REQUIEM

Jamie McGuire

Copyright © 2011 by Jamie McGuire

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

Published by

Jamie McGuire, LLC

607 West McKinley Avenue

Blackwell, OK 74631

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by justinmcclure.tv

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jamie McGuire

Requiem

ISBN 0-615-48742-7

ISBN 978-0-615-48742-7(13 digit)

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To Eden and Hailey...my little beacons of light

My sunshine eternal

Chapter One

Chapter One

Three

I was back. Surrounded by darkness, two blurry forms crouched before an open safe, hidden behind a large, hinged bookcase. They breathed heavy, working at a feverish pace to find what they had searched for the past months. One of the men froze, and all movement stopped. He leaned further into the safe, using both hands to pull out a thick, leather bound book.

“That’s it. Dear God, that’s it,” Jack whispered.

Every corner of the room held a warning. Lit only by the moonlight filtering through the blinds of a single window, antique swords and axes hung on the walls, bordering hand-painted landscapes of war and death. The air was stale, lacking human lungs to circulate it.

I had been there many times before, but my hands still trembled, knowing the panic would begin soon. It was coming, but I couldn’t stop it. It would play over and over like I was stuck in time, in a bad dream—or in Hell.

Jack’s fingers ran over the branded seal in the center, and looked to his friend.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Jack?”

“Are you sure it’s her, Gabe?” Jack replied. Gabe nodded slowly, and then Jack continued with a sigh, “Then you know the answer.”

Hearing what Jack’s human ears couldn’t, Gabe’s head jerked to the side. “It’s too late,” he said, his eyes twitching back and forth as he listened. “They’re here.”

They shoved the documents, artifacts and jewels back into the safe, and the fair-haired man effortlessly pressed the heavy bookcase flat against the wall in an attempt to conceal any evidence of their presence.