Lightbringer Read Online Free PDF

dragging it kicking and shrieking forward. It fought, kicking and lashing with the sharpened finger bones, but the Lightbringer only shuddered under the onslaught, barely budging.
    A smoky stench, sickly sweet and cloying, drifted downwind as the creature lifted the Walkers up, each impaled on the end of the long and thick tentacles. The scent was like leaves burning; the screams painfully shrill.
    Then the first Walker started to flake apart before their eyes, cinders of its essence peeling from the core and floating in the light before burning crisply away. The second Walker doubled its shrieking but the tentacles never wavered, the screaming never stopped.
    “No. No-no-no—” Lily gasped and, turning her face daintily aside, retched on Piotr's shoes. In the distance, after long moments, the shrieks finally wound down and the rich, thick smell of burning began to fade away.
    Slowly the creature turned towards them and Piotr could feel a sinuous urge seep into him—he wanted to get closer to the light.
    “I think,” Lily said, wiping her hand across her mouth, “that perhaps that may not be Awonawilona after all.”
    “The Lightbringer,” Piotr whispered, using all the willpower he had to take one stumbling backward step and then another. Turning his back on the creature, he closed his eyes to the light and concentrated on putting one foot before the other until they reached the highway and the urge to leap into the light miraculously subsided.
    There, worn and weary, he sank to the earth, and it was Lily's turn to watch over him.

H alf-sliding through her bedroom window, Wendy winced as the edge of her stocking caught on a splinter and ripped. Her book bag thumped to the floor and she froze, listening carefully for sounds from her father's room.
    Blessed silence.
    Shimmying the rest of the way inside, Wendy chucked her bag onto her bed and paused by the mirror to take stock of her appearance before her dad saw her. The rain had washed away most of her makeup, leaving her with raccoon-eyes and lipstick faded to a dull, smudged lilac. The temporary dye was almost gone; once again her hair shone coppery red at the roots and black at the tips, straggling over her shoulders in sodden hanks. Specks of mud dotted her cheeks and neck.
    Tonight's search had been hard, even her nail polish was chipped, and she'd lost one of her sneakers hoisting herself over the treatment plant's back fence. The laces had caught on a snarl of wire and she'd pulled herself to the other side before realizing it'd slipped off her foot.
    “Guess I'm gonna have to spring for boots after all,” Wendy sighed, toeing off the lonely sneaker and tossing it in the trash. Downstairs the grandfather clock chimed twice.
    Crap. It was late and she still had homework to do!
    Stripping quickly, Wendy wrapped herself in her rattiest robe and tiptoed past her dad's door to the bathroom. Ten minutes in the shower and a quick visit to the kitchen later, Wendy settled down at her desk to tackle Algebra II. The problems were easy but she was having trouble concentrating. Patrol always left her edgy and after what she'd seen tonight, she had every right to be. Jabberwocky, the ghost of her mother's favorite Persian, was curled on the windowsill, eyes slitted closed and purring up a storm. Jabber had gotten a lot friendlier after he'd died. Before, no one but her mother could pet him, but now he spent nearly all his time in Wendy's room or just beneath her window, lounging in the tree.
    Though the steady rumble of Jabber's purr was soothing, Wendy still couldn't focus. Setting aside her half-done work, she loosely grasped her pencil and stared out at the moon, mindlessly doodling on the back of her notebook. At first the lines were aimless, loops and swirls and hearts and stars, but then she drew a thickly lashed eye and followed with the curve of a slightly aquiline nose. Thick lips, sensitive at the corners, offset by high cheekbones, giving the face—his