Free The Twisted by Joe Prendergast Page B

flights. Giuseppe slept through the whole thing. So did Paolo. It was a comfortable flight – but worrying. Everyone had seen the man being taken.
    There was a tense feeling in the air but Paolo and Giuseppe would soon realise that tense isn’t the worst feeling you could have.
    The plane arrived in New York but it was still morning with the time difference. When they exited LaGuardia Airport the brothers caught a cab to Mahogany Castle.
    The cab was quick and when they arrived at their destination a smiling Dave with his wife, Vivian, whom the brothers had not met before, greeted them.
    The rain poured down and Paolo and Giuseppe went inside. “Cook will get you something to eat and then we will get down to business,” said Dave.

    Richard Blake did not like the sun. It damaged his skin and, being a sorcerer and the Grand one at that, he was particularly sensitive. To make things worse on this particular day he was annoyed. Very, very annoyed. He had recruited his, now ex-wife to become the first of his Twisted Army by giving her the ‘Twisted Touch’ but she had done a terrible job. She had snatched some random man instead of those wretched Fragola Brothers. He knew whom they were and why they were going to New York and he needed to get rid of them.
    He walked out into the morning breeze and took a few deep breaths while he contemplated his next move.

CHAPTER 2
    The Stranger
    The snow was covering her slowly and Arish Doom watched the castle in dismay. She would never get there in time. She was going to die here. No! She told herself, you will not die! Not ever! Never! You will not die! Keep walking. So she built herself up and managed something that resembled a walk.
    She was stumbling along to the castle gates when she heard footsteps. A creature was coming towards her. It had long wavy hair and human proportions, though its skin was crumpled and pale, and, like a vampire, it had sharp fangs but this wasn’t a vampire. A vampire had nearly killed her before so she knew precisely what they looked like.
    The creature looked around while it ran. It turned and saw her and she screamed a scream that would wake the whole castle.
    The creature hissed. It was only a metre away from her now, closing in quickly. Then it stopped and clenched its hands together, as if pulling towards the air, and as it worked up a whirlwind of thick black smoke, it wrapped it around Airish and gave a satisfied grunt.
    Arish started to feel the breath being sucked away from her.
    Within a split second however the creature had dropped her having been interrupted by a passer-by walking his dog. It could not afford to be spotted by a human and so turned its attentions to him while Airish made a run for the castle.
    The commotion brought Paolo, Dave and Vivian to the door where they were almost bowled over by Airish. Beyond her, outside the gates they could see a strange looking creature envelope the stranger in a similar whirlwind of smoke and as the two collided within it the passer-by was sucked into the creature’s body.
    10 seconds later he was thrown back out of the creature’s body and as his skin turned pale and crumpled he grew long fangs and sharp nails. He now looked identical to the creature.
    Paolo’s heart started beating fast in his chest. For a fleeting moment he wondered if this was the work of Victor Left, a previous enemy, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t his style – this was the style of something, or someone, with a lot more magical power than that – this was the work of Richard Blake
    All attention was turned to Airish, who was standing cautiously in a corner, as the creatures bounded off into the night.
    â€œWho is that?” Paolo asked, sitting down beside Vivian in the grand entrance hall of Mahogany castle.
    â€œI don’t know her,” answered Vivian but she doesn’t look well.
    â€œWhat just happened there?” Paolo continued with the