Curefinder (Black Bloods, Novella Prequel)

By John Hennessy

Before Aberdeen’s blood ever turned black, her father embarked on a quest to rescue her mother in this novella prequel to Black Blood.

Fifteen years ago, Clyde Aldridge failed Tamara Dareday. Instead of using his magic to save her from Blackthorn, the secret agency that hunts down paranormal creatures, he stood by and watched as a task force hauled her away. Tested endlessly because of her unique gifts, she endures with little hope of ever escaping. But when a space probe sends an image that will shape the future of humanity, Clyde sets out on a mission to free Tamara from her imprisonment and inevitable execution. Confronting his past, he now battles time, the supernatural, and a new threat that may prove unstoppable.

A cross-genre adventure unlike anything you’ve ever read before. For fans of both paranormal fantasy and sci-fi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hennessy
• Release date: Jan 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311583420

John Hennessy

Born in 1988, John Hennessy became entranced by the world of fantasy and sci-fi at a young age, playing video games and reading books for many long nights/early mornings. He started writing his debut novel Life Descending during his junior year of High School in 2005. He wanted to write something different for fantasy readers, something without any stock copy/paste characters, supreme evil lords, who you never see and who are just evil because they are evil. A story without class-defined skills, mana potions, and the usual D&D adventure group out on the same old quest. He wanted to write a new story that gets away from the stale fantasies with farmer boys, blacksmith apprentices, and peasants who turn world heroes. Oh yeah, and he really wanted to get away from stories with prophecies and 'chosen ones.'After he graduated from Western Washington University in 2011, he hired Sara Stamey, the editing/publishing professor at Western, edit Life Descending (The Cry of Havoc, Book 1), finally releasing his debut after six years of crafting, learning, rewriting, and absorbing caffeine as fuel so he could stay awake at the keyboard. Life Descending has since been praised by reviewers, even earning a finalist spot in ForeWord Magazine's 2011 Book of the Year Awards. Darkness Devouring (The Cry of Havoc, Book 2) has since been released in late 2012.In 2012 he released At the End (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) as a self-published book. Having spent all his cash on Life Descending (sadly without return), the book went unedited by a professional editor. Despite this major flaw, At the End was well received by most. In February 2013, Permuted Press approached him with an offer to re-release At the End and publish the rest of the trilogy. A second edition of At the End (fully edited!) is forthcoming 2013.John now lives in the Rose Lands of Portland, Oregon, with his wife Katherine, their furry feline Phoebe, and their two budgies Lola and Pablo. He is now at work finishing The Road to Extinction Trilogy. Visit his website at: http://www.johnhennessy.net

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An Innovation Today Book. Go Indie.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 John Hennessy

All rights reserved.

http://www.johnhennessy.net

Cover graphic: Erstudiostok / 123RF Stock Photo

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Also by John Hennessy

Novels

Remnants Trilogy

Book One: Remnants

Book Two: Defiants (forthcoming)

Book Three: Dirges (forthcoming)

The Cry of Havoc Saga

Book One: Life Descending

Book Two: Darkness Devouring

Black Bloods Quintet

Novella Prequel: Curefinder

Book One: Black Blood

Book Two: Red Dusk (forthcoming)

Short Stories

A Stalker’s Game (free eBook)

Dedication

To Katherine. Her patience knows no bounds.

Table of Contents

Also by John Hennessy

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Connect

About the Author

CF - Chapter Heading-With-Heart-eBook-Large

1

JULY THIRTEENTH, 2019, 2:17 A.M.

The image, clear despite the pixelated resolution, revealed the spaceship and left no room for doubt. Clyde Aldridge shook his head in disbelief. It was all happening as it had fifteen years ago when he’d found the alien space probe. He had arrived early to work, wiped the sleep from his exhausted eyes, and sipped his black, unadulterated coffee while he waited for images from various long-distance space probes to finish their transmission. It was déjà vu right down to the minute. Nausea, powerful and swift, overwhelmed Clyde.

He fell out of his ergonomic office chair, the wheels rolling back. Staring at his hands, he watched them shake, uncontrollable, as though they weren’t his hands at all but someone else’s. Despite the warm air, goose pimples formed on his brown arms, his hairs erecting like protective thorns. Sweat dribbled down his smooth forehead to his thick-rimmed glasses, tracing the frame to the curve of his cheek before taking a detour into his finely manicured black beard. Paranoia worked its magic. He pressed the button to his travel mug, tipped the sleek silver container, and poured the expensive peaberry roast on his button-up shirt.

The liquid burned as he jumped to his feet. Coffee spill, he said to Lane Jackson, a short, straight-haired woman sitting to his right. She often worked the graveyard shifts alongside him and considered each other friends.

She nodded at him in understanding. Smart.

Oh, you know me, he laughed.

You need to cut back on the caffeine, Clyde. You spill on yourself at least once a week.

My mom always told me I had butterfingers. The line, as false as a politician’s promise, was the typical response he knew people gave, what they expected. No one suspected him to be any different with such perfect conformity. Well, I better go change. He kept a spare shirt at work because of his weekly accidents. She nodded again, disinterested.

Clyde hurried to the bathroom where he locked the last stall at the far end, sat on the toilet lid, and retrieved his phone. The blank screen reflected his youthful face and the tight curls atop his head. People constantly commented on how young he looked at thirty-four, with the skin and build of a man half his age, which had prompted him to grow out his facial hair a few years ago, to give himself some air of maturity.

His thoughts brushed past the superficial, the gravity of his discovery weighing on him like a man who was about to face his execution.

The arrival of the spaceship could only lead down one road, one end: Tamara Dareday, the eighteen-year-old girl taken into custody by Blackthorn agents fifteen years ago. It happened right after he picked up his station phone and informed his boss of the biggest discovery in human history, which started the chain reaction that eventually led to her imprisonment and the largest global cover-up of all time. His hands still shaking, he turned on his phone, unlocked the touchscreen, and opened the live video feed from the cameras in Tamara’s cell.

She sat on her bed with her back against the wall, knees tucked to her chest, her forearm resting flat over her kneecaps, her eyes squished against the skin of her arm to block out the overhead lights. Tiny sweat beads glistened on her pale skin, a product of the room’s brightness, and it was almost always bright. A thin cloud of steam hovered over her body, also due to the intensity of the lamps. Her cell was no ordinary cell, with reinforced walls, a high ceiling, and a sizable observation window so thick a whale couldn’t break through it at full speed. Her life was a battery of endless tests, and after fifteen years, government scientists were no closer to discovering what she was exactly, or how she came to be.

But Clyde knew. The moment he set eyes on her from the satellite images he could tell she was different. Like him. Once the cover-up had begun, he hacked into the FBI and NSA networks to find out what had happened at the crash site in northwest Kansas. He’d discovered it wasn’t a crash at all, but a landing. The probe touched down precisely where it meant to in the middle of an expansive wheat field and collected a sample of Tamara’s blood when the girl reached out to touch the fallen object. Within minutes, a task force of agents was crawling over the farmland, arresting the young woman whose life changed at whirlwind speeds. Extracted along with the probe, she was imprisoned before anyone else could arrive to contest the twisted version of the truth.

Tamara, fifteen years later, didn’t look a day older, an outward sign of her genetic deviation. Clyde studied her and the room as his heart constricted from impotence. Beyond checking on her health, he could do nothing, unless he wanted to leave his job, his friends, his entire life behind and live on the run. Motionless in her pose, he thought her asleep, but her vitals told him otherwise. She spent most of her days like this, caged, quiet, immobile.

Blank sheets of paper were strewn all over her bed. She rarely glanced at them these last few weeks, though she stacked them up before she fell asleep, and slipped them under her mattress. When she woke she scattered them across her bed again. She performed this routine without fail, but according to the Blackthorn records, no one understood why.

The moment he made the call to the director of the Interplanetary Network Directorate, time would become his enemy, with her life in danger, thrown into chaos all over again. No doubt existed in his mind that she was connected to the probe in someway, and therefore connected to the spaceship now decelerating at the edge of the solar system. The problem: if he didn’t make the call, someone else inevitably would, maybe in a couple of hours, but no more than half a day. He could even erase the evidence from the network, but another batch of images would come without fail, and all he’d gain for his trouble would be an extra hour head start. There simply was no stopping the first domino from its fall.

A bead of sweat splashed the screen guard and he wiped it away with his thumb. I’m so sorry, Tamara. None of this should’ve ever happened to you. You didn’t deserve it. After a dry swallow, he powered off his phone. Before leaving the restroom, he tossed cold water on his face, composing his nerves.

It’s all right, Clyde. If you don’t, someone else