Doc Sidhe Read Online Free PDF Page B

.
    . . . and his teeth, long and white, were sharp. Pointed .
    Harris felt a shudder across his shoulders. Of all the strange and wrong things he'd seen this night, sharp, pointed teeth on a squat man weren't the worst. But they were his limit—one thing too many for him to accept.
    "You, there!" the man called again. "You're dead!" And the squat man with the beret bent over, dug his fingers in the gap between two concrete paving blocks . . . and pulled one block up, the effort breaking it away from its neighbor. He hefted it one-handed as though it were a paperback book.
    Harris felt his world reel around him again. He heard more automobile traffic driving the wrong way on the street behind him, felt his injury burning along his thigh, tasted the unaccustomed sweetness of the air, but all he was aware of was the man in the beret and the huge block of concrete he handled.
    The man drew the massive concrete square back over his shoulder. And threw it at him.
    Harris dived behind the nearest tree, fetching up against the rough bark, and saw a gray-white flash as the concrete sailed past. The slab flew across the median and the street beyond. It smashed into a stone wall, the impact sounding like the world's largest porcelain jar shattering, and threw gravel-sized chips in all directions.
    Wide-eyed, Harris looked back at the man who'd thrown it. The stunted man was already in motion, running his way.
    Harris bolted, running beside the median, cursing the pain in his leg as it slowed him. There was no question of him trying to defend himself against a man like that. A glance over his shoulder showed the short man catching up—damn, he ran fast. Like a sprinter, like an Olympic gymnast charging toward the vaulting horse.
    But just beyond the short man was a truck, passing him by and headed Harris' way. It looked like an Army truck, but dark crimson instead of green.
    As it came abreast of Harris, he angled toward it, got his hands on the tailgate, and hauled himself into the rear.
    Dragging himself over the tailgate and dropping into the truck bed sent fiery pain through his injured thigh. A gold-and-red haze obscured his vision. He lay on his back, gulping in air, waiting for the haze to fade.
    He was either someplace very strange, or he was having a psychotic episode. After all his recent disappointments and all that vodka, he could believe the latter. But he didn't; this was all too real.
    After half a minute his vision returned to normal. He could see wooden crates lashed down to the front half of the truck bed. He sat up wearily and looked out over the tailgate.
    The squat man was still there. About fifteen feet back, he was running hard and fast. And as he caught sight of Harris, his eyes gleamed redly again; he put on another burst of speed, gaining a couple of feet on the truck.
    He'd lost his beret, sweat poured down his face and into his gray mustache and beard, his shirt was askew with its tails free of his pants, and he was still running faster than any man Harris had ever seen. Harris froze, shocked beyond thinking.
    The truck bed beneath him vibrated and rumbled; Harris heard its gears shift. It slowed and the short man gained another half-dozen feet. Harris forced himself to rise to a half-crouch, ready for a futile fight against this unstoppable little man.
    But the truck accelerated. The gap between two-legged pursuer and four-wheeled prey widened. Harris might have cheered, but all his air seemed to be going to fuel the pounding of his heart. The short man was twenty feet back, twenty-five and still running, then thirty . . . and at last Harris saw him give up the chase, stopping in the middle of the road, shaking a fist furiously after the truck and its passenger.
    Then, finally, Harris felt he could slump back down behind the tailgate and get his heart under control.
     
    The skyscraper loomed up fifty or more stories, but was round instead of square, with its upper floors shaped like the top of a medieval