Read Online Song of the Sword by Edward Willett - Free Book Online

of water reached out from the lake and snapped down on the cowering girls like whips. One smashed Felicia’s cell phone, and glittering shards of plastic and circuitry scattered across the asphalt. Other tendrils struck the girls with audible cracks, leaving red marks on their bare skin. Weeping and shrieking, the girls ran for the Toyota. A tendril of water smashed in the back window, scattering shards of shining glass across the pavement. The SUV skidded out of the parking lot before the doors even closed.
    Ariane raised her hands and the tendrils of water slipped back into the lake, leaving behind only a few flecks of foam. She turned to face the once-more placid water. “Thank you,” she whispered.
    The roaring had subsided, but she could feel it, tucked away, ready to be called upon if she ever needed it again. This was the power the Lady had bequeathed to her. Ari ane needed to study it, to understand it...
    A fit of shivering gripped her, so strong her teeth clattered like castanets. Her feet suddenly felt as if she’d stuck them in a deep freezer, and a wave of tiredness washed over her. She was exhausted. She needed to go home, fast.
    She buttoned her jeans and zipped them up again. The shoes, socks, and sweater the gang had stripped off her lay soaked in the parking lot. Ariane knelt and touched them. The water sprang away on her command, and she gratefully pulled on the now-dry sweater. As she was tugging on the equally dry shoes and socks, a lone jogger passed through the parking lot, glancing at her as if wondering what nut would go wading in the lake in this weather.
    She gave him her most innocent smile, gathered her own filthy clothes, stuffed them in the shopping bag Felicia had brought them in, and headed home.
    She had plans to make.
    ~ • ~
    Wally was supposed to be doing homework in the living room (but was actually watching TV) when Felicia came in that night. Once he had finished tidying her room, he’d stayed upstairs until he heard Felicia and Shania leave. When he did come downstairs, he discovered that they’d taken Ariane’s clothes, still unwashed, with them.
    His presence in the house had been an unpleasant surprise for Ms. Carson when she’d arrived around three. She didn’t believe his story of a stink bomb in the chemistry lab until she called the school and confirmed it herself. Fortunately, she didn’t think to ask if he’d been at school at all.
    He hoped Ariane would send some kind of message, but the house phone didn’t ring, nobody knocked on the door, and the only e-mails he received promised him cut-rate prescription drugs and a significant portion of a Nigerian ex-politician’s fortune.
    At five-thirty he ate his spaghetti under the baleful glare of Ms. Carson, who somehow made it clear, without saying a word, that she considered it his fault Felicia hadn’t come home yet. After supper he retired to the living room with a Coke and a plate of Oreos, while Ms. Carson banged around in the kitchen for a while. Before she left for one of her committee meetings – Save Our Squirrels or Protectors of the Park or something like that – she warned him sternly to tell his sister where the leftover spaghetti was when she came in. “She’ll need to eat after a hard night of studying with her friends. You tell her, now.”
    “I promise.” Wally didn’t try to disabuse Ms. Carson of the fanciful notion that Felicia had been studying.
    About a quarter to seven, more than half an hour after the sun had set, Wally heard the front door open and close. He only caught a glimpse of Felicia as she passed the living room door on the way to the stairs, but what he saw was enough to make him jump to his feet and rush after her.
    He reached the bottom of the stairs just as his sister disappeared along the upstairs hallway. He looked at the front door, and then up the steps.
    A clear trail of black, wet spots marked Felicia’s passage.
    He ran upstairs. She was in the bathroom, T-shirt