Firebrand Read Online Free Page B

each side of her spine and rose in a crescendo until she feared the skin on her back would rip apart. When it finally stopped, her entire back felt as though she had been hit with a thousand tiny electric shocks.
    Shaken, she climbed down the hill and dropped to the ground near the pond. She looked across the perfectly still water and the sunlight sparkling on the surface drew her to the edge. She leaned forward and for a brief moment, reflected in the water, she could see two curtains of luminous light behind her. She watched in fascination as they vanished a second later like two small eddies of energy running out of power. She turned quickly but saw nothing.
    When she looked back into the pool she saw a vision of her friend, Serina, talking to what at first glance appeared to be a small animal. But on closer look, it did not look like anything she’d ever seen before.
    It was a small creature, only about two feet high with a pair of undersized eyes and a lipless mouth set beneath a round nose. Its ears were long, ending in points much like the antennas of a butterfly. Its feet were webbed like a frog’s, its skin a light blue. Clearly not remotely human, it was not an animal either. Amber could hear Serina talking in a language unfamiliar to the thing while the wind blew the petals of flowers around the creature’s head.
    Suddenly, as though drawn by a tap on the shoulder, Serina looked straight back at her. Their eyes locked and Serina shook her head slowly, almost sadly. Then a cloud moved across the sun and the vision vanished.
    Amber never said anything about that day, not to her father, not to Serina. But soon the episodes began to coincide with her menstrual cycle and she was able to sense their onset much in the same way a child senses she is home and awakens just before the parents pull the car into the driveway after a long trip. Then there were the incidents. She could see things, sense things, a car about to hit a child, the intense smell of a storm. Sometimes when she was with David, it was as though she could look inside his steel blue eyes and see the blood flowing in his veins.
    But what scared her the most was that now each new episode brought with it what seemed to be a psychic warning, a soft whisper telling her to prepare.
    Shaking off the feeling of presage that wound itself around her, she touched the doorknob again. This time nothing happened. She had told David she would wait for him but she felt a power urging her inside. By small degrees she turned the knob, her senses prickling. Then, after opening the door completely, she reached for the light switch on the wall.
    “Bring not the light,” a croaky voice said.
    Amber lowered her hand, her heart pounding hard in her chest.
    An indistinct figure stepped out from the deep shadows inside the room and into the lighter ones near the doorway. “I did not come here to hurt you, that is, unless I am forced to.”
    “A friend of mine will be here any minute. You’d better leave while you can,” Amber warned.
    The intruder continued to move around the room. “If I am forced to hurt whoever comes, I will.
    He passed in front of the window and for a moment, Amber could see him in the moonlight that filtered in through the opaque curtains. About three feet tall, he was stocky with markedly large hands and feet. His knotted hair touched his shoulders, shrouding his features in shaded darkness.
    “Who are you? What do you want?” Amber said as he moved back into obscurity.
    “For now, only talk.”
    More curious than afraid, she walked into the living room relying on memory for navigation. She found the sofa and perched on the edge. As she slowly reached for the lamp on the end table, she felt something fall on her arm before a sharp pain ran up her hand
    “No light! I have warned you once,” the intruder shouted.
    A bright blue spark preceded another burst of pain in her arm. She cradled her wrist and squinted through the darkness. “Okay, I get