Grave Phantoms Read Online Free PDF

the boat’s swaying finally calmed. “I don’t have all night. Let’s get to the engine room.”
    â€œWhat’s this?” Astrid bent to pick up something that had rolled across the floor.
    Bo flicked the flashlight’s beam near her feet. Brightblue stone glinted as her fingers reached for it—something about the size of his hand. Turquoise, maybe. When she picked it up, a brief flash of white light ringed her hand like a wreath of electric smoke.
    She went rigid, convulsed, and collapsed to the floor.
    â€œAstrid!” Bo cried out as he dropped to her side.
    The flash of light was gone, but she wouldn’t open her eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. He bent low and listened over Astrid’s open mouth.
    Breath
, thank God. And his shaking fingers felt a pulse at her neck.
    â€œChrist!” Barlow shouted. “What’s the matter with her? She having a seizure or something?”
    â€œAstrid, wake up,” Bo said into her face, afraid to shake her. Afraid
not
to.
    Her fingers still clutched the turquoise object. He pried them open and tried not to touch the thing, but it was unavoidable. The stone was hot, but no light flashed when he touched it—a carved figure, from what he could make out in the dark. Some kind of miniature idol. He pulled out a handkerchief and quickly rolled the figure into the linen before stashing it in his jacket pocket.
    What the hell was that thing, and what had it done to her? She was unmoving. Completely unresponsive. She felt limp and fragile in his arms as he scooped her off the floor. Barlow’s annoying voice buzzed around Bo’s head, suggesting they not touch her because she might be suffering from whatever ill magic had cursed the blue-faced survivors.
    And she might be, but Bo would be damned before he sat by and let it kill her.
    â€œHold on,” he mumbled repeatedly as he carried her out of the yacht’s salon, doing his best to shield her drooping body from the sting of rain.
    â€œThat girl needs to go to a hospital,” the officer yelled over the howling wind, dogging Bo’s heels. “I can’t help you. I’m not allowed to leave my post.”
    Bastard. Bo would remember that later, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He made it to his car and heard Astrid moan as he set her down in the front seat. She still didn’t open her eyes.
    â€œYou’re going to be fine,” he told her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
    He just wasn’t sure if he believed it.

THREE

    Astrid woke in fits and starts, occasionally seeing snatches of the dark city whizzing by a rain-splattered car window. Though she’d only been inside this car a couple of times before she left for college, she knew she was riding in Bo’s new forest green Buick Brougham, because it smelled like dyed mohair velvet upholstery and the lemon drops he stashed in the glove box. She did her best to concentrate on those familiar scents, but the bubbling memory of her dream kept pulling her back under.
    Not a dream. It was too strange, too bright and surreal. And she’d been far too conscious when it was happening, as if the turquoise idol had opened a door when she’d touched it, and she’d lifted outside her body and stepped into another time.
    When she finally kicked away the thick haze that held her under, she was lying in a hospital bed on top of drum-tight sheets, and a nurse in a crisp white pinafore apron and pointed hat was taking blood from her arm. “There she is,” the nurse said with a kind smile. “How are you feeling?”
    â€œA little weak,” she admitted.
    â€œI’m Nurse Dupree,” she said, removing the syringe and tourniquet from her arm. “Do you know who you are?”
    â€œSomeone who stupidly drank too much . . . uh, grape juice.” The woman seemed nice, but she might be a teetotaler. Best to play it