Damian's Oracle Read Online Free PDF Page A

carpeted hall,
stopping when she realized her hallway didn’t have carpet.
    Her vision was too blurry for her to see much
beyond hazy shapes and colors. The carpet was a deep maroon, soft
and cushy, the walls around her brown. She squinted through her
fingers and braced herself against one wall to counter the affects
the drugs had on her equilibrium as she moved down the long
hallway.
    “Jake?”
    Suddenly, her bracing arm hit air. She tried
to balance herself only to find herself toppling over and over and
over down a stairwell.
    She landed hard on a cold floor. Pain roared
through her, and she sought both to shield her eyes from a crystal
chandelier blinding her and grab her burning leg. She wore only a
long shirt to her knees that twisted to her stomach with her
fall.
    “Oh, God!” she grated, pushing herself into a
sit.
    Her blood was a slash of stark red against a
white marble floor. The pain in her leg cleared the haze of her
mind, and she realized whatever was happening wasn’t a dream. Panic
piqued as she looked around her. There was nothing familiar about
her surroundings - nothing!! Down one hallway, she heard the
ring of a phone.
    Phone, police, help. Her first step was
disastrous. She careened into a table and heard glass crashing as
the table corner tore a stripe down her forearm. Her eyes hurt too
much to make sense of the world around her.
    Voices prevented her from losing herself to
her pain. They came from the same direction as the phone. Whoever
had brought her here was coming for her.
    Dr. Czerno. The monster in the corner.
    Fear flew through her. She turned, slammed
into something twice her size, and fell backwards. Her hand fell
away from her eyes to reveal a furry, fanged monster from a
nightmare framed against the light.
    Sofia screamed. It swiped at her, and she
backpedaled, hopping to her feet. Disoriented and mostly blind, she
ran into a wall, shoved herself off and smashed into another
monster. With another scream, she bolted and careened into a door
that gave.
    The room was dark aside from curtains opened
to allow the moon to shine through. She staggered up, cursing the
drugs and Jake for her inability to balance, and slammed into
several pieces of furniture as the monsters chased her. The lights
went on. Blinded, she tripped over a stool and hauled herself into
a corner, chest heaving and body slick with sweat and blood.
    “What happened?” a muffled voice asked.
    She hugged her knees to her chest and peered
through her fingers. One of the monsters pulled off its head to
reveal a man. She squinted, realizing the two furry brown monsters
were men in costumes from Where the Wild Things Are . Several
more men entered the library, all staring at her in nothing short
of total surprise. Either they were all huge enough to come
straight out of an action movie, or her drugs had not yet worn
off.
    “Gods, are you all right?” one asked finally,
moving towards her.
    “No!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me, don’t
touch me, don’t touch me !”
    The last thing she needed was more of the
gruesome visions!
    “Sofi?”
    While surprised to see him there, it struck
her how well Jake fit in with the other men. He was built from the
same mold – large and muscular, the kind of man more fitted to
military special forces or UFC prize fighting than financial
planning.
    The man approaching her had nearly reached
her, and she huddled into a tighter ball.
    “Han, don’t!” Jake called. “Leave her
be.”
    “She’s bleeding to death!”
    “Trust me. She’ll go ape shit.”
    Sofia wanted to pound Jake’s face in. Her
heart raced to the point of pain, and she felt sick enough to
puke.
    “Go get D,” the man called Han said.
    He squatted near her.
    “You ok?”
    Sofia’s gaze cleared, and she focused on her
surroundings. Her first impression was confirmed – the men in the
room were UFC material, all well over six feet and solid. They were
all dressed for a white tie party in expensive