Read Online Grandmaster by Molly Cochran - Free Book Online Page B

the game.
    The silent force was stronger. It pulled him, enveloped him like strange music growing louder. It was all around him, along with the scent of almonds and lush flowers. It was overpowering, an eerie chorus of voices calling to him, leading him to them.
    He picked up speed, traveling as fast as he could, his lungs bursting, his body wracked. He wished it were all a dream, and that he would awake in Aunt Jane's house or Uncle Sid's apartment and he would be safe in Houston or Cincinnati or in any of the other places he'd been instructed to call home. But he knew it was no dream. The street was real, the footsteps behind him were real, the knife the dark man carried was real.
    Still, something peculiar was happening to him, something like a dream. The music, the flowers, the scent of almonds: Peculiar yet somehow . . . familiar.
    I am the game.
    When he saw the darkened alleyway, he knew he could go no farther. It led to a dead end. There was no light at the end of the alley. No place to hide. Nowhere to go from there. It was the end of his journey. Yet this was where the music had called him.
    Exhausted, he sat down in the alley and waited for the dark man.
    When he arrived, the dark man stood squarely in the middle of the alley entrance, in silhouette. Justin watched him reach into his jacket. Holding his arm aloft, the dark man pressed the switch of the knife, and the blade shot upward, casting a long shadow. He closed in.
    With a cry, Justin scrambled to his feet. Once again he heard the man's labored breathing.
    "Go away!" he screamed.
    The breathing grew louder.
    "Please," Justin whispered.
    The dark man lunged.
    Justin leaped backward. As he did, he felt the brush of something soft against his face. Soft... and smelling of almonds.
    He gasped at what came next. In a split second the darkened alleyway was filled with billowing forms, graceful as the flapping of birds' wings. Something had been waiting in the shadows of the alleyway, something so silent it could not be heard even in dead silence. That something whirled now in formation around the stunned man with the knife. He crouched down, babbling, and still the forms moved, too swiftly to see.
    The dark man stabbed viciously into the circle that surrounded him, but the blade cut only through empty air. He arced, thrusting frantically, attacking the floating, unearthly forms like a caged animal.
    Justin watched in awed terror. For behind the strange, blurred forms, surrounding them and filling the alley, was the music he had heard, powerful and sweet, as loud as a symphony.
    The dark man lunged again. The circle broke, spitting him out like a seed. The moving forms became still. The music stopped.
    They were men, Justin noted with astonishment. The men at the tournament. Six small men in yellow robes, almost identical with their shaved heads, who could move so fast that his own eyes saw nothing but a blur. They formed a line now, blocking the path between the dark man and the opening of the alley. One of them stepped forward two paces and stopped, silent.
    Snarling, the dark man raised his switchblade overhead in warning as he backed up toward Justin. With a swat, he grabbed the boy by his collar and yanked him forward, the knife held at his throat, and began inching forward.
    Justin shuddered, feeling uncontrollable, noiseless tears streaming hotly down his cheeks. He had been caught, and the six little men in front of him had helped to catch him. The blade against his throat felt cold. He would be killed in minutes, maybe sooner. The music was gone now. It had betrayed him.
    Behind him, the dark man gave a little laugh that sounded like a bark as he edged past the yellow-robed man standing in front of the others. There was no other movement. The yellow-robed man in front, older than the rest of his band, was as still as a tree, his lined face expressionless except for something in his eyes, something more felt than seen, a question unasked, a command