Lore vs. The Summoning Read Online Free PDF

with my shiny flute in hand, cheerfully ready to play my heart out, or I'd be replaced in the Chamber Tea by one of my bloodthirsty rivals. I wasn't about to let a rival take my spot.  
    "Yeah, I can make it," I told him as I bounced down the third flight of stairs toward the courtyard.
    "We'll see you then." He hung up without waiting for me to say something in response.
    My phone went back into my pocket so that I could switch the clip out on my gun with a fresh one. In front of me was a rather ordinary looking wooden door with a brass handle and matching deadbolt. It looked and sounded standard. In reality there was a complex locking system behind it set into a vault-like door. It was as high-tech as my laptop and had probably cost the previous owner far more.
    The door swung open emitting me into an antechamber decorated like a small atrium with a coat closet. Behind me the lock clicked quietly. Without the special code, no one, even me, was getting out of this space. I swiped my hand over the control panel to the exterior door, the one that would let me into the courtyard itself. The interior door, a glued façade of wood on stone, slid a foot and a half to the right for one point five seconds. I had just enough time to get outside before the thing closed on me. Now the only way to get back inside was a call from my phone to the security panel's special number.
    My senses tingled. The breeze floating across the nearby dried branches stilled. A distant siren silenced in mid wail. Apollo's Warning, a gift from my father, had kicked in. I would be sensing what was about to happen to me unless I moved to stop it.
    I whirled around on my heel to find the hairy, bloody figure of a man caught midway through the transformation to wolf. His hands were already deadly claws that were extended toward my neck. And they were frozen in place thanks to my gift. There was just enough time to hop three steps to the left out of the way before the scene resumed its normal flow.
    The werewolf's hands slashed in an "X" shape where my body had been. He gave an outraged howl when he realized he'd missed me. My warning system reengaged as he pounced toward me, this time nearly in his finished wolf form. While time was seemingly frozen I sprinted across the courtyard so I'd have a second to talk to him before he'd close to attack.
    "You're bleeding out too fast for werewolf healing to fix," I rushed to call out as soon as time had resumed its ordinary pace. "You're going to die unless I help you. You can..." I had to pause while another warning gave me a chance to duck his vault for my head across the granite chips. "...attack me, maybe temporarily slowing me, or you can stand down and let me Heal you."
    My reasonable suggestion was blatantly ignored while we played cat and mouse for several minutes. The mailman dripped his life fluid all over the granite chips at an alarming rate. Finally he tripped, landed face first in the rocks and couldn't seem to get up. I took the opportunity to hop on his furry back in hopes that he was too weak to throw me off. He bucked twice. The movement did little more than move me a few inches upward.
    I pushed my hand through the wiry fur on his neck to get closer to his skin. I needed skin-to-skin contact before I could hear the medical reports whispering in my head. I already knew the mailman had been shot six times. And as I suspected he had a few broken, bruised or fractured bones from the fall he'd taken.  
    My palm lit up with a warm golden glow as my Healing energy snaked through his prone body. I focused on the neck wound first then rolled him over so the bullets had room to exit. As a precaution I shoved the barrel of my gun in between his weary brown eyes before I began Healing the rest of him.
    Once I was satisfied that I'd fixed the damage I was personally responsible for I stepped back from him with my gun still aimed at him. He made a soft snuffling noise. That was probably better news than a growl.