Free Bad Blood (Cora's Choice #3) by V. M. Black Page B

there, her motions jerky like an old film movie played too slowly. There were spaces between her motions, and in one of those spaces, she swung around, the object held up at something I couldn’t see. A sudden light shot from it, and a crackling kind of bang, and suddenly, she was clinging to a man with one arm wrapped around his neck and the other with the weapon pointed at his temple.
    She gave a blood-curdling whoop, her face split in a grin.
    Others came sprinting from across the parking lot, spilling out of the blue sedan and the gray minivan. More vampires, moving at inhuman speeds. A cord or rope appeared from somewhere, and one of the agnates quickly, roughly bound the man’s hands.
    Clarissa stepped away then, pulled out the screen she’d been consulting earlier, and called, “That’s it! All clear!”
    Our SUV reached the curb, and Dorian didn’t wait for the driver to circle around. He pushed the door open and landed on the sidewalk.
    “Come, Cora,” he ordered.
    Right. A man had just appeared out of nowhere, and people were trying to kill me just yesterday. Why wouldn’t I want to come out?
    Despite that thought, I didn’t think Dorian was going to get me killed, so I unbuckled , hooked my purse over my shoulder, and scooted over. At the doorway, Dorian scooped me up unceremoniously—and ran.
    The scream got caught in my throat, and I managed only a strangled kind of gasp. The pavement blurred under his feet only a few feet below my body. My hands spasmed around his shoulders in sheer terror at the speed that shouldn’t have been possible outside of a car.
    He stopped in front of the other agnates and set my feet gently on the ground. I had to order myself to unclench my hands to regain my own balance. Every time I thought I knew where I was with him or in his world, he did something that turned my brains inside out.
    “Next time, a little warning, please,” I managed.
    Dorian didn’t answer. I didn’t even think he noticed my reaction. All his attention was on the disheveled man in the center of the circle of agnates, who was reeling about and tugging ineffectually at the bonds that pinned his wrists. I had an instinctive pity for the paunchy man, ringed by the tall, powerful, beautiful predators. He seemed so absurd, so ordinary and pitiful.
    Then his gaze slid past mine , and his eyes burned yellow, just for just an instant.
    I recoiled so hard that I jerked back into Dorian’s chest. The last creature I’d met with yellow eyes had tried to kill me.
    Another djinn.
    “Hey, hey, hey!” the djinn was shouting. “Easy, there! Easy!”

Chapter Ten
     
    “I was just hired to watch, I swear,” the djinn wailed. “Look in my pocket. Go ahead. Look!”
    Disdainfully, Clarissa reached into the bulging pocket of his jacket—and came up with a compact camera body with a small zoom lens.
    “See? I was watching, that’s all!”
    “What does your employer want?” Dorian demanded.
    “Oh, the usual things,” the djinn said. “What she looks like. When she comes, when she goes. Who her friends are. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?”
    The ring of agnates shifted slightly, but no one spoke.
    The little man—the djinn—held up his bound hands imploringly. “Come on, Dalton. You’ve hired me before yourself. You can vouch for me.”
    One of the vampires, a tall man with silver-shot hair and crow’s feet that looked like they were being worn for effect, nodded reluctantly.
    “It’s Finnegan Cage. I know him.”
    “Tell them what kind of work I do,” he urged.
    “Strictly shadow-work,” Dalton said. “I’ve never heard a rumor otherwise.”
    “See? See?” Finnegan was getting so worked up that he was all but caroming from vampire to vampire. “No wet work here! Not me! Now get these damned salt-bonds off me so I can go about my business.”
    “Who hired you?” Dorian didn’t look impressed.
    “Oh, you know I can’t tell you that,” Finnegan said plaintively. “What kind