The Necromancer by Michael Scott Read Free Book Online

glittering with speckles. The faintest impression of a golden glove surrounded his hand. As he watched, a studded metal gauntlet formed around his flesh, the fingers tipped with pointed golden nails. Josh made a fist again. The glove closed with the sound of metal rasping on metal.
    “Josh Newman!”
    Aunt Agnes’s voice on the other side of the door made him jump. He’d been concentrating so hard on creating the glove that he hadn’t heard her come up the stairs. His aura dissipated, the glove drifting away in curls of golden smoke.
    Agnes pounded on the door. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
    Josh sighed. “No,” he said truthfully.
    “Well, I’ve made some tea. Come down now before it gets cold.” She paused and added, “I made some fresh muffins this morning also.”
    “Great.” Josh felt his stomach rumble; Aunt Agnes made the best muffins. “I’m just getting changed. I’ll be right down.” He waited until he heard his aunt shuffle away, her flat-soled shoes rubbing the carpet. Then he looked at his hand again and smiled broadly at a sudden thought. If he was able to mold his aura without training, then that meant he had to be more powerful than his sister.
    Settling his backpack over both shoulders, he inched open the door and listened with his enhanced senses. He could actually hear his aunt pouring tea from the pot into a cup, could smell the tannin of fresh black tea and the richer odor of warm pastry. His stomach rumbled again and he felt his mouth fill with saliva: he could almost taste the buttery cake. He wondered if he could stop for just one … but that would mean sitting down with Aunt Agnes, and she’d want to know all the details of the past few days. He’d be there for an hour—and he couldn’t afford to waste the time.
    He padded silently down the stairs, cracked open the front door and slipped out into the cool San Francisco morning. “Sorry, Aunty,” he muttered, pulling the door silently closed behind him. She was going to be furious when she discovered he’d left. She’d probably call his parents, and he had no idea what explanation he was going to give them.
    What he did know was that he was not returning to the house in Pacific Heights without his sister.

Secrets of the Immortal 4 - The Necromancer

CHAPTER EIGHT
    A
    
    
gnes heard the hall door close and padded out of the kitchen. She blinked at the door and then tilted her head to one side, listening. “Josh?” she called.
    The house was silent.
    “Josh?” she called again, her voice cracking with the effort. “Where is that boy?” she muttered. “Josh Newman, you come down here right this minute!” she shouted.
    There was no response.
    Shaking her head, the old woman prepared to climb the stairs again when something crunched under her slippers. She bent painfully to lift it off the carpet. It was a chunk of dried and hardened mud. Agnes squinted at the stairs. They’d been spotless when she’d walked down them only a few moments earlier, but now, all the way up to the second floor, they were covered in fragments of mud. Someone had followed her down, wearing old muddy boots. Turning her head sharply, she spotted the telltale traces of mud on the floor leading straight to the door.
    “Josh Newman,” she whispered, very softly, “what have you done?”
    Moving as quickly as her arthritic hips would allow, she hurried upstairs and pushed open the door to Josh’s room without knocking. She immediately spotted the dirty clothes tossed in the basket and the filthy sneakers shoved under the bed. She opened the wardrobe and found the space where the walking boots had been.
    Standing in the center of the room, she turned slowly, conscious that there was something odd in the atmosphere. Her senses were no longer as sharp as they had once been; age had robbed her sight and hearing of their acuity … but her sense of smell remained strong. The still, dry air of the room was touched with the sweet odor of