Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Seth closes his eyes. “No need. There’s one this Saturday.”
The blood in my face drains. “What?”
“They sent out reminders about it today.”
“Then we’re just in time,” Luke says, sounding more hopeful than he has since he had the vision.
“In time?” Seth asks. “We’re supposed to figure out what to do about this in two fucking days?” He curses. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with.”
“We do have some information,” Cody says. “It’s a large creature, for one.”
“And now we know when and where,” I add.
“Seth’s not wrong, though,” Luke says, a first from him. “What the hell are we supposed to do about a fucking monster? This thing was like nine feet tall when I saw it torturing that guy. Are we gonna get a gun or something?”
“I’ve already considered all this,” Cody says. “There’s a spell in the Sinners’ bible. We can create a circle that can trap animals or people.”
Luke’s eyebrows tug closer together as he makes a face like when we were first telling him about all this stuff. “And you know this works?”
“We’ve tried it on each other,” I assure him. “When we were first playing around with the book. It works. We don’t know that it’ll work on something from the Rift, but it’s not that far-fetched.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Cody says.
Luke glances between the three of us, like he’s waiting for someone to point out that this is a horrible idea. “And what are we supposed to do with it once we have it trapped? Is Cody gonna tell it its future? Is Seth gonna push it to kill itself? Is Brad gonna fuck it to death? Am I gonna fuck Brad and lift it off the ground?” He huffs, rolling his eyes and turning away from us.
Everyone’s quiet for a moment before Cody says, “As far as killing the thing, you guys know what we can do.”
He looks at me like it should be obvious, and I turn to Seth, who seems just as thrown.
Cody motions to the stack of bricks in the corner of the room, and it fucking hits me.
I cringe. “Really?”
“It could work!”
“Could being the operative word,” Seth adds.
Luke spins back around. “What are you guys talking about?”
“It’s something else we learned we can do,” I say. “Together. If we concentrate, we can—”
“It’s probably better just to show him,” Seth says, and I have to agree.
I fetch a brick from the stack and set it in the center of the pentagram. Cody, Seth, and I position ourselves to form a triangle around the pentagram.
“Luke, you need to get behind me,” I say.
He glances around the room like he’s trying to work out what we’re about to do. Then he steps close to the wall.
Cody, Seth, and I glance at each other, then grip our crosses and focus on the brick. Despite having done it before, it’s been a while, so we might be a little rusty.
I steady my breathing, feeling a familiar sensation swirling in my chest, radiating from there out to my arms. It moves into my hands, like they’re vibrating with energy. The more I concentrate on the brick, the more I lose awareness of time and my surroundings.
And then the brick starts vibrating.
I can’t see it, but I feel it in my gut as it speeds up, and a second later a sound like a shotgun fills the cellar. Dust explodes in the air, bits of brick launching at bullet speed, only to be stopped by an invisible barrier inside the pentagram. The pieces drop to the floor, and the dust begins to settle.
I turn to Luke, whose mouth hangs open.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“Did you really think you knew all our secrets?” Seth asks snidely.
If Luke wasn’t here, I’d fucking throw Seth against the wall and demand he get over himself and treat Luke like the Sinner he is. But I quiet my rage, ignore the asshole remark, and explain to Luke what just happened. “It’s something we stumbled upon in the Sinners’ bible and tested out. We can’t do anything as powerful as you can on your own, but if the three of us focus, we can cause some motherfucking damage.”
“Apparently,” Luke notes. “But is that gonna do anything to this creature? Something that’s alive?”
“Why don’t you get in the middle, and we can test it,” Seth says with a nasty smirk.
“Seth,” I snap. “That’s not funny.”
His gaze shifts to the floor; he knows that was too far.
“I’ve researched this,” Cody says, pulling our attention back to his proposed solution. “Imagine how much pressure it takes to make a brick explode. If that can’t kill that thing, then nothing else is gonna do it either.”
“Yeah,” Luke says, “but if we can’t trap it, then we’re fucked because I doubt this thing will stay still long enough for you to focus as hard as you need to pull it off.”