New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet Read Online Free PDF Page A

a cold grasping force that gripped his insides, his mind, his soul. Icy talons ripped at him from within.
    You will be ours, John Clarke.
    The fight was brutal, the more so because it wasn’t physical. The entity trying to destroy his will had picked its time well, striking when John was at his lowest ebb. Incredulity gave way to fear. Fear became terror. He was helpless in the face of the entity, helpless like a child. John felt himself letting go, surrendering to the black pressure besetting him. Giving up would be so easy. It would mean an end to the terror. He could let it be over, and go gently into oblivion. It would be easy, so easy…
    In the end, her eyes had dragged him back from the abyss. Her blue eyes, looking at him as they said their goodbyes in Paris before he went off on the last campaign of the war, the answer to his hesitant question ringing in his ears like sweet music. To surrender to the darkness was to renounce that mutual promise.
    Linda Lamar saved John’s life that day.
    Resistance became rage, became a searing light that thrust back the force trying to overcome him, shredding its essence. An inhuman shriek of rage and agony hammered at the insides of his skull for one unbearable moment before fading away.
    Ours , it said again as it vanished without a trace, taking even the memories of the battle with it.
    John shook his head, his eyes blinking furiously. How long had he been standing there? He noticed a group of children in uniform, their helmets looking comically oversized on their heads. The child soldiers had emerged from a nearby trench and were deploying an anti-tank launcher across the remains of the plaza. Hitler Youths, too young to understand there was nothing left to do, nothing worth dying for. He let them fire their Panzerfaust at him, let them run away in terror when the smoke dissipated and they saw him stand unscathed after the explosion.
    He utterly forgot the shadow entity’s attack. For seven decades, he forgot.
     
    Lake of the Woods, Ontario, March 15, 2013
    John woke up with a start. Habits as deeply ingrained as his childhood’s toilet training kept his strength down to human levels, so his sudden trashing did not smash the couch he was lying on – or the house he was in. The sudden movement made everyone in the spacious living room start in surprise. John gasped for breath, his eyes wild, looking for all the world like a terrified child.
    He remembered everything, and it scared him like nothing ever had.
    “It’s okay,” Christine said, standing over him. The blue eyes, so much like Linda’s, looked at him with concern. “Just a dream, John. It was just a dream.”
    “More than that,” he muttered, embarrassed and mortified beyond words. He’d unmanned himself in front of everyone. Showing weakness in front of Christine alone wouldn’t have been so bad, but debasing himself for his current audience of vigilantes left him seething with self-loathing and rage.
    Christine’s expression changed in synch with his emotions. “Take it easy, okay?” she said. She might be afraid, but her voice remained calm and steady. “We’re all on the same side here.”
    John forced himself to calm down. He sat up, trying to clear his head. Echoes of the agony he’d felt when the hairy giant had torn him apart were fading away, but he now realized he’d been poisoned with the same energy that had been used against him in Berlin. The same energy had infected the tainted cochlear implants the Lurker had removed from his head that very night. It had taken the near-lethal attack to bring back those suppressed memories, and John now knew he was facing a force that had been at work at least as far back as World War Two – and that it was a force that could overcome him more easily than anything else he’d ever faced. He saw Christine’s eyes widen at his sudden spike of fear, and forced himself to clamp down on his emotions, for both their sakes.
    In the comic books, the writers,