Greywalker - Kat Richardson [63]
I heard the bone shatter. The chalky one let out a shriek and doubled over, vanishing under the open trunk lid. I had my gun out and started to bring it up.
The dark-skinned man whirled toward me with the crowbar raised. I put the sights on him and held. His eyes met mine for a nanosecond.
He panted a moment, then flung the crowbar at me and spun away, running like a scalded dog. I ducked and the crowbar hit the cement with a clang that echoed long after the thief had vanished up the ramp. I could have chased after him, but I wanted to get a look at the guy with the broken arm a lot more.
I edged toward the Camaro. “Hey. You OK?” I called out.
He moaned.
“Cameron? Cameron Shadley?” I led with my left hand out and the gun pointing straight up. I didn’t want to take any more damage, but I was prepared to dish a little out, if I had to.
The pale violence leapt at me with a yowl of pain. Hands like a raptor’s talons flashed at my face. I backpedaled as fast as I could, turning, my right arm swinging down, left reaching to lock my grip.
“Hal—” I didn’t get to finish the warning.
A clawed brick struck my shoulder and scraped up under my hair, yanking out a few strands. Losing my balance, I squeezed on the gun and felt it buck in my hand.
The fury shrieked and flopped onto the ground. He sat there, a haystack of fair hair, cradling his limp right arm in his left hand. Even through the ringing in my ears, I heard him. “You shot me?” he wondered. “Ow! Oh, fuck, that hurts! It’s not supposed to hurt!” He lifted his face and glared at me between matted strands of hair. “Why did you shoot me?”
I stayed my distance, the gun firmly gripped, muzzle pointing at the oil-stained cement between us. “You attacked me. I fight back.” Everything sounded a little distant to me, still.
“With a gun?”
“It’s a much better tool than a stick. Are you Cameron Shadley?”
“Yes,” he moaned. “Who the hell are you?”
“Your mother suggested you were a gentlemanly, soft-spoken boy. Now I discover that you swear and hit women,” I mused aloud.
“You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not at my best when I’m sick and scared out of my socks,” he growled. “So, who the heck are you?”
Sarcasm usually indicates a drop in threat level. I put my gun away. “My name is Harper Blaine. I’m a private investigator. Your mother hired me to find you. Are you bleeding badly?”
“It’s not too bad now.” He winced. “It’s closing up already. The bullet must have gone all the way through.”
“Let me take you to a hospital.”
“Oh, yeah.” He started laughing. It didn’t sound too rational. “A hospital’s going to love me. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Shadley, are you aware you haven’t got a pulse?’ ”
I stepped closer. “Are you all right?”
“No!” he spat, throwing back his tangled hair. His bloodred glower sent a bolt of sickening ice straight through my chest. “I’m not all right! I’m a goddamned vampire with a goddamned hole in his already broken arm. I am not fucking all right, all right!”
Wary, I knelt beside him and looked at the arm he cradled. As I stared, the torn flesh of the bullet wound eased closer together, knitting up like a sweater sleeve. Only a couple of millimeters, but enough to convince me that Cameron Shadley was not operating within original design specifications. I looked at him and he glared back. I had to swallow hard a couple of times to work up enough spit to speak and keep my dinner down at the same time.
“I have to get you and your car out of here right away.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Not once the tow truck gets here.”
“Tow truck?”
“Yes.” I stood back. “I heard about your car because it’s on the impound list. It’ll be towed in the next couple of minutes if we don’t move it.”
He groaned like a soap-opera diva and hung his head back. “Great! Just great! How’m I supposed to drive with one hand? It’s a manual.”
“I’ll drive.”
“What about your car? You’ve got a car, right?”
“My car isn’t going to be towed yet. Come on. Let’s go. Give me the keys.”
Grunting, Cameron reached into the left front pocket of his jeans and flipped