The Bleed: Book 2: RAPTURE by David Moody (best selling autobiographies .txt) 📕

bond between you. Use some of that magic juice you apparently have running through your veins.”

“It’s mostly been drained away from my flight and fight.”

“Too bad we don’t have some magic potion to restore our mana.”

“That’s a thing?”

“It is in video games.”

“Video…games?”

“Hopefully, soon, I’m going to remember that there’s about a five-hundred-year gap in our knowledge and technology base.”

The silver rings moved slowly at first as the women concentrated, like train wheels on a slick track, heading uphill. Slowly but surely, they began to spin faster to the point they almost appeared still.

“I see something.” Maddie strained.

Thistle had her head thrown back, her eyes open wide as she stared blankly at the ceiling. Whether willingly or subconsciously, she was linked to the machine, and she was subtly directing it as it tapped into her for power. Faster the machine turned and whined; Thistle was now half a foot off the floor, her back arched, her head flung back impossibly far.

Maddie couldn’t even begin to grasp what was happening, but she was fearful that the rings were bleeding the girl dry, taking everything she had to offer like a vampire would his victim’s blood until there was nothing left but a dried-up husk. Maddie moved to pull Thistle free from the invisible grip. As soon as she touched the girl, a chilling shock went through her; it was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She’d had her fair share of electrical mishaps, but this could not compare. She could move if she chose to, but she did not wish to do so. People, places, events streamed past, most before the Bleed plague, but others after. She gasped as the all-encompassing evilness sought them out. Somehow, it knew it was being spied upon; it had stopped the flashing images, not allowing the view to change.

“Thistle, we need to release!” Maddie was shaking the girl. There was nothing except a fluttering of her eyelids.

“Thistle!” The Bleed was pulling itself together, cohering from the apocalyptic soup it had made of the world. Small tentacles formed and spread out in every direction, feeling for what it knew was there. Maddie didn’t know how it would be able to do it, only that it could. If one of those tendrils found its way back to them, it would be over. The tendrils began to lash out, striking randomly, cracking the air like a whip. Wherever it struck, blackness appeared, as if it were ripping through the very fabric of existence. Maddie knew that this was precisely what it was doing, attempting to tear its way into their reality.

“Do you see it!?” Thistle exclaimed, the girl was now looking at Maddie, her eyes wide in a panic but with an underlying bewilderment. At first, Maddie thought that perhaps the Bleed had ensnared Thistle and the cause was lost before it had even been started.

“Thistle, we have to leave!”

“Look first, Maddie.”

Then, whether because the bleed had hypnotized her, or Thistle was directing her to do so, she was looking, peering into the belly of the beast. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at, other than it was important, vastly important. And then, as if the Bleed was aware of what was happening, instead of actively searching for them, it began to pull away, something neither of the women thought possible. Before Maddie had a chance to regain herself, she was on the ground, a bewildered Thistle atop her.

“What the hell was that?” Maddie asked as she stood, helping the other up.

“A way, I think,” Thistle replied.

“Yeah, like shooting down a jetliner with a peashooter, kind of way.” Maddie rubbed her forehead, a deep and grating headache beginning to form.

Thistle closed her eyes, exasperated. “Five hundred years, remember?”

“Maddie?” It was Samantha.

“Sam!” Maddie raced to grab the girl, hugging her tight, slightly embarrassed by her outburst—but not enough to stop. What had been happening, what was happening, was so bizarre that it was a profound relief to finally have someone you knew and trusted by your side. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’ve missed you.” Maddie let go of the embrace and held the girl at arm’s length.

“Missed me? Maddie, we’ve been together this whole time. You weren’t more than a step or two ahead of me. Where are we? Where’s Tyler and Derrick…and the other one?”

Maddie thought it was safe to say that Sam was still mad at her mother.

“Sam, it’s been a couple of days. I was back on Earth.”

“Back on Earth? What are you talking about, Maddie? And why is…whoever she is, looking at me like that?”

Thistle had her head cocked to the side as she looked at Sam. “Are you a half-god too?”

“Half what? What is going on?” Sam asked. “And stop looking at me that way.” She felt self-conscious.

“Let’s wait for the rest to come through, that way I only have to explain it once,” Maddie said. It began to get awkward as more time elapsed and no one spoke, nor showed up. “Well, that’s weird.”

“Maybe they’ll come through at the same pace as you did, Maddie,” Thistle offered.

“This could take days, and I’m not sure we have that kind of time. Sam, who was behind you in the cave?”

“My mother. I think she forced her way up.”

“Dammit. if it was Derrick, then Tyler, the moment they came through I could have dismantled this infernal machine.”

Maddie and Thistle spent the next hour recounting their separate tales and what they had encountered together. Sam looked like a third-grader tossed into a calculus class; she knew she was witnessing some version of math, but since she had barely a rudimentary grasp on addition, this far surpassed her understanding.

“So, wait.” Sam was thinking. “Is there a chance that what was happening on the moon was this Bleed thing?”

Maddie paused. “I…you know, I don’t know. It was so vastly different from what I saw when I in Jenny’s world and from what Thistle said; it sure does seem entirely too coincidental though. The