The Neon Graveyard Read Online Free PDF

outstretched, barbed fingers still splayed, his muscles tensed as he gradually forced Neal to arch back, exposing belly and arteries and neck. The death he’d manifested would be fast, but he was going to make sure it wasn’t painless.
    Somehow—despite the horror in the act, the terror at seeing those dust devils barreling our way, and the fear that hadn’t yet settled from my own frenzied flight through the desert—I managed to lift my gun, steady my sights on the chest of my ally gray, and fire four clean shots into his core.
    Neal jolted with each—it was fast, but it was still a death—and someone cried out behind me. And I couldn’t stop shooting. Knowing better than to aim at the Tulpa—any weapon only made him stronger—I fired at the beasts. Heads and limbs blew up, dust clouds exploding into the sky before settling harmlessly back to earth. A firm hand landed on my forearm, causing a hiccup in my shot. “You’re wasting ammo.”
    I swallowed hard, but relaxed at Carlos’s touch, though a shudder went through me when I found Neal, prone on the desert floor as if the Tulpa had flicked him away. But the sand coyotes hadn’t gotten one bite.
    A slow, staccato clap shattered the shocked air. I glared at the Tulpa, and felt the anger I’d inherited from him start to burn. Were I my old self, my supernatural self, my eyes would be as black as his now were.
    “Impressive,” he said, still clapping. “And so gratifying to see that the rumors are true. You can still touch the magical weapons.”
    “You already knew that,” I said tightly.
    “We were told.” He shrugged and tucked his gloved hand behind his back. “But you know those agents of Light. Can’t trust a thing they say.”
    “You lie.” The Light wouldn’t have told him that. Not even my former leader, Warren, the man who’d discovered me, lied to me, discarded me . . . now hunted me.
    “You should be thanking me, daughter. I’ve taken up your grievances with your former allies. I’m bringing to account those betrayers of your trust and heart.” He winked, which pulled his sooty skin in odd directions, and added, “Daddy has your back, baby.”
    A vision of Lindy’s earlier smile flashed in my head, along with the taunt that’d hung in the air like grave marker. Those who hang around Joanna Archer tend to get left hanging. Forget Neal’s quick death. Disembowelment would be getting off easy for any agent of Light who fell into the Tulpa’s hands.
    “Speaking of the Light, conveniently, leads me to the real reason I’m here.” He glanced back at Neal. “Though that was fun.”
    “I will save you the trouble of asking,” Carlos said coolly, sunlight catching the deep flecks in his eyes like minerals mined from the earth. “We will never align with you against this valley’s Light.”
    “Oh.” The Tulpa feigned disappointment. “How will I ever get on?”
    Carlos’s jaw clenched. “Then what?”
    The Tulpa’s mouth thinned into a sharp line. “I want you out of my city. All of you. I will soon wipe the Light from this valley, that’s inevitable, so my advice to you is to run, and far. Especially you, my poor outcast, erstwhile daughter.”
    I risked a glance at Carlos, who’d fled his native Mexico in exactly those circumstances. Mortals had long attributed that country’s rising problems to drugs and the overlords that profited from them, but the real issue lay in the Shadow troop’s steadfast control of Mexico City. When an entire troop of Light was annihilated, another could never assemble . . . at least not formally. If the Tulpa could do the same in Las Vegas, the entire southwestern United States was in for some major paranormal turbulence.
    “You can be killed too, you know,” Carlos said lowly.
    The Tulpa laughed. “An unsubstantiated claim.”
    “You’ve been injured,” I reminded him, darting a glance at the gloved hand he’d allowed to fall to his side.
    This time he growled. “Not by the