Poltergeeks Read Online Free PDF Page A

rage. You opened a huge can of worms when you got that spirit out of Mrs Gilbert's house. This was no isolated incident."
      I clutched my amulet tightly in case whatever attacked us felt like taking another swipe at the shed. "It said it knows either your name or mine. How is that possible? We're just a couple of low-profile witches. All I did was help out a little old lady."
      "That's what worries me," my mother said. "Whoever it is can attack either of us without any warning at all. Dammit, how is this possible? I took every precaution!"
      "I gotta get some body armour or something," Marcus groaned as he got back to his feet. "Two attacks in less than an hour, this is nuts."
      I bit my lip and glanced at the circle. "It's a set-up, there's no other explanation. This was aimed at us from the very start."
      Mom got up and padded over to the doorway. "Odd that my sentinels didn't prevent the door from flying off its hinges," she muttered as she brushed her fingers across the engravings. "I can still feel a faint trace of someone's magical signature, it's strangely familiar somehow."
      I cocked a wary eyebrow and looked hard at her for a moment. "Strangely familiar in what way?"
      She deliberately avoided my gaze and said, "Oh, it's nothing. Just some residual magic that I can't quite put my finger on."
      "Maybe the door was the counter-spell," said Marcus as he grabbed a broom and began sweeping up the wood splinters.
      I spun around and stared at him. "What do you mean?"
      "Just maybe it's possible whoever dragged that spirit into the world of the living had enough skill to turn the power of those protective spells against you. Sort of like a shaped explosive charge but with magic, you know?"
      "You could be right, Marcus," said Mom. "Look at the hinges, they're bent downward, like something was pushing against them."
      I ran my hand over one of the hinges and chewed my lip for a moment. Protective sentinels are designed to direct their magical energy away from a building, not into it. They're also designed to function when someone tries to breach a magical threshold; in the case of the door, someone would have to turn the doorknob for the magic to kick in. I did a quick scan of the yard and noticed that nothing looked out of place, so I held out my right hand and shut my eyes, hoping to detect the smallest ripple of foreign magical energy, but everything felt as it should. It was clear that whoever or whatever was behind the smashed door and the assault on my mother wanted that spirit badly and meant to do harm to anyone who got in its way.
      "I don't know whose voice that was and I can't detect any malicious energy," I said firmly. This was something personal, Mom, what we need to do is figure out why."
      She folded her arms across her chest and looked around the shed at what was left of the door. " We don't have to do anything, kiddo, because you have exams to study for. As for me, I'm going to be out a couple of hundred bucks to get a new door and that means we can't go shopping next weekend like we planned. Sorry, sweetheart, but Home Depot beckons."
      Well that sucked.
      Not only did someone use magic to attack us, now they were preventing me from hitting up the outlet mall for a new bag.
      Heads were going to roll.

 
 

Chapter 5
     
 
 
    Someone attacked a little old lady, my best friend and my home in less than an hour – someone with an intimate knowledge of magic and enough power that they could rip the soul of a deceased human being from the hereafter and bind that soul to their will. They knew either my mother's name or mine, and I had no idea who they were or what their motive might be.
      Conspiracies suck monkey butt.
      Mom had been gone for less than fifteen minutes when a thought occurred to me as to how we might learn the source of the poltergeist from Mrs Gilbert's.
      "What's the next move?" Marcus asked, as he began collecting broken timber