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

Leo that these were their bodyguards, their supernatural protectors. They were strong and nearly impossible to kill and would never stop in their endeavors to protect the Bodywalkers they were pledged to.
    There was nothing for them to attack, that they could see, but they all knew the general area to aim for. And then, like ducks in a shooting gallery, those massive beams of energy shot out of the sky and picked the Gargoyles off, one by one, sending them thundering back down to the earth, deadweights of stone.
    But it was enough. Enough for Leo to see that the energy beam remained solid, from inception point to end point, for the beat of a few seconds, telling him exactly where the attacker might be. He blew off four shots, the recoil from the Beretta jolting through him.
    Like a magician yanking a cloth away to reveal the lady or the tiger beneath it, the thing in the air winked into view. It wobbled around, and Leo was sure he had hit it.
    “Leo, no!” Jackson shouted, much too late. The woman…and it was a woman…attacking from the night sky whirled to face Leo’s direction. She was wearing white from head to toe, long auburn hair streaming in blowing wisps around her head, like some kind of Clairoled medusa. A stain of blood spread across the white of her clothing.
    Right over her heart.
    Lucky shot that, Leo thought. Right before he realized he’d shot her in the heart and she was still floating up there in midair as if it meant nothing to her at all. She lowered herself closer to the ground and Leo readied himself to fire another volley of bullets. She had to have a vulnerability somewhere, and he…
    He recognized that face. He didn’t know how, but it was like a barely remembered snatch of a dream. A dream where he had…
    Cut her throat.
    This was the woman he had killed, slitting her throat, dropping her down on the floor to bleed out. This was the woman who was the catalyst behind Kamenwati sending Chatha to find Leo and capture him so that the Templar could deliver vengeance on him in her name.
    Odjit.
    The name came to him about two seconds before her laughter filled the night air.
    “Very well,” she said, her voice echoing and powerfully loud all around him. “If you wish to die first, I can oblige you.”
    “No!” Jackson shouted the word and suddenly Leo was shoved back by a powerful force, as though a linebacker had rammed into him, sending him sprawling into the dirt. His gun flew out of his hands as he gathered a faceful of dirt and excruciating pain hit him everywhere at once. He could swear he’d heard something snap, some bone in his body no doubt. But he was too stunned to feel anything in specific right then.
    But he saw how Jackson’s shout drew Odjit’s attention and she lowered herself even farther and faced him.
    “You,” she said, “are dangerous.”
    Jackson’s response was to throw out both hands and shove, as if he were pushing her off himself, had she been anywhere near close enough for it, which she wasn’t. But just the same she was sent backward, much in the same way Leo had been sent flying. That was when it really sank in that Jackson had been the one to shove Leo out of the way of Odjit’s attention. But unlike Leo, she didn’t even come close to hitting the ground, and, outside of a midair tumble, she was almost completely unaffected by his attack.
    “You,” she said again, “might be troublesome, given enough time. That thought makes us most unhappy.”
    Us?
Like, the royal
Us
? Jeez, who was this lady anyway?
What
was she? Leo was in too much pain to give it much thought. There were details, bits of conversation he’d been half listening to, that he couldn’t force into sense enough to answer his own questions at the moment. His world was suddenly overrun with these kinds of creatures and he had known right from the first moment he’d become aware of them that there was nothing good about them. And he was just as certain there was almost nothing he could