was an instant too long—to realize Chloe wasn’t staring at her, but rather at someone behind her. Reka turned her head, just as something hard slammed against her temple.
