Page 123 of A Shade of Myself
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“I kill pet!”Pyotr lunged for Emmett, who ducked and dodged behind a stalagmite, but not before sticking out his tongue.
I was on my last nerve. Tatiana had sent me to finish this job to get my instincts and confidence back on track. But she also wanted vengeance on Giselle for her betrayal and the lies she’d told Kadeem. When I thought about how close I’d come to telling her about my parents… What was I going to do?
The bicker twins’ arguing snapped me out of my grim thoughts.
“Behave.” I smacked both with equally useless results. Damn creatures with hard skin. “Smarten up right this minute.” I pointed at Emmett. “Or I’ll never work with you again.”
The golem gave a tremulous pout. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” I fumed.
Emmett’s eyes widened and he swallowed, bobbing his head.
Pyotr put his hands to his ears and wiggled his fingers in a “nyah” move.
I whipped around to the gargoyle. “And you. Be nice to my friend or you can forget about ever getting another movie or take-out order ever again.”
He kicked at a loose rock. “You’re mean.”
Emmett snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Really?”
The golem shook his head wearily. “The stories I could tell.”
Lips pursed, the gargoyle lumbered over to his new buddy. “Like what?”
“Like the time—”
“Shut up or else.” I selected a sock with multicolored polka dots off the large pile on the rock slab, pulling an ankle sock off my head that had floated down from the vent in the ceiling. “We’re not here to bond.”
I fixed Edvin’s location in Manhattan in my head and the green narrow door appeared in the rock face. Satisfied that at least one thing was going the way it should, I grabbed Emmett by the elbow.
“I don’t want to,” he whined. “Demons are even worse than vampires.”
Pyotr shambled along beside us. “He could stay. Watch movie.”
Emmett nodded. “Whaddya say, toots?”
I grabbed him by his shoulders, looking directly into his eyes. “You will come with me and help fight the demon, protecting me to your utmost ability.”
Golems’ main function was to obey a direct order until it was fulfilled. When Laurent pulled this move on Emmett, he looked like a computer accepting a command. The directive took hold with no pushback.
With me? He grumbled “Whatever” and shook himself loose from my hold.
Pyotr waved us off. “Come back and visit soon.”
I stomped out any feelings of guilt for the lonely gargoyle. “If we’re still alive, then you got it.”
Rain drizzled down on us when Emmett and I stepped out in front of a small physiotherapy office on a quiet side street, both of us cloaked. The front windows faced a small reception area with a selection of exercise bikes, weights, mats, and fitness balls, but a drawn curtain prevented me from seeing the rest of the studio.
I moved us under the broad awning because my mesh didn’t prevent us from getting wet.
“If Tatiana’s information is right,” I said, confident that the traffic noise covered the sound of my voice, “then the hunters will arrive in fifteen minutes.” I scanned the neighborhood, but none of the few pedestrians out in this weather were loitering, nor did anyone look out of place.
I was tempted to stall and leave Edvin to Carpe Demon, but Tatiana’s wrath wouldn’t be pretty. “One of the twins should be accompanying the demon. I’m not sure when the other will arrive. We’ve got the element of surprise on our side since even the demon can’t see through this cloaking, and I won’t drop it until I’m in place to take him out.”
