Page 70 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
Except that in one of the great shames of my young life, I’d never been able to grow facial hair. Not like I had a sad wispy little mustache that made me look like a teenager who was trying too hard, but like I didn’t even own a razor, because there wasn’t a single hair.
I wondered if this guy shaved.
Something told me that the answer was no.
He turned toward me, and I snapped my eyes shut once more, trying to breathe evenly.
Somehow, it seemed to work.
“So weak,” he muttered. “If he were truly his father’s son, he’d be awake by now.”
“I injected him with enough propofol to keep him out for hours,” Mary denied. “And he’s no vampire. He’s a weakling. If he’s truly your uncle’s son, then I don’t know how he missed inheriting any power at all.”
“Oh, he’s Mercer’s,” the man said, and my heart jumped with something oddly happy, given the horrific circumstances. Mercer. My father’s name was Mercer. Maybe. The man continued, and I hung on every word. “He may look more like your vampire woman, but hefeelslike Mercer.”
It was strange to me that neither of them acknowledged it; while I did look quite like my mother, I also looked very much like this man.
Something brushed against me then, but...but it was something nonphysical. Like fingers stroking my brain, I could feel it caress, and then push, lightly, as though trying to gain entry. Almost without my order—though I’d have certainly given that command—my brain shoved back, and I could feel the presence pushed away, hard.
Nearby, the man took a quick, harsh breath.
“No, I take it back. He feelsstrongerthan Mercer.” He didn’t sound annoyed, though, or even just impressed.
No, what I was hearing in his voice was avarice, there was no doubt in my mind. Whatever it was that had pushed him away from me, he wanted it.
Worse, I suspected he thought he had a way to take it, and that wasn’t going to be pleasant for me. The acid burn in my throat rose even higher, and I started to worry it was just going to eat its way through my esophagus.
“Ten million,” Mary said, and the same avarice was in her voice.
The man scoffed. “Ten million? Fine. Ten million. You humans are so pitiful. You have no idea what a real treasure is.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think is a treasure,” Mary snapped back, apparently done being disrespected. Something told me she was making a mistake, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. She’d killed Charles and Kate. She deserved whatever she got. “Give me my money and then you can eat his brain for dinner, or whatever it is you monsters do. As long as I don’t have to deal with him anymore.”
“Of course,” the man agreed. “It will be a waste, though, because you may all be ants, but the other dead woman will destroy you when she finds out what you did to her son. You should have seen what she did to Rome when they killed her daughters.”
“What the hell are you talking about? She doesn’t have daughters.”
He scoffed again, but didn’t offer any more information. There was a little buzzing noise, and then a generic text ringtone. “There. You have your money. Now leave. My cousin and I have business.”
A moment passed, and Mary’s voice was smug when she spoke again. “A pleasure doing business with you, Sexton.”
Her footsteps clicked against the floor as she walked away, and a moment later, there was a resounding thud as a door opened and slammed shut.
“I would apologize for this,” the man, Sexton apparently, said a moment later, “but the truth is that you’re not going to survive to see forty no matter what I do. I need this if I’m going to survive, but there’s no way more than one of us will.”
I didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he sighed. “I know you’re awake. Only that ridiculous dead human was convinced by this act.”
So I opened my eyes and met his. They were a strange shade of almost-green. Hazel? Was that what hazel looked like? I’dnever paid that much attention, but this guy was apparently my cousin, and also, his eyes were fucking glowing.
“There’s no reason we can’t both survive,” I said, though I had no idea why he’d suggested otherwise. I had to feel my way through this carefully, since he had all the information and I had none.
He rolled his eyes. “Fuck, you could be his twin. Do you always think there’s a way out of everything? That every tragedy has a silver lining? How did both a son and grandson ofTadhgend up so uselessly optimistic?” He stepped in close, his almost-green eyes blazing with something that looked like anger. “A tragedy is just a tragedy. Bad things always happen. There’s no good in them, and they can’t be avoided. The world is a cruel, awful place.”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, because...how could anyone live like that? Sure, he was right that sometimes tragedies couldn’t be avoided. But to think that the whole world was a terrible place? “Then why keep going? Why try to survive at all?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, slightly confused. Apparently that wasn’t something my father would have said to him. Good. I didn’t like it when someone I didn’t know seemed to know me.
He took a step back, and that? That was very good. I had him off guard, and that was what I needed in this situation.
