Semua Bab Leesa's Advent: Bab 261 - Bab 270

High in the mountains of Romania, the Necromancer’s foul mood was evident as he sat at his magical table with the black wizard Viktor and the two remaining novitiates, Jordan and Rafael. Five empty wooden chairs pushed tight against the huge round table bespoke of the losses he had recently suffered.The Necromancer was a large man—if indeed the misshapen figure could be called a man—significantly bigger than any of his comrades, in girth even more so than height. He possessed a huge bulbous belly, and his hairless head was almost as round as a basketball. In the dimness of the room, the skin of his face and hands seemed almost white—a milky, deathly white more reminiscent of a corpse than a living human being. He had thick purplish lips, a broad, flat nose, and no eyebrows at all. As fearsome as the rest of his countenance was, his most frightening feature by far was his eyes. No eyeballs floated within their confines—no iris, no pupil, nothing.

Blissfully unaware of the grisly goings on in Romania or the dangerous discoveries made by the xenorians at the burial site, Leesa snuggled close against Rave. They were sitting in what she considered their “spot”—on a rock shelf high in the hills above the volkaane settlement. Not too far to their right, a stream bounced and splashed its way down the hillside, filling the air with its relaxing music. The sun had disappeared beyond the western horizon about twenty minutes earlier, and the sky was darkening into ever deeper shades of purple. Below them, the Moodus River was a black ribbon snaking silently through the dark woods.Leesa imagined that the evening air must be growing quite chill, but with Rave’s warmth flowing into her, it might as well have been noon on a sunny summer day.“I could sit like this forever,” she sighed contentedly.“I’m afraid we do not have forever,” Rave replied.Leesa lift

How much time passed before she and Rave finally got back up off the sleeping mat, Leesa had no idea. Inside the dim confines of the cave, there was nothing to mark the passage of time. The sun never poured directly in through the entrance, so once the morning had reached full light outside, the illumination in the cavern remained the same, a kind of pale twilight.They talked, held each other quietly, and talked some more. She drifted off to sleep at least once, she knew. She thought she could easily spend the entire day like this, wrapped up close to Rave with absolutely nothing to distract them, but there was a reason they had come all the way up here to the mountains of New Hampshire. And it wasn’t to lie around all day like a couple of love-struck teenagers—even though that was exactly what she was. She smiled to herself, thinking that if she wanted to get technical, Rave was still a teenager, too—in volkaane terms, at least.She leaned her head

Late Monday afternoon, Cali lay stretched out on her bed, relaxing to Pink’s greatest hits CD. Pink was one of her favorite artists—Cali loved her rebellious, raucous lyrics and the way she wove swear words into her songs that you didn’t get to hear in the radio versions. Pink was shooting some guy down by telling him it was “just him and his hand” that night when a knock sounded at Cali’s door.Pushing herself up off the bed, Cali turned down the volume and crossed to the door. When she pulled it open, she was surprised to see BSI agents Smith, Jones and Rome standing there. Missi, a girl from the second floor, stood behind them. The three agents were dressed exactly the same as the last time they were here. Cali wondered if they each only owned one suit, or if they had a collection of identical ones.“Hello, Miss Farnsworth,” Smith said. “Remember us?”Act dumb, Cali reminded herself. “Yeah, sur

Leesa sat on a wooden bench in a riverside park located on the outskirts of a small town about thirty miles from the caverns where she and Rave were staying. At this hour of the night, she and Rave had the park all to themselves. A bright three-quarter moon and a myriad of stars provided more than enough illumination in the deserted park. Rave had carried her here so she could call Dominic—while she could text from up in the mountains, the signal there was much too weak for calls. Of course, that particular inconvenience of their secluded hideaway was of no matter to the volkaanes.After infusing Leesa with some of his heat to help ward off the cold night air, Rave slid down to the end of the bench, far enough away to be no danger to her phone. As soon as he moved away, Leesa punched in Dominic’s programmed number.The phone rang a bunch of times. Leesa waited patiently, picturing Dominic rummaging through his magic wallet to find the phone amidst all the o