Page 42 of Tell Me Why
“Yankee,” Daryll said. “Should have guessed.”
Tina had never heard it as an insult before, but she understood that it was meant that way.
“You make problems, I will scatter your pieces,” Daryll said. “I’m too far into everything to evencarewhat happens after that, so don’t… just don’t.”
“Best behavior,” Tell said, still mocking him.
“All right. Come on, then.”
Tina looked at Tell, who rose out off of the couch like he was being disturbed.
She put herself onto her own feet, and Daryll turned back toward the door, leading them back out into the hallway. There were a pair of men there, but they went back toward the warehouse as Daryll turned the opposite direction, down a short length of hallway and then up a set of concrete stairs.
“You are guests of the house,” Daryll said. “You will continue to go byOscar, and you will not discuss your history or your business with anyone.”
“What have you got her into?” Tell asked quietly as they came through a pair of sturdy metal doors into… just a house. It was big and it was beautiful, but Tina was expecting something nefarious like a laboratory or… who even knew?… but they were just in a very expensive home.
That sat on top of a giant concrete something that Tell recognized and Tina didn’t.
“This is a private home,” Daryll said. “The entryway to downstairs is on the other side of the hill, and they don’t come up here and we don’t go down there unless for a specific reason, of which you will have none, so you are not to go through these doors again.”
“Mmm,” Tell said.
Even Tina could feel how that would be maddening, and Daryll twitched like Tell had hit him in the middle of the back with a dart.
“I don’t think you understand what you’re in the middle of, here,” he said. “Nor your place in it. It’s only because Crissy has beeninsistentthat I not bake you, stake you, and grate you that you are still in one piece.”
Tina had no ear for it at all, but she thought that Daryll’s accent might have beenauthentichick.
Which was strange, from a European vampire.
Tell sighed.
“I don’t think thatyouunderstand the situation at all, either,” Tell said. “Which is impressive, because you appear to have created it.”
“Not going to discuss that with you at all,” Daryll said. “You are guests. Not business partners, not confidants, notfriends. I will tolerate you here because I don’t have time or energy to get rid of you over Crissy’s objections. But that’s not going to stop me for long or for much. You get out of line… You know what I’m capable of, and Iwilldo it, first to her and then to you.”
“Grate us?” Tina asked quietly, not trying to hide the question from Daryll, but just asking Tell.
“I think the allusion is a cheese grater, but I’m not immediately familiar with it,” Tell said.
“That sounds really inefficient,” Tina said.
“Oh, you’ve got yourself a winner, there,” Daryll said. “Ha ha. We’ll see how she feels about it when I’ve got you drugged up and staked out and we’re disassembling her for dispersal.”
“You… Oh. You sell vampire parts,” Tina said, and Daryll went even stiffer, like the dart had hit the base of his skull this time.
SheheardTell close his eyes and stop breathing, but she had an instinct that he was bracing against laughter.
“The room was nice, wasn’t it,” Daryll said, not easing. “Could live a whole life down there. Better’n most. You wouldn’tsettle for that, so now you’re up with the sharks. Oscar, you’ll tell your woman there to watch her mouth.”
“I think we’d all find that highly counterproductive,” Tell answered. “But I will have a conversation about the things that are not to be said out loud.”
“Here,” Daryll said, pointing up a set of stairs, then stopping to let Tell and Tina go past him. He gave Tina a look down his nose like he would have slapped her if he’d thought he could get away with it, but instead he settled for attempting to intimidate her.
Tina attempted not to be intimidated.
It wasn’t easy, but Tell was moving like he owned the place and Daryll was just hired help there to chauffeur them around the property, and it was very inspiring.
