Black Magic (2010) by Adair Cherry

Author:Adair, Cherry [Cherry, Adair,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2011-01-14T19:06:34+00:00

THE SECOND SARA SHIMMERED hiking boots onto her feet, Jack teleported them directly to the center of the village. A great rumbling, like a subway train shooting past beneath their feet, shook the ground just before they were flung against each other as the earth buckled and heaved. Towering jungle trees swayed, monkeys screamed and chattered, and, with a cacophony of shrill cries, birds shot into the air like buckshot. Then, just as suddenly, there was a moment of eerie silence, as if every animal had at the same moment been wiped out of existence.

Jack grabbed Sara's arms to steady her as he tried to assess the situation in a sweeping glance. Blocking out the shrieks of animals and people, the grind of falling rocks, the creak of trees ripped from their moorings, he concentrated on the visual of the disaster.

Without a Mercalli intensity scale, he guesstimated the intensity of this second shock as close to six on the Richter scale. "Brace yourself," he told Sara, releasing her arm. "Earthquakes come in clusters. The main shock was probably a six-point-five or a seven, so the aftershocks are going to be strong. And the animals just went quiet, so an aftershock is coming. Stay the hell away from the buildings."

The words were barely out of his mouth when another roll of the ground sent them to their knees. A wall of the mud brick house closest to them began to waver, then buckled, sending down a shower of mud bricks. He moved to cover Sara, casting a shield over them both. The bricks bounced off with dull thuds, but he sensed every one of them as they tried to punch through the shield.

The earth roared and bucked like a living animal fighting to get something off its back as it shot upward, sending Jack flying backward and knocking the breath from him. Sara piled into him, landing an elbow square in his gut.

Screams pierced the air, drowned out by the deafening grind of rock against rock and falling debris. But loudest by far was Sara's scream of terror in his ear, making his heart nearly stop.

He held on to her as though his entire existence depended on it. "Stay with me! Just stay with me. It's almost over," he yelled over the noise.

Sara burrowed closer to him. Jack strengthened the shield. Goddamn. Why couldn't she be thinking about Switzerland right now? Or Tahoe? Even Greece? Anywhere but the epicenter of an earthquake.

And just as suddenly as it had begun, the aftershock stopped. Rolling Sara on top of him to protect her back from the hard ground, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head down to his chest.

"Stay put." He waited, counting off five minutes, then six, seven. Just to be sure.

Macaws began to squawk, monkeys whooped, and he heard the groans and hysterical chatter of dozens of people. At last Jack released her, and they got to their feet slowly. He glanced around. The houses--fortunately all one-story--on the left

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