UNEDITED
The bridge was fighting the storm hard when the door opened. Captain Miles O’Banion noticed his first mate’s relief as he entered the bridge, “Where are they?” he asked as he looked over the instruments.
“About a half a mile back aft and a little to Port. Thought we might have lost them, but then they seemed to find us again and switched direction. We caught a bad bit of wind, and here we are.”
The first mate’s eyes flicked behind the Captain’s and then back. However, the eyes returned to stare back behind the Captain, so Miles turned around and saw the outline of someone walking down the hallway behind some frosted glass, heading outside.
“Don’t ask,” the Captain ordered before anyone said something, “That’s Michael. He will handle our pirate problem.”
Jacqueline harrumphed from beside him, “Taking all the fun, too. The grumpy-assed old man.”
Miles turned to her, “He can’t take you? How is he planning on getting there?”
“That’s for him to explain and it is wouldn’t, not couldn’t,” she replied.
“Why not?” Miles asked her, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Said he was annoyed at being woken up, so he needed to make sure he had enough chances to get it out of his system. He says I would just get my bloodlust up and then he’s out of his own fun.”
“You know,” the Captain answered, “Your family is seven different ways of strange.”
Jacqueline thought about her, Mark and Michael and smiled. “I’ll accept that as a compliment, Captain.”
The Captain looked behind and around. “Where is Mark?”
The female working the instruments looked over, a flush on her face, “Yes, where is he?”
Jacqueline wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch the woman or roll her eyes, “He’s outside, making sure no one jumps on the ship while Michael is absent.”
“That’s…dangerous.” she replied.
She chose to roll her eyes. “He’s fine, just bored probably.”
Pirate Ship Folly
The six figures were illuminated by the lightening coming through the port windows. The wind soak wind whipped back and forth as they held on to the ships braces in the hold. “Take slips two and three,” Cholly Jake, the Ships engineer pointed his hand down the windy hold. “They each have almost full charges. They can take two people each over to that ship and you can lock in each of the charges. Make sure they are stuck in the right place, or we aren’t going to have anything to show for all of this damned effort!”
Cholly was a rotund black man, whose grey shocked hair stood out plainly. He wasn’t happy they were taking his boats, but if they didn’t lock in that ship soon, they would have to bail and he agreed with Billy that they needed to be active now, just doing a stern chase.
With the large movement of the raid on New York a week back, they had to skirt that group only to find that no one had been moving too much, waiting to see what happened.
Apparently, not too much had changed.
Cholly could hear the chatter going back and forth from the New York City State Air Traffic Control and everything seemed normal.
Now, they had found one ship going back, perhaps running with it’s tail between it’s legs.
He pointed to two of the group, “You two, take number two.” He pointed to the remaining man and woman, “You two take number three. You will have to get over there in five minutes, but it should take you sixty seconds. So, no becoming part of any mile-high club sled three, got that?”
They chuckled. There wasn’t enough room in those slips to change your mind, much less do anything physical.
Air Ship ArchAngel
Michael had all of his equipment on him. While he would have preferred to just do this without, he didn’t want to lose anything if for some reason the ArchAngel went down. He had already told Mark and Jacqueline to mentally scream his name if the ship started loosing altitude and he would come to their rescue as best he could.
Then Mark turned to Jacqueline and told her, “Don’t be calling Michael if you break a nail, I know how you females…” The crack of her backhand on his chest was impressive.
But, Mark just smiled and took it. He did rub his chest in a circle while Jacqueline pointed a finger at him, “You keep this up, and you are going to be a twice-dead Vampire. I don’t care how hot you are.” She then turned and left the room.
Michael turned to look at Mark, who winked at him as he tapped his head, “I’ve got her figured out.”
The older Vampire snorted and patted Mark on the shoulder. “You might have the Wolf figured out, but you have a serious logic flaw.”
“What logic flaw?” Mark asked frowning. Michael paused before leaving the room, “She’s a woman. To believe there is logic in their actions and emotions is the first of many false assumptions.”
Twenty minutes later, Michael had walked past the bridge and exited the protected area on the ship continuing out to the open deck, the winds flowing in at him from multiple directions.
The energy was whispering to him here in the storm. It wanted to be held, to be caressed, to be used and abused in an orgy of destruction.
Perhaps, Michael thought, that was him applying his own feelings to the weather.
He wanted a nap, and these imbiciles had taken that from him.
His coat whipped around in the wind as he looked for the ship. A few seconds later, he smiled, took two steps and disappeared.
Up above him, Mark watched his mentor leave and smirked.
Someone was going to be fucked up tonight.
FROM MICHAEL >> WOW!
Ok, I get that I’m slow on releasing this book, and I accept the blame. However, I’m having a BLAST writing these fight scenes and the interaction between Mark and Jacqueline is flowing very well.
This time, the female has met her match 😉
I want to chat for a quick moment on another snippet that I just put up today for AWAKENED – The Ascension Myth Book 01 with Ell Leigh Clarke and how freaking FUN the first scene is.
Molly (the protagonist) isn’t like Bethany Anne. While she is super smart in her own right, she recognizes that (similar to a LOT of smart people I know) she often thinks only of problem -> solution. No worry about what happens in between so long as SOMETHING occurs to get to the solution.
Meaning, at a certain level, ethics isn’t her strong suit and unfortunately, she was taught at a young age that she needs help in this area by people who didn’t love her.
One of the differences? She lives in the future, during the Age of Expansion when humanity is seeding the stars after Bethany Anne has cleared out the Kurtherians and the Etheric Empire is under the guidance, both overtly and covertly by another Reynolds.
The one who likes cigars.
AWAKENED is a story about a genius level girl turned woman who decided when she was young that she would model herself after the historical figure Bethany Anne.
Whether that idea was good or bad, time will tell.
Check the snippet out right here and find out why I still giggle about “4077.” 😉
Michael