Page 26 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
“Sure, why not?”
He winced, like I’d invited him to go with me to a wedding, and he had to be the one to point out to me that my invitation didn’t say “plus one.” Which was nonsense. Sure, Gerald was an ass, and he was going to be an ass to me, but if anything, Davin’s inclusion should make him act less douchey.
“I’m not sure that’s what you want,” he finally said, without elaborating on why.
I scoffed. “I don’t want to see Gerald at all. He’s a dick, in the bad way.”
Something about the day had loosened Davin up, because that made him laugh. “Fine then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s gonna feckin’ hate me.”
I shrugged. “We’ll be a matched set, he can hate us both.”
Since Gerald also lived up in the hills, it was a short drive to his massive mansion. Frankly, the place looked like it shouldhouse a literal army of people—it was at least big enough for a hundred people to live there full time. While Mother’s house was big, I gave her credit, that it wasn’t so big she could—but didn’t—house dozens of other people in it. A few, sure. No more than ten people could comfortably live in Mother’s house, though.
Davin stared up at the monstrosity that was Gerald’s mansion, then looked at me. “This isn’t the state capital, you’re sure? The local cathedral?”
I snorted at that, shaking my head. “Nope. I think they’d have had more security if it were, but you know vamps.”
At that, he rolled his eyes. “Paranoid Luddite bastards?”
“Yup.”
I rang the bell, and a moment later a woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door. I hadn’t actually seen one of those outside a movie in...maybe ever? So I did a double take. Was Forsyth having a costume party?
She didn’t look like a partygoer, though, just stared at me seriously, so I took a breath and gave it a shot. “I’m Fiona Knight’s son, and I’m here to see Mr. Forsyth.”
She gave me what I could only describe as an honest-to-fuck bow, and ushered us into the “parlor,” saying that she would let Mr. Forsyth know we were “calling.”
I blinked and shook my head, turning to look at Davin, to see if he was as stunned as I was. He...was not stunned. What he was, was so deeply unimpressed that if his eyes rolled any harder, they might exit his body entirely and roll on down the highway toward the ocean.
Hard to blame him.
It was almost twenty minutes before Gerald Forsyth deigned to grace us with his presence. He was wearing a full suit with a freaking cravat—which I was pretty sure hadn’t been in style for over a century, unless you lived in a VW bus with a Great Dane—and the world’s shiniest black boots. “Mr. Knight,” hesaid, though his nose was turned so far up I wondered if he was looking at the ceiling.
I wouldn’t have blamed him, because the plasterwork up there was art. I wouldn’t have said it was particularly good art, since I’d never been much into the creepy cherubs shooting bows thing, but it was certainly art.
“Mr. Forsyth,” I returned. “This is my associate, Davin Byrne.”
That...well, I realized in that moment, Davin had been right. Somehow, he was eliciting a worse response than I did.
Forsyth’s head came down, almost whipped down, so hard I worried he was going to hurt his neck. His gaze went from me to Davin and stayed there, eyes wide and intense, as though he had x-ray vision and he could drill a hole in Davin’s head just by staring at him.
“The killer,” he finally hissed.
I lifted a brow at that, because what? “Given how much of a stickler Mother is for the law, Mr. Forsyth, I sincerely doubt that Davin is a killer in any legal sense.”
“I did kill a vampire,” Davin said, and it was...okay, the dude was sexy, right? Just plain old everyday sexy. But the way he unfolded under Forsyth’s glare? That was so hot I didn’t even have words for it. It was like if “fuck you” was a body language. He sprawled out in the chair he’d been sitting in carefully just a moment before, arms on the armrests, slumped casually against the back, his legs stretched long and ankles crossed. He was so fucking hot part of me was surprised he wasn’t giving off steam. “A monster of a vampire, who was later discovered to have been one of the worst serial killers of the last century.”
I blinked at that because what the hell? Now the guy was casually arrogantly sexyandhe killed serial killers? Not fair. “Seriously?”
“When the Senate examined his home after his death, they found the remains of almost two hundred people hidden away.”
For a minute, all I could do was stare at him. Two hundred people. Holy fucking shit.
Forsyth, meanwhile, had an opinion as well. “Humans,” he hissed, sneering around the word like he was actually saying “garbage.”
Ah. That followed. Davin had killed a vampire who had killed for his supper. It was disgusting, but throughout history, there had always been some of them. Like Forsyth, they had been vampires who thought of humans as lesser, almost like cattle rather than sentient beings with their own feelings and dreams and lives. Like rich people who thought that poor people were disposable, and killed them at will.
Honestly, just thinking about it was almost enough to make me a vegetarian sometimes. I’d even tried that a few times as a kid, but always ended up getting sick when I cut meat out of my diet, so I figured I just wasn’t made to be a vegetarian.
