Novel - The Supernaturalist Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked like a torch from his shoulder holster, twisting a ring on its base. White sparks flickered at the business end. He fired the device on the move: two blasts of pure electricity erupted from the barrel of his strange weapon. The effect was spectacular. The white bolts sank into the ghostly creatures’ skin, branching into a million tendrils. Each one traced a vein, fusing with the sparks already in there. The creatures shuddered and convulsed, their skin swelling to bursting point. And past it. They both exploded into a dozen perfect spheres of light, which drifted away on the breeze.
    “Wow,” croaked Cosmo, wasting his last gasp of air.
    “A live one!” said the group’s third member, who seemed about six years old. Blond, with a child’s disproportionately large head, he knelt beside Cosmo, checking his heartbeat and shining a light into one pupil. “No dilation and irregular heartbeat. He needs a defibrillator, Stefan. We need to kick-start his heart.”
    Hallucination. It must be an hallucination.
    The tall youth, Stefan, loomed in Cosmo’s fading vision. “What about the other one, Ditto?”
    Ditto placed a hand on Ziplock’s chest. For a second Cosmo thought he saw lifestream playing around his fingers. Then . . .
    “The other one? No. He’s gone. Not a peep.”
    Stefan adjusted his weapon. “Well, I don’t have a defibrillator.”
    Ditto stepped away hurriedly. “You sure? This roof is wet.”
    Stefan pointed the weapon at Cosmo’s chest. “No,” he said, and fired.
    Cosmo felt the charge going in like a sledgehammer through his ribs. Surely it must have broken every bone in his chest. Surely this was the last straw. His body could take no more. He felt his hair straightening, tugging at the pores in his scalp. His jumpsuit caught fire, dropping from his skin in burning clumps. Ditto doused him with the contents of a nearby fire bucket, but Cosmo did not feel the cold. Something else was happening.
    Ba-doom . . .
    His heart. Beating again. And again.
    Ba-doom. Ba-doom.
    “We got him!” crowed Ditto. “This guy’s got the will to live of a hungry dog. But he needs serious medical attention. His head is cracked open like an egg.”
    Stefan sighed, relieved that his gamble had paid off. He holstered the lightning rod. “Okay. The lawyers will find him. I don’t want them to find us too.”
    Cosmo drew his first breath in over a minute. “Please.”
    They couldn’t just leave him here. Not after all this. “Take me.”
    Stefan did not look back. “Sorry. We have enough trouble looking after ourselves.”
    Cosmo knew that Redwood would never allow him to reach the institute alive. “Please.”
    The girl leaned over him. “You know, Stefan? Maybe he could make the sim-coffee or something.”
    Stefan sighed, holding the door open for his team. “Mona, we go through this every night.”
    Mona sighed. “Tough break, kid.”
    Cosmo’s heart beat steadily now, sending blood pulsing to his brain. “If you leave me,” he rasped, “they’ll come back.”
    And suddenly Stefan was half interested. “Who’ll come back?” he said, striding across the roof.
    Cosmo struggled to stay conscious. “The creatures.”
    Ditto clapped his hands. “Did you hear that? The creatures, Stefan. He’s a Spotter. Wrap me if he isn’t.”
    Stefan shrugged. “It could be nothing. Maybe one of us mentioned the creatures. Maybe it was an hallucination.”
    Cosmo coughed up some smoke. “The blue creatures, with electricity in their veins. They were sucking the life out of me.”
    “Pretty accurate hallucination,” noted Mona.
    Stefan nodded at Ditto. “Okay, we take him. He’s a Spotter.”
    The Spanish girl examined the cuffs. “Okay, Stefan. Gimme a minute.”
    “A second, Mona. We can spare a second.”
    Mona picked a clip from her hair, jiggling it expertly in the cuff’s lock. In slightly more than a second, Ziplock’s wrist was free, not that it was any good to him now.
    Stefan hoisted Cosmo