Jar of Souls by Bradford Bates Read Free Book Online Page A

before that. When you saw him leaving the other day, he had come to me and begged me to let him have the Jar one last time. I refused. I told him that once the Jar had been moved to a more secure location that we could test it together, that we needed to approach this as scholars, not with our emotions. He laughed at me and said that one way or another, the Jar would be his.”
    “So you expected an attack.”
    “I did.”
    “And yet you only sent me to guard it.”
    He let out a long sigh. “I didn’t think he knew which location the Jar was en route to. I also didn’t think he would go to such extremes to get it when I had already promised him access to the artifact. It seems all of my estimations of him were wrong. It also seems that two of our other locations were attacked that same night. Both of those locations reported attacks by animated corpses. That means not only was I wrong, but over the last year, he has recruited followers. Now with the Jar in his possession, he will be a formidable foe.”
    “So what are we going to do?”
    “That is truly the question, now isn’t it? How do we stop him?” He seemed to sit back into his chair and think, leaving me wondering why I was still there. “I can’t bring this to the order as a whole—it could shake us to our very foundations—but if you and I were to handle the problem . . . Yes, that might just do it. If we could retrieve the Jar, then no one would have to know.”
    “Sir, are you asking me to keep this from my brothers, to follow you in search of a madman in possession of a weapon we know almost nothing about?”
    “I believe I am.”
    “It seems as if that might likely lead us to our premature deaths.”
    “Indeed it does, but I’m not ready to give up living just yet. Are you?”
    “Not at all, sir. I would be honored to join you.”
    “First things first. A promotion will be in order for you. Once we have that out of the way and have gathered a little intelligence, we will hunt down Gaston and put an end to the Jar of Souls once and for all.”
    “Sir?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just how much does running into the face of certain death pay?”
    “I would think that if we are successful, you would never have to work again.”
    “Ah, then it seems I am indeed the right man for the job!”
    Adam let out a little chuckle. “Get cleaned up and order some additional traveling clothes. We won’t be riding in style, so make sure they fit and can take a beating from the elements.”
    “I will do my best.”
    “See that you do.”

3
    Jackson
Present
    S arge was really pounding us into the ground this morning. I was on hour three of my elliptical session and still had a sparring session to look forward to. The puddle of sweat under the elliptical seemed to have grown to epic proportions. My legs burned, and my arms had started to feel like dead weight an hour ago. At least if I worked myself into complete exhaustion, I might be able to finally sleep through the night.
    Ever since my birthday, the dream about my parents’ death seemed to haunt me almost nightly. It had to be more than me feeling bad about not being able to stop the people who killed them. I’d never had the same nightmare so many times in a row my entire life. Even now I could relive the entire nightmare without having to close my eyes. I wasn’t sure what I could even do about it. How would I ever find the killer when I was tied to this place? Maybe if there was time, I could ask Adam about it. It was always possible he might have some insight into the dreams. Until then, I would have to find a way to cope until they went away.
    Sarge walked over to my elliptical. “Jackson, you’re done for the day. Hit the showers and head to Adam’s office.”
    “Any idea what this is about?”
    “Above my paygrade.”
    “Thanks, Sarge.” I looked over at Britta and gave her a wink before I took off. I felt bad leaving her. We had plans for lunch, but those were going to be on hold now. She