Free Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland Page A

was faster than a speeding bullet. Jimmy, however, was.
    He tackled Springboard, knocking the weapon aside just as it went off, then driving the much larger man to the ground. Springboard’s gun flew right, Jimmy’s flew left as they proceeded to beat the crap out of each other.
    I might be new at the seer game, but I could fit the pieces together. Springboard had tried to shoot me; therefore he was the one I was going to shoot.
    I snatched up the nearest weapon. Unfortunately, Jimmy and Springboard were rolling over and over in the dirt.
    Jimmy had grown up fighting; Springboard appeared to have done the same. Though Jimmy possessed superior speed and strength, Springboard wasn’t exactly a tortoise, and his biceps bulged inside the silky material of his shirt. I wondered idly what kind of breed he was.
    For several minutes, neither one of them had the upper hand, and I couldn’t get off a shot with them so thoroughly intertwined. Then Jimmy got sick of playing around—he always did—and rammed his elbow into Springboard’s nose. There was a sharp crack, a yowl, then a whole lot of blood. The two of them separated, and I cocked the gun.
    “Don’t, Lizzy!” Jimmy whirled. “The chindi’s possessed him. If you kill the body, the demon will hop to someone else. We have to—”
    Springboard grabbed Jimmy around the knees and yanked. Jimmy went down fast and hard. He caught himself with his hands but his head still bopped against the dirt, and he lay still.
    Springboard, or what had once been Springboard, lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes reminded me of those in stuffed deer, teddy bears, creepy little dolls—no expression, no life, no damn reflection.
    He climbed to his feet, blood still flowing down his face and darkening the once fashionable pale orange dress shirt. He walked right over Jimmy as if he weren’t even there, his flat zombielike gaze on me.
    My fingers tightened, but I didn’t dare shoot. I didn’t want that demon in me; I didn’t want it in Jimmy either. But would I be able to keep myself from using the gun once he started to kill me?
    I threw the weapon aside. That should help.
    Springboard kept coming; I kept backing away. He reached for me with longer arms than I’d expected, nearly caught me too, then my stocking-covered heel came down on a stone. I winced, recoiled, and tripped over a much larger one, landing with a brain-jarring thud on my rear end.
    I braced for his weight. Instead, he started to shriek. Light poured from his eyes, ears, and mouth, as if he were a jack-o’-lantern with a flashlight inside.
    I sat up, and his arms flew out, his back bowed, and the sheen increased, flowing up and out of him like lightning. The scream no longer seemed to come from Springboard, but from the pillar of light that rose into the night.
    As suddenly as it had started, the screeching stopped, and the light went out. Springboard collapsed, thankfully not on me, and lay still.
    I crawled the few inches between us and checked for a pulse; he didn’t have one.
    Jimmy moaned, and I scrambled toward him as he rolled onto his back. The bump on his head was huge, but as I watched it seemed to get smaller, the scrape from the gravel and dirt fading.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    I glanced at Springboard. “I’m not sure.”
    He followed my gaze and cursed again. “I told you not to kill him.” He grabbed my chin, tilted my face this way and that, staring into my eyes by the light of the Hummer, then frowning. “It didn’t leap to you.”
    “No. It went—” I pointed skyward with one finger.
    “How?”
    “You tell me.”
    He lifted a hand to his forehead, encountered the bump, winced, and lowered it again. “A chindi is a demon that possesses animals. It’s often sent for purposes of vengeance.”
    “On me?”
    “Hard to say. I’m not sure how much control the sender has over the demon. Usually a chindi just kills everything in the vicinity.”
    “How did whoever sent that…”—I