White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5 Read Free Page B

watching her, and she spoke to any of them, she’d just be putting their lives in danger. Better to leave with a clean break.
    She might not be able to jump at the moment, but she could hide. For a long, long time. She was beginning to suspect that she’d be Hunter chow if she stayed in this town one more night.
    Emma picked up her shoulder bag and decided to skip the bathroom. She really didn’t have time for that. The Immortal who watched her from across the bar followed her with his eyes as she abandoned Holly’s beer in front of her and made a beeline for the door. She grabbed her still wet rain gear, threw it around her shoulders and walked out into the cool night air. She had a fifteen-minute walk to her apartment at the Crane Lofts and to her car. She’d have to leave her clothes. The loft came furnished, and she wasn’t willing to die for shampoo and toothpaste, and a few shoes.
    She put her hood up in her chin down and walked like she was late for an appointment. The sharp clip of her boot heels on the concrete sidewalk kept her company and she put several blocks behind her without looking up. It was only nine o’clock on a Friday night. That was early in the Pearl District neighborhood and there were many people out enjoying the warmer weather. She increased her pace to a light jog and ignored the odd looks of the people she passed. She had one destination in mind, her car.
    Emma laughed when she touched the hood of the ten-year-old sedan, her relief so great that it needed an outlet. She pulled the car keys from her pocket and had the door unlocked when the dark shadow appeared in the corner of her right eye.
    The Hunter was huge, but not the biggest she’d seen. He walked straight toward her, but stopped a few steps away. His hideous face looked like melted black wax, and the hands that peeked out from the sleeves of his long trench coat looked like they’d been carved from black onyx, the claws on his fingertips sharper than a samurai sword.
    “Get away from me. What do you want?” Emma wanted to shout at it, scream in its face. But she wouldn’t give her enemy the satisfaction of seeing her fear. She knew the creature was immortal, and that he would hear her even if she whispered the words from a hundred yards away.
    “Come.’ The monster held out his hand to her as if he were a gallant gentleman caller and not a killer.
    “No. I don’t think so.” She took two steps back, ready to bolt, when she heard the strange metallic hissing of the second creature behind her. Two of them. So, she’d been right about that. Where was the third? And why weren’t they attacking?
    “Come.” The creature standing near the trunk of her car took a step closer and waited.
    Emma risked a glance back over her right shoulder to find the other Triscani Hunter standing squarely in the space between her bumper and the car that she had parked next to. There would be no getting past him. She ran every day to keep in shape, but her five-foot-two frame wasn’t exactly equipped to start jumping over cars. Which left her with option number two, burning them up.
    “I wish that you Hunters would just leave me the hell alone.” Emma dropped her bag and pulled the hood off her head. If she was going to fry these evil cretins, she’d have to touch them, skin to skin. She looked at the hand that the first Triscani still held out her. Or, skin to stone. Or whatever the hell these things were made of.
    She dropped the rain coat, pulled her thin leather jacket off her shoulders and let it slide to the ground, then pulled up the sleeves of her sweater past her elbows. The wig she wore covered the sides of her face and her neck, more skin she might need them to have access to. The trick was going to be getting them both to touch her at the same time. Because once she started to burn, she wouldn't be able to move until she was done. She needed to kill both of them now, not fry one and let the other escape with her secrets. But that