Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) Read Online Free

Hell Hole.
    Devon admitted her fear was not without reason. The Madman had already come back once; who was to say he couldn’t come back again? But Devon had defeated him—he, Devon, just a novice sorcerer, had kicked Jackson Muir’s butt straight back to his Hell Hole. And he could do it again, too, he thought cockily to himself—but he’d really rather not have to, just the same.
    He would never forget what it was like descending into the darkness of the Hell Hole. The feeling of utter misery and despair—not to mention the stink of death. The demons had attacked him, eaten parts of his flesh, infiltrated his mind. But he’d had to go down there; the Madman had taken little Alexander, and Devon was the only one—the only Sorcerer of the Nightwing left—who could save the boy.
    Since then, Alexander, who’d just turned nine years old, had become Devon’s pal. Despite all the horrors he’d had to face at Ravenscliff, Devon had still found a home here. There was Cecily, Alexander, and his friends from school: D.J., Marcus, Natalie. And of course, there was Rolfe Montaigne, who was the key to helping Devon unlock the secrets of his past.
    But finding Crazy Lady might prove to be even more effective than Rolfe’s research.
    Blocking Cecily’s perfume as best he could from his nostrils, Devon tried to concentrate. Where was she? Where was Crazy Lady? He stood on the dark, stuffy, cobwebby staircase and trained all of his sorcerer’s senses on finding the woman.
    He heard something. Definitely a footstep this time.
    He turned, and behind him he made out a figure ascending the stairs. He held up his ball of light to get a better look.
    And what he saw made him gasp.
    It was not a woman climbing the steps at all. But a man.
    A transparent man—with Devon’s light shining right through him.
    “Who are you?” Devon asked.
    The ghost didn’t answer. Devon knew the figure was a ghost because he had seen enough of them in this house to recognize them. But just whose ghost this was he couldn’t be sure. It was some Muir ancestor, perhaps, but the face was unfamiliar from the portraits that hung on the walls of the parlor. This man was quite young, only a few years older than Devon, perhaps: eighteen or nineteen, possibly, certainly no older than twenty. He was dressed in jeans and a shirt.
    “Who are you?” Devon asked again.
    Ghosts didn’t frighten him. He’d seen things way more frightening than ghosts in this house. Still, this one made Devon uneasy. The way the apparition just stood there on the steps, looking up at him. He reminded the teenaged sorcerer of someone, but he couldn’t quite figure out who.
    “Why don’t you speak?” Devon was growing impatient. “Are you just wandering through walls or did you appear to me for a reason?”
    “The moon is full,” the ghost finally intoned. He sounded English.
    “Um, yeah, I think it was.” Devon stopped to think. It had been storming earlier, but he remembered looking out his window before the storm began. “Yeah,” he said. “It was definitely a full moon. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
    The ghost suddenly raised his right hand and moved it up, then down, then up and down again in front of Devon’s face. It was like he was making a sign of some kind.
    “What are you doing?” Devon asked. “Do it again. It’s dark, I can’t see …”
    But the ghost had faded away.
    What was the sign he had made in the air? What did the moon have to do with anything?
    That was when Devon felt the hand on his shoulder.
    He turned—and screamed into the decomposing face of a long-dead corpse.

    It took Devon too long to recover from his shock—too many seconds wasted to get his heart under control, to stop its racing. He knew how disappointed Sargon the Great would be in his reaction. Sargon had tested Devon once before, and he had expected better from his one-hundredth generation descendant. No matter that Devon had just seen a ghost and hadn’t