Page 3 of Tell Me Why
Tell caught a bennax by the throat as it came tearing down a hallway toward them. Tina was an instant late, noticing that it had been there.
“They don’tliveanywhere,” Tell said. “They don’t need shelter. They justare. And they’re intent on causing problems because they’re idiots with nothing better to do. Done breeding, just waiting for the clock to time out. You don’t need to feel sorry for them. They’re always a pain, but the ones you don’t notice are around you all the time, just doing their thing. They onlyshow upwhen they go out of their way to be obnoxious.”
“You guys ever consider an extermination service?” Tina asked. “Seems like that’s more appropriate than what we do.”
Tell had laughed without answering.
And then, a few minutes later, he’d been trying to work out the best way to open the boiler without crushing Harold, and one of the sneaky buggers had crept up on her and bit her.
So she was kind of over feeling sorry for them.
The creature in the kitchen was creeping toward the refrigerator, hand over ankle, bright yellow eyes trained on her, and Tina got out a knife.
She didn’t carry a gun. She could shoot one. Wasn’t terrible at it, either. But they were heavy and awkward and if they were going to need a gun, typically Tell carried one. But he didn’t need a gun because he considered them to be an inferior weapon.
They werereallyonly important when there were humans involved, because up to a point they had to both show restraintin how they dealt with things, and theystillneeded the best weapon available for a fight.
“What’s your name?” Tina asked. “Do youhavea name, or is it… something likeusortheyorPeloponnesia?”
“Peloponnesus,” a voice said behind her. “Sorry.”
Harold.
So he wasn’t completely scrambled. That was a good thing.
“Spoil our fun,” the creature hissed again, and then it was gone. The refrigerator door was open and it had disappeared in the flash of dark to light.
Tina sighed, smelling the path he’d taken through the living room.
“Turn on all the lights,” she said.
“We were going to bed,” Ellen said, and Tina nodded, even though the woman was yet out of sight on the other side of the wall between the kitchen and the stairs.
“I understand, but they like to play with light. Turn them all on and close the curtains.”
They could still slip between the curtains and the windows, in and out, but it was an extra step and it slowed them down.
Tina listened to Ellen’s steps as she went to do the lights; Harold stayed close.
Tina walked after the bennax into the living room as the light went on in there, and the creature fled behind the couch, more idea than body.
“I swear to you, I will gut you just to see what your entrails look like, if you keep me running around this house all night,” Tina said. It sounded like something Ginger would say, but she kind of liked it, anyway. Menacing in a way that she didn’t have much practice at, just yet.
Did shewantto be that kind of person?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But she didn’t think that a solid therapy session was going to banish the bennaxes, and she had invoices to get home to.
No, that wasn’t who she wanted to be.
But sometimes you had to use actualforceto get something to shift on, if it was intent on whatever it was up to, just now, and she wasn’t bothered bythat. She just didn’t want to kill anything if she didn’t have to.
And she certainly wouldn’tenjoyit.
There were two more, by the sound of them. One in a hall closet upstairs and one… maybe in a bathroom, by the echo downstairs.
