Magic Steals Read Online Free PDF Page B

you going? Don’t run. We’re just starting.
    I crossed the grass, walked through the open gate, and kept going into the forest, Jim right behind me. The magic streamed away from me. I chased it down a path between the massive oaks. The same scent I had smelled on the coarse hair in my kitchen filled my nostrils: dry, acrid, bitter scent. Almost there.
    The path ducked under the canopy of braided tree limbs bound together by kudzu. I followed it, moving fast through the natural tunnel of leaves and branches. The green tunnel opened into a clearing. A massive tree must’ve fallen here and taken a neighbor or two with it. Three giant trunks lay on the grass. The surrounding trees and kudzu laid claim to the light, greedy for every stray photon, and the leaves filled the space high above us, turning the sunlight watery and green. The air smelled wrong, tainted with decay. It was like being in the bottom of a really deep, scum-infested well.
    Eyang Ida sat on the trunk. Her skin had a sickly grey tint, her eyes glassy and opened wide. She stared right at me, but Ididn’t think she could see me. The magic swirled around her, so thick, it was almost opaque black.
    I stopped. Jim paused behind me.
    â€œIs that her?”
    â€œIt’s her.” I raised my hand to stop him if he tried to go to her, but he didn’t move. He really did trust me. I had asked him to stay close and he followed my lead.
    Ferns rustled to the left of me and a creature stepped into my view. About ten inches tall, it looked like a tiny human, with dark brown skin, two legs and two arms. Long, coarse hair fell from its head all the way past its toes, dragging a couple of inches on the ground like a dark mantle. It stared at me with two amber eyes, each with a slit, dark pupil like the eyes of a blue temple viper, then it opened the wide slit of its mouth, showing two white fangs, and hissed.
    â€œWhat is that?” Jim asked.
    â€œA jenglot,” I said. Just like I thought. This was one of the traditional Indonesian horrors. Except that judging by the amount of magic in that house, there had to be more of them. A lot more. “It’s vampiric.”
    Another jenglot crawled out onto the trunk. A third pair of eyes ignited in the hollow of a tree.
    â€œIt and its family stole Eyang Ida out of her house,” I said. “They will feed on her blood’s essence and when there is no more essence left, she’ll become one of them.”
    The woods came alive with dozens of eyes. Big tribe, at least fifty creatures. I had expected fifteen, maybe twenty. But fifty? Fifty was bad.
    â€œAre they hard to kill?”
    â€œYes. They are hardy. Setting them on fire helps.”
    â€œThere are a lot of them,” Jim said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou might need some help . . .” Jim’s voice was very calm. He weighed our odds. The numbers weren’t in our favor.
    With a soft whisper, a creature slithered onto Eyang Ida’s lap. If it had legs, this jenglot would stand at least a foot tall, with hair twice as long, but it had no legs. Instead it had a snake’s tail, long and brown, like the body of a spitting cobra. The royal jenglot.
    The jenglots rustled through the greenery, circling us. They would swarm us in a moment.
    Normally when I changed shape, for a minute or two, I had no idea where I was or why I was there, but in this case, with Jim next to me, I had to take a chance.
    I took off my glasses and handed them to Jim. “Here, hold this for a second.”
    He raised his eyebrows and took my glasses.
    I let go. The world swirled into a thousand blurry lights in every color of the rainbow. Ooh, so pretty. Pretty little color bubbles.
    A familiar scent swirled around me, captivating. Ooh, Jim. Jim. He was here, with me! Jim . . .
    What is that smell?
    Ugh. Nasty, disgusting scent. Unclean. Ew.
    A jenglot! There was a jenglot coiling on Eyang Ida’s lap. Gross. Wait,