Read Frost for Free Online

the world.”
    “Stop talking pretty and tell me what the bloody hell’s happening to you.”
    Jack frowned, squeezing his eyes shut, focusing hard on the odd new sensation.
    “I don’t know,” he muttered.
    “Come on, out with it!”
    “I don’t know what I feel… It might be gas.”
    “It’s no gas.”
    “Reading my mind again?”
    “No… I can’t see a thing right now.” Barry sounded a little uncomfortable. “Looks like you’ve got a touch of something extra, after all. Told you, the Web always sends the right ones for the job. Creatures of destiny.”
    That tug lurched once more, stronger this time, evolving in constant flux. It seemed to filter in from all of his senses, yet none of them. Dark sludge filled his pores; rancid horse manure ran in his veins.
    “Let it in. Don’t fight it,” Barry sighed, his voice laced with thinly-veiled impatience. “What do you feel?”
    “Like I’m a human divining rod for something that shouldn’t be here.”
    “Not the worst trick I’ve heard of. That’s it, then: you’re my guide.”
    Jack swallowed hard, opening his eyes and expecting to see the world turned inside out. Instead, the bustle and honking and crowd-weary faces tumbled past just like before.
    “Come on, let’s go,” Barry said, taking a bounding step forward.
    I just saw something without seeing, felt it without touching , Jack thought wildly. What’s happened to me?
    Not only did he feel the ugly new sensations, but also an all-pervading chill deep in his bones, identical to what he’d felt back in Barnes & Noble . The same power that had brought Barry here.
    The Frost .
    “It’s not possible,” he breathed.
    Barry’s lips grew thin, his gaze caught somewhere between exasperation and intrigue. “And why the bloody hell not?”
    Feeling childish, Jack muttered, “There’s magic in the grown-up world.”
    Barry whistled. “Life’s broken you, Jackie Boy.” He shook his head, genuine disappointment filling his gaze. “I admire this place. You people get a bad lot. But this world has a nasty habit of standing all over its own power. There’s magic in you people stronger than any I’ve got here, if you’d but bloody embrace it.”
    He stepped closer and bowed his head to look Jack in the eye. “Now, if you’re done with your little existential crisis, we’ve got a monster on the loose trying to end the world. How about we do something about it?”
    Just like that, the ice drained from Jack’s bones, and the ugly sensation fizzed out. Fresh air gushed in over his skin, and he could breathe again. In the same moment, Barry seemed infinitely stronger, and jerked from his grip with a wry smile. “You’ll get the hang of it.” He twitched his head over his shoulder. “That way?”
    Feeling numb, Jack nodded. “It’s moving fast.”
    Whatever it is. He. Whoever he is.
    Barry’s grin framed his bearded face, his eyes twinkling with madness. “Then we better catch up.”
    His beefy hand closed around Jack’s collar, and he hurtled along the street again, Jack ever the rag doll bobbing along in his wake.
     
     
     

5
     
    Harper stepped into the phone booth and smoothed the creases from his jacket, gritting his teeth at the black slick of drying blood on his lapels. Grimacing with displeasure at the primitive tick-tock machinery of this world, he put the receiver to his ear and dialled.
    A rapid series of clicks and whirs followed as the line was re-routed and scrambled all over the world, then a dull voice said, “Yes?”
    Harper slammed a hand against the booth wall, ignoring the gaggle of obese Australians who leapt back, squawking at the spider-web of splintered glass that blossomed from his palm. “Just what the hell is going on? Last I heard, some of the vaults were waiting on incoming.”
    “Sir.”
    He waited, but the booth rang with silence.
    “ Well ?” he screamed.
    “There are… problems. Four more teams have been taken out. Two are cornered. Some of