Page 21 of Countdown to Murder
Clearly, Panda has some abilities he prefers not to let people know about as well — an ace in the hole, so tospeak, because he immediately understood without having to ask.
I engaged my mic. “Target is anold one. The silver bullet near or through the heart did little to slow him. He was fast enough to remove the silver throwing knife from his chest before it was completely implanted. Only a handful of vampires are that fast. We have a much smaller population to search. Male. Caucasian. Thin. Black hair pulled into a ponytail. Dark eyes. He could use a good eyebrow waxing and trimming. I can sketch the nose and chin line, possibly eye shape. Most everything else was in too much shadow to give you details.”
Panda engaged his mic, his gaze boring into me while he talked to control. “Mira got more details than me. I concur with the hair color, ponytail, rail-thin body and hands. Long fingers. Also, with the fact he has faster reflexes than any vampire I’ve observed. He flew in. He wore lace-on dress shoes, black dress pants, black dress shirt. No tie. No jacket. Looked expensive.”
“Copy that,” the control room answered. “I’m sending to home base for a deep search. Camera images are all blurred.”
No one expected a good camera image. Vampires can vibrate at an odd frequency, so a camera can’t focus on them.
Everyone was already spread back out, watching the sky and all around us, manning somewhere close to ouroriginal posts. In all likelihood, the vampire would need to feed before he made another attempt, but we weren’t taking that for granted. He hadn’t brushed against my mind, which meant he’d probably read the client’s mind as he neared and intended to get into the window without being seen. I’d slowed him down so we got a decent look at him when he would’ve been able to raise the window and go in while operating too fast for human eyes to see him.
Panda pulled an energy bar from his pocket, opened it while his eyes scanned the area, and then ate it in three bites. I had two protein bars, but I didn’t need energy. I opened my water bottle and downed half of it, though.
“I’m going to sketch him while it’s fresh,” I told Panda. “Here or inside?”
“Here. I’ve got your back.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second. I sat on a patio chair and opened the sketch program on my phone. I pulled a stylus from my pocket and sketched his face first, sent it to control, and then I did a full-body sketch and sent it as well, with a note that I’d add more detail when I could work with my art pencils.
Panda’s phone dinged, and he said, “Wow. You’re talented. Let’s walk you inside and let you do it with your pencils. I’d like the client to see the best possible sketch you can draw of him.”
Chapter Eleven
Panda
Why the fuck did my dick want to get hard because she could fucking draw like an artist?
And I’d damned near had to adjust myself when I climbed off the top of her.
I’d seen the knife coming back at her, and I’d reacted before I had a chance to think, but once she was safe, it’d been all I could do to keep everyone in the yard from scenting just how much I cared about this little snake shifter.
I was too close to her, but there was no way to ask for a reassignment. It would instantly create tons of gossip, and it would reflect negatively on Mira. No way was I going to do anything detrimental to her career before she even got started. She clearly had the skills to be a helluva security specialist, and if Kendra was right and this was away for her to recover from whatever was done to her while she was a slave assassin, then I’d be damned if I was going to set her back in any way.
And yeah, I heard myself and knew it was further proof I was too attached to her.
I wanted to feed her, but she barely ate enough to keep a kitten alive, and she’d made it clear she’d let me know if she was hungry. So I ate some mixed nuts and watched her back while she sat in the kitchen and drew, completely oblivious to her surroundings while she was absorbed in getting it right.
When she finished, I wanted to kiss her. It was more than a simple sketch. If the bodyguard gig didn’t work out, she could probably find work as an artist.
“Let’s get our geeks to scan this in, rather than just taking a picture and sending it to them. This is good enough they should be able to put it into their image recognition software and get a hit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was hoping. His mouth was in shadow, or maybe it just isn’t that pronounced, but I’m confident of the nose and chin, and the basic placement of the eyes and eyebrows, though I’m not completely sure of the shape of the eyes. Still, I’m hoping it’ll be enough.”
She’d drawn him from an angle and from the front, both face and full body, down to the style of shoe complete with laces. I’d seen them and recognized the accuracy in her drawing, but no way could I have described the exactshape and way the leather was sewn, much less drawn them.
The control room scanned it, slid the original into a clear protective sleeve, and printed a copy for us to take to the client. Ember verified the client was awake, and she opened the door when I knocked and said, “Panda and Mira.”
She had a monitor showing who was outside all access points, but we still knocked and announced. Visual and auditory confirmation.
Ember opened the door, and we stepped in.
“Miss MacKenna. Mira got a good look at our target, and she sketched him. We’d like you to take a look and see if you recognize him.”
She looked at the picture and her gaze shot to me. “Is this a joke? This is Niles Andreason. He’s a bit of a hermit, and I know it’s kind of athingthat there are no pictures of him on the internet, but he’s a pretty big deal in Hollywood, and his parties are legendary.”
I keyed my mic. “Control. Our target has been identified as Niles Andreason. BFD in Hollywood.”
The sooner they had a name, the sooner we might find where he was staying.
