Page 38 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker #1)

I breathed the smoke, out and out and out, until it ended on a raspy cough, and I had to suck in a fresh breath of air.

Well, a smoky one. The smoke didn’t seem to irritate my lungs though, because I didn’t cough again. Also, the burning pain that had been pushing its way up my throat all morning stopped, and that was a fucking relief.

No giving up hot sauce for me, because there was no way hot sauce had caused that.

“Fuck,” someone shouted, someone decidedly not Sexton. “Is the place on fire?”

“Open the door,” someone else yelled.

It took a few minutes for the smoke to begin to clear, humans coughing all around me, looking for a fire that didn’t exist.

Well, unless it was inside of me.

Suddenly, there was shrieking outside, followed by incoherent yelling.

A moment later, a pale, concerned-looking Detective Cain came striding into the warehouse.

“Why the hell isn’t someone untying him?

” He demanded, and though his voice was a bit raspy, he sounded no less authoritative for it.

“Just because leaving witnesses tied up is you assholes’s kink doesn’t mean Knight is into that. Cut him down, now.”

“Sorry sir,” one of the uniformed officers said, rushing toward me, fumbling with something on his utility belt. As he reached me, his foot hit something, and it went skittering off into a pile of crates to one side of us. He paid it no mind, but I was sure I knew what it was.

The dagger my cousin had been planning to gut me with.

I should retrieve it, something in me insisted. It might be important. It was the only link I could currently lay hands on to my father’s family. My father’s apparently super shitty family.

Sweet.

They cut me free, and I shook out my hands, which had been going numb from the terrible position, then I turned and looked around on the ground behind me.

There, mostly hidden by a stray pallet, the hilt of the dagger.

Except that if I grabbed it from the floor, the cops would take it as evidence. So instead of taking the thing, I turned back around, knocking the knife even farther under the pallet with one foot, trying for subtle.

I would come back later and hope it was still there.

“Where was that smoke coming from?” one of the cops asked, looking around.

Cain didn’t even seem to notice him, he was watching me with those earnest blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

“How did you find me?” It wasn’t an answer, but seriously, if I’d been expecting someone to rush in to save the day, it wouldn’t have been cops.

“Who cares where the smoke was coming from?” another cop whispered. “What the fuck was that thing?”

I looked over at him, eyebrow raised. “Thing?”

He motioned away from us, toward where I assumed the door was, since it was where the cops seemed to be coming from. “There was a giant thing. It...I swear, it flew away.”

“You’re seeing things, Smithson,” another guy said, rolling his eyes.

Me? I wasn’t so sure.

It seemed to me that we all had questions, and no one had any answers.

Well, except for Cain, and he gave his to me.

“We were still processing the murder scene when your partner came outside. He said he’d been attacked, and he was almost sure you’d been kidnapped by your mother’s assistant, Mary Windsor.

But that you had your phone on you, and he could track it. So he did, and we followed you here.”

Davin.

Davin had probably saved my life. And he’d told the cops that Mary was the bad guy.

“Mary?” I asked, wincing. No matter what had happened, no one was going to be pleased with the results.

Cain winced. “I’m afraid it’s unlikely anyone’s going to find her. She took a bullet in the chest and fell off the pier.”

“Dove off, more like,” one of the cops muttered. “Like she thought getting away from us was more important than bleeding to death from a gunshot wound.”

A chill came over me at the thought that Mary was still out there. She’d gotten away. A gunshot wound to the chest and a little water? That would never kill a vampire.

I looked back up to see Cain with a tiny vial of water in his hands, contemplating it. I almost laughed because what had I said to myself would come next? Fucking holy water, seriously?

“Sir,” someone shouted from the door area. “You can’t come in here. You?—”

Davin wasn’t listening, though. He had pushed inside and he was heading right for where Cain and I stood. Twist was in his hands, and she looked utterly pitiful.

But it wasn’t because she was injured.

It was because she was soaking wet.

“I have destroyed the traitor, Father,” she announced, holding her head high, like a pagan queen demanding obeisance. “I tore her in half and ate her heart.”

Davin looked up at me, a question in his eye, and I nodded to him. His shoulders slumped in utter relief, and he handed my soaking wet kitten to me, then scratched her ears. “Well done, cat.”

She preened.

Ate her heart.

That was...something. I wondered about those legends of creatures who ate their enemies flesh to make them stronger. Had that been what Sexton had been trying to do? Eat me to be stronger? He’d implied some really dark shit about neither of us being able to survive.

But I wasn’t accepting that.

“Swear to god,” the previous cop—Smithson?—whispered to a man standing next to him. “A guy ran out the back door, and when I tried to follow him, there was just this giant shadow out there, and it flew away.”

“It’s dark outside,” the guy next to him said, going for reassuring but coming off more condescending. “Maybe he got in a plane.”

“You think I don’t know what a fucking plane looks like?”

A bang from the door got everyone’s attention, and the whole place—a warehouse on the docks, I finally realized—fell silent.

“What the fuck is the mayor doing here?” someone behind me whispered, and I knew the answer, but I wasn’t going to tell him.

Because the mayor? He was standing right next to my mother, who looked like she was about to pull out a sword and start slaughtering people. The mayor was there because she’d demanded he be there, no doubt.

“Flynn!” she shouted the moment she saw me, and then she—followed by the mayor—was striding through the crowd of cops to get to me.

When she was in front of me, she didn’t hesitate, she threw her arms around me and pulled me tight against her. So tight I could barely breathe.

“I’m okay, Mother,” I promised.

When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes. Tears. For me .

What the hell was going on?

“I will find that bitch,” she promised me. “I will hunt her down and tear her heart out of her chest and?—”

“Mothe— Mom . It’s okay. I’m okay.” I had never before in over thirty years of life called my mother “Mom” to her face, but for some reason, in the moment, it seemed right. Then, I leaned in closer to her and whispered. “And Twist has Mary handled.”

She positively beamed at Twist, reaching down to scratch her ears just as Davin had. “I’m going to buy you so very much salmon,” she promised my cat, and I didn’t doubt it for a second.

“Sexton is still out there, though.”

My mother’s eyes flew back to mine, and Cain took a step closer. “Sexton? Was that an accomplice?”

I shook my head, turning to look at Cain. “No. Sexton had nothing to do with the murders. Mary killed both Charles and Kate because they had figured out that she was trying to assassinate my mother, and that was all there was to that.”

He lifted a brow, reverting immediately to unimpressed cop. “Then who’s Sexton?”

I looked at him, then deliberately, looked over to where Smithson was still trying to convince his friend that he’d seen a giant creature fly away, then back. He swallowed hard, clutching at the tiny vial in his hand.

That, unfortunately for him, caught my mother’s attention. She reached down and took the damn thing from him, as easily as if he’d been holding it out for her to take. He stared at her in astonishment, and she inspected the vial for a moment.

Then she smiled at him. “You must be Detective Cain. The one in charge of this investigation? My son said you’ve been doing an excellent job. We should have you over for dinner to thank you.”

“That’s not necessary, ma’am, I was just doing my job.”

The mayor gave him a hard look, glancing at my mother and back, then said, “If Fiona Knight invites you for dinner, Mr. Cain, you go to dinner. She’s the backbone of this community.”

For the second time in a few days, I wondered about my mother and Tobias Cain.

He was hot, no question. And unlike when I was born, he wasn’t a teenager anymore.

“You should come by on Saturday,” I told him.

“The chef, Meg, makes the best roast you’ll ever have in your life.

And if you’ve got to put up with people for politics, you might as well get a nice dinner out of it.

Plus maybe a nice long talk about your new interests.

My mother is also interested in those things. ”

Mother quirked a brow at me, but she didn’t ask.

“I’m thinking probably Gerald, being an asshole.”

“That guy,” Cain breathed, sounding like he wanted to both kick Gerald, and also never ever see him again.

“Indeed,” Mother said, nodding. “We’ll see you on Saturday at seven, then, Detective Cain.

I’ll ask Meg to make her roast. And extra for dear Plot Twist, because she’s the most perfect creature ever born.

” She leaned forward and gave my still-sopping kitten a kiss on the top of her head.

“For now, I insist on taking my son, his partner, and their cat home. They need rest. If you have more questions for your report, you can ask them another time.”

Something about the way she worded that pinged oddly in my brain. His partner? Their cat? No one else seemed to notice, though.

“We certainly can, ma’am,” Cain agreed, biting his lip and staring at the vial that she was still holding.

She stepped forward, into his space, and held it up for him to take back. “I’ve found, Detective Cain, that what works best is two shots, right to the head.”

“Or a vase,” I mumbled.

Cain blinked over at me, then his eyes went wide.

Mother smiled at him. “Everyone has the right to defend themselves. No exceptions.” She waved the vial in front of him. “I’m serious, though. Head wound. Massive physical trauma. Direct and prolonged sunlight. Everything else is just Hollywood set dressing.”

He nodded to her, mute, and then turned beseeching eyes on me. “Sunlight?”

“Sunlight,” I agreed. “World’s most inconvenient weapon against predators that only attack at night. But it works on bacteria, so why not other things?”

Cain nodded thoughtfully, stepping out of our way as we followed my mother out of the building to where she had a limousine waiting for us.

Well, technically two of them, since she’d arrived with the mayor.

She waved to him as she climbed in, and he inclined his head, then turned back to a group of cops.

I suspected he was going to personally make sure everything was taken care of.

Anything important enough to get Fiona Knight’s attention was important enough to pay attention to, for someone who had to live in her city, let alone govern all the humans who lived in it.