Free torg 01 - Storm Knights by Bill Slavicsek, C. J. Tramontana Page A

city is on fire."
    At the edge of the ramp he had to stop the van, for the road was filled with people. They were everywhere, spilling out of the city to escape the intense heat. And, worst of all, they were all dead.
    "Look at the soot and burns," Bryce's voice cracked as he spoke, "but fire didn't kill these people. Their chests ... my God, look at their chests."
    Indeed, each man, woman and child, had empty, bloody holes where their chests once were. Alder remembered the scene at the 59th Street Bridge, and he had to visibly force his stomach to stay down.
    "Edeinos do this," Tal Tu said, startling both Alder and Bryce with the words. "Edeinos Jakatts."
    Bryce grabbed his mass kit from the floor by his feet and opened the van door.
    "Where are you going, Father?" Alder asked.
    "To do my job," he said, and he stepped out into the mass of dead bodies.
    Alder, Tal Tu, and the two boys watched the priest go from body to body. They listened to the prayer of last rites over and over again, until the priest's voice grew raw and only the light of the nearby fire illuminated the night.
    27
    Captain Nicolai Ondarev made his way through the polished hallways of an unmarked building in a rundown section of Moscow. He entered a small, sparingly furnished office and flashed his ID to a portly woman sitting behind the only desk. She studied the identification briefly, then nodded toward a nondescript door.
    The Soviet officer pushed through the door and found himself at the top of a stairwell. It appeared to lead down several stories below the ground. He glanced back at the woman, but her back was to him. She had done her job, he realized. Now he must do his. He started down the steps.
    After he had traveled down more flights of stairs than he ever cared to travel again, Ondarev reached the bottom landing. There he found a heavy metal door. It, too, was unmarked. Before he could knock, the door swung open. A middle-aged woman in a nurse's uniform met him, nodded, and motioned for him to follow. He did not disappoint her.
    The nurse showed the captain into a small room that smelled of hospitals and circulated air. There was a child's desk and chair in one corner. A globe of the world sat atop the desk. A small bed rested against the far wall, and beside it was a hard-backed chair. The nurse left the room, closing the door behind her so that the captain could be alone with the room's two occupants. The first, a man in a white smock, rose from his chair to greet the officer. But the captain ignored the man. His attention was clearly focused upon the young woman lying in the bed.
    She was young — perhaps twenty, perhaps less — and she was stunning. But her beauty had nothing to do with makeup or fashion, for she wore no makeup and her clothing was but a simple hospital gown. Her hair was the color of radiant sunshine, and her eyes were pools of light blue water that stared at nothing, but seemed to see everything.
    "Welcome to Project Omen, Captain Ondarev. I am Dr. Kazan," the man in the smock said, trying to get the officer's attention. "And this is Katrina Tovarish, the one you have come to see."
    The captain continued to look at the young woman. After all these years, was this slip of a young thing the culmination of all the work and money the government had poured into the Department of Psychic Research? And, even if she was, could she really help them?
    He took the globe from the desk and studied it for a moment. It was mounted within a curved arm so that it could spin freely. He placed the globe in the young woman's hands, then bent down beside the bed and whispered into her ear.
    "What did you see, Katrina Tovarish?"
    "Captain, I'm afraid you do not understand," the doctor told him. "Katrina is quite blind."
    The officer fixed Dr. Kazan with a deadly stare, then repeated his question to the young woman. He said the words very gently. "What did you see?"
    In a haunting voice that Captain Ondarev would never forget, the young woman