World Walker 1: The World Walker Read Online Free PDF

But where? When? The sound came again, a kind of harsh rush of air, some crackling, accompanied again by a flash of illumination. She stopped and thought. Her memory was usually exceptional, but this was something unusual, something out of the ordinary. Then she remembered. It had been a demonstration of confiscated or banned weapons four years previously. She knew that sound. She started sprinting.
    Dietricha burst into the clearing to have her fears immediately confirmed. Three young men were walking slowly around the ring of oaks. They might have been taken as hikers at first glance, but Dietricha knew better. On their backs, instead of backpacks, were tanks of high pressure propane and natural gas designed to be released in white hot jets of fire from the nozzles carried by the men. The use of matches and cigarette lighters was banned in the area: flamethrowers would guarantee a significant prison sentence for these idiots.
    She cursed her habit of leaving her cell phone in the chalet. Then she shrugged and smiled grimly. If she couldn't take care of three men armed with flamethrowers on her own, she might as well retire now and take up watercolor painting.  
    "Take the weapons off and put them on the ground," she shouted. "You will answer to the police for this."
    The three men seemed unsurprised by her sudden appearance. No, it was more than that. They were expecting her. What was going on? She had little time to speculate as all three men swung toward her with practiced movements, squeezing their triggers as they moved, sending three superheated jets of flame straight at her. She had less than half a second to react, but Dietricha's instincts were honed to a very rare degree indeed. She jumped fifteen feet into the air, flipping backward as she did so. She landed in the oak tree behind her and immediately sprang forward, over the heads of the men, who had yet to react to her first move. As she flew through the space over them, the flames reached the tree behind her and the 300-year-old wood began to crackle and burn immediately. Dietricha screamed with frustration and drew on her power. She chose a template she had constructed with years of practice, meaning she could transform quickly.  
    Her shoulders thickened and widened as her neck, chest, arms and legs grew great slabs of muscle covered in thick hair. Her head became slightly bigger, the mouth becoming snout-like, filling almost instantly with hundreds of sharp, serrated teeth. Her ears were now those of a wolf, her eyes the predatory amber of a panther. Even as her paw-like feet touched the earth, she sprang, her fangs laying open the neck and shoulder of the nearest man, his life blood pouring out fast enough to render him unconscious before he started to fall. He would be dead within a minute. The second man was beginning to turn, so Dietricha simply slashed a taloned paw across his face, ripping out one eye and temporarily blinding the other as it was filled with blood from the gash in his forehead. She spun toward the third man. She knew he'd had time to react and could feel the heat already as the flame came closer. She gambled he would go for maximum damage and aim at her upper body and face. She dropped to a crouch and sprang low. He was as predictable as she had hoped. The flames passed over her, singeing a few hairs, nothing more. As her outstretched fingers reached his feet, she brutally ripped out the tendons from the back of both legs simultaneously. He made a choking, agonized sound and dropped, bleeding to death.  
    The second man was still flailing around, his flame the only one still ignited. He was turning in a circle, trying to hit Dietricha. She stayed behind him, then brought her hand up to the tank on his back and twisted the nozzle anti-clockwise. The flame died and the man swung around to face her. She bit his face off. He fell without a sound.
    Breathing heavily, she surveyed the scene quickly. The only oak to have suffered had lost a