Heroes Read Online Free PDF Page B

found them on her own. Moll was relatively new to his small, covert circle of online friends. It went without saying that she didn’t have his complete trust even though he was one of the instigators of the new outreach program. He assumed that she didn’t have complete faith in him. It took a lot to earn trust in their dangerous conspiracy to change the dark side of the world.
    Neither Baker nor Santini questioned him when he got up and walked away from the table. That was mostly because he’d been learning how to use the psychic abilities he’d been born with. He didn’t want them asking questions, and because they were each slightly psychic themselves, he was able to curb their curiosity, at least long enough to walk away unnoticed.
    This small use of ability was enough to focus Moll’s attention on him. They nodded to each other, and he joined her by the door.
    “DesertDog?”
    He gave her another nod. “Haven,” he introduced himself.
    “Murphy,” she answered. “Clare Murphy.” She gave a distasteful look around the setting. “Let’s go somewhere private.”
    Haven already had a hand on her upper arm. “Fine.” He steered her out the door, into the blistering heat and bright daylight. She shrugged him off and led him to a white Ford Explorer parked half a block from the club. As Clare Murphy unlocked the SUV’s door, Haven asked, “What’s so important about the Silk Road that needs a personal look around?”

Chapter 3
    BEWARE OF THE Light.
    The words kept running through Char’s head, the letters huge and glowing like a bright, multicolored neon sign. Very distracting. The annoying part was that Char knew she was dreaming when what she was trying to do was project her consciousness out of her immobilized body instead of getting a good day’s rest. Places to go, things to see. Just because she was physically stuck in an air-conditioned hotel room didn’t mean she couldn’t be mentally up and about—except when glitches like having her subconscious block her mind’s way out of her body got in the way.
    Yes, yes, Beware of the Light, I get it, she thought as she tried to will the images from her mind. The point was she wasn’t interested in light. Enlightenment, yes, light, no. The sparkle and flash and neon glow of this city were all very well, but there was nothing resembling reality about the place. Char wanted substance, facts, knowledge. She had eternity to find out everything about everything, and was anxious to dig further into the most important subject of all: vampires, strigoi, her people. There was so much that was secret, lost, hidden, forbidden. Much of this attitude had to do with the nature of ritual magic, of course. Knowledge was indeed power, for those few people magic worked on. She appreciated the necessity of protecting powerful rituals and spells from those who would misuse them. What she hated was the hiding of history. Much of this history was forgotten as well as secret, she was sure, and that annoyed her more than the paranoia and gnosticism of her kind.
    And she was thinking too much, and wallowing in her frustration while a neon sign blinked in front of her closed eyes. Action was what was needed.
    What would Jebel do?
    Take a shotgun to the sign, of course. Even in his dreams. It would never occur to him that he might give himself a bad headache that way. Char chuckled silently, and considered more sensible and subtle options for getting around her own mental roadblocks.
    She closed her eyes, which was an odd thing to try considering that her physical eyes were shut tight and impossible to open before sunset. Her interior vision had been fixed on the bright, blinking neon sign even while her thoughts rambled. The first thing she had to do was block out the light. Beware of the Light, indeed, the words snarled through her thoughts.
    Light still flashed behind her inner eyes, ominous, like lightning from an approaching storm.
    Darkness, Char thought. Nothing but