torg 01 - Storm Knights Read Online Free Page A

his clawed hand high into the air and the crowd went wild. Lizard and starfish and human alike responded with frenzied dancing and shouts of raw emotion. It was so . primal.
    Alder felt his blood pumping and his heart racing. It was like being at a rock concert, only ten times — no, a thousand times — more intense. Even if you didn't like the music, you couldn't help getting caught up in the emotions. He could feel himself moving with the crowd, bopping to the primitive beat the lizard camp was keeping. He wanted to raise his voice, to join their exhilirating song. The scene was so . real.
    The great lizard man reached behind his massive bulk and pulled a young woman to the forefront. Alder realized that she must have been sitting there the whole time. She was as human as any young woman the police officer had ever seen. She wore what remained of a Mets sweatshirt and jeans, but her clothes were in no way comparable to the humans' in the crowd. Hers still resembled clothing. She tried to struggle, but her strength was nothing compared to the lizard man.
    Alder could not stop his swaying body, could not draw his eyes away from the scene in the street below. The tension was almost sexual.
    The lizard man lifted the young woman high above his head, turning her so the crowd could see. Even in such a precarious position, she continued to fight and squirm. This only made the crowd more agitated, and they danced faster in their lizard way. Even the humans among them swished non-existent tails in time with the frenzied beat.
    Alder kept time in his darkened window, letting his body respond as it wished. He watched the young woman battle with all her strength, and a part of his mind admired her defiance. But his body simply shook, vibrating while he stood in place. Then the woman's struggle ceased.
    With a roar, the great lizard man pulled the woman apart with one mighty snap and raised his snout to catch her raining blood. The crowd went wild, and total pandemonium took the streets.
    Alder stopped moving, his mind shocked back to who he was and what was happening. The silent numbness became silent rage, and the officer found that he hated the lizards and their leader. Hated what they were and what they did. Hated what they did to him. He would make them pay for that woman's blood. He swore it there in a darkened sixth floor office on 60th Street.
    He watched into the night, until the crowd finally collapsed in exhausted, exhilirated sleep.
    8
    Purposefully, Christopher Bryce moved from shadow to shadow, carefully avoiding the ruins that littered the darkened street. He had been running since that awful moment this afternoon when the demon spoke to him. He was wet and tired and angry, but his delusions of madness were gone. At least, if he had gone mad, then the world had gone with him.
    His running brought him back to his home, the place where he grew up. It was simple enough to lose the demons, as he was faster than they were. Still, they gave him a good chase, not stopping until he finally lost them in the maze of streets and alleys he had once navigated as a child. But they were persistent, and for all the priest knew they were still searching for him.
    The house was shattered. The giant, armored lizards had done a thorough job. But before he could move on,

    Christopher Bryce had to discover the fate of his parents. He owed them that much. He stepped carefully into the wreckage. By habit he had entered by that section which was once the front porch. Now it was timber.
    As he dug his way through the debris, a glint of brass caught his eye. He went over to it, and saw that it was his mass kit. His mother had given the mass kit to him as a gift when he completed seminary. It was a black bag, much like a doctor's bag, which held the sacraments of his station. He never had the heart to tell his mother that the course he had chosen didn't call for him to administer mass very often, as he wasn't going to be assigned to a parish. But