Lycan Legacy - Paladin: Tales of Luna White - Werewolf Veronica Singer (children's ebooks online txt) 📖

expected I’d need to strip.” I’d left my Western clothes behind because they would be too restraining in case I needed to shift, but I kept that to myself. Manny couldn’t handle much more truth tonight.

“‘Isn’t everybody naked underneath their clothes?’” Mike quoted my earlier comment. So much had happened since then.

I stepped to the top of the stairs and gestured to Mike and Manny. “Let’s get out of here.”

Mike had taken one step from behind the pillar when the burning dot sensation touched my chest.

I pushed Mike violently aside, using the momentum to push myself in the other direction.

A shot rang out and a bullet embedded itself into the wall behind us. Mike managed to roll with the fall and lay flat on the porch, hidden from the shooter. I huddled behind Manny and Alisha.

“A damned sniper! Can’t I catch a break?” I shouted.

From the distant guard tower came a hoarse voice in Arabic. He spoke for several minutes.

I looked to Manny for a translation. At the look on his face, I said, “I take it he’s not going to surrender.”

Manny laughed bitterly. “He says he is the head of the best sniper squad in this country and he looks forward to blowing out the brains of the filthy witch who used foul magic to kill his comrades.”

I looked down at my blood-streaked body. “I’m filthy, but I’m no witch.” I took a deep breath. “Tell him if he leaves now, and throws his weapon away, I’ll let him live. Otherwise, his fate will be worse than any of his comrades.”

Manny’s eyes opened wide and he said, “I don’t think a bluff…”

His voice trailed off at my expression. He turned and shouted in Arabic.

The return passage was even louder and more guttural.

I raised an eyebrow at Manny. He said, “You don’t want to know what he called you and what he promised.”

The dawn light was now bright enough that the courtyard could be seen clearly, even by normal humans. No shadows I could skulk around in and sneak up on the confident bastard.

“He’s just one guy with a gun,” I said.

“‘One good sniper is worth fifty grunts,’” said Mike in the voice he used when quoting a military saying. Then he continued, “Are you sure you can take him?”

Not in the least. But the sounds of multiple sirens were approaching. We only had minutes before reinforcements arrived.

“I’ve got this,” I said with all the confidence I had.

Manny opened his mouth to shout again when Mike said, “Allow me. I learned a few words in language school.”

Manny shrugged and Mike stuck his head out only long enough to shout, “Hey, ras zippe! Fuck you!”

“Ras zippy?” I shook my head and concentrated on gathering pure oxygen to my head, then triggered the metabolic overclocking that sped my reflexes up ten times.

Manny’s voice Dopplered down to a slow rumble as he translated, “It. Means. Cock. Head.”

I stepped into the clear space between the pillars. The sniper’s head was visible in the open window of the tower, but not enough of him showed to give Manny or Mike a clear shot. His long-barreled rifle was resting on a sandbag placed on the windowsill.

What happened next seemed to take forever but was only a few seconds in human time: He took aim at my chest and tightened his finger on the trigger. The burning dot sensation that indicated his aim point grew hotter as he took up the slack on his trigger, a phenomenon I had never noticed at normal speed.

In the microsecond before the shot rang out, I twisted to my left and the bullet zipped past.

I took one step down the stairs and smiled at the distant sniper. I was careful to move slowly to entice him to keep shooting.

Another burning dot, another wasted shot. I smiled with teeth now. As he racked another shell into his fancy one-shot sniper rifle, I made a V with my fore- and middle fingers. I pointed at my eyes, then at him.

“I see you, Zippy,” I said as slowly as possible, using my loudspeaker spell to ensure he heard me. Even if he didn’t speak English, the insult and tone got through.

He was incredibly good. For the first two shots, I had twisted to my left to evade. This time he aimed slightly to my right but jerked left at the last second, hoping to hit me when I twisted.

I shook my head in slow motion. Then I used some Italian gestures Mom had taught me. The type you only used on deadly enemies.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and started across the courtyard. At least some of the gestures I was using to anger him must have been universal, because he started shooting as fast as possible with his single-shot rifle.

Even though his aim was superb, he missed every shot. I skittered forward in quick time, pausing every few feet to force him to waste a shot on me instead of targeting my teammates.

At my rear came the sounds of running feet. Mike said, “Watch her back!”

The sounds of shots from my teammates, followed closely thereafter by the sound of feet running away, showed that my teammates had my back. I concentrated on my target.

Midway between two groups of dead soldiers, I reached my abaya and Silkworm. I snatched them up and stuffed them into my invisible bag. If Silkworm was dead, at least she would have her killers as company wherever she went.

My sensitivity to being targeted wouldn’t have worked against the ‘spray and pray’ soldiers—they shot at everything indiscriminately, making their bullets nearly impossible to evade.

But against this sniper with his singular focus, that talent was a life saver.

I took another skittering step and evaded another shot.

Finally, I was close enough to use magic against him. In the time it took him to load another round and cycle his action, I activated the spell that neutralized cartridges.

The impotent click! of his misfire brought a smile to my lips. The kind of