Hunter's Fall by Shiloh Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

it was dangerous. The ability to move herself from one place to another, miles away, was almost as easy as breathing when she was at full strength.
    Nessa hadn’t been at full strength in months. Logically, she knew she needed to take better care of herself. On her lucid days, she did try. But there were other days when it seemed insanity had the stronger hold. Days when she couldn’t tell reality from the nightmares inside her head, days when she couldn’t separate the future from the past.
    When she was stronger, the lucid days came more often. Those days, however, came with painfully clear memories. Memories she would do nearly anything to avoid having. Keeping her mind occupied helped—which meant Hunting like a demon. Or letting herself become weak enough, tired enough, that she slipped out of lucidity. Usually a combination of both worked best.
    Except doing both tended to make people fuss over her like she was some kind of daft old bat or a reckless young child.
    With a curl of her lip, she muttered, “I tried the daft old bat route—it wouldn’t stick.” So now she was stuck inside the body of a reckless youth.
    Morgan had been young when they had stopped her murderous rampage.
    If Morgan had lived, she would have been in her twenties, Nessa thought. She wasn’t sure. The years had all run together on her, but she knew this body was still in the bloom of youth. She wondered how many more years she was going to be trapped inside it. How many more years of emptiness and loneliness she must endure.
    It was enough to infuriate her. A sharp hiss escaped her and she shoved to her feet. Danger be damned. Common sense be damned. She forced her way through the bodies, heading to the back of the train, looking for just a little bit of privacy. The closest she was going to get was the second to last car. One drunkard, a bored-looking woman who Nessa suspected was a prostitute, and a dozing commuter who would probably end his trip minus his wallet and briefcase if he didn’t wake up.
    She met the insolent gaze of the woman and held it. Standing up, Nessa imagined the other woman would probably have a good six inches on her, and easily forty pounds. But physical presence didn’t always add up to everything.
    Attitude counted for a great deal. Attitude and arrogance. Those two things Nessa had in spades.
    Their gazes connected and Nessa smirked at the other woman, watched as the gaze fell away. In that second, when nobody was looking at her, Nessa let the magic take her.
    In the back of her mind, she felt Morgan’s delight.
    It left Nessa feeling more than a little sick, and downright furious.
    She alit on the front stoop of the worn, run-down house on the lower east side of Chicago. “Honey, I’m home.”

CHAPTER 3
     
    D OMINIC hated heights.
    He hated heights, and he couldn’t stand outside during the midday, not even on a cloudy one. Unless he wanted to burn to a crisp. At least not yet. In a few more decades, he might be able to handle it.
    But right now, he couldn’t. And even if he could, he wouldn’t be outside here . Nausea hit him and he knew where he was. Chicago. He’d been to Chicago before and he’d even been in the Sears Tower—no, the Willis Tower. They’d renamed it. But he’d been inside before. In the tower, not on top of it.
    “I’m not really here now, either,” he muttered, shooting a look at the sky.
    He was dreaming.
    He didn’t even have to see her, didn’t hear her voice to know he was dreaming. He just knew.
    He heard voices. Two of them—both women. Although they sounded the same, they weren’t. One was accented, with the crisp, lyrical sound of England, and the other was good old American with the slow, lazy drawl of the South.
    “Why don’t you just jump?”
    “I won’t jump because that would be too easy for you. Too easy for us both.”
    “Easy . . . what in the fuck do you care if it’s easy for you? You want it over, so just end it already. Be done with