Run the Day Read Online Free Page A

stop it myself; it's just too damn powerful for me to take on alone. I need for you to come and meet me as soon as you're able; I'm back in Hanford, I'll be waiting at Grannok's Cell.
    Time is of the essence my boy, please, come quickly.
    The Sleeper Awakens.
    - Hack
    Well that was properly ominous.
    Last I knew Hack had been roaming the West Coast, doing who knows what. And I'm not much of a fan of anything that brings doom. Hack wasn't the kind of guy to bullshit or embellish, which made the bit about the whole world a touch unsettling. And what the hell was the Sleeper?
    More and more I was beginning to regret even getting out of bed today, but Devlin and his sweet, sweet money had been too damn tempting. Things were starting to pile on thick, and I still had no idea where to even begin. I needed to find out what I could about the Libro, but if Hack was really in danger I owed it to him to meet up, if only for old time's sake. It was still early; I had lots of daylight left, which was a concept that would take some getting used to.
    I shut down the computer, snagged my bag, and stomped my way downstairs, meandered through the halls and made my way back to the kitchen where I'd left Swift. Strangely, he was standing much the way I'd left him. As if he hadn't moved the entire time.
    "What the hell are you doing?"
    A shiver ran through his body and he slowly turned to face me, like he was coming out of a trance. He shook his head, reached up and took off his glasses. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of a hand, and I gawked. White, they were solid white. Swift caught me looking and replaced his glasses, frowning.
    "Just thinking. You look less terrible."
    "Right, okay. Thanks. What in the hell is up with your eyes?" I stepped closer and asked.
    Swift stood up straighter and folded his arms across his chest, which made me notice how much larger and imposing he was. He frowned down at me, letting his sunglasses slip down his nose some to expose a glimpse of his eyes, which were now a perfectly normal shade of hazel.
    "What are you talking about?" Swift asked.
    What the hell? More hidden depths to the enigma that was Swift, I'd get to the bottom of it, but there were more pressing matters at hand.
    "We have to go; I need you to take me to the Bastille." I said.
    "Why do you need to go to a club at not even nine in the morning?"
    "Something about the end of the world, I'll fill you in on the way." I said and walked out of the kitchen.
    I was still stiff and sore as we made our way out, but I was mostly functional. We stepped outside and I slipped into my coat, the morning still hanging on to the autumn chill.
    After we'd gotten into Swift's car and were heading down the road back to town, I told Swift about Hack's letter. He listened without saying a word, eyes straight ahead the whole time.
    "And what exactly is Grannok's Cell?" Swift asked when I was done.
    "Abel Grannok was a farmer around a hundred years ago. He also happened to be a mage of some talent, and a psychopath," I said. Swift perked up at that, but kept his eyes on the road, so I continued, "He had been communing with some of the uglier denizens of the Other Side for a while, and working on ways to bring one over and devour its essence. He thought he could achieve apotheosis, godhood, by consuming one of the elder powers. My great-grandfather Henry, along with Hack, went after him when people around town started to go missing.
    They found him at his farm in the middle of opening a portal to one of the more hideous parts of the Other Side, surrounded by the ritually slaughtered remains of some twenty victims. The entity was already making its way through when Henry and Hack disrupted the ritual, closing the portal and binding Grannok, but the reflux of energies fried Grannok's mind and left him a gibbering idiot. Back then, the Bastille was an actual prison. Bastille's French for prison, see? Hanford's classy. Also explains all the brick and iron architecture.