Five Elements #1 by Dan Jolley

Author:Dan Jolley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

9

Gabe had just enough time for his depressingly short life to flash before his eyes before he landed on something that felt like a really huge, really soft pillow.

Except he hadn’t landed. He was suspended facedown, no more than ten feet below the catwalk, staring at the hunters sitting placidly below. Gabe clenched his jaws shut as tightly as he could to keep from screaming. Before his brain could begin to make sense of what was happening, he began to rise, swiftly but gently, as if he were being hoisted by a thousand tiny ropes. After a few long seconds he landed back on the catwalk next to Lily.

Lily wobbled, and slumped down on her backside. Her eyes swam in and out of focus. Brett slid a steadying arm around her shoulders.

“How did you do that?” Kaz whispered.

Lily blinked. “I don’t know. I just . . . I saw Gabe falling, and I reached for him, and when I did, I . . . I felt the air. Trillions and trillions of molecules of it, and I just gathered up a bunch of them and slipped them underneath him.” She looked Gabe in the eye. “I knew I could do it. I knew. And I think that made it happen.”

“How scientific. I almost forgot that that’s totally impossible.” Kaz sounded as if he was trying to pack as much sarcasm into his words as he could, but the attempt fell flat. Kaz’s tight, tortured expression confirmed it. He’d taken his best shot at playing the skeptic, but now even he had to admit it: logic was out and magick was in.

Gabe sneaked a look at the stage below them, expecting to see every eye (and eyeless face) turned their way, but no one seemed to have noticed his fall. He felt a spike of intense relief at that, but it faded almost instantly when he caught sight of Uncle Steve, still unconscious and strapped down on the stage below. The cult members had put together another altar, and his uncle’s stretcher lay on top of it.

The leader, Primus, started speaking in a language Gabe had never heard before, and that was saying something. Uncle Steve’s studies covered three continents, and Gabe had been exposed to dozens of languages, including dead tongues like Latin and Sanskrit. The words coming out of Primus’s mouth, however, didn’t sound like anything Gabe had ever heard. They didn’t even sound human.

“Zxarna vrahmu otvortse. Dvai shvioutei pivuntxa.”

In response, the crowd started chanting. “Taigho shviunta. Taigho shviunta.”

Primus continued. Gabe thought he felt the temperature in the theater drop a degree with each syllable she spoke. “Dvai shvioutei pivuntxa, majia povrunshei taigho shviunta!”

How on earth was he going to get Uncle Steve out of this?

The crowd got more animated. “Taigho shviunta! Taigho shviunta!”

“What are they saying?” Brett whispered, and Gabe was about to reply along the lines of Maybe we shouldn’t be talking so much since we’re trying to hide up here when he looked down at the hunters again.

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