Sentence Sneak Peek - King of the Dead

King of the Dead by Joseph Nassise

The first sentence from each chapter of King of the Dead, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* Spoilers are highlighted like so :)
* Book received from publisher for review

“Life as an interstate fugitive isn’t easy.”

“Around her, the city burned.”

“A few days after our adventure in Newark, the weather finally broke, clearing away the gray overcast that seemed to be an ever-present feature of a New Jersey winter and giving us a glimpse of blue sky, with temperatures higher than they’d been for months.”

“Denise called Dmitri inside and filled him in on what we’d just dis-cussed.”

“We made good time that next day, driving west on I-78 across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.”

“Her scream ripped loose, filling the air in and out of the car with the sound of someone being tortured mercilessly.”

“I stuck to the highway at first, wanting to put as much distance be-tween us and Officer Hendricks as physically possible.”

“We rose before dawn, wanting to make an early start of it.”

“We entered New Orleans from the east, driving south through St. Tammany Parish to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and then into the city proper across the Causeway.”

“Dmitri woke me just after midnight for my turn to stand watch.”

“He’s out there.”

“Goatee led them out of the foyer they’d been standing in and up a broad staircase to the second floor.”

“Denise couldn’t believe what she was hearing.”

“I let Dmitri lead me into the break room and find me a seat on the couch.”

“We did what we could to put the room back to rights and sat around a bit longer, waiting for the others.”

“The Bureau kept a number of Learjets in a hangar at Washington National, and it didn’t take long for Robertson to arrange to have one of them carry him and Agent Doherty on their fact-finding mis-sion to Tennessee.”

“Dismayed at how poorly my conversation with Denise and Dmitri had gone, I kept to myself for most of the day, figuring that a little space would help heal the rift that had developed between us.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that the horror of it was nearly overwhelm-ing.”

“I was roughly shaken awake by a hand on my shoulder shortly af-ter sundown the next day.”

“Finally, after months of successfully eluding them, Hunt had made a mistake.”

“I awoke to find myself in bed in a darkened room.”

“As it turned out, I’d been recuperating in one of the spare bedrooms on the second floor, just down the hall from Gallagher’s office.”

“Back in Gallagher’s office, with a hot cup of coffee in my hands and my body beginning to warm up, I relayed to the others what I’d found, which was essentially nothing.”

“Six hours later, just before midnight, I found myself sitting against the gunwale of a decrepit old skiff as it made its way slowly through the bayou toward Blackburn’s, its puttering engine sounding like it was going to give out at any minute and leave us stranded in alligator country.”

“Gallagher led me through a series of darkened rooms full of cloth-covered furniture and the occasional lighted candle.”

“The sun was starting to rise as we made our way back into the city.”

“After getting Clearwater’s name from the clerk at the Majestic, Robertson put his people to work trying to track her down.”

“By midafternoon the next day the calls began flooding in.”

“Gallagher was already there when we arrived and the three of us were quickly brought up to speed.”

“Gallagher had been gathering his power since we’d first entered the building and he raised his hands, getting ready to send a blistering wave of mystical energy down at the mass of Sorrows at the bottom of the pool.”

“It took time to recover mentally from the failed attack.”

“Dmitri explained that the previous Lord Marshal, the man he’d per-sonally worked for before leaving the city, Charles Winston, had lived deep in the heart of the Garden District.”

“When we returned to the clinic, Denise and Gallagher were waiting for us.”

“Hunt had been a liability on the last mission; he knew it and so it didn’t take much for Simon to convince him to play a different role.”

“The Sidhe met us at the door with their glamour firmly in place, do-ing their best to pass as ordinary humans.”

“Denise stared back at the others, astounded by what they’d just un-covered.”

“Denise was worn out from the ritual she’d performed, but as she explained, we didn’t have time to waste.”

“Robertson sent Doherty and another agent to stake out the location Lafitte had given to them while he put the necessary elements in place.”

“As we raced down the street, Gallagher’s phone rang.”

“They needed the soul knives if they were going to have any chance of defeating the Angeu, which meant someone had to go to Chicago and get them.”

“With Denise and Dmitri gone, and Gallagher coordinating the ac-tivity of the seven wardens and the handful of medical volunteers who’d joined us at the new safe house while at the same time trying to determine what the Angeu could be up to, I was left to fend for myself for the day.”

“The rendezvous point was an empty warehouse several blocks to the south and I headed in that direction as soon as I was clear of the compound.”

“As they came down the street and saw the activity in front of the clinic, Denise knew that something had gone horribly wrong.”

“I drifted in the darkness, unaware of the passage of time or of the steady flow of my lifeblood as it slowly leaked out of me, a drop at a time.”

“Denise stumbled away from the scrying mirror and threw up vio-lently in the corner.”

“The pain told me I was still alive.”

“Without a body, Robertson was reluctant to believe that Hunt was dead, even with all the circumstantial evidence that suggested otherwise.”

“Denise had once told me that magick runs through the earth in long lines known to the practitioners of the Art as leys.”

“It was a light, whimsical tune at first, the kind of thing designed to catch your attention and draw you in with its lilting melody.”

“We sped through the streets of the city as if the devil himself were on our heels, but I knew all too well that we no longer had anything to fear from him; the devil had already taken his due.”

“You can still save her, you know.”

“The first thing she saw when she regained consciousness was a sky the color of wet shale that roiled and churned like something alive.”

“I found Gallagher in the room they’d assigned to Denise, sitting vigil next to her unmoving form.”

“There was a moment of intense cold and impenetrable darkness, a moment of being wrapped in the frozen, dead emptiness of space it-self, and then I staggered through the other side of the rift and col-lapsed onto the dusty earth at my feet.”

“The stairs were cut right into the face of the cliff, each step worn and weathered by the passage of time.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought as Denise and I stopped short only a few feet from the horses that drew the Angeu’s cart.”

“Going back to the other side proved to be just as unpleasant.”

“Chaos erupted.”