Messenger of Fear. Майкл Грант

      

      First published in Great Britain in 2014

       by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

       The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Published with arrangement with HarperTeen,

       a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1350 Avenue of the Americas,

       New York, New York 10019, USA

      Text copyright © 2014 Michael Grant

       Illustrations copyright © 2014 Joe McLaren

      First e-book edition 2014

      ISBN 978 1 4052 6515 7

       eISBN 978 1 7803 1258 3

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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       EGMONT

      Our story began over a century ago, when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Petersen found a coin in the street. He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.

      The coin brought him such good luck that today Egmont has offices in over 30 countries around the world. And that lucky coin is still kept at the company’s head offices in Denmark.

      I normally dedicate my books to Katherine, Jake, and Julia. Not this time.

       F or Julia, Jake, and Katherine.

      Because Julia is tired of always being named last just because she’s the youngest.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

       6

       7

       8

       9

       10

       11

       12

       13

       14

       15

       16

       17

       18

       19

       20

       21

       22

       23

       24

       Acknowledgements

       Back series promotional page

1

      My eyes opened.

      I was on my back.

      A mist pressed close, all around me, so close that it was more like a blanket than a fog. The mist was the color of yellowed teeth and it moved without a breath of breeze, moved as if it had a will.

      The mist swirled slowly, sensuously, and it touched me. I don’t mean that it was merely near to me and therefore inevitably touched me; I mean that it touched me. It felt my face like a blind person might. It crept up the sleeves of my sweater and down the neckline. It found its insinuating way under rough denim and seeped, almost like a liquid, along bare skin. Fingerless, it touched me. Eyeless, it gazed at me. It heard the beating of my heart and swept in and out of my mouth with each quick and shallow breath.

      The mist spoke to me, wordless, soundless, and yet so that I understood, and it said, Shiver.

      I shivered, and goosebumps rose on the insides of my arms and on my belly, and the mist laughed as silently as it had commanded me.

      I called out, “Mom?”

      But the mist would have none of that. It took my word, stopped it, flattened it, made a mockery of it, and echoed it back to me.

      I