Page 72 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
“Sorry sir,” one of the uniformed officers said, rushing toward me, fumbling with something on his utility belt. As he reached me, his foot hit something, and it went skittering off into a pile of crates to one side of us. He paid it no mind, but I was sure I knew what it was.
The dagger my cousin had been planning to gut me with.
I should retrieve it, something in me insisted. It might be important. It was the only link I could currently lay hands on to my father’s family. My father’s apparently super shitty family.
Sweet.
They cut me free, and I shook out my hands, which had been going numb from the terrible position, then I turned and looked around on the ground behind me.
There, mostly hidden by a stray pallet, the hilt of the dagger.
Except that if I grabbed it from the floor, the cops would take it as evidence. So instead of taking the thing, I turned back around, knocking the knife even farther under the pallet with one foot, trying for subtle.
I would come back later and hope it was still there.
“Where was that smoke coming from?” one of the cops asked, looking around.
Cain didn’t even seem to notice him, he was watching me with those earnest blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
“How did you find me?” It wasn’t an answer, but seriously, if I’d been expecting someone to rush in to save the day, it wouldn’t have been cops.
“Who cares where the smoke was coming from?” another cop whispered. “What the fuck was that thing?”
I looked over at him, eyebrow raised. “Thing?”
He motioned away from us, toward where I assumed the door was, since it was where the cops seemed to be coming from. “There was a giant thing. It...I swear, it flew away.”
“You’re seeing things, Smithson,” another guy said, rolling his eyes.
Me? I wasn’t so sure.
It seemed to me that we all had questions, and no one had any answers. Well, except for Cain, and he gave his to me. “We were still processing the murder scene when your partner came outside. He said he’d been attacked, and he was almost sure you’d been kidnapped by your mother’s assistant, Mary Windsor. But that you had your phone on you, and he could track it. So he did, and we followed you here.”
Davin.
Davin had probably saved my life. And he’d told the cops that Mary was the bad guy.
“Mary?” I asked, wincing. No matter what had happened, no one was going to be pleased with the results.
Cain winced. “I’m afraid it’s unlikely anyone’s going to find her. She took a bullet in the chest and fell off the pier.”
“Dove off, more like,” one of the cops muttered. “Like she thought getting away from us was more important than bleeding to death from a gunshot wound.”
A chill came over me at the thought that Mary was still out there. She’d gotten away. A gunshot wound to the chest and a little water? That would never kill a vampire.
I looked back up to see Cain with a tiny vial of water in his hands, contemplating it. I almost laughed because what had I said to myself would come next? Fucking holy water, seriously?
“Sir,” someone shouted from the door area. “You can’t come in here. You?—”
Davin wasn’t listening, though. He had pushed inside and he was heading right for where Cain and I stood. Twist was in his hands, and she looked utterly pitiful.
But it wasn’t because she was injured.
It was because she was soaking wet.
“I have destroyed the traitor, Father,” she announced, holding her head high, like a pagan queen demanding obeisance. “I tore her in half and ate her heart.”
Davin looked up at me, a question in his eye, and I nodded to him. His shoulders slumped in utter relief, and he handed my soaking wet kitten to me, then scratched her ears. “Well done, cat.”
