Free Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) by AD Starrling Page A

inch. Another one scorched a red track across the back of my right hand. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the room and spent rounds clattered to the ground while the katana danced and weaved through the air, spilling blood across the walls and the floorboards. Throughout it all, I breathed steadily.
    The last Hunter begged for his life.
    ‘Please, this will be my seventeenth death,’ he whispered hoarsely at my feet, staring in wide-eyed horror at the blade poised above his heart.
    Memories of a vanilla-scented room rose in my mind. I closed my eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry.’
    Sirens blared in the distance when I came out of the house. Wings fluttered above my head as crows gathered on the rooftop of Burnstein’s home.
    The Cruiser screeched to a halt in the middle of the street when I reached the sidewalk. External lights came on along the road and dim figures appeared on doorsteps. Burnstein’s neighbors looked at me curiously while I climbed in the SUV.
    Reid pulled away swiftly. ‘You’re bleeding.’
    I looked at my hand. ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’
    I clenched my fingers distractedly, feeling strangely numb. It had been some time since I last killed so many men. I took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to ignore the smell of death clinging to me.
    ‘How’s your leg?’ I said.
    Blood had seeped through the bandage around Reid’s wound and stained his trousers.
    ‘I’ll live,’ he replied gruffly.
    A patrol car raced past us, lights flashing in the night. Another followed close behind it. We headed away from Capitol Hill.
    ‘They all dead?’ he said after a while.
    ‘Yes.’
    I cursed my own foolishness; we had probably triggered a silent alarm in Burnstein’s house. I suspected it had been inside the safe.
    The blare from my cell phone broke the silence that followed. It was Solito.
    ‘I heard there were shots fired at that house in Capitol Hill,’ the FBI agent said stiffly. ‘Tell me it wasn’t you guys.’ A babble of conversation and music echoed in the background behind him.
    ‘I would be lying if I said we weren’t involved,’ I murmured.
    Solito swore.
    I waited a couple of seconds. ‘I need another favor.’
    There was a frozen beat. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
    We met the FBI agent in an alley behind a bar in Dupont Circle; he had been out celebrating the retirement of a field officer and was still dressed in his work suit. His eyes kept straying to the blood on my hand while I explained my request.
    ‘I’ve been listening to the scanner. The cops have reported four bodies at the property. They’re saying there was a lot of blood in the place, which makes them suspect there were even more bodies than the ones they’ve found.’ Solito ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No doubt they’ll call us in.’
    A group of people walked past the mouth of the alley, drunken voices raised in song.
    ‘I know this probably doesn’t mean a lot to you at the moment, but they weren’t good men,’ I said.
    ‘And we might as well warn you now,’ Reid added with a grunt. ‘You’re probably not gonna be able to ID any of them.’
    Solito chewed his lip. He let out a sharp exhale and removed a notepad from his back pocket.
    ‘This is the last thing I’m gonna do for you guys,’ he muttered while he scribbled on the paper.
    ‘Thanks, Bob,’ I said gratefully.
    The address Solito gave us was for a house in Chinatown. I took the wheel, drove down Massachusetts Avenue, took a right on 5th, and parked along a side road. A narrow, nondescript, two-story building stood sandwiched between an electrical store and a restaurant a couple of doors down. Lights were still on in the store. The restaurant was dark.
    We left the Cruiser and walked to the house. I climbed a short flight of concrete steps and pressed the buzzer.
    ‘Why are we here again?’ said Reid with a puzzled frown.
    The door creaked open before I could reply. A small, wizened man peered at us through the crack.
    ‘Can I