Swords of Waar Read Online Free PDF Page A

the next, like a drop of water on a hot skillet. I saw red. I snarled. I put my fist through the back door window, then cleared the shards with a couple more punches and reached down to the latch. A second later I was in, knuckles and arm bleeding.
    I heard a scream from the living room.
    “It’s okay, Mrs. Gardner. I’m just going to look for the transmigration ray now.”
    I stepped into the dining room, dripping blood off my knuckles. The whispering got fainter. I backed out and crossed to the door to the living room.
    BLAM!
    I jerked back as a bullet splintered the door frame beside my head. The silly bitch did have a gun! A fucking Dirty Harry magnum revolver, of all things. Fortunately, firing it had knocked her on her ass, and she was heels-up across an occasional table with her head in a dish of butter mints, her forehead turning purple where the recoil had smacked her in the face.
    I jumped across the room and snatched the howitzer out of her hand before she could recover.
    She threw her arms over her face. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”
    I flipped out the barrel and shook out the five remaining bullets onto the carpet. “I told you I wasn’t going to kill you. Now, stay put!”
    I stuffed the gun in the back of my jeans and stood stock still, trying to listen past the pain in my arm and hand and find the whispering again. My ears were still ringing from the gunshot. It took a while. Leigh looked up at me like I was crazy. Well, duh.
    After another minute I could hear it again, and it felt like it was stronger above me. I ran for the stairs.
    Leigh whimpered from the floor. “Where are you going?”
    “Out of your life, I hope.”
    I heard sirens as I reached the second floor, and not too far away, either. Shit! The cops must have had a cruiser in the neighborhood. I didn’t have much time.
    There were bedrooms to the right and left, with a bathroom and a closed door in between. The whispering was definitely louder up here. I ducked into the left bedroom, Leigh’s by the slippers under the bed and the curler set on the vanity. The whispering got quieter. I backed out and went into the other, a guest bedroom—neat as a pin. Quieter here too. Damn. The bathroom didn’t give me any love either. What was behind door number two?
    I threw it open, expecting a linen closet, but it was a set of stairs going up. The attic! Of course!
    I bounded up the stairs, and nearly cracked my skull. The attic was an L-shaped space with a slanting bare-beamed ceiling coming to a point only a few inches over my head. I hunched down and looked around, then groaned. The place was packed with junk! Hat boxes, trucks, crates, piles of old magazines, clothes bags hanging from a rod, an ancient baby buggy. And the sirens were only blocks away. I was never going to find the gem in time!
    It was almost impossible to stop myself from tearing into the boxes at random, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I needed to clear my head and listen. I stopped, heart pounding, and closed my eyes. Right. It was to the right. I turned to the long leg of the L and squeezed down the narrow path between mounds of junk. The whispering got louder. I was on the right track.
    I slipped around the rectangular brick pillar of a chimney and pushed to the far wall, which had a little window in it. The whispering was behind me now. I’d passed it. As I turned back, a flash of red and blue out the window caught my eye. The cops were outside. They were getting out of their car.
    “Fucking cops. It’s goddamn deja-vu all over again!”
    I forced myself to go ahead slowly, feeling for the moment when the source of the whispering slipped behind me. Just past the chimney, it did. I turned and looked around. There were suitcases piled up all around it. I started tearing into them like a crazed badger, dumping out dusty clothes, old letters, silverware sets, diplomas, and throwing the luggage behind me. Nothing.
    As I stomped open another case I heard a