Shadowlands Read Online Free Page A

going to back away, and its teeth seemed to grow larger as they reached for me. A hand came out of nowhere, clamped down on my still outstretched arm, yanked me to my feet, and then we were running down the sidewalk.
    The images I got from him made me run even faster. I didn’t look behind us to see if the dog was still a dog. I just ran.
    I knew who my rescuer was long before he had us sitting in one of the booths of the Second Cup at York and Front Streets—I’d known the minute he’d touched me. What I still couldn’t be sure of [strong emotion combined with that odd fragmentation I’d picked up earlier] was how Nikos Polihronidis had managed to be where he was, when he was.
    Other than by following me.
    I’d managed to get a couple of other things from him along the way [
much
older than he looked; bitten/touched by a Hound once] but what had made me run as fast as I could was the image of bottomless, ravenous hunger in his psyche, and the echoing emptiness that hunger left behind.
    And I knew what that hunger was, though I’d never encountered it myself.
The Hunt.
    “You were being followed,” he said now. He wanted something from me, and that’s why he’d been on the spot to save me. The calm exterior hid hard images of anger, fear.
    “By something besides you, Mr. Polihronidis?” I thought that would provoke him, and I was right.
    His face tightened even as he waved his hand in a pretty good imitation of a casual gesture. “Better make it Nik.” He picked up his espresso and put it down again. “You could have knocked me over when I saw you come into the office,” he said. “You’re the girl with the Rider, aren’t you?”
    I blinked. I hadn’t seen
that
when he was touching me.
    “We’ve seen you together.” He jerked his head toward the bulk of Union Station, just visible at the end of the street. Where the crossroadswas. And the Portal. “I can see his
dra’aj
, and yours for that matter, so don’t try to say you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
    I straightened up so fast my spine cracked. Reading people’s
dra’aj
, seeing what their talents were, that’s how the Collector found people like me. But I wasn’t in any danger from Nik. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
    “That was a Hound following you,” he said, clearly expecting me to know what he meant. I nodded. Once.
    That was why we’d run several blocks down University, past a fire truck which was trying to close a hydrant that people Nik knew had managed to open. Moving water, apparently, would throw the Hound off the scent. My scent. I’d picked up that much in jolts and fits and starts, as we were running.
    Just the idea of the Hunt was enough to set anybody running, but something was making no sense.
    “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “The Hunt doesn’t prey on humans.” Okay, so he’d been bitten, but he was still alive.
    His smile gave me a hitch in the back of my throat, as if I was about to cry. “Maybe they didn’t, maybe that’s the way it was, once. But
doesn’t,
isn’t,
can’t,
and
once
isn’t
now
.” He reached across the table, but I moved my hands to my lap before he could touch me. He’d read so oddly that I wasn’t sure I wanted to read any more. I was still seeing jigsaw puzzles and rag rugs—as though the fragmentation wasn’t in my images, but in him.
    “They can prey on humans, all right,” he said, drawing his hand back. “They’re doing it all the time now.” He licked his lips. “More every day.”
    “They’re killing people?” Why hadn’t I heard something about this? Had it been on the news?
    Nik shook his head, but he wasn’t saying no. “It’s not that simple. People
are
dying, yes, but—if it was only a few…” He shook his head again. “We need to talk to a Rider, about the Hounds. Can you set that up for us?”
    “Why?”
    A flicker of anger hardened his face. “Because you’re human, like us.”
    “No, I meant, why do you want to talk to a