Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage Read Online Free PDF Page B

He would accept it as an extemporaneous warm-up act and proceed to the main event.
    Again, he focused on the alternating flow of traffic, the give and take of racing and braking vehicles on Route 38 and Kressen Boulevard. Those on time wanted to arrive early; those running late needed to make up time. Either way, the commute became a daily ritual of gamesmanship, fueled by equal parts anger, resentment, distraction and carelessness. A perfect storm … with a little help.
    Facing the intersection at a forty-five degree angle, he stood with both hands clasped over the iron handle of his cane and focused his attention on the flow of traffic, in one direction after another. With each passing second, his awareness spread farther from the intersection along each traffic artery. He filtered out the cars, SUVs and trucks as they exited the intersection, removing them from the organic equation of coincidence forming in his head. And yet that was insufficient for what he planned. He needed to see more.
    The bowler hat rose slightly on his brow as he stretched his deeply creased forehead, revealing a rounded lump in the center, and the closed lid of a third eye. Finally, the dark eyelid fluttered open, exposing a milky white orb with several odd pupils—or at least what passed for pupils. The black oblong shapes drifted randomly across the nacreous surface of the eye, sometimes submerging and reappearing in a different location before sliding along the surface again. Humans who observed Tora’s third eye for more than a few seconds often became violently ill. Few lived long enough to tell the tale.
    With his third eye exposed and active, he could complete his assessment. Now he saw farther than was possible with his other eyes. He saw the interconnectedness of every action and reaction, like a vast clockwork mechanism. One by one, the necessary gears resolved before the examination of the eye—
    A man distracted by an angry cell phone conversation.
    The woman driving beside him texting her husband.
    A middle-aged man shaving in the car behind her.
    A harried mother yelling at two children fighting in the back seat.
    While nearby, a man adds artificial sweetener to an uncapped cup of hot coffee propped on his dashboard.
    A driver of a battered pickup with a missing gate, the truck bed loaded with loosely tied propane tanks.
    The teenage boy in a nearby car repeatedly changing radio stations, seeking the perfect song.
    And racing along Route 38, approaching the intersection, a long-haul tractor-trailer driver who has spent too many consecutive hours behind the wheel.
    As if cuing an orchestra to begin playing, Tora tapped the tip of his cane against the traffic light pole. Instantly, the red light facing Route 38 flickered from red to green.
    With his traffic light green, the exhausted truck driver never touched his brake pedal, failing to notice traffic along Kressen Boulevard continued to flow, and well above the posted speed limit.
    Closing his nacreous third eye with its drifting and submerging pupils, Tora relaxed the creases in his forehead, adjusted the bowler, and smiled.
    First, the semi smashed into the angry cell phone talker’s car with a sound like an explosion, spinning the car almost three hundred and sixty degrees and blocking two lanes of traffic. Then, one after another, the distracted drivers reacted too late and slammed into the car in front of them a millisecond before getting rammed from behind.
    Realizing he lacked sufficient braking distance to avoid the growing pile-up dead ahead, the teenager fiddling withhis radio presets swerved violently to the right. A front tire blew out and his car rolled over three times before reaching the far shoulder. In the process, his fuel line tore amid a shower of sparks. Flames raced across the highway in all directions, followed by the thunderous explosion of the battered sports car.
    At the same time, the foam coffee cup on the dashboard of the sweet-toothed caffeine addict