The Reluctant Vampire - Lynsay Sands [83]
Turning slowly, Drina searched the front yard more carefully, checking every nook and crevice. She frowned when she spotted movement in the shadowed snow in the corner of the yard in front of the upper and lower porch. Whatever was moving was too small to be human. She hesitated, but curiosity won out and she opened the front gate and stepped inside.
The worry about rogues gone now, Drina started across the yard, another concern rearing its head. It might be a poor abandoned, hungry, and freezing cat rooting in the snow for food. Drina liked animals, often more than mortals and immortals, and wasn’t above bringing the poor little bugger a bowl of milk or something to help it see its way through winter. Or if it looked uncared for, maybe even letting it sleep in the garage for the night, where it would be protected from the elements. She could always take it to an animal shelter in the morning.
“Oh, what a cutie,” she murmured, slinging the cross bow over her shoulder by the strap as she got close enough to better make out the animal. It was a chubby little sucker, white and black and digging away as if scratching at kitty litter. As she moved closer, she crooned, “Here kitty, kitty.”
The cat stilled at her call, growled, and stomped its feet like a child throwing a tantrum. It made Drina chuckle as she continued forward, and she bent forward, trying to make herself smaller and less threatening as she continued to call, “Here kitty, kitty,” hoping to lure it to her.
Animals were so adorable really; cute, cuddly, affectionate. In the darkest part of the front garden though it was, she could still make out that it was hunkered down to the ground, looking oddly flat and wide. Not starving then, but—
Drina stopped abruptly, a choked sound slipping from her throat as the damned thing lifted its tail and somehow pissed at her. She was a good eight or ten feet away still, and the damned thing hit her right in the face and chest and—
Dear Lord, the smell was the most god-awful stench she’d ever encountered. Drina staggered back, wondering with horror what the hell the animal had been eating that its urine would smell so damned foul. That was followed by the wonder as to whether it was some damned mutant to be able to pee out its butt at her, but they were brief thoughts that flashed across her mind, and in the next moment were gone, replaced with dismay as her eyes began to sting as if someone had shoved burning hot pokers in her eyes.
Gagging and choking, Drina stumbled and fell on her butt and rolled to the side. Her hands rose to cover her burning eyes, and moans were gargling from her mouth.
“Drina?”
She hadn’t heard the front door open, but she heard Teddy’s shout and the stomp of his feet as he raced down the front steps.
“What the hell—Dear God, it’s a skunk!” His approaching footsteps stopped abruptly on that almost falsetto squawk, and then continued more cautiously, appearing to curve to the side a bit rather than approach directly, as he muttered, “Shoo! Shoo you little bugger. Don’t make me shoot you, you damned varmint. Christ, you’ve been sprayed. I can smell you from here. Oh God Almighty. What the hell were you thinking playing with a skunk? For Christ’s sake. Shoo!” he repeated. “Damn, did it get you in the face? Shoo!”
Drina was lying still now, curled on her side with eyes closed, waiting for the nanos to fix whatever the heck the cat urine had done and listening to Teddy with confusion. She couldn’t tell from one moment to the next who he was addressing, herself or the cat, and she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, except he seemed afraid of the little beast that had done this to her. Not that she blamed him really, considering the agony she was in, but the creature wasn’t much bigger than a kitten, and Teddy did have a damned gun and—cripes her eyes hurt.
“Shoot the damned thing,” Drina growled, deciding maybe she didn’t like animals so much anymore.
“I’m not shooting it. It’ll wake up the whole damned neighborhood. Could give one of the old biddies in the retirement