2 Witch and Famous by Eve Paludan, Stuart Sharp Read Free Book Online Page B

up.
    Which was exactly when someone started shooting at me.
    I didn’t hear the first shot, but I felt something whisper past my cheek, and I saw the mess that was all that was left of the bark on the tree behind me. It probably said a lot about both my life and the country in which I live that my first thought wasn’t “gun.” Instead, what got me scrambling for cover behind the tree was the memory of a couple of magical attacks in my recent past; there had been ones that had sent me flying back into objects and smashed through walls. I didn’t want a repeat performance.
    I ducked back behind the tree, and as I did so, another bullet slammed into it. This time, there was no mistaking what it was. Someone was actually shooting at me. I hadn’t seen anyone else around. I hadn’t heard anything, either. A sniper with a suppressed rifle. Who would have something like that in Scotland? Actually, the answer to that probably covered a whole host of people, from ghillies up on the big estates in the Highlands down.
    Thankfully, so far, neither the gun nor the shooter had proven to be very accurate. Probably not a ghillie, then, or a professional sniper. Either of those would have hit me the first time. Certainly, the second time. I almost laughed at how calmly my brain could supply me with that thought, although I stopped laughing soon enough when another bullet flew by the tree and thunked into the tree behind me.
    What were my options? Call the police and hunker down behind cover until they came? Make a run for it? Try to take the offensive? I couldn’t take the first option, partly because I might be dead before they arrived, but mostly because the only reasons I could think of for someone shooting at me had far too much to do with the supernatural to risk involving the human police. Of course, the shooter probably wouldn’t want to risk them either, so they would probably be repositioning even as I thought about it, looking for a line of sight…
    I stretched out my senses, and I felt something on me. The soft weight of someone’s attention. The tiny certainty that I was being looked at. Specifically, I sensed the cold, clear emotion of someone staring right at the center of my chest. I threw myself flat just in time, hearing the shot go overhead. I scrambled behind the tree again, knowing that it wouldn’t help me for long.
    I tried to get a grip on the attention I had felt, reaching out with my talents, and found it after a second or two of searching. It was a thin beam of concentration, almost laser-like in its intensity, the focus of someone looking down a telescopic sight at one spot, waiting for me to so much as glance out from behind my hiding place.
    At least, if I went out to my right. Instead, I went left, making it to the next tree before my would-be assassin could shift his aim. I felt for the beam of concentration as it flicked back and forth, trying to time the movements. This time, I skidded into the next patch of cover only an instant before a bullet went past. I heard it sing by and shuddered. That was too close. I needed to change tactics.
    So, I did. A month ago, I wouldn’t have had any options left. A month ago, I had thought I was weak. Far weaker than any other witch. Now I knew that all those spells I’d spent my life trying to learn weren’t as out of reach as I’d once thought. On the night we had finally slept together, Niall had shown me that by conjuring a witch light that I’d been sure was impossible for an enchanter. I’d been wrong. All I’d needed was the right emotional fuel.
    There wasn’t a lot of energy in the beam of concentration, but there was something. Better yet, it gave me a clear line back to the shooter. I scooped it up, drank it in, and whispered what I could remember of the words to a spell designed to conjure lightning. The spark that formed in my hands wasn’t much, but I threw it anyway, flinging it back along the beam that sought me out.
    As the cry came