Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [81]
So he stood in my kitchen, leaning over the bar, his neck glistening with sweat—and a dusting of leftover glitter. That stuff really is the gift that keeps on giving.
We were both sullen and uncertain of how to begin speaking, but he was downing a glass of scotch he’d found under the sink and I was wrestling with a bottle of nice red wine, on the very verge of smashing it against the counter just to get at the sweet, sweet goodness inside.
The cork sprang free just in time to stop me. I grabbed a goblet and filled it up—damn the torpedoes and all that.
When I had a full glass in hand, and he had a mostly empty one before him on the counter, I said, “So.”
And he said, “So,” right back.
I gave up and said, “This is ridiculous. You know I’m a vampire, I know you know I’m a vampire, and we both know your little sister was part of a government project. Feel free to stop me when and if I’m wrong.”
He didn’t stop me.
“All right, then,” I continued. I was not exactly reassured by the illusion of control but I’d accept it in lieu of actual control, so I bullied the conversation forward. “She died, years ago. The military told you … they told you what? That she’d killed herself? That she’d merely passed away as part of some test or experiment?”
“Something like that.”
“And you bought it?” I asked, incredulous only because half a glass of red was breaking down the barriers between my brain and my mouth. And let’s be honest, those barriers aren’t exactly reinforced concrete under the best of circumstances.
He didn’t quite sneer, but the look he made wasn’t pretty. “Of course I didn’t buy it. But congratulations, you tracked me down. And while you were at it, you led them right to me, didn’t you?”
“No!” I objected instantly. “I have no idea how they found their way to you, but I’ve survived under the radar for nearly a century, thank you very much, and it was only when I stumbled over the trip wire of your sister’s project that anybody in any black suit and any shiny car ever had any specific interest in me, personally.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” he said.
To which I replied, “Yeah? Well I don’t give a shit. I don’t have anything to prove to you.” And I didn’t tell him anything about Cheshire Red, or the half dozen international agencies that had wanted me for decades.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“What?”
“You,” he said pointedly, picking up the glass again and aiming it at me. “What are you doing here, if you don’t have anything to prove?”
“Oh, I’ve got work to do and things to prove, just not to you,” I insisted. “My investigation accidentally stumbled across you, which is not at all the same thing. I wandered into your circle by hunting down the military records for Project Bloodshot. In case you’re unaware, those records effectively vanished, years ago. But I bet you aren’t unaware. I bet you know exactly where they are, because I bet you’re the one who took them.”
His eyes simmered over the highball glass. He downed the last couple of drops and acted like he wanted more, but was too smart to ask for more—much less drink any more. He said, “Yeah. I took them.”
“I knew it!” I said, and it sounded sloppy. Which somehow didn’t stop me from finishing the glass of expensive old red. I was wound up tighter than an E-string, and I needed to get a grip on myself before dawn came up in a handful of hours. So I drank.
“I have no idea how you got so lucky,” he said. I liked the Spanish roll to his vowels, and I liked the hateful simmering. I wanted to piss him off more, and keep him talking. I wanted to pin him down and demand that he say, “My name is Inigo Montoya—you killed my father, prepare to die.” But I suspect that would’ve been deeply inappropriate in any number of ways. I told you, alcohol hits me hard and fast. I can’t help it if my mind wanders.
And hell, yours would’ve wandered, too, if you’d seen that body of his attired in fishnets and spangles. He was a good-looking man