Black Magic Read Online Free

as the sound of screaming guitars coming out of a 1930s cabinet radio. The effort to sound cool made him seem even less so. “Now look what you did, Ricky. You broke my concentration and I’m dead.”
    “Yeah, that’s it,” Ricky said. “You were kicking that thing’s ass until just this second, and I screwed it all up.”
    “You’re dead, loser,” Zach said to Barry. He hit the pause button and the action froze on the screen. “Switch out.”
    “But Ricky—”
    Zach picked a BB pistol up off the coffee table, pointed it at Barry’s meaty shoulder with only the vaguest attempt at aiming. He pulled the trigger. The gun popped.
    “Hey, what the hell?” Barry said. He pulled up his sleeve and exposed a tiny red welt.
    “Low pressure, woosie,” Zach said with derision. “You got the padding to take it.”
    Barry dropped the controller in defeat and left the couch. Paco Mason took Barry’s place.
    Paco was a wiry little kid with a nose like a ski slope. The frayed white denim around the holes in his jeans stood up like brush bristles and swayed with each stuttering step. Perpetually ADHD, all his movements had a jitter to them. His eyes lit up as he took the controller.
    “This is the ultimate, dude,” he said. “Let’s waste some aliens.”
    The game restarted and Paco’s fingers flailed across the controller. His soldier looked like a marionette controlled by a meth head. Volume of fire overcame its random nature and he racked up points.
    The four of them had banded together as the Outsiders over the last few months. They all had issues that kept them out of the mainstream. Zach had been at the bottom of the pecking order since he’d been held back. Now kids his age looked at him as if he was retarded and the younger kids in his class thought he was a freak since he was so much further into puberty. Ricky was poor and his Mexican parents farmed. Paco was jittery as hell, and always in trouble for something, usually involving fire.
    But Barry had it the worst. Short, fat and spectacled, he might as well have had a big red bully bull’s-eye tattooed on his forehead. Asthma kept him out of PE and sidelined in the schoolyard. Watching one of Barry’s panicked grasps for his inhaler was practically an invitation to punch him. His horribly overprotective mother was a constant source of humiliation. If he hadn’t fallen in with the Outsiders, even they would have wailed on him after school.
    Barry sat to one side and massaged his left shoulder. He could not hide the anxiety on his face. Ricky sat next to him. Barry moved his hand from his shoulder and straightened up in his chair. Something exploded on the TV screen and the boys on the couch cheered.
    “Don’t sweat Zach,” Ricky said. “He was raised by wolves.”
    “It didn’t hurt,” Barry said, his voice an octave too low.
    “You know you need to shoot the green diamond on their heads,” Ricky offered.
    “Huh?”
    “The aliens. Nail that green diamond and they go down in one shot instead of having to slice them to pieces.”
    Barry’s eyes widened to fill his glasses. “For real?”
    “For real. Try it next time. Take my turn.”
    “Okay,” Barry said with a grateful look in his eyes.
    Ricky propped his feet up on the table. Zach shot the stinger off an alien. All was right with the world.

Chapter Seven
    Downtown Citrus Glade was dead as road kill the next morning and not just because it was Sunday.
    Back when Apex Sugar had the mill going, it was a different story. The six blocks that centered on Main and Tangelo bustled with activity. Hundreds of workers lived in Citrus Glade. The town provided all they needed, including movie theaters, car dealerships and a thriving downtown square. Fourth of July parades were good for two dozen floats.
    But that Citrus Glade was gone. Like an aging actress with a fizzled career, the town tried to keep up appearances. But just as thicker makeup cannot cover the ravages of time, fresh paint on the