Page 6 of Countdown to Murder
“Body shape and attitude. I’m kind of a Zen guy, most of the time. Not much upsets me so long as I have enough to eat. I get hangry easy, so when I’m working with a team, they make sure to bring snacks.”
“Hangry?”
“An amalgamation ofhungryandangry. Means I’m a grumpy bastard when it’s been longer than two hours since I ate.”
He’d answered enough of my questions, it felt important I answer his from earlier.
“Technically, English is the fourth language I learned. I’m fluent in seven languages. When it was known I’d be sold to an American, I spent two months with a speech coach who taught me to speak with the same non-accent your broadcast news people use.”
“Abbott would have owned you at first, before he left for Alaska.”
I nodded.
“Has anyone abused you since he claimed you? Hurt you?”
“No. Not abuse, though I’ve had to be disciplined. I broke a serious rule two months after I came to live in the coterie, and I was whipped and then not allowed tochangefor a week.” More than whipped, but Panda didn’t need to know the specifics. I never wanted to give Kendra a reason to discipline me again.Ever.
“Did you deserve it? Were the consequences on par with the crime?”
“I hurt someone, so yeah. Abbott had me under his protection, and now Kendra does. It means they’ll hurt anyone who hurts me. It also means I can’t hurt others under their protection.”
“Just once?”
I grimaced. “Twice. I lost it when I first started feeling intense emotions. I didn’t hurt anyone that time, but my actions were inappropriate and Kendra had to rearrange some human memories. I’ve since learned to compartmentalize emotions when they overwhelm me.” Surprisingly, it was Josef who’d helped me the most with that, but it was time to move away from talk of my emotions. “Which weapons shall we shoot first?”
“You’re familiar with everything on the table?”
I looked them over and pointed to one I was unfamiliar with. “I believe I’ve handled everything except that one.”
“New tech. Not yet available to the civilian market, and I can’t tell you how it works because Aaron hasn’t told me. I have a feeling it uses either EMP or microwaves. In a nutshell, you aim it in the general direction of a drone and it kills it. It was built to look like a conventional weapon. The fake magazine is a battery. It has to be removed to be charged. We have three batteries for it. You generally get three shots per battery.” He shrugged. “I prefer a shotgun, but this is silent. Also, if the crash doesn’t destroy it, the geeks have more to play with. It has its uses. Since we’ll be guarding an A-list star, we’ll have it in our arsenal. You signed NDA papers, yes?”
I nodded, and he turned and lifted the shotgun.
“Let’s start with this one. You first. We have an indoor trap setup. Tell me to pull and I’ll push the button. The first will come from over your head. It’s fine to hit ceiling, walls, floor, and the backstop.”
Most ranges freak the fuck out if you hit anything except the backstop. “Good to know.” I grabbed the shotgun and the tray with the shells, walked to a station, put my hearing and eye protection on, loaded the weapon, double-checked to be sure the safety was off, and held it to my shoulder. “Pull!”
As he’d said, the clay came over my head. I zeroed in on it with a teeny lead and pulled the trigger. The clay shattered and I felt a few of the smaller pieces hit me.
“Damn, you’re fast. Hold off another half-second so you don’t eat the clay.”
“We only have fifty yards to play with. I’ve never shot trap indoors before. Feels odd.”
“We have skeet and a longer trap range outside, but it’s raining and I figure this will be enough for us to take a measure of each other.”
I shot four more times and hit it every time, made sure the weapon was empty, set it down, and changed places with him.
“What else do you know about our assignment? I wasn’t aware we had one yet.”
“I know she’s a star, and she has a stalker believed to be supernatural. He gets into her house and leaves flowers. We’ll both be given the details at the same time.”
He pulled the weapon to his shoulder, let go with his trigger hand, reached to the side, pushed a button on a panel, put his hand back on the gun, sighted in on the clay as it came over him, pulled the trigger, and hit it.
“Damn. I’m impressed.”
I’d never pushed a button to pull my own pigeon before, and I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it without some serious practice.
“First cuss word I’ve heard come from your mouth. I was beginning to have some concerns.”
