Blood and Stone Read Online Free PDF Page A

scalp. The tingling was replaced by a feeling of warmth, like the sun on his skin. Phillips closed his eyes.
    The warm feeling finally faded and Phillips opened his eyes again. His vision was sharper, clearer than it had been in years. He looked down at his hands—the wrinkles and age spots were gone. His skin looked fresh and young.
    Phillips put his hands down on either side of him and looked into the clear water of the Fountain. He wiggled his toes. It was fantastic.
    Chadwick slowly pulled his legs from the water and stood. He turned around to face Kenslir and the others. The water from the Fountain had soaked his pajamas and they clung to him now, dripping onto the floor.
    “Why am I so skinny?” Chadwick asked, trying to suppress a grin. He couldn’t ever remember feeling this good. This alive.
    “We’ll pump you up tonight,” Kenslir said. Then he held a hand up, in front of his chest, fingers splayed wide. “Hit me.”
    Chadwick raised his right hand slowly, flexing his fingers. No trace of the arthritis that had plagued him for years remained.
    Josie and Jimmy exchanged amazed glances. For all they’d seen the Fountain of Youth do, they hadn’t seen anything as miraculous as this. The decrepit, frail-looking, wrinkled old man from the wheelchair, who looked as though he might die at any minute was gone. Now he was a thin man, slightly shorter than average, with brown-blond hair, and vibrant blue eyes. He was handsome, with a boyish charm.
    Phillips suddenly snapped his arm out, as though pushing at the air. Blue-white streaks of electricity flashed from his fingertips, twisting and spiraling around each other as they leapt across the room and burned into Mark Kenslir’s stomach.
    The pulse of miniature lightning lasted only a half second, but left behind the smell of ozone and a black, smoking hole in Kenslir’s shirt. Through the hole, the Colonel’s skin had turned gray, then quickly resumed flesh color.
    Kenslir frowned, looking down at the hole in his shirt, then back up at Phillips. “You were supposed to hit my hand.”
    “Sorry,” Phillips said, grinning. “I’m a little out of practice.”
    ***
     
    “Everything is okay,” Ted Proctor said into his radio. He was gripping it tightly in one hand, his eyes staring vacantly into the distance. Blood dripped from his nose, onto his lips. But it wasn’t his blood.
    All around Ted, bodies were torn and ripped apart. The bodies of the inmates of Alcatraz, dead in the exercise yard, their hearts removed. The blood on Ted’s face had come from one inmate, killed in front of him and sprayed on Ted like mist from a breaking wave.
    Ted didn’t mind the blood. He didn’t mind anything. He was mesmerized, locked into an almost hypnotic trance. Every time there was a call on his radio, Ted simply gave the same answer. “Everything is okay.”
    Inside the prison, Tezcahtlip still wore the form of the guard from the dock, Brad. His magically conjured uniform was soaked in blood. It dripped from his sleeves, absorbed from the dozens and dozens of hearts he had torn from inmate chests and consumed. Several guards inside the facility had noticed this. When they questioned him, Tezcahtlip had simply turned them to stone. He didn’t want their hearts—they were just mortals, nothing special.
    The special people on Alcatraz were all prisoners. Most of them had been in the exercise yard. A collection of magic users and mild psionics. Few of them possessed real power. Even without the drugs to suppress their abilities, most lacked the ability to draw in enough energy to do much with their powers. Spoon benders and prognosticators for the most part.
    Tezcahtlip could draw in power. From living hearts. This gave him an energy reserve far greater than the inmates. He could do things with their powers they never dreamed of. But the lifeforce of the average parahumans wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
    After consuming the prisoners that were allowed outside,