Sparktopia Read Online J.A. Huss

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Tags Authors: J.A. Huss Advertisement1

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But it doesn’t end with Clara. The Looking Glass, the secret stairwells, the message from my father.

And Jasina.

This is what makes me open my eyes again. Her. Because she’s still here.

I sit up, swing my feet over the side of the couch, and spend a few seconds rubbing my fingers against my temples. But that hum is still there and it’s annoying. I stand up—shirt untucked, pants open—and pull myself together as I walk over to the massive windows and peer down.

The hum is a chant and the chant is coming from a riot of people down on the God’s Tower stage. They have gathered in the very spot where Clara Birch was kissing a man who is not me inside a ball of spark last night.

Last night they were celebrating. So what the hell happened to transform this crowd into a riot?

I turn away from the window—I couldn’t be more uninterested in the complaints of the common person of Tau City right now if I tried. Whatever they are angry about, they definitely didn’t send the woman they love into the tower. Their father didn’t leave a secret message, only to be murdered for it. When did that happen, I wonder? When did he make that message? A day before he died? Hours? Minutes?

It was recent, that’s all I know. It set something off. Not the countdown, either. Something more than that. Everything started changing around here the moment he died. I felt it.

It was very hard for me to concentrate on details of the message while it was playing so I don’t feel like I got the full significance of what he was saying.

Which should panic me, but Jasina was taking notes.

This is when I turn and find that she is not here.

“Jasina?” I wait, listening. Maybe she went downstairs? “Jasina?” I say it louder.

Nothing.

So I walk over to the stairs and peer down. “Mitch! Are you here?” He should be. All week he’s been here before breakfast.

But I don’t smell breakfast. “Is anyone here!” I shout it as loud as I can.

No one answers.

They must all be at the riot.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I turn. And this is when I see that the hidden door leading to the Tower District is open a crack.

I quickly cross the room, open it all the way up, and look down.

It’s dark. And when I step in, no lights come on.

“Jasina,” I mutter. She went to the tower. She left me. “Oh, shit!” I say this right out loud, then rush over to the Looking Glass room, go inside, close the door, and when the triangles light up all around me, I read the countdown that’s circling the room in bright, blinking blue numbers.

One hour, three minutes, thirty-two seconds.

One hour?

How long was I sleeping? Which is a rhetorical question because all one has to do is count backwards to figure that out.

Better question is… when did Jasina leave?

And why? I mean, we had the whole ‘teamwork’ thing going last night. Not to mention the hot sex. Did she really leave me here to die? Or might she have gone exploring and gotten herself in trouble?

Could go either way, I suppose. And it doesn’t really matter. This tower is going to explode and if I’m still in it, so am I. I go over to the desk, grab a torch light out of the drawer, and then walk through the bookcase, closing it behind me.

I know it’s going to be a long climb down because, clearly, I’m at the top of the tower, so I force myself to try and remember the basics of my father’s message as I descend.

There were two parts to it and the first part was my mission. Get out of here, which I am in the process of doing so… check. Then destroy the Extraction Tower, which he initiated for me with the countdown so… check. And lastly, find the train underneath the Tower District, get on one, and do this all over again in the next city down the line.

A train that leads to another city.

This part of the message tripped me up for a good two minutes while I was listening to my father, so I missed most the details. But in my defense… trains that work? And can take me to the next city?

These things should not exist.

I’m about to get lost in my thoughts about all that once again, but then I remember the second part of his message.

“You might see things down there, Finn. Ignore it. Do not interfere with anything that is happening below the Tower District. Just get on the train, take it down the line, and cut all ties with the gods by destroying their Looking Glass in the Extraction Tower.”

And then he said something so shocking I completely missed everything that came after. Because he said, “Do not, under any circumstances, talk to your mother.”


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