Page 41 of Great Service from Top to Bottom
“Huh. Must be friends of your sucker family, Your Highness,” Zee remarked, glancing up from his phone at Reynard. Their gazes locked, just for a few heartbeats, and then Zee broke the contact and stepped back, dropping his phone into his pocket.
“Did you delete it?” Kris asked.
“I might.”
“The fuck?!”
“Gotta make sure de La Cour pans out first. Don’t worry. Hashtag KaraokeKris is safe with me.”
“You’re an asshole,” Kris sneered. “I’ve had better blow jobs from cheaper slags!”
Zee blew him a kiss, swiped the cat ornament off the mantle, and nodded at us to head out.
That had gone well, considering our luck of late. A plan had worked, and we didn’t even need Reynard to get his torture on. As a plus, I wasn’t covered in questionable body fluids.
We left the house, closing the front door on the sounds of Kris’s sobbing.
“And that, daddy, is how it’s done.” Zee grinned. Turning on his heel, he strutted backward down the drive. “Not a broken kneecap or missing fingernail in sight. And I didn’t even have to suck cock. Aren’t I the fucking best?”
“You are quite something, Zodiac,” Reynard admitted, sounding and appearing genuinely impressed.
“Admit it. Say the words. Zodiac is the best.”
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Go on, you know you want to. Start with my name. Here . . . let’s try it together. Say Zodiac.”
“No.” Reynard had lost his impressed tone.
“Is.”
“Adam?”
“The.”
I shrugged.
“Fucking.”
Reynard sighed.
“Best.”
A gunshot shattered the quiet neighborhood. Zee flinched, yanked his left wing in, then flung his glare behind us, back toward the house. “Hashtag KaraokeKris is going live, you fuck!”
“That’s what you get you cocksucking piece of demon shit!” Kris screeched, standing on his lawn in just his tighty-whities—that clung in all the wrong ways—waving a handgun.
Reynard vanished, and so did Kris. One of the house’s front windows blew inward, and a whole lot of crashing sounded from inside. One missing vampire plus one missing fae, equaled a bad night for Kris.
“Fuck,” Zee grouched, tucking his wing in closer. Blood dribbled down its flanks, onto the driveway. “Stop Reynard before he kills him.”
“Are you—”
“I’m fine. The round went through. Just hurts like fuck. Go.”
I hurried back up the drive, flung open the door, and followed the path of destruction to the back of the lounge, where Reynard held Kris aloft by the neck, choking him. Kris’s legs dangled. He tried to pry Reynard’s fingers from his neck, but was fast turning blue.
“Victor, hey?” I inched into the corner of Reynard’s vision. His eyes had blown, full silver on black. His fangs gleamed, bared and ready to strike. There didn’t seem to be much left of the controlled, reserved Victor Reynard, who drank tea from a china cup and carried around a set square for furniture-making emergencies. This was unhinged, crazed, vampire-predator Reynard. “Victor, hey, erm so . . . please put Kris down so we don’t have to go back to jail?”
