The Second Coming Read Online Free PDF

from his parents’ bodies.
    Perhaps there
was enough.
    Lya studied
the dead Hunter. She bit her lip and kicked the cross. It slid
towards the oil, where it smoldered. Charles shifted, the wound in
his chest sucking air.
    Paine dropped
to the floor beside him. He took the man’s large, gnarled hands.
They had always been gentle.
    “ Father.”
    “ Box…in the bedroom,” he gasped.
    “ See to him,” he said to Lya, and then ran down the hall. His
heart raced, hot and fast.
    Inside his
parents' tiny room, beyond the four-poster bed, were loose
floorboards. He lifted them, and grabbed the black polished box
that held the valuables. He scrambled back to find Lya still
standing over Charles.
    The old man’s
body lay still, his eyes wide open.
    “ What happened?”
    “ He's dead.”
    “ No!” He knelt at Charles’ side. He put his ear to his silent
chest. “Why didn’t you heal him?”
    “ I need a spell and ointment, and he has been too badly hurt.
What did you want me to do?” She turned her back to him.
    Paine clenched
his jaw. Gwen and Charles were dead.
    "We can't stay
here,” he growled. “We’ll be hanged."
    Lya wiped her
face with her sleeve. "We can only go north from here."
    Paine looked
at what he held in his hands. He smashed the box open and found
everything his parents had saved. He dumped the contents on the
floor and peered into the box. A yellowed piece of parchment was
stuck to the bottom.
    He removed it,
unfolding it with care. There was a fine script dancing along the
page, the lettering indecipherable. On the back was written a few
lines he could read. It appeared to be a spell; a spell that
summoned names Paine recognized — all from Sunday sermons. He
dropped the parchment on the floor and wiped his hands on his
trousers.
    Lya snatched
it up. Her lip was bleeding. "What does it say?"
    He shook his
head. "I don't know."
    He gathered the coins and Lya folded the parchment to put it
in her pocket. Paine eyed her and then shrugged.
    She could have
it.
    The oil
ignited and flared to life. The fire inched towards them.
    Paine rose.
“We have to leave.”
    They each ran
to their rooms, and Paine scanned the small space that was his own.
The bed sheets were still piled in the corner, a reminder of his
nights of unrest since Sunday’s sermon. Some junk from the old
world sat on a shelf; plastic bits and shards that were of no
value. He even owned pieces of a relic gun, a device rumored to
kill a man from almost a mile away. But like most things from the
old world, it was thought to be cursed. It was whispered that the
Earth herself had ended the Age of Marvels and most thought it best
to avoid objects of the past. Paine found them fascinating, yet
they would serve no purpose now. Instead he bundled some clothes
and a blanket into a sack and ran out into the hall.
    "Are you
ready?" he shouted. The fire was moving towards the kitchen.
    Lya stepped
from her own room, sack in hand. "Yes."
    "Then, let's
get out of here."
    Lya ran out
and Paine paid his final respects to his parents. He set his
father's tattered bible between his hands, the book from which they
had learned to read, and on Gwen's chest he placed the string of
beads she always carried. He paused to close his father’s eyes.
Despite all of the hardships and the rigid rules, he had still
loved the old man. This was not something he had ever wished upon
his parents, not even Gwen.
    He then ran
after Lya.

    When Paine
reached the barn she was stuffing the grimoire into her pack and
Talon was perched upon one of the watering troughs, screeching. He
herded the two horses in to tack them; Sable for his sister, Shadow
for him. When they were ready, they mounted and looked back to the
house. The fire was reaching out the windows with fingers of orange
flame.
    A voice from
down the road jerked his attention.
    "The girl is a
succubus!"
    Paine glimpsed
a shadow of a figure, a cloaked being on the edge of the woods. The
hood was pulled back. It was