Page 15 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker #1)

A s we were leaving the house a few hours later, I looked at Davin. “You going to drop me off at my bike or take me to see Gerald Forsyth next?”

He blinked at me a moment, looking surprised. “You want me to go with you?”

“Sure, why not?”

He winced, like I’d invited him to go with me to a wedding, and he had to be the one to point out to me that my invitation didn’t say “plus one.” Which was nonsense. Sure, Gerald was an ass, and he was going to be an ass to me, but if anything, Davin’s inclusion should make him act less douchey.

“I’m not sure that’s what you want,” he finally said, without elaborating on why.

I scoffed. “I don’t want to see Gerald at all. He’s a dick, in the bad way.”

Something about the day had loosened Davin up, because that made him laugh. “Fine then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s gonna feckin’ hate me.”

I shrugged. “We’ll be a matched set, he can hate us both.”

Since Gerald also lived up in the hills, it was a short drive to his massive mansion.

Frankly, the place looked like it should house a literal army of people—it was at least big enough for a hundred people to live there full time.

While Mother’s house was big, I gave her credit, that it wasn’t so big she could—but didn’t—house dozens of other people in it.

A few, sure. No more than ten people could comfortably live in Mother’s house, though.

Davin stared up at the monstrosity that was Gerald’s mansion, then looked at me. “This isn’t the state capital, you’re sure? The local cathedral?”

I snorted at that, shaking my head. “Nope. I think they’d have had more security if it were, but you know vamps.”

At that, he rolled his eyes. “Paranoid Luddite bastards?”

“Yup.”

I rang the bell, and a moment later a woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door. I hadn’t actually seen one of those outside a movie in...maybe ever? So I did a double take. Was Forsyth having a costume party?

She didn’t look like a partygoer, though, just stared at me seriously, so I took a breath and gave it a shot. “I’m Fiona Knight’s son, and I’m here to see Mr. Forsyth.”

She gave me what I could only describe as an honest-to-fuck bow, and ushered us into the “parlor,” saying that she would let Mr. Forsyth know we were “calling.”

I blinked and shook my head, turning to look at Davin, to see if he was as stunned as I was. He...was not stunned. What he was, was so deeply unimpressed that if his eyes rolled any harder, they might exit his body entirely and roll on down the highway toward the ocean.

Hard to blame him.

It was almost twenty minutes before Gerald Forsyth deigned to grace us with his presence.

He was wearing a full suit with a freaking cravat—which I was pretty sure hadn’t been in style for over a century, unless you lived in a VW bus with a Great Dane—and the world’s shiniest black boots.

“Mr. Knight,” he said, though his nose was turned so far up I wondered if he was looking at the ceiling.

I wouldn’t have blamed him, because the plasterwork up there was art. I wouldn’t have said it was particularly good art, since I’d never been much into the creepy cherubs shooting bows thing, but it was certainly art.

“Mr. Forsyth,” I returned. “This is my associate, Davin Byrne.”

That...well, I realized in that moment, Davin had been right. Somehow, he was eliciting a worse response than I did.

Forsyth’s head came down, almost whipped down, so hard I worried he was going to hurt his neck. His gaze went from me to Davin and stayed there, eyes wide and intense, as though he had x-ray vision and he could drill a hole in Davin’s head just by staring at him.

“The killer,” he finally hissed.

I lifted a brow at that, because what? “Given how much of a stickler Mother is for the law, Mr. Forsyth, I sincerely doubt that Davin is a killer in any legal sense.”

“I did kill a vampire,” Davin said, and it was.

..okay, the dude was sexy, right? Just plain old everyday sexy.

But the way he unfolded under Forsyth’s glare?

That was so hot I didn’t even have words for it.

It was like if “fuck you” was a body language.

He sprawled out in the chair he’d been sitting in carefully just a moment before, arms on the armrests, slumped casually against the back, his legs stretched long and ankles crossed.

He was so fucking hot part of me was surprised he wasn’t giving off steam.

“A monster of a vampire, who was later discovered to have been one of the worst serial killers of the last century.”

I blinked at that because what the hell? Now the guy was casually arrogantly sexy and he killed serial killers? Not fair. “Seriously?”

“When the Senate examined his home after his death, they found the remains of almost two hundred people hidden away.”

For a minute, all I could do was stare at him. Two hundred people. Holy fucking shit.

Forsyth, meanwhile, had an opinion as well. “Humans,” he hissed, sneering around the word like he was actually saying “garbage.”

Ah. That followed. Davin had killed a vampire who had killed for his supper.

It was disgusting, but throughout history, there had always been some of them.

Like Forsyth, they had been vampires who thought of humans as lesser, almost like cattle rather than sentient beings with their own feelings and dreams and lives.

Like rich people who thought that poor people were disposable, and killed them at will.

Honestly, just thinking about it was almost enough to make me a vegetarian sometimes. I’d even tried that a few times as a kid, but always ended up getting sick when I cut meat out of my diet, so I figured I just wasn’t made to be a vegetarian.

Twist, who’d been curled up in my pocket after devouring not one, not even two, but three entire chickens at my mother’s house, poked her head out, sniffing the air and looking mildly disgusted. “What stinks?”

“I’m guessing it would be Mr. Forsyth,” I answered her, motioning to him and ignoring the fact that I was talking to a cat in front of a stranger. He could think I was crazy if he wanted. Gerald Forsyth’s opinion didn’t matter at all to me.

She sniffed in his direction, then nodded. “Dead. And not the nice kind like your mother.” Then she turned and burrowed back into my pocket.

I watched her, confused. The nice kind of dead?

Weird. I’d have to remember that. Still, I shook myself, because Davin killing some murderer and Twist not liking how the guy smelled weren’t why we were there.

“We’re here about Charles Mailloux,” I told him, leaning back in my chair and trying to look non-threatening, sort of the opposite of how Davin was sprawled in his.

“What about the old frog?” Forsyth demanded. “Is he whining about how rude I was at the opera? Really, he wore plaid, like some sort of barbaric highlander.”

That was...a lot of information. It wasn’t a certain thing, but I didn’t immediately sense any duplicity in the words, either.

While I didn’t have some magical ability to see through lies, more information was always better.

More opportunities to see the truth. If he was going to act as though he didn’t even know Charles was dead, that was an opportunity to see quite a lot of his reactions.

So I watched him carefully as I spoke. “No. It’s not about plaid. It’s not about him complaining. He’s dead.”

He rolled his eyes and started to speak, but then hesitated, his mouth already open. “Wait. You mean...permanently dead. He’s...he’s been murdered.”

It was sort of a fair presumption, since why would I randomly show up at the man’s house to tell him that Charles was undead? And there weren’t a lot of ways for vampires to permanently die, all of which likely involved foul play.

“He’s been murdered, yes.”

His face went through a fascinating array of emotions that I didn’t think he could have entirely faked.

From surprise to fear to horror, and then landing on downright disgusted, all in just a few seconds.

“Your mother has put you up to investigating it, of course.” His sneer was damned impressive, and part of me wanted to get defensive, but it was understandable.

“She did put me up to investigating it. She told me to find his killer, whoever it might be.” Before he could sneer any more about it, I stood up and stared him down.

The great thing about most powerful vampires being a few hundred years old was that most of them were also shorter than my five-foot-ten frame, and Gerald was no exception.

Sure, he could kick my ass, but I could look down at him first. “And I will find out who killed Charles. Whether it was you, or some other vampire. Including my mother, who is also part of this investigation.”

Davin gave a low whistle and nodded at me, seeming to approve of the statement, which was a surprise, since he also seemed to adore my mother.

Forsyth was a little more dubious. “Who are you planning to tell if she’s the killer? Her?”

“I have a contact number for the Consulate,” I told him, because it was true.

I didn’t for a moment believe that my mother had killed Charles, but I did have that number.

She’d given it to me fifteen years earlier when she’d been elected senator, to call in case something happened to her and I needed help.

But it meant that if I needed to go over my mother’s head at some point, I had a way to contact the Consul’s office.

The three consuls were essentially every vampire’s bosses, so it didn’t get any higher than that.

And who knew? Maybe I’d end up being surprised, and Mother had killed Charles. It didn’t seem likely, but anything was possible.

Forsyth sighed and folded onto a large velvet sofa, apparently accepting my response. “I can’t imagine why anyone would kill him. The old frog was entirely toothless.”

A particularly nasty insult among vampires, of course, but it only made me think of adorable dragons. Also, Charles might have been born in France hundreds of years ago, but he’d been in California for so long that calling him a “frog” seemed both reductive and silly, as well as probably offensive.

“He talked a big game,” Forsyth went on, “but everyone knew he was never going to do anything. Your mother is only fifteen years into her stint as Senator of Los Angeles anyway, so the only way to remove her would be to kill her, and he didn’t have the fortitude to do a thing like that.”

Fifteen years into a hundred year term. It was fair; no one was going to have a chance to take over LA without assassinating my mother, and my mother was terrifying. Maybe eighty-five years was nothing to a vampire, but it sounded like a long-ass time to me.

“Why don’t you ask your friend the killer if he did it?” Forsyth asked when he decided I’d been quiet too long, flinging his hand in Davin’s direction.

I lifted a brow at him, but turned to Davin. “Did you ever even meet Charles?”

“Can’t say that I did, no. Doesn’t much matter, though, as I only kill arseholes who try to kill me first, and he doesn’t sound the type.” He turned and flashed a bright, white-toothed smile at Forsyth. “Just in case you needed to know.”

Also making it quite clear he wasn’t toothless, as his canines seemed sharper than average. Pointedly so, maybe.

Forsyth huffed and shook his head, turning back to me with his nose back in the air.

“The last time I saw him was at the opera. I pointed out that his tie was hideous, and he told me I was old-fashioned and stuffy. He made some...insinuations that your mother was doing a poor job running Los Angeles, and I told him he was right, but if he wasn’t going to do something about it himself, he should keep his mouth shut.

” His thin lips curled into a nasty smile.

“So you see, little human, if you should be investigating anyone, it’s mummy dearest.”

I couldn’t think of a nice way to say “fuck off you elitist prick,” but Davin did it for me as he stood and looked at me. “I think we’re done here. All he’s got is bluster. Unless he’s lying, which we’ll find out in due course.”

Okay, so he didn’t fill the conversational void for me, so much as he just threw good manners out the window and spoke the truth. Eh, whatever.

It looked like Forsyth liked to talk a big game, but he didn’t have much to back it up in the end, because he didn’t say a word as I nodded to Davin and we walked out of the room.

As we hit the hallway, I thought of the cops, and turned back to look in on him.

“Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, the human authorities were informed of Charles’s death, so they’re investigating.

He had your name on a list, so they’ll be coming here to ask you questions.

If anything happens to Detective Cain, Mr. Forsyth, that won’t end well for our community, and you know what Mother thinks of that. ”

He narrowed his eyes at me, and his lips peeled back from elongated canines in a pathetic almost-threat that I rolled my eyes at, but he didn’t say a word, only nodded sharply, as we turned and left his home.