Storm (The Storm Chronicles Book 6) by Skye Knizley Read Free Book Online

afterward,” King said.
    “Won’t that be fun.”
    Aspen turned away from Brody’s camera. What she felt was worse than she could describe in simple terms. She hadn’t felt this kind of darkness since Xavier and Strohm had forced her to become a familiar. This was even worse, if she hadn’t grown more powerful since then, it would have been in her mind already.
    “Mercy, keep an eye on the door, if anything out there moves, shoot it,” she said.
    Mercy drew her bow. “What if it’s Lila?”
    Aspen shook her head. “It won’t be. Even if it looks like her, it isn’t. The only living entities on this ship are in this room.”
    She turned to the back of the bridge. “Kane, you’re with me.”
    As the team set about their appointed tasks, Aspen opened the door to the captain’s office. What was inside was even worse than the bridge. A human skin had been stretched over the porthole in the shape of a pentagram, with the head in the middle. Words written in blood covered the wall and the remains of more than a dozen people floated on a floor thick with blood.
    “My God, what happened here?” Kane asked.
    Aspen stepped into the room, taking it all in. The smell of death was almost overpowering, what was worse was the scent of evil. Raven had said before that places smelled evil to her, but Aspen had never experienced it, until now.
    She looked up at the skin over the window and moved the head so she could see the face. “Does this guy look familiar to you?”
    Kane walked closer, his boots making the blood slosh. “I think it is Captain DaSilva.”
    “The captain when the Star was launched?” Aspen asked.
    “The same,” Kane replied.
    “By the skin, I would say he’s only been dead about seventy-two hours. After forty years he should be a mummy, not recognizable at all,” Aspen said.
    “How do you know?”
    She glanced at him. “Because it’s my job. I should be using dental records to identify a corpse this old.”
    She lowered DaSilva’s head and turned to the rest of the room. “His log has to be around here somewhere, right? It’s like a boat thing.”
    “In the desk, most likely. DaSilva was a fastidious man, everything in its time and place.”
    “Did you know him?” Aspen asked.
    Kane shook his head. “I only knew of him. He and the ship were in the news quite a lot. She was supposed to be the most luxurious ship since the Titanic and the news ate it up.”
    Aspen fought to ignore the pile of body parts on the desk and began rummaging through the contents. Much of it was coated in wet, runny blood, but after dumping pens, paper, and manifests onto the floor she found what she was looking for: a thick volume bound in black with gold-edged paper. The cover read ‘Crescent Star Captain’s Log’ in gold. Kane made her a space on the desk with a sweep of one long arm and she opened the book to the last page. It was nothing but a series of occult symbols and Latin, written in blood. She flipped back through the pages until she found the captain’s last entry. She read it aloud for Kane.
    1972 (I think)
    Reynolds is dead, acting physician Trent found her. Or what was left of her. Dear God, where are we? Help us!
    “It sounds like they were lost,” Kane said.
    Aspen frowned and flipped more pages. “How do you get lost in the North Atlantic, even in the 1970s? And look at the dates, the log goes way past the time that they should have been found. His last entry is dated 1972.”
    Kane shook his head. “He must have been very confused. The search ended in 1971, they couldn’t have still been lost in 1972.”
    “Did you hear what you just said? The ship hasn’t been seen in forty years, of course they were lost in 1972. The question is where, not when,” Aspen said.
    “Agent King theorized they had fallen through time, it has happened before,” Kane replied.
    Aspen shook her head. “This time, King is way off. Listen to this: The storm is over, but we are unable to reach the Coast