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asking for you." The big man switched into a lisping falsetto. "Oh, Conrad, where's Bryan? He's sooooo cute. I'd just love to hog-tie that little rascal." |
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Bryan! Paula stared at the small man. That's Bryan? How could Kyna get hooked up with a wimp like that? |
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Paula guided the ladybug to the top of the bookcase near the table where she could gaze down into the clay bowl. She saw the water, the crystal and the sand and suddenly everything started to fall into place. Bryan had constructed the protective charmssuch as they wereto hide from the Dark Man, and he was using a vaticinating crystal to keep tabs on Kyna. That meant that whatever the Dark Man was after, this Bryan was behind it and he had staked Kyna out like a Judas goat to draw the sorcerer's wrath. |
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You treacherous little son of a bitch! |
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Paula wished she had found a serpent to use as a hostpreferably one with long fangs and about a gallon of slow, painful poison. Save that, she had another idea. |
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She flew to the chandelier suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room. From there she could see the weblike emanations of Bryan's protective shield. The strands shifted and twirled and sparked like the aurora borealis, only on a spectral plane unseen to all but the most sensitive. As primitive as the barrier was, Paula decided, it must have been constructed specifically for the Dark Man. That was why she had been able to spot it and follow it back without being detected. |
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Okay now, easy does it . . . |
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Using her mind like a scalpel, Paula carefully snipped one of the invisible threads and then retreated quickly back into her tiny host to see what happened. |
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The man's as perceptive as a mud fence! |
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Paula reached out again, snipped another strand, creating a minute hole in the web. |
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Once more she pulled back and watchedsurely this time the man would notice. |
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The truth was, after checking the spell for several days in |
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