Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers Read Online Free PDF Page A

feet.
    “Hey!” she cried out, dancing back away from the bottle although it had come to rest and the damage was already done.
    She might have complained just then, but that unfathomable expression on Jackson’s face had turned to a mixture between outright fear and unmistakable courage rising up in the face of that fear.
    “Docia, get inside,” he said, grabbing her arm, turning her around and pushing her roughly in that direction. “And take Sargent with you. Marissa!”
    He bolted off the deck, clearing the stairs to the ground without touching a single one. By then Ram understood that something was wrong and he grabbed for Docia’s arm and stood up all in the same movement.
    “Ow! Hey! Why is everybody grabbing at my arm? I can walk on my—”
    “Docia,” Ram hushed her fiercely.
    “Marissa!”
    The way her brother shouted for Marissa sent a cold shiver of awareness creeping like icy dribbles down the length of Docia’s spine. Jackson had broken into a dead run, everything about him screaming with fear.

CHAPTER TWO

    Leo heard Jackson yell and immediately knew something was very wrong. He moved quickly to the nearest window, ignoring the fierce pain that came with moving too fast. There would be time later for muscle and sinew to repair, at that moment it was nothing but a minor inconvenience to him. Even as he visually tried to discern what was happening, his mind was mapping out the fastest route to the gun case in the parlor. Actually, he didn’t need to map it. He’d been obsessing over getting hold of one of those guns. With that supernatural prick in the same house as he was? He’d be damned if he was going to walk around unarmed. Given their strength, their power, and their speed, it was not exactly what you would call an even match, but Leo would feel better armed than not. He’d gotten the drop on one of them before, and that was before he had even known what they were, so he’d damn well prefer the ability to do it again.
    Jackson was running hell-bent for leather across the front yard, his boots kicking up a dotted line of dust clouds, his speed
everything
unnatural. It was the first time he was seeing Jackson use some of his new ability but he didn’t have time to indulge in the crawling distaste the image evoked within him. Jackson was heading up the drive, toward the good doctor and her garden spot.
    That was when a ragged stream of energy seared across Jackson’s path, like a lightning strike from an ominous thundercloud. Dirt and rock and carefully cultivated landscaping spewed everywhere, bringing Jackson up short with a skid of his boots. Leo and Jackson looked up simultaneously. The next instant Leo bolted for the parlor, grabbing up a heavy iron bust of the god Anubis from one of the end tables as he went. He reached the case, hauled back and smashed the glass with the statue. To his consternation it didn’t break. The only hint he had even hit it was from an impact fracture in a white spiderweb shape. But there was a small hole in the center of that web and that told him the glass was reinforced, but not unbreakable.
    It took three more smashes with the statue before the glass gave up the ghost and created a hole large enough for him to thrust his hand through. He grabbed for the nearest gun, a black Berretta, .45 caliber with a laser sight mounted along its spine. Something that would come in handy in the dark. He checked the chamber and the clip, finding them loaded and ready. He didn’t come across any more ammunition, so what he had was going to have to do and he would have to make every shot count.
    As he ran to the front door, he almost collided with Docia, leaping over Sargent as it was, and exploded onto the porch. All of which cost him a great deal, making him clench his teeth in agony and wonder if he’d just reinjured things that weren’t healed as yet. He flipped on the laser sighting with his thumb and with two hands pointed it into the sky. There was another belch