Read Online Paladin Prophecy 2: Alliance by Mark Frost - Free Book Online

hell—” said Will.
    Instinctively, he pulled Brooke into the darkness against the ivy-covered hall behind them.
    The air around them grew hushed—Will realized that even the crickets in the area had suddenly gone dead quiet—and he sensed an unsettling presence disrupting the air somewhere near them in the night. Brooke was about to speak when Will put a finger to her lips.
    A shadow appeared, curling around the side of the building, distorted by the streetlamp. It kept growing until it looked impossibly tall and then stopped. It was the silhouette of a human figure, wrapped in a long coat or cloak. Its head swiveled slightly, almost mechanically, looking around, or maybe sniffing the air.
    I know who that is, thought Will. But it can’t be. It’s not possible.
    In the distance they heard at least two sirens approaching and the rumble of voices gathering nearby. Lights came on in windows to either side of where the crash had occurred and security lights around the base of the building lit up the elongated face of the glass and steel tower. Will realized they were looking at the medical center.
    Will leaned out slightly to chance a look. All he saw was a glimpse of light fabric flapping in its wake as the figure slipped quickly and silently away; when he stepped out to catch a better glimpse, it had disappeared into the night.
    “What the hell was that?” asked Brooke.
    “Do you know the people who’ve been watching you?” asked Will.
    “A team of three who work for my father. Professionals. You hardly even see them.”
    “For real ?”
    “I told you, the ambassador does not mess around,” she said.
    “Could that have been one of them?”
    “Not a chance,” she said. “They get paid for not being noticed, but I’m sure I got out this time without their seeing me.”
    The commotion continued to grow nearby on the ground, attracting an even bigger crowd. Above them, security people appeared in the gaping hole in the face of the medical building, looking down.
    “We’d better get you out of here,” said Will.
    “We shouldn’t be seen together. Let’s talk back at the pod.”
    She started away, but Will caught her arm. “After that I don’t think you should be walking around by yourself right now.”
    “Don’t worry. Once they hear that alarm, my minders will be all over me,” she said, then lifted up a small black device. “Besides, I just paged them.”
    Brooke kissed him again, which nearly knocked him over, and then stole off toward the lights in the center of campus. Will headed straight for the medical center. He saw a lot of debris scattered below the hole above—glass, metal framing, even some rebar. An entire double window had blown out along with a sizeable chunk of wall on either side of it. A group of the Center’s Samoan security guards were already putting up a perimeter around the front entrance, ushering curious students to the other side of the barriers.
    Will spotted his friend Eloni among them, the biggest in the group and the squad’s senior officer. As he approached, Will exchanged a glance with him, asking if he could duck inside before they locked down the building. Eloni subtly waved him into the lobby.
    Inside, the tumult and confusion was even greater, with equal numbers of medical and security personnel rushing in and out. Will kept to the back of the room, slipped into the nearest stairwell, and dashed up to the fourth floor where the crash had come from.
    He’d never been on this level before; the door was secured with heavy-duty locks and thick wire-reinforced glass in the small slit window. He ducked down as more security brushed past inside, then watched them go into a room about halfway down the hallway.
    The room where the wall had exploded.
    Will ducked again as the Center’s headmaster, Stephen Rourke, came off an elevator in the hallway, flanked by Will’s genetics professor, Rulan Geist, and the school’s psychologist, Dr. Lillian Robbins. They headed for