Read Online Council of Evil by Andy Briggs - Free Book Online Page A

until they passed.
    He suddenly became aware that somebody was standing just beyond the toolshed at the bottom of the garden, hidden by the trees. Another flash of lightning did little to illuminate the figure. But Jake was sure he knew who it was.
    â€œBasilisk!” Jake grabbed his scuffed black leather jacket from the floor, and climbed out of the window. He ran across the waterlogged lawn, and the figure moved farther back into the trees that separated Jake’s yard from a field.
    Jake pushed away the branches, and then saw the SkyKar on the edge of the field. Basilisk, sitting inside, motioned him over. Jake was delighted and sprinted to the vehicle.
    â€œQuickly, we have much to do,” Basilisk said with a sense of urgency. Jake saw him scrutinize a monitor showing a radar display of what he presumed was the immediate area.
    â€œGood to see you too,” Jake said with heavy sarcasm. This time he buckled himself firmly in the seat as the gull-wing doors closed on them with a pressurized hiss.
    The SkyKar lifted from the ground and shot off toward the clouds as lightning flared again.
    A damp figure watched from the trees. He’d managed to attract Jake’s attention when he had seen him at his bedroom window, and had been planning on leaping out to frighten him.
    Only when Jake had run past did he notice the strange vehicle sitting in the field. He’d watched Jake climb in and stood with an open mouth as the craft vanished into the clouds.
    Scuffer gawked at the sky in amazement, only blinking when the rain stung his eyes. What had Jake gotten himself involved in?
    The SkyKar shook as it passed through the turbulent clouds, forcing Jake to grip the door to brace himself. Rain spattered across the windshield. Jake flinched when he saw a finger of lightning poke from the black clouds above and strike the SkyKar.
    â€œWatch out!” he screamed as he shut his eyes. He could still see the lightning afterimage temporarily burned on his retina.
    â€œIt’s okay, we’re not grounded,” explained Basilisk.“Lightning strikes airplanes all the time, and harmlessly passes through until it hits the ground.”
    Jake looked through a break in the clouds, down at the houses below him, and wondered what the lightning had struck after it had been diverted by the SkyKar. He believed he could see a set of telephone wires flare up as lightning struck them, the electricity channeling toward a house that had a large oak tree in the yard. Someone probably just had their phones blown out, and their modem too if they had a computer.
    He was shoved back into his seat as the SkyKar jolted. They passed through more clouds and then emerged into suddenly clear blue skies. They must be high, as from here he could just make out the gentle curvature of the earth below him. It gave him a slightly sick feeling, like looking through a goldfish bowl.
    â€œI thought I would’ve heard from you sooner,” said Jake, uncomfortably aware that he sounded as reproachful as his mother could when he was in trouble.
    â€œI’ve been busy,” snapped Basilisk. He glanced in Jake’s direction, and Jake wondered what lay inside the blackness of the cowl. “It turned out you did not tie up our loose ends in India, and decided to leave some witnesses.”
    Jake felt butterflies in his stomach, but he managed to keep his face blank. Lying was a superpower of his very own. “They must have escaped. I was sure I locked the door.”
    â€œWhatever happened, it brought the attention of a sneaky superhero who thought he could stop me.”
    â€œWhat happened to him?”
    â€œAshes to ashes,” Basilisk said laconically. Jake shuddered, remembering how Basilisk’s gaze had crumpled the scientist to dust. “But there are more on their way. One of whom has a personal vendetta against me.”
    â€œVendetta?”
    â€œI killed his sidekick in a previous encounter. It seems