Run of Luck (Veil Knights Book 4)

by Rowan Casey

  She didn’t answer and let those words sink in, mulling them over. “I didn’t used to believe in heroes.”

  “Or monsters?”

  “No, I know there are plenty of those in LA.” She touched two fingers to her forehead in a salute. “I’ll be seeing you, Archer.”

  “I hope not.” After watching her climb into her car and pull out of the lot, I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun. It was over. For now. But I’d meant what I had said to Riley. There would be more to come.

  My fingers automatically curled around the dice tucked safely in my pocket. I pulled the black and white dice free and rolled them in my palm. They snagged and bumped, awkwardly clinking together. I closed my hand, capturing their tumble. I’d had them so long, they had almost been a part of me. But things had changed. I’d changed. I launched them underarm into nearby bushes. From now on, there were no more excuses, no more lies. I was Lady Luck, a knight, a friend. No longer alone.

  A hand settled on my shoulder. For a moment, I wished it belonged to Dav and imagined he stood beside me, about to tell me not to fuck it up. I closed my hand over his and pretended, but it wouldn’t last.

  When I opened my eyes, Liau smiled like I might break apart at any second and his hand was all that was holding me together. “You okay?” he asked.

  I took Liau’s hand from my shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. “I will be.”

  Billy hurtled in from somewhere, crashing his arms around us both, and then Alex flopped down on the Evo’s hood, noisily chewing gum and squinting at us as though we’d lost out minds. “11 p.m. The strip. There’s a short dude, new guy from San Diego—thinks his pocket rocket Suzuki Swift is dah killer.”

  I screwed up my face. “We’ll clear up that misunderstanding for him.”

  Liau unwrapped himself from the hug and straightened his shirt cuffs, but Billy clung onto me and copped a feel of my ass, earning himself a light smack upside the head. I wasn’t alone, not this time. I had them, and this time I had earned them.

  Cate glared down her nose as she approached. The seconds stretched on, until finally she offered her hand. I took it and we gently shook, sizing the other up. “We’re good?” I asked.

  “I don’t think we’re good, but I guess we’ll get there.”

  The crew dispersed, clambering back into their cars and careening out of the cemetery parking lot, kicking up gravel and disturbing the peace.

  Settling inside the quiet of the Evo, I gripped the steering wheel and drew in a deep breath, tasting leather and motor oil. “I’ll keep them safe.”

  Make it right.

  I wasn’t done with making my past right, but I was sure on my way.

  Turn the page to read an exciting excerpt from the new Veil Knights novel, Cloak of Fury!

  “So...you wanna tell me exactly what in the hell you were thinking?”

  I shook my head. There wasn’t a whole helluva lot to say. “The fact is, I didn’t think at all.”

  “No shit,” said Derkins. He leaned back away from where we sat on the bleachers at the high school in my hometown. He rested his elbows on the riser behind him and shook his head. “Monumental screw up, Fury. The idea that a seasoned covert operative like yourself could screw up this bad is jarring to say the least. What made you want to hack into their email in the first place?”

  “I suspected infidelity.”

  “So what? How many people in the suburbs get together on a daily basis? It’s like a national pastime. Who gives a shit?”

  “I did.”

  Derkins leaned forward. “Oh, shit, is that what this is about?”

  “You know I got a thing for soccer moms.”

  Derkins frowned. “Yeah, I do. If you’d been active during the Cold War, I would have enjoyed watching the Soviets dangle that shit in front of you like blood before a shark. And you would have probably sold us out for the chance to get busy with a cougar.”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t betray my country. You know that.”

  “I don’t know shit,” said Derkins. “Honestly, you’re the only guy I know that gets a hard-on when he sees a minivan.”

  “It’s not the car. It’s the idea of what might be driving it.”

  Derkins held up his hand. “All right, so you had a thing for the woman. How come you didn’t even follow simple Tradecraft 101? Did you even try to disguise yourself?”

  “Established a fake email account.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t use a VPN, did you? Hell, Fury, you could have rerouted those emails through a dozen countries and no one would ever have been the wiser. But no, you had to go and leave your shit dangling out there in the wind where any Kindergartener could track you down.”

  I shrugged. “Blowback wasn’t too bad.”

  He eyed me. “Really? Is that why you’re out here on the local high school track instead of at the gym?”

  “I’m not welcome there anymore.”

  Derkins chuckled. “You’re lucky you didn’t end up behind bars.”

  “I never suggested anything sexual. And she was playing along until she figured out the email didn’t belong to who she thought it belonged to. In fact, she was the one who initiated the selfie thing. Told me to post a shirtless picture of myself because ‘that’s what all the members want to see.’”

  “So she was into it, just not with you. Which is why you got pissed enough to make a rookie mistake.”

  “She was sending signals.”

  “And her husband? What’d he think about all of this?”

  “I’m sure she sold him on the idea that she didn’t do anything wrong. That she was just playing around. He’s gullible enough to believe her. And she never takes responsibility for anything, anyway, so it’s familiar ground, I’m sure.”

  Derkins sighed. “Fury, it doesn’t matter who did what. It’s over now. And you’re lucky none of these fools know your real identity. The idea of one of our best people being exposed has a lot of upper echelon folks pretty damned upset.”

  I took a deep breath. “So give me a letter of reprimand and let me get on with doing what I do.”

  “Yeah, no, it’s not going to be that easy. Word is they want a full inquiry.”

  “For that?”

  “Yup. They’re calling it a fundamental breakdown in ethics.” Derkins shook his head. “Not to mention your training. Some of them are even questioning whether or not you’re fit for active operational status anymore. They’re floating the idea of retirement.”

  “The hell with that.” I stared at the football field in front of me and felt my rage boiling somewhere deep in my chest. “I’ve given my country the best years of my life, doing the sort of shit that would reduce most people to simpering piles of poop. Did I screw up? Yeah, absolutely. But if I’m going to be judged on the basis of one mistake instead of everything that I contributed, then fuck the whole system and everyone in it.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” said Derkins. “I’m here because you still have a few friends left in the Agency. You just need to give us some time to smooth things over. See what we can do, you know? But I’m not going to sugarcoat this shit, you could be tossed out on your ass tomorrow for all I know.”

  “Tell them I’ll write a book.”

  Derkins smiled. “And you’d have car accident before the end of the week. Or some sort of heart attack. You know as well as I do that they would never let you write a book. Not our section. Maybe one of those fools who thought they worked for Operations. But not you. Not us. If word ever even got out that our section existed, it would bring down the entire government.” Derkins put a hand on my shoulder. “No, my friend. You just sit tight for now. Let me see what I can do to help make this all go away and then I’ll be back in touch with you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. I wasn’t crazy about Derkins, but he was the closest thing I had right then to a friend.

  “Yeah, all right. I’ll lay low.”

  “I mean it, dude. Don’t let that tem
per of yours get you into any more trouble. I don’t need any more shit on my plate right now and they sure as hell won’t tolerate it.”

  I eased off the bleachers. “I got it.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch.”

  I bent over and touched my toes, feeling my hamstrings stretch as I did so. When I came up and looked behind me, Derkins was already gone.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled into the humid evening air. I was still trying to figure out why I’d hacked that woman’s email in the first place. Let alone why I’d chosen to be so careless. Maybe part of me wanted to be caught. Maybe part of me wanted to hurt her for all the hurt she’d caused me.

  She’d been an enigma. When we were out with friends, she was friendly, flirtatious, and we’d had the best conversations. And then the next day, it was like I was a leper. She barely said hello, barely acted like I existed. But she was all warm and cozy with one of the coaches at the gym.

  I’d started wondering if they were having an affair. And with the obsessive nature of my mind, it didn’t take long before I was caught up trying to prove it.

  Stupid.

  It had been insanely stupid. And I’d very nearly jeopardized my entire professional career. All for a piece of ass.

  I wish I could say it was the first time things had gone south for me, but it wasn’t. In the last six months, I could count too many times that I’d screwed up on an operation. Too noticeable on a stakeout, missing a few key rendezvous, even nearly blowing a snatch job in Paris that should have been a walk in the park.

  I chalked it up to the visions I’d been having. Weird shit that roiled my brains and left me craving the sort of deep slumber I used to enjoy all the time. I saw ancient warriors and creatures that looked like they crawled out of the pages of a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.

  I took another deep breath and exhaled. My mother once told me that if I wasn’t making mistakes, it meant I wasn’t living. It was wise advice. And she was right.

  I hoped.

  For the time being, I had to find other ways to work out instead of going back to the gym. And this evening, that meant running a quick five kilometers.

  I hated running. Always have. Scratch that. There was a time back when I was in elementary school when I absolutely loved it. Back then, me and my buddies would line up for recess and then at the sound of the bell, break out of the door screaming “Moose Cycle” as we raced all over the schoolyard.

  Don’t ask me what Moose Cycle meant. I have no clue and no recollection. I think it was just a pure expression of the joy of unrestrained happiness at being freed from school.

  Maybe I needed to start shouting that more often.

  I took the first 400 meters at a slow jog, feeling my legs warm up and my heartbeat kick up several notches. My best 5k time was around twenty-four minutes. I hadn’t run one in almost a year, however, so I suspected this evening’s time would be nowhere near that fast.

  And by lap six, I was struggling. Barely halfway there, I had sweat coursing down through my salt-and-pepper hair and soaking through my shirt. I ripped it off and tossed it into the pile by my ruck around the next turn. My water bottle sat there, teasing me. But I never broke the run to get water. It could wait until I was done.

  As I took the turn, my gut twinged. I frowned. I knew the sensation. When I’d been over in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d finally acknowledged that I had some sort of extra sense that warned me about danger. It had first happened way back in Mogadishu when I’d been a Combat Controller with the US Air Force. We’d been attached to Delta as they went after the high-value targets in the Somali capital. We’d cleared one alley and were about to dash across another when something made me freeze. As I did so, a grenade rolled out to where we would have been a second later and exploded. I could still see the entire event in slow motion; the slow lopsided roll of the frag as it came to a stop where we would have been. Me screaming, “Grenade!” and then flattening myself and my buddies against the wall as it exploded, showering us all in dust. We were lucky as hell no one caught shrapnel.

  Instances like that make an impression on you. And later, when I’d been sheep-dipped out of the 24th Special Tactics Squadron out of Pope Field and drawn into the black, murkiness of covert operations, that sense had gradually developed and saved my life on more occasions. It got a real workout in Iraq and Afghanistan and I now considered it to be a full part of who I was.

  So when it kicked me in the gut as I rounded the turn, I thought for a second I just had a cramp, but then quickly disregarded that.

  Danger.

  And close.

  I spotted them by the bleachers as I came around. Six of them. And each one looked impressively built.

  But I was in the middle of the suburbs. Nothing bad ever happened out here.

  So who were they?

  I thought maybe Derkins had set me up. Maybe he’d been sent to pinpoint my location and then relay that to a kill team. Maybe Langley wasn’t interested in disciplining me. Maybe they’d already gone ahead and decided to cut their losses.

  My heart pounded as I tore down the distance between us. How was I going to play this?

  I almost grinned as I realized exactly what I was going to do.

  Straight into attack mode.

  They fanned out across the track as I ran toward them. I slowed to a trot, willing my breathing back under control. I felt a wave of heat wash over me as the air stopped rushing past me.

  They wore dark clothes and face masks. Strange symbols covered their coveralls, written in some sort of language I couldn’t decipher from the distance where I was. I really needed to get my eyes checked.

  I dove to the side then as something whipped past my head and clanged against the ground when it dropped.

  Shuriken?

  But these guys weren’t ninja, and frankly, ninja didn’t even exist - at least not in the Hollywood cartoonish fantasy that got perpetuated by every lazy screenwriter.

  But they were throwing shit at me. I glanced back and saw that it was a throwing spike attached by a slender bit of chain. The lead attacker ripped it back like a whip and then recoiled it in one smooth motion, ready to strike again.

  I had nothing. Although my compression shorts could probably have been used as a nerve agent at that point since I was literally sweating my balls off. The aroma alone could probably take out three of them.

  The lead attacker shot the dart at me again. This time, I leaned to one side and then reached up and caught it. How, I have no idea. But all of a sudden, the wave of heat washed over me again and I started moving without thinking.

  I doubled it up and then coiled the chain around my wrist, yanking the lead attacker toward me. The movement caught him by surprise and he stumbled. That was all the opening I needed. I raced in close, jabbing with my left, and then driving the dart into the base of his throat. He staggered back, clutching at the metal embedded in his trachea, gurgled and then dropped.

  Instantly, the others attacked. I was in the center of a melee that swarmed around me like angry hornets. Blades flashed out with kicks and punches. But I saw it all happen in slow motion, like the grenade in Mogadishu, and was able to intercept and counter every single strike. As I did so, my pulse roared in my ears and I heard the strangest noises coming from deep inside me; I felt like I was standing in the middle of the sun, enveloped in heat - pure atomic incendiary madness. I felt invincible, as if nothing could reach out and touch me. Every strike that made contact did little to affect my attacks. I punched through bodies as if they weren’t even there. Every one of my counters was true and before long, there were six broken bodies lying around me.

  My fists dropped to my sides, and I sank on my knees, aware then of the roar fading away, the heat dissipating, and the sudden flush of sweat soaking me through again.

  Yeah, my 5k time tonight was gonna suck.

  “Very impressive.”

  I turned then, already bringing my fists up. But the man who stood roughly a dozen
feet from me held up his hand.

  “I mean you no harm, I assure you.”

  He wore his hair long and slightly greasy. I couldn’t figure out his age but he might have been in his mid-30s. Maybe even older. His eyes had that look but he seemed remarkably well-preserved. The leather jacket and pants he wore seemed definitely out of place on a warm summer evening in the suburbs of Massachusetts. He looked like a stage performer from LA.

  “Who are you?”

  He smiled. “You’ve already forgotten?” And then he snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes, I did look a little different the last time we met. One moment.”

  As I watched, his features morphed into those of a tall, thin man with blonde hair and a crimson streak running through it.

  “Mr. Grimm,” I said. “How lovely to see you again.”

  Dante Grimm, the incredible magician from Las Angeles, stood before me on a high school track in suburban Massachusetts. The grin on his face told me he found it just as amusing. “I wonder, have you had a chance to think about our conversation from a few weeks back? The job offer, as it were?”

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  The Veil Knights Series

  The Circle Gathers (Book 1)

  The Questing Beast (Book 2)

  Hound of Night (Book 3)

  Run of Luck (Book 4)

  Cloak of Fury (Book 5)

  About the Author

  Rowan Casey is the pseudonym for twelve New York Times, USA Today and Amazon bestselling writers who have come together to create the Veil Knights shared-world experience.

  With more than ten million copies of their books in print around the world, they include Lilith Saintcrow, CJ Lyons, Joseph Nassise, Steven Savile, Annie Bellet, Jon F. Merz, Pippa DaCosta, Robert Greenberger, William Meikle, Steve Lockley, Hank Schwaeble, and Nathan Meyer.