Here's a bit of teaser!! ... Chapter 1 from DS II, tentatively titled Pulsar ... Hope you like it!!!
December, 1995
He sat in the small substation at the highest peak in the Northeast while the winds outside, unimpeded by trees, blew and caused drifts that reached his waist. The summit of Mount Washington reached 6,288 ft and had earned its distinction of Home of the World’s Worst Weather. The average annual temperature on the summit was below 0° with winds speeds in excess of 35 mph. The sub-zero temperatures could easily take a man’s limbs, not to mention his life. Three days ago, the Search and Rescue mission had ended with the first death of the year ... the discovery of a body atop the headwall of Huntington’s Ravine.
Nature’s dangers were far too easily accessible to some. The reality of going all-in on a single game of 21 with Mother Nature sitting across the table dealing the cards… where one’s life was staked against that of a total stranger ... was a feeling with which he was familiar. What an unfortunate waste of life. Mt. Washington wasn’t a playground for Mother Nature. Instead it was a homestead for Death himself.
He had been the first to make the grisly discovery and once again, the dark stranger had been waiting for him.
“Your wife is with child, a girl,” the man said. “I have kept my end of the bargain. It is time that you honor yours. Buried beneath this man’s body you will find the object of which I spoke. I cannot lay my hands upon it but you can. It is imperative you keep it safe. You carry an enormous burden upon your shoulders. You now possess something that will save countless lives in this world and another.” The man dropped a large red stone into his hand. “You will need this as well, to make the journey.”
He thought of his wife, of his unborn child, the only one he would ever have. He looked at the sword in one hand, the large ruby in the other. And then, Randall Ashworth, closed his eyes.
