Deal with the Devil (Withrow Chronicles Book 3) by Michael G. Williams

Author:Michael G. Williams [Williams, Michael G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-20T14:00:00+00:00

11

Eventually I nodded at Jennifer. “Well,” I said. My voice was flat. “Hello.”

“So who or what are you?” The Bull’s Eye wasn’t letting me step inside, and I had no desire to push past.

“Hasn’t Jennifer told you?” I smirked a little.

“No,” Jennifer said from the sidelines. “I didn’t know you would be here and I don’t like to…” She hesitated, flipping through her mental thesaurus. “I don’t like to gossip. I promised to keep my distance and I have. This is just one of those weird coincidences.” She didn’t sound scared or worried but neither did she sound rehearsed the way a liar might. Liars always think their calm demeanor supports the lie but it doesn’t. It reveals their preparation.

I could hear Roderick smiling as he replied from down by my right shoulder. “I believe they’re called ‘synchronicities’: two or more events unlikely to be only casually related and thus granted a semi-mystical importance.”

Unlikely to be only casually related, indeed. I considered how likely Jennifer was to lie. It sounded like the truth when she said it, and Jennifer had not tried to bullshit me before. When we met she was still very much the victim of previous traumas and she didn’t hide that from me. She just didn’t volunteer too much too early. Screw it, I thought, I’m ready to make a thing happen.

“I'm the person a bunch of people think is you. I’m also the local boss for a certain subset of creatures of the night. I’ve somehow wound up with what ought to be your problem and I want to help you solve it.” The Bull’s Eye didn't like the sound of any part of that so I went on, not sure what to do other than to keep running off at the mouth. “Look, I'm a vampire, but the nice kind.” I paused and put up a finger. “Not the annoying, self-loathing kind, though, and it’s all totally different from how it works in the movies no matter which movies you think I mean.”

“I’ve already met a vampire,” she said. The Bull’s Eye’s voice was even in a way that suggested she was trained to keep it steady in moments of stress. “There is no nice kind. There can’t be, based on what I saw.”

I arched both eyebrows. “Okay. Interesting.” I cleared my throat. “How about, I’m the less terrible kind?” I couldn’t just leave that minor revelation on the table, though. “When did you have occasion to meet one of us?”

“A few nights ago, in a neighborhood across town. Long story.” The more I listened to her clipped tones and steady voice, and the more she peeked out at me from around the brim of that hat, the more I realized she was a warrior: literally, she was trained for war, for combat. She wouldn’t let me see where she was looking and she wouldn’t let me draw her into conversation. She was trained to see people as foes to be defeated.

I spread my hands a little to either side.

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