Firewalker Read Online Free Page B

on you, ma’am? Green card? Naturalization papers?”
    He was either a wise-ass or just ignorant. “My ancestors have been here a hell of a lot longer than yours,” I growled. “Where’s your green card?”
    “Just give him your driver’s license, Janet.” Nash sounded weary.
    I pulled it out and handed it over. Sourly. The officer’s flashlight moved across it. “Cleared for motorcycle operation, eh? You a biker, sweetie?”
    “Not tonight.”
    The man grinned. “Funny.” He had eyes of darkness, and I smelled the blood on him.
    He switched the flashlight back to Nash. “Put your hands on the truck.” Nash, damn him, obeyed.
    “You too, ma’am.”
    I did it, muttering under my breath. I needed magic. Something. Anything.
    The officer patted down Nash; then he reached through the passenger window to the glove compartment and fished out Nash’s nine-millimeter. “You go on vacation armed?”
    “I’m an officer of the law,” Nash said. “I never know when I might have to help out.”
    The man set the gun on a boulder behind him, out of reach, then moved to me. Hands roved up and down my legs, slid between my buttocks, cupped my crotch.
    “Pervert,” I snarled.
    Nash came to life. “Watch what you’re doing.”
    “Oh, you’ll watch me.” The man took his own pistol out of its holster, cocked it, and shoved it into Nash’s neck. “You’ll watch while I feed off her, knowing that next, I’ll do the same to you.” He laughed, his unnaturally black eyes glittering. “Gods, I love the taste of mundanes in the moonlight.”

Three

    “Nightwalker,” I grated.
    “You know about Nightwalkers?” The Nightwalker sniffed me, never moving the gun from Nash. “Funny, you don’t smell magical.”
    “What the hell is a Nightwalker?” Nash asked me. “And what does he mean, feed off you ?”
    The Nightwalker chuckled. “He doesn’t know? This should be fun.”
    Very clever of one of the things to figure out how to work a checkpoint. He’d probably been a federal officer before he’d become a bloodsucker, likely still did his job well if he didn’t make many full kills. He could only partially drain his victims and let them go, unaware of what had happened, and he’d still be able to hide his true nature from his colleagues. But bloodlust lit his eyes, and I had the feeling that this was going to be one of his kills.
    I wanted to kick the thing in the balls and get the hell out of there. But Nightwalkers are strong and hard to kill, and I didn’t have a handy wooden stake or sword with me. I would pack better next time. At the moment, I had no way of fighting him except with my fists, which wouldn’t do anything but hurt my fists.
    But something strange was happening inside me. I felt a burning sensation in my fingertips, which moved all along my veins, and it wasn’t from Mick’s compulsion spell. The compulsion spell was a dull ache; this was raw and cold and new.
    I had a swift vision of my body growling taller, shooting up to tower over the Nightwalker, a bright whiteness glowing around me to light the night. I saw myself raising my hands, heard my mouth issuing commands in a language I didn’t understand. I saw the Nightwalker screaming, his red mouth open, his body twisting in excruciating pain. He was dying but couldn’t die. I was somehow holding him together, making him relive the torment of every victim he’d ever drained, over and over again. It was heady; it was exhilarating. I laughed.
    Nash Jones’s voice cut into my brain like a scalpel. “Don’t lose it, Begay.”
    I blinked. The vision died, and I was standing with my hands on Nash’s truck, sweating inside my leather coat. The Nightwalker was very much alive and looking at me with a tinge of fear, as though it sensed my vision but wasn’t quite certain it had.
    “Whatever you are,” Nash was saying, “leave her alone and let her go. I’ll do what you want.”
    What a hero. The Nightwalker would never let me go,