Firetrap: The Soul Scorchers MC (The Scorched Souls Serial-series Book 1) (14 page)

Reid never asked for favors. Mark suspected that tonight he wanted to but didn’t know how to begin.

“Anything else you need done around here?” Reid asked, his eyes darting over the shelves, resting on the one he visited every night.

“Well—” Mark paused, an idea forming.

No way. He couldn’t. He’d promised.

He glanced again at Reid’s clenched jaw and panicked expression. Perhaps it was time to break this particular pledge. Because, despite his oath, he had never quite believed his grandfather’s outrageous stories describing genies, bottles, and banishment. Sometimes he’d pull the bottle in question from its place in the safe and stroke the smoky purple glass. It was streaked with grime, just the way grandpa had found it back in 1980 washed up on the shore in Seaside, a popular Oregon Coast vacation spot.

Reid’s raspy coughing sliced through Mark’s memories. Clearly the shakes had gripped his customer and had no intention of letting him go without a drink.

Reid shivered and coughed again. “I could sweep,” he offered, his voice hoarse.

Mark raised a hand. “Hold on a second, buddy. I might have something better than your usual. Are you open to trying something new?” Mark wasn’t sure what he’d do if his grandfather turned out to be right. He wondered how Reid would react. Probably ask for a case of JD as his first wish.

“Sure, I’m open. I appreciate this. I’m willing to work, seriously.”

“I know you are, but you can keep an eye out here while I run in the back.” Mark didn’t wait for an answer. For some reason he trusted Reid and knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere without a bottle.

Back in the storeroom, he stared down at the safe. He hadn’t bothered looking at its mysterious contents in a long time. A part of him had known this day would come, and he couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that Reid, a homeless drunk, was the right person to uncork the treasure waiting inside.

Crouching, he flipped through the familiar numbers and the safe opened with a groan, sending a wave of goosebumps crashing over him. He hesitated, remembering grandpa’s warning.

“Son, I know this seems silly to you, but if you plan to take ownership of this store, you need to make the same promise your father made before accepting the position.”

Eager to please the old man he admired so much, Mark nodded gravely. “Anything. I’ll keep the family business going as strong as ever. You can count on me. I’ll leave the bottle alone. Promise. Scouts honor and all that good stuff.”

Mark shrugged off the chills that came with the memories, but he couldn’t quite shed his guilt. He took promises to heart, but tonight he was compelled to break the one to his granddad.

Besides, the few times he’d examined the forbidden bottle had left him with more questions than answers, its contents impossible to determine. For all he knew it was a bottle of imported whiskey from some foreign source. Grandpa had likely been worried he’d polish it off with friends from school. But the old man’s stories of evil jinns and seductive genies had scared him enough to keep the cat-killing-curiosity at bay and the cork in the bottle.

Just twelve in ’81, Mark had been surprisingly obedient to his parents. A belt across the ass was the alternative. With his parents now retired in Florida, and grandfather somewhere on the other side of the Pearly Gates, there was no bend-over-the-bed whooping to fear.

In that case, why did he have such a sense of doom?

Brad Sanchez

FBI Special Agent, Brad Sanchez, never expected to land in Portland, Oregon, chasing the one criminal he’d failed to capture too many times to count. His bruised ego couldn’t handle another unsuccessful attempt.

Marco “The Smasher” Santiago had managed to somehow stay at least half a step ahead of his pursuers, leaving a trail of bodies that taunted anyone who attempted to take him down.

Brad hadn’t made his plan public, but if Chili’s most feared and admired drug lord outwitted him again, this time around, he planned to turn in his badge and retire for good.

His career with the FBI was checkered at best, but his results made up for the sometimes less than orthodox methods he had employed over the past decades. Santiago, though, named after the Chilean city where he was born, had continued to elude him despite his best and most creative efforts. It was like the guy had a magician on his pay role. Brad had heard the rumors. Supposedly the cartel king had someone, or
something
, that provided supernatural protection for his numerous “business” ventures, as well as for his family and closest associates.

Having served for several years on the FBI’s most clandestine team of operatives, Brad was acutely aware of an alternate world most of the population considered myth. Genies and jinns, in their various tribes and clans, had at one time been major players in the human realm, influencing decisions and destroying lives.

Since the 1980’s, most genies had been successfully bottle banished and were now guarded in secret government facilities or by individual bottle keepers. The FBI had disbanded the unit in 1995, sending Brad to the drug enforcement division, where he’d worked ever since. That didn’t mean there still weren’t a limited number of genies who remained free, roaming the human population and manipulating outcomes with their unique powers.

He was starting to believe that Santiago was indeed using magical means to protect himself and his assets, making it that much harder to catch him engaging in the criminal chaos he continued to inflict from the South American slums to the city streets and suburban neighborhoods across the US. Santiago’s network had bypassed any potential competitors with their advances in technology and distribution. He was considered untouchable by his enemies, which he had many, and by law enforcement. Some who dared to pad their pockets with his payoffs.

Brad intended to touch him up close and personal, right where it hurt most.

With his experience capturing genies and collapsing drug empires, he would succeed where others, himself included, hadn’t in the past. He had to. There was too much at stake.

Four years ago, Santiago’s influence had reached right into Brad’s life, snatching his wife and son out of it, and then killing his partner a few weeks later. How the kingpin had uncovered his real identity was a mystery never solved. Someone within the bureau had been in bed with Santiago. Finding the piece of shit agent who’d blown his cover would come the day he brought down the drug lord. Imagining what he’d do his former colleague made the wait bearable.

In the meantime, Brad had become a new kind of agent. One who did whatever it took to put the bad guys out of business. Where he’d been unconventional in the past, he was now unbalanced just enough to make him as dangerous as the scum he hunted. Losing everything and everyone who had kept him sane was reason enough to embrace insanity. He’d chosen to channel the craziness into the fuel that kept his internal engine fired up and focused on the right outcomes.

His superiors looked the other way as long as the collateral damage was kept at a minimum, and he stayed out of the press. He’d seen his share of shrinks since the murder of his family and partner, but he always managed to keep his badge on and his gun in its holster.

Ignoring his cell phone’s persistent rumbles, he glanced to his left just in time to see a large, muscled male stalk from his spot on the dock near the railing. A sense of familiarity flooded through him; warning lights flashed in his mind. The man, noticing Brad’s appraisal, raised his bald head, meeting his stare without wavering. A flash from his hoop earring caught Brad’s attention. It shimmered with an odd intensity like the stranger’s eyes.

Before he could recover from the shock that surprised more than scared him, his phone started its persistent nagging all over again. Unable to hold off the inevitable, he pulled his FBI issued cell from its place in his jacket’s inner pocket.

“Agent Sanchez,” he answered, hoping for cordial but sounding strained.

Listening intently to what he didn’t want to hear and already strategizing his next move, the strange man who’d disappeared from the pier was already forgotten.

To continue reading, you can purchase at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Bottle-Banished-Dreaming-C-L-Riley-ebook/dp/B00S1LBSC4