Free The Scarlet Empress by Susan Grant Page A

wear only black. Even their horses are black.”
    The image that came to mind was something resembling Grim Reapers on coal-black steeds. Not pretty.
    “If they come here, you must run to the springs. Do you understand? Hide there, under the water. Remain there until they go. Do you understand?”
    “Run. Springs. Hide. Got it.”
    The girl bounded to her feet, checking the sky once more. “I’ll be leaving for a while.”
    “What? You just got here.” Cam sat up, slowly and painfully. Speech was impossible until the spasm in her back passed. “I thought you weren’t going off again right away.”
    But Zhurihe was already running back down the road toward the farmhouse, her long braids spinning.
    Promise me, Cam!
    Sitting, legs sprawled on the dirt road, Cam watched Zhurihe go, an oddly terrifying mix of dread and fear and hope filling her. The world she’d thought she was beginning to understand had just taken a 180-degree turn.

Chapter Six
    General Armstrong’s black sedan skidded to a stop in front of the rear entrance to the White House. Neither its VIP passenger nor the driver said anything for a few moments.
    Finally the sergeant shifted her gaze to the rearview mirror. “Hell of a ride, sir.”
    It was that, thought the general. “Are you injured, Merrick?”
    “No, sir.”
    She answered a little too quickly. Pride, he decided. Too many females on the military staff wanted to be seen as invincible. Didn’t she know? No one was. Not even him.
    “And you, sir?” Suddenly worried eyes gazed back at him. “Are you hurt?”
    “It’ll take far more than that to put down this old warhorse, Sergeant.” General Armstrong shoved on his hat and pushed open the rear passenger door. Wet,fluorescent orange paint splashed down onto the toe of his shiny black boot. Drawing his trenchcoat around him, he stalked around to the front of the vehicle. In the slanting light of late afternoon, the pieces of eggshell littering the windshield looked like golden confetti. More goo pooled in fist-sized dents on the hood. The rocks had done their damage. A shallower, wider indentation resembled a mold of a human torso where one of the protestors had rolled over the bumper. A smear of blood was almost indistinguishable from the stains left from the hurled rubbish.
    Standing quietly at his side, the driver pondered the sight. Then, taking off her cap, she dragged the back of her arm across her forehead. “I’ll put a call in to dispatch for another vehicle, sir.”
    “Consider yourself off duty, Merrick.”
    “Sir?”
    “I’ll take a heli-jet from now on.” He retrieved an attaché case from the backseat. The loaded weapon he’d stuffed deep in the pocket of his trench coat thumped against his thigh.
    “General. A question, sir.”
    The driver looked shaken; he noticed that now. She hadn’t uttered a sound after striking down the protester who’d thrown himself at the moving car, hadn’t said anything at all until now, when they’d pulled up to the White House. But then, he expected—required—the soldiers he maintained as personal aides to be stalwart creatures. “What is it, Merrick?”
    “Do you think it will get worse?” The driver cleared her throat. “Sir.”
    She was worried, perhaps even frightened. And shehad every right to be. He turned his attention back to the damaged car. Gusts of wind swept in the from the east, where the original Washington, DC, lay, abandoned after rising seas had rendered it too often flooded. The breeze brought the smell of salt and the equally muted roar of the demonstrations, cordoned off some five city blocks away. “Do you hear them, Merrick?”
    The woman fell quiet for a moment. “Yes, sir. I do.”
    “Remember the sound,” he said tersely, “for soon it will be a thing of the past. I know so, especially after some news I received today. Soon, very soon now, all will be as it once was. The government will restore order.”
    “Yes, sir. Of course. Thank you,