Bloodfever Read Online Free PDF

happening.
    But how?
    Light was my only weapon against the Shades. Though I suspected Barrons might get positively hostile if I set his store on fire, I had matches, and it would certainly drive them out. However, I didn’t want to be inside the building when it went up in flames, and since I could hardly jump from the fourth floor, and there was no fire escape or convenient stash of bed linens to knot into a rope, I filed that option away in the category “Last Resort.” Unfortunately I could see only one other resort, and it wasn’t a sunny spot in the Bahamas. I stared dismally at the door.
    I was going to have to run the gauntlet.
    How had the Shades gotten inside to begin with? Was the power out in part of the store and they’d slithered in through a crack? Could they do that? Or had the lights somehow gotten turned off? If so, I could creep from switch to switch, armed with flashlights, and turn them back on.
    I don’t know if you’re familiar with the child’s game Don’t Touch the Alligator, but Alina and I used to play it when Mom was too busy with something else to notice that we were hopping from the Sunday parlor sofa, to her favorite lace-covered pillows, to that awful chair Gram brocaded to match the curtains, and so on. The idea is that the floor is full of alligators and if you step on one of them, you’re dead. You have to get from one room to the next, without ever touching the floor.
    I needed to get from the top floor of the bookstore to the bottom without ever touching the dark, and I wasn’t sure how completely I couldn’t touch it. Barrons says they can only get you in full darkness, but did that mean a Shade could eat me, or part of me, if for one second, a single foot, or something so small as a toe protruded into shadow? The stakes in this game were significantly higher than a carpet-burned knee, or a scolding from Mom if I slipped up. I’d seen the piles of clothing and human rinds the Shades left behind after a meal.
    Shivering, I pulled on my boots, zipped a jacket over my pajama top, and tucked two of my six flashlights into the waistband of my jeans, front and back, pointed up. I tucked two more into the snug elastic waistband of my jacket, pointed down to shine on my vulnerable toes. Those were iffy. If I moved too quickly they’d fall out, but I only had so many hands. I carried the other two. I slipped a pack of matches into my pocket and tucked the spear into my boot. I’d have no use for it against this particular enemy, but there might be others. It was possible the Shades were merely the vanguard, and there was worse to come.
    I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and opened the door. When the overhead light arced into the hallway, the Shades repeated their oily retreat.
    Shades come in all different shapes and sizes. Some are small and thin, others tall and wide. They have no real substance. They’re hard to pick out from the darkness, but once you know what to look for you can spot them, if you’re a
sidhe
-seer. They’re areas that are darker and denser, and ooze malevolence. They move around a lot, as if they’re hungry and restless. They make no noise. Barrons says they’re barely sentient, but once I shook my fist at one of them and it bristled back at me. That’s sentient enough to worry me. They eat anything that lives: people, animals, birds, right down to the worms in the soil. When they take over a neighborhood, they turn it into a wasteland. I’d christened those barren landscapes Dark Zones.
    â€œI can do this. Piece of cake.” Embracing the lie, I aimed my flashlights and stepped into the hall.
    Â 
    It
was
a piece of cake. Turned out the power wasn’t off; the switches had been thrown. Initially, I worked my way cautiously from wall switch to lamp, but when I realized the Shades were consistently staying beyond the reach of direct light, I gained confidence. Even in a