Poltergeeks Read Free

tumbling into the kitchen. I struggled to get to my feet just as Mrs Gilbert's refrigerator toppled over onto its side, spilling its contents all over the linoleum.
       "Julie… h-help!" Marcus choked. Chunks of drywall fell to the floor as I quickly got to my feet and reached for my magic. I pushed my senses through a thick film of dark energy that was pouring through the floor vents and spreading across the carpet like an oil slick. It pulsed and throbbed with an eerie green glow, forming an enormous ghostly hand that clamped Marcus' body tightly, squeezing the air from his lungs and smashing him against the ceiling like he was a rag doll.
      I raised a spell, tapping into Marcus' terror and my own panic at seeing my best friend attacked. A wave of energy washed over my body as I lashed out at the vaporous hand with a blast of magic.
      " Subsisto!" I bellowed, as I clamped my left hand around my amulet. A stream of power flew out of my closed fist like a five ton truck, screaming down the hall and shattering the vaporous hand. Tiny shards of malice dropped to the floor, where they dissolved into a harmless mist. Marcus fell from the ceiling, bouncing off Mrs Gilbert's sofa and landing face-first on the carpet.
      "Marcus!" I shrieked, as I grabbed the teddy bear and raced down the hall. "Marcus, are you okay?"
      He gave his head a hard shake and slowly rolled over onto his hands and knees. His t-shirt was ripped in about four different places and there was blood on it.
      "Ow," he said quietly, as he presented me with my back pack. "Poltergeists hurt. A lot."
      "This was way more than a poltergeist, Marcus." I chewed my lip. "There's some pretty badass dark magic at work here. The poltergeist is a spirit that was yanked from the other side and I think I must have pissed off whoever did the yanking… damn, you've got blood on your shirt. Are you hurt?"
      "Just my feelings," he said without blinking. "My shirt got wrecked courtesy of Slippers the Siamese cat. So, was that an actual spell that smashed me into the ceiling?"
      I nodded as I slipped my backpack over my shoulders. "Yep, and we need to get the hell out of here before whoever conjured it decides to take another shot at us. You didn't lose our pledge money did you?"
      "No," he said. He tossed me the collection bag. "The only thing I lost is any affection I might have had for cats. What's up with the teddy bear?"
      "Just call it a temporary shelter for a wayward spirit," I said. "We'll take it back to my house because I'm going to have to include my mother in this one."
      "That bad?" he asked.
      "That big," I said grimly as we walked out the door.
      Perfect. I was going to have to play second fiddle after all.
      Go Team Julie.

 
 

Chapter 3
     
 
 
    We got back to my place after a five-minute jaunt up the path from Mrs Gilbert's. My house, incidentally, isn't exactly popular with the neighbours, whose manicured lawns and professionally landscaped flowerbeds are a major-league contrast to the weed-infested goat farm my mom calls an ecosystem. Then again, ninety percent of the weeds crawling up the fence and across our driveway have a magical purpose as they are key ingredients for potions, so they're kind of necessary in our line of work. We trudged up the front path. Marcus reached for the doorknob, but I snatched his hand away at the last second.
      "Don't assume those sentinels are down. I'd hate for you to lose an appendage," I said firmly.
      He grunted. "Oh yeah. I just figured since your mother's car is in the driveway…"
      I gave Marcus an understanding smile as I whispered a word of magic and disarmed the sentinels. "You've had a traumatic day, so don't sweat it," I said easily. "Just remember that protective spells don't distinguish between good and evil, okay? They're magical booby traps."
      "Gotcha. Your forte is witchcraft, mine is physics and online gaming. You wanna remind me why we hang around