Memory Hunter Read online

  Book Description

  Near-immortal facetakers can shift between bodies at will.Their bitter enemies steal the force of other souls to power superhuman enhancements.The two groups have battled for dominance since the days of the Pharaohs.

  Most of the modern world knows nothing about them, but Sarah has seen the truth, and that knowledge makes her a target.Barely escaping an attempt on her life, she plunges into an ancient war that threatens to topple the entire world order.

  Truth is a weapon both sides have wielded for millennia, and Sarah learns her life is built upon lies.History is not what the books say it is.The man she loves is not who he claims to be.An enemy she thought dead is back, seeking revenge, with plans to siphon power from pivotal moments in history in order to reshape the future.

  With history now the battlefield, time becomes the deadliest weapon of all.Sarah's best chance of survival is buried in the rubble of what really happened at the close of WWII.

  Kindle Edition - 2015

  Memory Hunter

  Copyright © 2015 Frank Morin

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-09899005-6-0

  A Whipsaw Press Original

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Edited by Joshua Essoe

  http://www.joshuaessoe.com

  Cover art by Christopher Guerra

  http://seegenerateartist.com

  First Whipsaw edition, July 2015

  Contents

  Book Description

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Author’s Note

  Other Titles by Frank Morin

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Bringing Memory Hunter to life has been a long process, with input from many people. Taking the Facetakers into an alternate history fantasy spin had been one of several possible directions for the story, but proved to be the best one by a long shot.

  As always, a huge thanks to my family, who believes in me even before there’s solid proof that it’s a good idea. My beautiful Jenny gave a lot of input into this one, with Kate and Kyle not far behind.

  Special thanks to early readers of the story, who braved the script before it was polished. Carey Miller for extremely detailed feedback, James Morin for insights into military aspects, as well as Chinese cultural items I never would have figured out on my own. Phil Morin for helping me connect to the real vibe of New Orleans, and Joe Morris for in-depth discussions. Your feedback was more valuable than you can imagine.

  Thanks to Joshua Essoe for another brilliant edit and Christopher Guerra for a fantastic cover that took our high-level discussions and brought them to life in breathtaking ways.

  And thanks to all those who listened to the unique premise and didn’t tell me I was a quack. I sleep better at night knowing other people agree this concept rocks.

  No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race of simple mortals, it is the same tyrannical principle.

  ~Abraham Lincoln

  Chapter One

  One hour out from New Orleans, Sarah set aside her Louis L’Amour western and rose from her seat in the first class cabin of the airplane to use the restroom. The closer she approached the city and Tomas, the more her nervous excitement grew. She was eager to land, to escape the stale cabin air, even for the humidity of the deep south.

  The bathroom was occupied and a heavyset woman in seat 2A proclaimed that she was next in line, so Sarah headed aft. As she slipped through the coach cabin, she considered the possible outcomes of the visit. Tomas had left the details of the vacation vague. He’d also been rather vague about why he was inviting her to join him. She sensed he was interested, and she was open to exploring a deepening relationship. He had saved her life, after all. But she had other reasons for accepting the invitation, and was willing to work through the question with him.

  A man seated in an aisle seat interrupted her musings by touched her arm as she passed. “Excuse me, miss, but didn’t you work for Alterego?”

  The man looked young, somewhere in his twenties, but dressed like he had accidentally left home with his grandfather’s suitcase instead of his own.

  “I did. I was a model there,” Sarah said, forcing a smile.

  One reason she had accepted Tomas’ invitation was for a chance to leave Alterego behind and forget all about that disaster. She wasn’t surprised that someone recognized her, but felt a flash of irritation anyway.

  After the company’s fiery collapse, she had received far too much media attention. They called her a hero, the girl who helped reveal the company’s illegal activities. She’d slipped out of the limelight as soon as possible, her transition eased by Jill’s rise as the face of the disaster. Her friend Jill, who had been the number one top model, loved the attention and Sarah was grateful to let her have it.

  “I knew it,” the man said with a smile. He turned to the elderly woman sitting beside him and took her hand. “Gladys, dear, it’s her. It’s Sarah.”

  The old woman squinted through thick glasses. She reached out and Sara
h took her gnarled, quaking hand. Gladys leaned toward her and scanned her head to toe. “Did Marilyn change back, dear?”

  “No, this is my replacement,” Sarah lied. Just her luck, getting stuck on a plane with friends of Marilyn.

  “You look lovely, dear,” Gladys said. “You could be sisters.”

  “I was very lucky,” Sarah said.

  The convict whose body had been stolen for Sarah hadn’t been, but she was beyond Sarah’s help. Sarah had escaped Alterego with body and soul intact by the narrowest of margins. Marilyn, the renter who had wanted to purchase Sarah’s body permanently, had ended up with the convict’s very similar form. Marilyn was happy in her new-purchased youth, and Sarah retained her true identity.

  “I’m glad someone was,” the man muttered.

  Upon closer inspection, Sarah noted the small signs of misalignment along his jawline. The skin stretched too tight in a couple of places, but bunched in unusual wrinkles right under his chin. His face fit the skull very well, and at first even she hadn’t spotted the telltale signs that he was inhabiting a body that wasn’t his original birthday suit.

  If Sarah hadn’t noticed, no one else would. She’d made hundreds of body transfers in her time as one of Alterego’s top ten female body donors. One of her hobbies had been studying how her face and those of the other donors fit the many temporary bodies they’d used while their own were being rented. Sometimes the fit was nearly flawless, while other times the effect was rather grotesque, as if their faces were but barely attached. Only later had Sarah learned the truth of the facetakers and their arcane powers that made the technology of Alterego possible.

  “You were a client, weren’t you?” Sarah asked.

  “Walter,” the man introduced himself, shaking her hand. “We both were.”

  “I had been renting ‘A Night to Remember’,” Gladys said with a wistful smile. “So lovely. But they restored me. Poor Walter lost his body in the fire and was stuck in this one.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, crouching in the aisle beside him to keep the conversation a little more private.

  ‘A Night to Remember’ was Jill’s body. Sarah’s had been marketed as ‘The All-American Girl’, and the wait-list of eager renters had stretched over two years. Her perfectly proportioned curves and loose brown curls had been glamorous enough to catch the eye, but not so much that they intimidated people.

  “It’s a mess,” Walter said. “Still dealing with lawsuits from this guy’s family.” He poked himself in the chest. “And arguing with four separate government agencies about whether I’m me or if I’m him.”

  Sarah felt partially responsible for the difficult position the couple were stuck in. In her fight to save herself, she’d helped destroy the evil concealed in the vault in the secret heart of the company. She still awoke in chill sweats sometimes from dark dreams in that vault, surrounded by soul coffins, facing Mai Luan and her arcane powers.

  She didn’t blame Walter for being unhappy. He and his wife had paid obscene amounts of money to rent young bodies, but always the plan had been to return to their original forms. When the company headquarters had imploded, many renter bodies had been destroyed. The dispossessed souls of the convicts whose bodies had been used as temporary replacement for staff and models were also destroyed. The aftermath had been chaotic, the results an identity nightmare.

  Her heart went out to this old couple, now separated in time. Walter was stuck in a different generation, and in the near future he’d be forced to watch his beloved wife die of old age while he was still young. Sarah had heard many similar tales of lives shattered by the company, and every one enraged her more than the last.

  Sarah spoke softly, “Don’t lose hope. I’m tracking a lead that might be able to help.”

  “Help how?” Walter asked.

  She hesitated to say. The other major reason she had accepted Tomas’ invitation was to convince him to bring her to Eirene and beg her help in healing some of these broken lives. They were partially responsible for the mess, and although the technology was gone, Eirene was a facetaker. If Sarah could track her down, she was convinced they could find a way to help.

  No one else knew about the facetakers and their strange soul powers, though. Sarah didn’t pretend to understand it, but she’d seen it work.

  “Alterego was destroyed,” Sarah said. “But there’s a chance the secret to their work wasn’t completely erased.”

  “That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, dear?” Gladys said.

  Walter looked less inclined to hope for a miracle. “If you find it, let us know.”

  “I will,” Sarah promised.

  She took down their phone number, their need bolstering her determination to find Eirene and convince her to help. As she waited for her turn in the restroom, her eyes scanned the rows of passengers. She noticed a muscular man whose face did not quite fit. With her thoughts now focused on her plan to help the victims of Alterego, her gaze locked onto the telltale signs of misalignment.

  He glanced up, saw her looking at him, and quickly ducked behind a magazine. Sarah turned the other way so he didn’t feel uncomfortable. Some people still resented what had happened, and she didn’t blame them.

  On the way back from the bathroom, she looked for the man but he wasn’t in his seat. Before passing back into the first class cabin, she glanced back and caught sight of him sitting in a different seat, watching her with a scowl. When their eyes crossed, he ducked down again.

  After she resumed her seat, she wondered about his odd behavior. Unlike Walter, his face had fit poorly. Most people still wouldn’t notice the subtle mis-alignment, but she couldn’t miss it.

  Had he also lost his elderly body in the disaster? Lawsuits still raged across the country and legislatures struggled to figure out the complex questions of identity left in the wake of the company’s collapse.

  Maybe the man’s wife had rented Sarah’s body?

  That might explain his reaction, especially if his wife had been restored to her aged self like Gladys.

  So many wrongs needed to be righted. She’d convince Tomas to help, pitch her cause to Eirene, and together they’d make things right.

  Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. That is why there are so many rumors about the fountain of youth and so little real knowledge.

  ~Albert Einstein

  Chapter Two

  “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

  Gregorios pried his eyes open when Eirene prodded him a second time. As much as he longed to return to sleep, he smiled to see her. Their recent forced separation while she was held as a dispossessed prisoner had only sharpened his love for this woman.

  When she appeared convinced he wouldn’t drift off again, Eirene sat on the edge of the bed. “I need to review the plan for this morning’s insertion.”

  She wore the athletic young body she’d acquired a few weeks prior when Tomas and Sarah had reincorporated her, and it fit her soul well. Gregorios had recently acquired his current form, a dependable, twenty-something body with excellent muscle tone. It was a temporary replacement. He looked forward to settling into a permanent model to begin a new life together with Eirene.

  She spread a map of the ground floor of a hotel onto the bed. Instead of listening to her recite the insertion plan, Gregorios pulled her down beside him and gave her a lingering kiss. She didn’t resist, returning the embrace with a youthful intensity that belied the many lives they’d shared together. Visiting some of their many descendants over the past couple of weeks had been good for her.

  “Enough of that,” she said eventually, sitting again and adjusting her shoulder holster. “One of us has work to do this morning.”

  “Well one of us stayed up most of the night doing surveillance,” Gregorios countered. “The location’s confirmed. She’ll be there.”

  “Good.” Eirene checked a pair of handcuffs, then slid them into the pocket of her blazer. “Tereza has a
lot of explaining to do.”

  “I can come along,” Gregorios offered, suppressing a yawn.

  “No, dear,” Eirene said, kissing his forehead. “I’ve got this. Tereza’s no real threat, but if she gives me trouble, I’ll need help carrying her out.”

  “Can do.” He hadn’t kidnapped another facetaker in a decade and looked forward to the chance. “You think she knows where Mai Luan’s hiding?”

  “I hope so,” Eirene said, her expression serious. “We have to track that monster down.”

  “You want to use the family to remove her?” Gregorios asked.

  “No. I think it better to send the data to the council with Tomas. He’ll take her down.”

  “Young guys get all the fun.”

  Eirene arched one eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  It was going to be a good day.

  “We’ll talk about that when you get back,” Gregorios said.

  After Eirene left, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Gregorios welcomed new dreams. It didn’t matter whether they were exciting or mundane, he relished their freshness. He didn’t dream new things often.

  This wasn’t a new dream. Gregorios had outlived most new dreams. The old ones would creep back into his mind and dredge up bits of memories that spanned the ages. Some were sweet and welcomed as cherished friends. Others reminded him of mistakes made or paraded past his mind’s eye the countless masses of those he had outlived. Some offered lessons still to be learned or reminded him of hard-won truths that might have faded over time. He faced nearly all of them with calm acceptance. Danger lurked in railing against the past or refusing to see the truth in his choices.

  Sometimes the alternative was worse.

  The memory his thoughts returned to while he slept cast his mind back into a pivotal moment, one he avoided whenever possible. The dream folded around his mind like a glove full of splinters and triggered yet again the long-simmering anger as it tempted him to make a different choice. He didn’t try to change how he felt. Embracing the anger was his best defense when forced to re-live that dark day when Berlin fell.

  Gregorios headed south along the rubble-filled main thoroughfare of the Wilhelmstrasse as the dream memory coalesced into sharp reality. The whistling of falling mortar shells filled the air with high-pitched screaming, and explosions racked the city with constant rolling thunder. The scent of death hung in the air and clung to every surface, like the fine gray dust that billowed across the city in constant clouds.