Fireshaper's Doom Read Online Free Page A

with a stubby finger. “Must not be you after all. Reckon I’ll have to put this back inside.” He started to turn.
    David was bouncing from foot to foot. “Give me a break, man!”
    “Okay, so maybe it is you. You don’t know any L. Hughes in California, do you?”
    “That’s Liz Hughes, my—” He shot a glance at Alec. “My friend.”
    “Well, if you’re sure …I guess I can pass this on.”
    David reached once more for the package, but the old man stuck it quickly behind his back, forcing David to dodge first left, then right. On the second left feint David snagged it.
    “You knew I’d be by, didn’t you?”
    The old man shook his head. “Not really, but I knew you were leaving tomorrow, so I thought I’d just drop this off at your house on my way home. Glad you saved me the trouble.”
    “Yeah, sure,” said David. “Thanks a bunch!”
    “Right on, boy, no hard feelings, hear?”
    Alec poked David in the ribs as they returned to the car. “Did he just say ‘right on’?”
    “Hell if I know.” David shrugged as he lowered himself into the seat, leaving the door open as he attacked the package. Within the brown paper was a second wrapping of white, and within that a file-folder box. David pried off the lid and examined the contents: a somewhat stained and dog-eared book at least two inches thick, bound in dark blue fabric; a fat white legal-sized envelope almost the same thickness; and a pair of beige T-shirts bearing a more or less circular design from the Book of Kells silk-screened on the front in bright, rich colors and perfect registration.
    “One for each of us, I’d imagine,” Alec observed over his friend’s shoulder.
    David fixed him with a level stare. “You imagine a great deal, sir.”
    “Well, they’re different sizes, for one thing: a medium and a small. What’s the book?”
    David fished it out and studied it curiously. “The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries, by somebody named Evans-Wentz. I’ve heard of it. Supposed to have a bunch of stuff about you-know-who and you-know-what in it.”
    “God, more of that crap. Don’t you ever get tired of the Otherworld, Sullivan?”
    David ignored him and began flipping through the pages. “Ho! What’s this?” he cried, as a folded slip of paper fell into his lap. He opened it and scanned it quickly, then read it aloud. ‘“Found this at the local used book store and thought it looked interesting, especially in relation to certain privileged information of ours. Some tidbits of folklore in it you might want to look into, and a tiny bit about Nuada. Apparently the Ailill they talk about’s not the same one we know—if you can call it knowing. A bit about changelings and the Sight that ought to ring some familiar bells.’”
    “As if you didn’t already know everything there is to know,” Alec appended.
    “Forewarned is forearmed,” David said. “You can’t know too much about that stuff when your survival may depend on it.”
    “But—”
    “I’m gonna forearm you if you don’t hush and let me read my blessed letter.”
    Alec clamped a hand over his mouth and steepled his brows in feigned contrition.
    And David started reading.
    “So what’d she say?” Alec asked when the letter had been refolded and tucked back into its envelope.
    David smiled cryptically. “Well, most of it I’d rather not repeat: stuff about wanting to ravish my manly body, and all— Don’t look at me like that, I can dream, can’t I? You were right about the T-shirts. She got them at a Renaissance Fair. The small’s for you.”
    “Little does she know.”
    “ Ahem, McLean. Just cause you gained fifteen pounds since last summer.”
    “And three-quarter inches.”
    “We’ll forget that.”
    “I won’t.”
    “So you outweigh me now. So what? You’ve always been taller. But I have my own advantages.”
    “Name two.”
    “ This, for one thing,” David said, fishing into his shirt collar for the silver ring that hung on a silver