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97 pages

English

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Based on the hit CW TV show, this second title in The Flash middle-grade series follows Barry Allen as he continues his mission to protect Central City from the sinister Hocus Pocus-but this time, a new evil lurks beneath the city streets . . . Written by New York Times-bestselling author Barry Lyga, this brand-new, original adventure builds upon the world of The Flash. This is one fans won't want to miss!

Informations

Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	10 avril 2018
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781683352532
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0720€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

My name is Barry Allen, and I m the fastest man alive. A particle accelerator explosion sent a bolt of lightning into my lab one night, shattering a shelf of containers and dousing me in electricity and chemicals. When I woke up from a coma nine months later, I found I was gifted with superspeed.
Since then, I ve worked to keep Central City and its people safe from those with evil intent. With the help of my friends Caitlin and Cisco at S.T.A.R. Labs; my girlfriend, Iris; her brother, Wally; and my adoptive father, Joe, I ve battled time travelers, mutated freaks, and meta-humans of every stripe.
I ve tried to reconcile my past, learned some tough lessons, and-most important of all-never, ever stopped moving forward.
I am . . .

Dedicated to Marc Nathan, who gave me the key to the comic book store. Quite literally.
P UBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-2865-5 eISBN 978-1-68335-253-2

Copyright 2018 DC Comics and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. THE FLASH and all related characters and elements DC Comics and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. WB SHIELD: WBEI. (s18)
ABB039932
Cover illustration by C sar Moreno Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
Barry Allen seemed to be on top of the world. His love life is going just great, thanks to his amazing girlfriend, Iris. And his friends and family-tech genius Cisco, medical whiz Caitlin, adoptive father, Joe, fellow speedster Wally, and irascible H.R.-make it easy to be a hero.
But then came Hocus Pocus, the crazed magician with tech so advanced no one could figure it out. He made the Flash his puppet and ran roughshod over Central City until Barry and his friends finally figured out a way to stop him and lock him up in the Pipeline.
Only for Hocus Pocus to vanish mere hours later. Which should be impossible.
Worse yet, someone or something in the sewers called Earthworm is killing people . . . and Barry s repeated absences from work have put his job at the Central City Police Department on the line.
The only way The Flash can solve all of these problems is by tackling one at a time . . .
PROLOGUE
Beneath the city, two hearts beat. One throbbed along at a comfortable pace of seventy-five beats per minute, a rate that would cause neither panic nor even alarm if you were monitoring it.
The other . . . raced .
Well over 120 beats per minute. A ferocious, terrified heart rate. Unsustainable in the long term.
Herb Shawn, whose heartbeat was the accelerated one, lay terrified in the filth of the tunnels beneath Central City. His eyes had adjusted to what could most charitably be described as murky quarter-light from an old emergency lamp that winked and flickered at random. It wasn t possible to see so much as to perceive vague, moving hazes and glimmering fogs. From the echoes of water and his own panicked breathing, the chamber he was in must have been large, but all he could reckon of it was the wall behind him.
His vision was limited and his hearing brought him only hollow echoes, but his sense of smell was working full-time. More s the pity. The reek of the sewer assailed him; even when he held his breath, it violently insinuated itself into his nostrils like a burrowing groundhog seeking shelter.
He lay half-covered in grimy water, in which floated things he did not want to identify. The cold of the water had settled into his bones; he could barely feel his legs, though he knew they itched to stand, to run.
Not that he could do either. He was shackled to the wall, connected by a hefty chain to a stout U-bolt. He d tried a few experimental tugs when he d woken, but the chain had not budged. He was securely held in place. Down here in the dark and the echoey quiet and the stink.
And just then . . . a sound. Something on the farthest periphery of his hearing. But it was there, no doubt. Something moved out there in the water. A rat? Something else? He d heard a crazy rumor about some kind of ape or gorilla living in the sewers, but that just had to be nonsense. This whole city had gone crazy ever since that explosion a few years back. People were seeing things every which way they turned. He should have moved by now. Should have moved to Coast City or Star City or even St. Roch. Anywhere was better than-
There. There it was again. Something in the water. Small. A rat. Had to be.
He was both grateful and disgusted at the same time. A rat, even a big one, could be fended off. But what if there were more, lurking just beyond? Could he fight off a swarm of them before-
His heartbeat, already rocketing, leaped even further as a figure swam out of the murk before him, leaning in. In utter terror, he shrieked, screaming loud and long. The sound echoed from the walls, overlapping his own scream, filling his ears to the bursting point.
The figure (the possessor of the other, calmer heartbeat beneath Central City that night) waited patiently until Herb had stopped screaming. It was tall, looming over him, seeming even taller for its thinness and the forced perspective of Herb s position on the ground. It was human but somehow inhuman at the same time. Two arms, two legs, a head, but . . . so tall and so skinny that it seemed more a disjointed skeleton assembled out of parts than a living, breathing organism. Its skin was sallow, the color of old lemons, and its nose was the barest scrap of a bump, the nostrils wide and flaring. Ridges rose from its eyes to the apex of its bald head, furrows of flesh that gave it a demonic appearance.
It wore a shabby coat and threadbare jeans with a long, bedraggled red scarf knotted around its neck. A rat perched on its shoulder, patiently regarding Herb with glittering, hungry eyes.
Please . . . Herb whimpered. It was the only word he could conjure in that moment.
The figure leaned in close. Its jaundiced flesh seemed rotten somehow, as though it had died even though the person to whom it clung still lived. As Herb watched, a cluster of worms erupted from the lapel of the figure s jacket and slithered along the fabric.
Please, he said again.
The man-for it was a man, Herb realized, though one more grotesque and misshapen than any he d ever seen before-tilted his malformed head to one side. The rat chittered softly in his ear.
You have. Something. I need. The man s voice sounded like a rusty, broken fan, staccato and raspy. Once I take it from you, you ll be set free. Set free to roam the Upworld again.
The Upworld ?
Herb nodded fiercely. He would agree to anything, give up anything, just to get this chain off his wrist and see the sunlight again.
You can have it. Whatever it is. Herb thought quickly of the contents of his pockets. He had little cash on him, but he would give it all up. His credit cards, too. And his cell phone, of course. It had been soaking in the water for a while now and might not even work, but he would buy a new one for this creature if that s what it took.
Good. The man nodded once, with finality, and produced something from his pocket. Let s begin.
He leaned in farther-and Herb saw that what he d withdrawn from his pocket was a surgical scalpel.
Herb screamed again. For a very, very long time.
1
They gathered solemnly around Cisco Ramon, who lay perfectly still before them, unmoving and utterly silent. Wally looked over at Barry, who looked over at Iris, who looked over at Caitlin, who looked over at H.R., who looked over at Joe.
He s dead, Joe said.
More silence among those gathered. Then, without warning, Cisco snorted, a single, loud, nasal blast that echoed in the medical bay at S.T.A.R. Labs. His body juddered once, then went still and quiet again.
Dead tired , H.R. whispered. He looked around at the assembled Team Flash. Well, I m not waking him up.
Cisco had been sleeping for close to twenty-four hours after a days-long, caffeine-fueled tech binge during which he d tried to figure out how Hocus Pocus s advanced technology worked. After the magician was captured, Cisco had fallen asleep on one of the beds in the medical bay and he hadn t moved since. Now they needed him awake again. Hocus Pocus had pulled off an impossible disappearing act from the heart of the inescapable Pipeline, and the Flash needed to know how .
With a sigh, Barry poked Cisco in the sternum. Cisco grunted, flapped a loose hand in Barry s general direction, then rolled onto his side and kept right on sleeping.
Poor thing. Caitlin gnawed at her lower lip. Do we have to wake him up?
It s been almost a day , Wally complained. I mean, come on. Just open a window and blast some heavy metal.
We re underground, so the window isn t going to accomplish anything, Iris reminded him. And Barry s phone is just loaded up with old show tunes, because he s a gigantic nerd like that. She smiled sweetly. Which I totally love, by the way.
Barry ignored the shot at his musical tastes and considered his friend before him,