Read Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two for Free Online Page A

you can wake her with a kiss.”
    “’Cept for the dust,” Lim commented.
    “Well, yeah, ’cept for the dust, Lim. Damn, man, don’t you have any imagination?”
    “What did you have in mind?” Lim asked skeptically.
    “Are you sure she’s human?” Kavanaugh asked as he took another drink.
    “I think she’s just a kid,” Curcovic added. “No armor. You think she was somebody important’s kid?”
    “She’s the best thing I’ve seen on this rock so far,” Taki pointed out.
    Kavanaugh was crossing the uneven floor to join them when a low female voice said clearly, “No.”
    From that point on, she took down all of Kavanaugh’s men. She could have killed them as if they’d been standing still, but she’d disabled them instead. He suspected that was because they posed no real threat to her.
    Cold sweat ran into Kavanaugh’s eyes. He held the flask in his gun hand. He’d have to drop it to draw his weapon.
    “We didn’t mean you any harm,” he said gently as he let go of the flask.
    She wheeled toward him. “I know you.” Her voice was rusty. “Switch on your light. I want to see your face.”
    With his left hand, Kavanaugh pulled his torch out of his pocket. He held it to illuminate the left side of his face.
    “No,” she said, her voice desolate. “You only remind me of someone I used to know.” She was moving toward the mouth of the tomb. Kavanaugh shivered at the thought that she might knock the chocks aside and seal them in.
    “Where will you go?” he asked desperately. “It’s a rock out there. Barren. You can’t get off-world without our help.”
    Somewhere in the darkness, she laughed. The sound wasn’t entirely sane. “You’re grave robbers. You’re going to help me?”
    “We’re archaeologists,” Kavanaugh lied. “We work for Gavin Sloane.”
    Her response was completely unexpected. “Gavin? Still alive?”
    “I’m here, Raena,” Sloane said calmly. He switched on a torch, angled down at his feet. He stood just inside the mouth of the tomb.
    “Is it really you?” Raena asked. She made Kavanaugh think of a child, desperate for comfort from the dark.
    “It’s really me.” He crossed the room to her, engulfed her in his arms.
    Kavanaugh jerked awake as he turned over. Too many years of living on shipboard, sleeping on this narrow mattress, saved him. He caught himself just before he rolled right off his bunk. With adrenaline coursing through his system, Kavanaugh found himself completely awake.
    Why had he dreamed that Sloane had come down to the planet? Sloane hadn’t ever seen the tomb, as far as Kavanaugh knew. Sloane hadn’t been one to get his hands dirty, if he could bully someone else into it. He lurked in his base on one of the planet’s tiny moons and let Kavanaugh and his men take the risks to find Raena.
    Everything else happened in the dream just as he remembered in real life. In fact, it seemed less like the messy chaos of a real dream and more like he was living the memory again. Kavanaugh fumbled the blanket out from beneath himself and pulled it over his body, but still he shivered.
    At the time, he hadn’t known that Sloane’s operation had a goal beyond stealing as many of the Templar artifacts as they could pack into crates. That had only been Sloane’s cover story—and a way of funding the expedition. He never let on to the men doing the actual work, but all along he had been really only looking for Raena.
    Once again Kavanaugh counted his blessings. He knew Raena had never done well with enclosed spaces. She might have come out of that tomb like a caged animal and killed them all.
    In fact, once he’d realized how things might have gone, Kavanaugh had struggled to forgive Sloane for putting him into that kind of danger. Once upon a time, he had counted Sloane as a friend, almost like a big brother. Probably it had just been luck, but when Kavanaugh had been a kid, Sloane was always nearby when he needed help. Then, after they’d finally