Read Online Tracked by Terror by Brad Strickland - Free Book Online

Junius Midion entered the room, the Grimoire in his hands. “Your little friend is quite clever,” he growled. “But we are clever here too, as you shall learn. Perhaps she thinks she can hide from me. She is deceived. My boy, you may be a Midion, but your magic is certainly no match for my own.”
    â€œFather,” said Augustus suddenly, “why can’t we use the Grimoire?”
    â€œTo do what?” Junius asked. “To find one urchin of a pestilential girl? That would be like using a cannon to kill a mosquito, my boy. No, no, I will simply call up our audience, and they will scour every inch of the theater. She cannot hide forever.”
    â€œI didn’t mean use the Grimoire to find the girl,” Augustus said. “Let’s use it to get out of this.”
    His father stared at him. “To get out of what, Augustus?”
    â€œThis world!” Augustus snapped. “You may like performing in play after play forever, but you’re the star, you’re always the star! And none of it is real, Father! I’m a Midion too. I want a world where I can—”
    â€œImpossible,” Junius hissed. “You have no idea what you’re asking, Augustus. Do you really want to go back to a world of fools and dunces who don’t appreciate you, who have no conception of the noble art of the theater?”
    â€œYou never asked me if I wanted to be in the theater in the first place,” grumbled Augustus. “Yes, I remember what it was like being cold and hungry because the theater owner closed our show after one performance. I remember traveling through the mud and mire to get from one dirty little town to the next. I even remember what it felt like when the audience pelted us with rotten tomatoes and old cabbages!”
    â€œAugustus!” his mother said.
    A wild look had sprung into Junius’s eyes. “None of that matters! None of that is real here! This is our world. Augustus, if there is something you do not like, we can change it freely here. There are no fools about to interfere or to stop us. None except this one.”
    Jarvey swallowed as Junius Midion spun and pointed his finger right into Jarvey’s face. The family was ready to go for each other’s throats, he realized. Maybe they had been making believe too long, with no one real around them. After nearly two hundred years of the same thing day after day, they just might be tired of each other’s company. And if he could goad them, maybe they would turn on each other, not on him. “Augustus knows the truth,” he croaked. “This is all just make-believe. None of it is real.”
    â€œYou’re wrong, young Midion,” Junius said, his lips nearly white with anger. “My world is very real. As real as life and as real as ... death.” His finger stabbed again.
    Jarvey screeched as his stomach felt as though it had exploded into fire. He had never felt such pain. He pitched forward from the chair and slammed into the floor, not even registering the impact. He was like a bug on a hot skillet, fire was consuming him ...
    Then it passed, and he lay gasping on the floor. “Just a small sample of how real pain can be here, in this imaginary world of mine,” Junius told him. “We have two problems now. One is your blighted playmate, who got away from my foolish son. The other is the Grimoire. It should not be in this world, but back on Earth. If it were accidentally opened here to the right passage, our whole world would be swept out of existence. However, if we send it back to Earth, even if it should be destroyed on Earth, our world would be safe forever. I think once we find the girl, we can solve both problems at once. I shall send you back to Earth with the Grimoire. But perhaps I shall send you to Earth as it was ten million years ago. That should keep you and the book safe. I do not think you have enough magic in you to overcome so huge a gap in