We’re offering the first chapter of The Curia Chronicles here.

Chapter 1

Not my ceiling. Tessa Sinclair lay on her back, her vision coming into focus.

She was used to the water-stained ceiling of her efficiency apartment. She often found herself lying awake on her futon, staring up at the dingy stucco, her mind refusing to rest. Occasionally, she’d invite a guy over and watch that water-stained ceiling go in and out of sight as they tangled in drunken pleasure. But this isn’t my studio. This ceiling was a grid of clean white panels and fluorescent bulbs behind a frosted plastic case. She looked to one side, then the other.

I’m in a hospital. She ran her fingers over an IV line inserted into the vein of her right hand to a saline bag hanging from a metal stand. The bed looked several decades older than 2011 – the headboard and footboard were made up of pale-green metal tubes – but was clean and not out of place with the rest of the room. A metal chair – the same institutional color as the bed – was pushed against the wall opposite the bed. She checked the bed. No call button.

Tessa sat up. Although she was a little groggy, she felt fine. How the hell did I wind up here? The last thing she remembered was watching the Times Square New Year’s Eve party on TV in her apartment, while working her way through a fifth of Jack Daniels. The impression of something else was lurking at the edge of her memory. I really need to stop drinking so much. She cradled her head. Did someone call the cops?

“Hello,” Tessa called out to no one in particular, feeling the dryness in her throat. “Can I get some water?” She waited a minute. No response. She pulled out the IV and swung her legs off the bed. The floor was cold. 

Tessa walked to the window. The glass was frosted, but she could tell it was sometime during the day. She also made out the shadows of bars crisscrossing the window. Which hospital in Detroit has higher security and hasn’t been remodeled? Could be Henry Ford.

There were two doors. One was opposite the window. It was metal and the same vintage green color as the furniture. The other was a flimsy slab wooden door with a cheap brass knob. Probably the bathroom. 

She opened the wooden door, turned on the light and saw a toilet, sink, mirror and her canvas Army duffle bag on the floor. She knelt on the cold tile floor and unfastened the bag. It was filled with her clothes, neatly folded and packed, as well as the black Doc Martens she wore to work as a bartender at the Blue Ox. She pulled out the boots, a pair of jeans, a plain cotton thong and sports bra, and a faded red T-shirt. She stacked the clothing neatly on the side of the sink and stripped off the hospital gown. She checked herself out in the mirror, looking for signs of injuries, but found nothing. 

Fuck. Must have been alcohol poisoning. I sure know how to ring in the New Year. She stared into the reflection of her pale blue eyes for a moment. Finding a hairband on her wrist, she tied her shoulder-length, light brown hair into a ponytail. She finished dressing and left the bathroom.

She approached the thick metal door and grabbed the silver handle, then hesitated. If an ambulance rushed me to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, why is my duffle packed with every piece of clothing I own? A paramedic wouldn’t do that. She looked back at the bed. No call button, bars on the windows, the outdated furniture…. maybe I should take this slow.

She tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. She opened the door a crack. What the hell? The hallway was strewn with debris and the walls were covered in graffiti. The only light came from evenly spaced work lamps. Sitting at the end of the hallway next to a work lamp was a man in a dark sweater and black tactical pants, idly flipping through a magazine. Tessa noted the pistol in a shoulder holster and the M4 Carbine propped against the wall, a familiar site from her days in the Army. She also saw a cable running from his left ear to a radio on his belt.

She carefully closed the door and sat in the chair. Okay. I’m not in a hospital. Someone packed up all my clothing, brought me to an abandoned building, stuck an IV in me and hired a guard. Could this be some kind of alcohol-induced hallucination? Tessa quickly ruled out the idea. She felt completely sober. 

She thought back to her last memories, seeing Times Square on the TV and her bottle of Jack in hand. She heard familiar pop music coming from the TV… was that the Backstreet Boys? She recalled leaving early from the Blue Ox. She had the night off. A local drunk had given her a big tip, which she used to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels, her favorite whiskey, to ring in the new year. 2010 had been a rough year and she was looking forward to it being over. 

Who in their right mind would kidnap me, a washed-up Army vet kicked out for bad behavior? She surveyed the room again. Bars on the windows could be new. Tactical comms on the guard means other people nearby. Whoever did this has significant resources. I won’t find answers here. I need to find a way to disarm the guard. The only thing that she thought could be a weapon was the IV stand. It looks pretty flimsy, but it will have to do. I’ll only get one chance.

She thrust the IV stand forward, smashing out the window. A crumbling concrete building was all that was visible. It looked familiar, but Detroit had a surplus of decaying structures. She looked down, counting floors. I’m three stories from the ground.

She swung open the door. “Hello, I see you down there! Can you please come tell me what the fuck is going on here?” She closed the door and waited.

She heard footsteps approaching, crunching over debris. Finally got his attention.

The door swung open. Tessa hit the guard across his face with all the strength she had. It was enough to break his nose. 

“Owww!” He dropped the pistol in his hand, as he reflexively tried to protect his head. Although she had been out of the Army for over a year and was rusty in combatives training, the flood of adrenaline kicked in her muscle memory. She dropped the IV rod and slammed her steel-toed boot into the guard’s knee. As he screamed, she landed a punch in his side and another on his jaw. 

It was enough to send him sprawling on the ground. As he got to his hands and knees, Tessa kicked him in the stomach. He made a loud “oof” and collapsed. Tessa waited a moment. When he didn’t move, she picked up the pistol and unclipped the radio from his belt. She slipped the earpiece in, just in time to hear a woman’s voice say, “Piotr, what is happening up there? Do you need assistance?”

She left the room, shoved the pistol into the waist of her pants and grabbed the M4. It felt good to have a familiar weapon in her hands. She checked the magazine – it was fully loaded – and then took a moment to get her bearings and breath.

During her time in Iraq, she had been in a few firefights while on convoys. She knew the worst thing to do was let fear and excitement override common sense and rational thought. Find a way out, and shoot anyone that tries to stop me.

“I think there might be a problem,” the woman on the radio said. “Oh, damn it.” The radio hissed with static as the channel went dead.

There goes my SIGINT. Tessa saw a vacant window pane in a deserted office and headed over to it, hoping to get a better idea of her surroundings. She could see a row of long, deteriorating buildings, some with catwalks connecting them. I’m in the Packard Plant. Once, it had been viewed as the future of automobile manufacturing, a massive complex of state-of-art assembly lines. Now, it was a rotting corpse of a long-dead car company that played host to drug addicts, urban explorers and discount hookers.

Four black Chevy Tahoes were parked in front of the building she was in. Shit. Who knows how many guards are in here. She gripped the carbine tighter. Make every shot count. Don’t get cornered. You’re only a few blocks away from people who can help.

She stepped away from the window and went back into the hall. She heard the familiar tramp of combat boots to her left, the sound of people running up a staircase. She snapped the carbine up to her shoulder and fired a three-round burst at the first person to reach the top. The shots went wide, chewing up the wall and creating a cloud of concrete and asbestos. The man she shot at returned fire, snapping off two unaimed shots from his pistol. The slugs whizzed past Tessa’s right shoulder.

Tessa heard the woman’s voice echoing down the hall. “Don’t shoot her! We need her alive.”

At least someone doesn’t want me dead. That could help me escape. Best chance of egress is a catwalk. I need to get to the roof. She fired another burst in the direction of her mysterious captors and started to run down the hall.

“Tessa!” the woman yelled. “Stop. I can explain.”

Fuck you. Tessa saw a heavy steel fire door hanging from one bent hinge and ducked into the stairwell. After half a floor, the stairs going down were gone, a few strands of mangled and rusted steel rods and then nothing for 30 feet. The stairs heading up looked sound. She ran up three floors. The stairs ended at another fire door, this one intact. 

Tessa tugged at the pad-lock. Of course it’s locked.

She switched the M4 to single shot, took a few steps back and methodically shot the lock. On the fifth round it popped open. She pushed open the door. By now the sound of pounding boots was echoing up the stairwell.

Tessa could see the skyline of downtown Detroit to her south, the unmistakable cylinders of the Renaissance Center lighting up as the sun was beginning to set. The sky was pale blue and the sun seemed washed out, as cold as the winter air. She began to shake, her adrenaline mixing with shivers from the icy wind blowing off the Detroit river.

The roof was strewn with debris – stacks of rotting wood, rusting pipes and charred remnants of bonfires. She stepped on a scattered pile of frozen snow, black from pollution. Off to her left were a pair of couches, moldy and bursting. Tessa focused on the catwalk that connected her building with its neighbor. She ran toward it. 15 meters, almost there.

“Tessa, please, stop,” said the woman, emerging onto the roof.

Tessa ducked behind one of the couches and raised the M4. The woman was tall with short blonde hair and pale skin. She wore a white linen blazer and slacks and appeared unarmed. The guards were fanning out around here, dressed in black with rifles aimed toward Tessa.

“Stay where you are or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

“It’s okay, Tessa. We aren’t here to hurt you.” The woman turned toward the armed guards. “Lower your weapons.” 

The guards complied with her instructions. She turned back to Tessa. “My name is Ruth.”

Tessa didn’t notice that Ruth’s eyes briefly looked from her tense face toward two guards who had emerged on the adjoining roof. 

“I understand this is confusing. But if you put down the gun, all will be okay.”

Tessa pressed her finger firmly against the trigger. “Is that what you say to all the women you kidnap?”

The men behind Tessa moved carefully and quickly. Both had tasers out and were almost in range. 

Ruth stepped closer to the couch, arms up and open.

Tessa’s grip tightened. “That’s close enough. I want a phone, so I can call the cops. You can explain to them how all this is okay.”

The men behind Tessa raised their tasers.

“I’m really sorry. It was not how I planned for this to go.”

The men fired. A pair of barbed prongs leaped from each taser, trailing thin wires. Both sets easily penetrated Tessa’s shirt and burrowed into her skin. As the paralyzing pain of the electrical charge rushed into her body, she squeezed the M4’s trigger, firing a burst of bullets straight into Ruth’s chest. 

Tessa flopped onto the ground. As the surge of pain faded, she felt the prick of a needle in her neck. 

“Sedative administered, ma’am,” a guard said to Ruth.

Tessa’s vision grew blurry, her consciousness fading as Ruth squatted beside her. 

Ruth examined her shredded white blouse, unstained by blood. “Damn it, I really liked this shirt.” She stroked Tessa’s head, smiling. “See you when you wake up.”