Page 69 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
No, she pulled out what looked like some kind of air pistol, aimed, and shot at Twist faster than I could follow, let alone stop.
I lunged for her, but she’d already gotten off two shots, and both of them had hit Twist full in the chest, so hard that they knocked her back halfway across the room.
Mary caught me easily, sneering again. Or maybe snarling. What exactly was the difference, with an angry vampire?
The last thing I saw was the butt of her gun coming toward me.
CHAPTER 29
For some reason, the first thing that came into my head when I woke was a fear that I was going to drown.
I gave a little jerk and gasped in a breath, clearly destroying any chance I had at pretending to still be unconscious, but I couldn’t move any part of my body freely.
From the steady pull of gravity, I could tell I was upright, standing on my feet. But I was also tied at ankle, waist, and shoulders to a pole behind me, and my hands were tied together behind it.
A wooden pole, I realized from the painful splinters in my bare arms.
I was still in the same comfortable outfit I’d been wearing in the office, and given the cold seeping into my legs from the hard floor beneath me, I was doubly glad I’d managed to put my socks on.
The burning in my throat was somehow even worse than before, and I started to think that maybe I did eat too much hot sauce.
It was just so good.
I didn’t eat the weird “look how manly I am” kinds that measured their heat in millions of Scoville units, just tasty hot sauces. It wasn’t fair I was in pain because food was delicious.
The thought of food made me think of Twist, and my heart thumped painfully in my chest. People said this was how random pet acquisition worked. They came out of nowhere, and suddenly they were everything.
If Mary had killed Twist somehow...I didn’t know what I would do, but it wouldn’t be good. I would find a way to take her down, no matter what I had to do to get it done. All of my teachers had always given me crap about how I was so very clever but just not applying myself.
For this? I would apply myself, completely. No one hurt my cat.
“Are you even sure it’s true?” Mary’s voice sounded nearby, dragging me out of my hopefully premature revenge plans. “He looks exactly like Fiona. Mercer was better looking by far, even if he was a complete?—”
“Be careful how you speak of my family, dead thing,” another voice said. A male voice, and a weirdly familiar one.
“I didn’t have to offer him to you, you know,” Mary said, her voice haughty and arrogant. “This is a kindness on my part.”
I’d always thought her cold, but this was a different level. This was...it was that moment when she said she was related to royalty and Mother was no one.
What, like the English royal family? Who the hell cared if she was related to them? There were a shit-ton of them. It wasn’t like she was in line for the throne. She was a vampire who’d been dead for centuries.
Wait, had the Windsors even been calling themselves the Windsors for that long?
Maybe she was a complete con artist and not related to anyone.
The man, whoever he was, made a rude noise, which...okay, I’d just been thinking some shit about her, but what did he have to complain about? I cracked one eye, trying to be circumspect, since they hadn’t given any indication they were aware I was awake, even though I hadn’t been subtle about waking up.
The lighting was low, which was helpful, since my eyes weren’t used to any light.
This guy looked like money. He was wearing an expensive suit and a long wool coat over it, in dark colors I couldn’t pick out in the low light. He didn’t wear them with that unease like some of the people who’d come to try to rent the space next door to my shop. He looked more comfortable in his skin than anyone I’d ever seen before in my life.
He also looked . . . like me.
Like me in a suit, with a thousand dollar haircut.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Given the haughty expression on his face, he looked like evil me.
Like maybe we were in theStar Trekmirror universe, and all he needed was a goatee.
