Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [16]
I admit, to the casual observer it might appear that I’m a touch fond of them. But what I said earlier, about no pet people? That goes for kids, too. No pet kids. They’re not my ghouls. They’re my security system.
See, I own this old building down on the fringes of Pioneer Square. I think it used to be a factory that manufactured rubber products a century or two ago, but I’m not sure and I don’t really care. At present, this building’s job is to store my stuff.
Okay, so most of it’s my stuff.
Or at least some of it’s my stuff, and the things that aren’t my personal stuff are things that I personally have stolen, and that counts, right? Sometimes it takes a while for payment and paperwork to go through over some items. And every now and again a client will die or go to jail—leaving me holding the bag, or the diamonds, or the family heirloom, or the absurdly valuable painting, or whatever.
Anyway, this old factory serves as my personal, private storage unit for all the in-transit or in-process items that I would prefer not to keep around the house. Sure, it’s a bit of overkill. The place has four floors and eighteen-foot ceilings, and it occupies about a third of a city block in an old industrial neighborhood.
But nobody wants the old place, and as long as I don’t try to fix it up too nice, no one will even wonder about it. It looks abandoned, and I like it that way.
Hell, it is abandoned. Mostly.
Except for the kids.
And now one of them had called the number that she damn well knew was only for emergencies, and someone was trying to get inside.
If it’d been the police, Pepper would’ve said so. She fears and loathes the police like only a child who’s been minced through bad social service programs can. I’ve tried to explain to her that, at least hypothetically, the police are there to help—unless they’re looking too closely at my building. She’s tried to explain to me how she only ever sees cops when things are really terrible, and they only make things louder and scarier or worse. I maintain that we both have a point, but there’s only so much arguing you can do with a second-grader whose arm is covered in cigarette burn scars.
Her brother Domino is even worse. If I don’t keep an eye on him, he’ll deliberately antagonize the cops. One of these days that poor little asshole is going to end up dead or in jail for life.
And then who’ll look after his sister?
Not me.
No pet people. Even if they’re cute and slightly fey, and smart and somewhat needy. Absolutely not. It’s the cute ones you can’t get rid of. Just ask anyone who’s ever “kept an eye on” a stray puppy for a couple of days. You know what I’m talking about.
Also, forget everything I said before about not being a rooftop-to-rooftop kind of jogger, because I needed to get some real speed going—and I couldn’t do it there on the street, in front of God and everybody. The best way to preserve my anonymity was to take to the higher path, and I don’t mean Zen. I grabbed a fire escape and climbed that sucker like a scratching post.
Once I made it to the roof I was home free, for all practical values of the expression.
From my starting point I was maybe a mile from the factory building. For the millionth time I wished that everything you hear about vampires is true. I wished I could fly, or turn into a bat, or do any one of a hundred useful things that would move me faster through space.
But I had to settle for the old-fashioned Run Like Hell.
Above the crowds, or at least the trickling late-night party-goers, I could go as fast as I’m capable—which, if I do say so myself, is pretty damn fast. I can manage a really good clip if the cityscape is even enough.
In the old part of town, most of the roofs are more or less the same height, give or take a story or two.
I took the longest strides I could, and I made the farthest, stretching leaps that I dared manage. I pitied anyone who might’ve been indoors. All the grace in the world isn’t church-mouse-quiet when it’s flinging itself fifteen or twenty