Read Online Between Light and Dark by Elissa Wilds - Free Book Online Page B

The air became heavy,
weighted.
    He turned to see Baseball Cap Man eyeing them from the
doorway of the store. The man clutched a six-pack of Bud
and watched them with narrowed eyes. Something in his
gaze wasn't quite right, a strange mix of vacancy and focus.
An impossible combination, yet one that was all too familiar to Axiom. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
    "A Finder," Wayne muttered, and Axiom looked away
from the man long enough to glance at his friend and realize he'd made the same connection.
    Wayne reached into his jacket and pulled out a .40caliber Glock, clip already in place. He held the weapon
against his side, half-hidden.
    Baseball Cap tilted his head and nodded as though communicating with an unseen entity before he shrugged and
strode toward them, the six-pack falling from his grasp and
making a loud pop as it hit the ground. The gas-pump shelter's fluorescent light glinted off the metal of the gun the
Finder pulled from his jacket. He lifted it and aimed at Axiom. Axiom reacted quickly, silently cursing the humanness of his body, which would not be impervious to bullets,
while at the same time feeling grateful for the speed with
which the god part of him could move his limbs.

    He dropped to the ground and rolled toward their car
just as the bullet whizzed past his head with a hiss. The air
vibrated as Wayne fired a shot at the Finder. The Finder
took a hit to the shoulder, but kept moving toward Axiom,
seemingly oblivious of Wayne and his gun. The Finder had
already taken aim again at Axiom's head.
    Axiom reached behind himself, fumbling for a weapon.
He would not kill a human if he could avoid it. Maiming
was another thing altogether. Wayne took a second shot.
This time the bullet connected with the Finder's firing
arm, causing the man to drop the gun he held. He grunted,
dropped to his knees, and picked up the weapon again,
this time with the other hand. He fumbled with the gun
while his wounded arm hung limply at his side, oozing
blood.
    The Finder had almost gotten the hang of using the gun
with his left hand when Axiom's fingers closed around a cold
metallic object. A tire iron? Almost too good to be true. A
blessing from Source and the stranger who'd been changing his
tire. Axiom pulled himself to a crouching position and lifted
the makeshift weapon. He sent the tire iron flying.
    The Finder's face registered a brief moment of surprise
when the tire iron connected with his head. He crumpled
to the pavement, his weapon issuing a clickety-clack as it
fell from his fingers to the ground.
    Wayne rushed to Axiom's side and helped him to his
feet. "I don't think I'll ever get used to how fast you can
move. Poor bastard couldn't have seen it coming. I sure
didn't."
    Axiom crouched at the Finder's head and searched for a
pulse. The man would live. Hopefully, he would be out long
enough to give them time to get away and to clear the energy trail of the yearning.

    Axiom stood, breathed in deeply, and exhaled. Strange
how his very human body had registered the fear of possible death even while he knew he-a god-could not really
perish. That knowledge had not mattered, though, when
he had been staring down the barrel of the Finder's gun.
The racing of his heart and the blood rushing through his
veins at breakneck speed were very real. He did not much
care for that emotion: fear. Fear caused humans to live in
mediocrity or despair. Fear is the most ungodlike quality one
can experience. Axiom frowned.
    "Why would the Umbrae send a Finder and not just come
themselves?" Axiom wondered aloud. "With the amount of
energy I was pouring into finding Laurell ..."
    "They ought to have been able to pick up the trail easily
enough," Wayne finished for him, then frowned. "Axiom?"
    Axiom tilted his head in response, and Wayne suggested,
"Maybe they weren't worried about killing you so much as
slowing us down."
    Axiom grimaced. Or distracting us.
    Axiom glanced at the