Page 4 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker #1)

His was one of the last estates on the road before reaching town, with a huge wrought iron gate with a loopy B on it.

I stopped at the intercom outside and pressed the button, and a moment later, a voice came over the staticky speaker that had probably been installed in the seventies. “Flynn Knight? That you?”

“It is, sir. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help.”

He didn’t demand any more information than that, and a second later, the gate began to rumble open.

I breathed a sigh of relief. My mother had taken me to Doc throughout my childhood, so while we weren’t best friends, I thought I knew him well enough to know he would help if he was asked.

Also, that much trust from my mother? That meant something.

He’d been my pediatrician, since he was the best doctor my mother knew.

That made him one of two people I was aware of who might know anything about my parentage, a list I still wasn’t on.

On the other hand, maybe he didn’t know any more than I did. We had never discussed it, and I doubted he—or any vampire—would tell me anything my mother didn’t want me knowing.

I revved my engine and started up the long drive, only taking a moment to look back at the ancient security setup. Doc was all about his safety and privacy, almost a hermit these days.

Maybe he could use Davin’s help with a newer, faster, less creaky system. At the very least, Davin could probably get Doc a better speaker.

The house itself was classic Californian architecture: the mission revival style, with enormous swathes of stucco and huge recessed arched windows and doors. Just like the buildings on the black and white Zorro TV show I’d watched as a kid.

Doc had come down the front stoop while I was riding up the driveway, and stood under a pair of swaying palms at the edge of the walk. “What can I help you with, my boy?”

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Doc,” I said, pulling my bike to a stop and dismounting, even as I opened my jacket and reached in to pull my hat out. “Some asshole in front of me on the road hit this little lady, and you were the only person I could think of who might be able to help.”

Without hesitation, Doc leaned in to look at my hat, and the kitten nestled there. He grimaced and looked back up at me. “They just drove off and left her like that?”

“They did.”

His eyes narrowed and he shook his head, tutting. “Karma gets those people, you know. Maybe not tonight, but sometime.” He motioned toward the house. “Let’s get her inside, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Inside, we laid her on his enormous butcher block kitchen table, and he gently lifted her out of my hat, then set her atop it, a makeshift little kitten bed.

“There’s some salmon from a dinner party I had last night,” he told me, motioning toward the fridge.

“Get it out for her while I do this. Healing always leaves a body starved.”

I crossed to the fridge, and sure enough, there was a covered dish of salmon, and one of asparagus. That and the remnants of a few bottles of wine were all that was in there, because, well, vampire, but that was okay. Serendipitous, even, that he had food on hand that he himself wouldn’t eat.

I pulled out a whole serving of salmon, which was about the size of the kitten’s head, but what did I know about how much kittens ate? They had to grow a lot pretty fast, didn’t they? Maybe four ounces of salmon was normal dinner for a kitten.

“Oh, she’s a strong one,” he mumbled behind me.

He sounded as though he was surprised, which was odd.

The man was over two hundred years old, so I doubted there was much out there that could shock him.

Most vampires in my experience were like jaded teenagers, with all the ennui and nihilism that entailed.

On the other hand, Doc had never been quite so stereotypical. He was a rich old man who never had to do anything again in his unlife, but he still worked sometimes as a doctor.

Well, old man was also sort of a misnomer.

I thought of him that way because I’d known him all my life, but he’d been turned in his thirties, so he didn’t look much older than I did, with long sandy hair, brown eyes, a strong tan that hadn’t faded with his turning or the years since, and what looked like premature crows feet and laugh lines.

He had grown up before the era of sunblock, he’d told me as a child, and I would do best to remember that and do better for myself.

It was the kind of object lesson that worked well on me, and I always carried a bottle of sunblock when I was going to be outside in the daytime.

Yeah yeah, so I was a little vain.

Wasn’t everyone, just a little?

I grabbed a plate from the cupboard and slid the square of salmon onto it, returning to the table and setting it next to where Doc was working. He was combing the familiar iridescent ribbon of body magic through her whole tiny form, a centimeter at a time, so slowly I could barely see him moving.

Every now and then he stopped and grimaced, and I suspected he was internally laying a curse on the car that had hit her, which, fair enough. Me too.

Finally, he stopped, shaking his head. For a second my heart twisted, convinced he was going to say it was too late, and he couldn’t fix it without using up all her energy and killing her.

But then he slumped into one of the chairs and motioned to the salmon.

“I’ve done all I can. I used up all her reserves.

It’s up to her now. The bones are knit and the organs are all functional, but it used everything she had.

” He blinked again and shook his head. “Which was a lot, for a tiny thing like that. More than some people I’ve known. ”

“Animals will always surprise you,” I said, smiling down at her.

Once more, she blinked her clear blue eyes open, this time sleepily instead of pained.

“Hey kiddo, you should try to eat some of this if you can,” I told her, sliding the salmon closer to the cap-turned-kitten-bed.

She opened her mouth, licking her chops, looking like nothing so much as a sleepy person who’d just woken from a nap. She then turned toward the salmon, and her eyes rounded. She glanced back up at me, before carefully scooting closer to it. “Not kiddo,” she informed me before taking a bite.

“No? You’ve got another name?”

Delicately, she chewed the fish and swallowed, not eating like any kitten I’d ever met before—aka by shoving her face into the fish and not coming up for air till she had to.

“I am That Which Stalks the Darkest of Nights,” she told me, and while I considered that, she took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and then continued.

“Shatterer of Peace. Haunter of Nightmares. She Whose Name Shall Never Be Spoken.”

“Plot twist,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

On the other side of the—of she whose...fuck me, of her , Doc lifted a brow in my direction. “Does she?”

Unlike most of the adults who’d come through my life, Doc had never questioned my ability to talk to animals—it was one of the reasons I wondered if he knew about my parentage.

Maybe he had reason to expect me to talk to animals.

“She’s, um...it’s a lot.” I glanced back down at the kitten, who was still munching away on the salmon. “I hate to be that guy, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to call you all that every time I talk to you. It’s not hard to pronounce, it’d just take me like ten minutes.”

She lifted her head, licking a stray morsel of fish off her nose, then nodded. “You can call me Plot Twist. That’s fine.”

Plot . . . oh, because I’d said—well sure, why not?

“Plot Twist it is. Though I’ll admit it now, it’s probably going to end up Twist. That’s the kind of guy I am.”

She shrugged as she continued eating, not deigning to respond.

Doc raised a brow, so I shrugged at him. “She says we can call her Plot Twist.”

By the time he finished laughing at that, she’d finished the entire serving of salmon. He looked at the plate she was steadily licking clean, and stood, heading to the fridge. “Maybe not right this minute, but she’ll need more. I’ll just send the rest of the fish home with you.”

“Oh you don’t need to?—”

“What else am I going to do with fish, Flynn? Heck, I’ll send you the vegetables too. You should eat those, even if she doesn’t need them. Unlike her and me, you’re an omnivore. You need your vegetables.”

It was hard to deny, so I shut up and let him pack it all in a bag to hand me.

“What do I owe you?” I finally asked, biting my lip. Doc didn’t really work much anymore. He owned a private hospital that served magical people and creatures, and I cringed to imagine what my mother had paid him to see me personally, giving house calls to her manor.

He scoffed and shook his head. “We’re a community, my boy.

I know some of the others don’t see it that way, and maybe they’re not part of it.

But you’re part of my family, Flynn Knight.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you don’t charge family.

You just keep taking care of yourself, and of little Plot Twist here, and we call it all even. You eating enough? I might have?—”

“I’m eating plenty, promise. I just had dinner at Mother’s. A huge dinner.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. “She handing you the Byrne boy?”

Handing me the Byrne boy . An odd way of putting it. First off, Davin Byrne was nothing like a boy, and secondly, I’d sort of thought of it the other way, me being handed off to him because I was too irresponsible to take care of myself.

“She, um, wants us to work together, him and me,” I admitted.

“I was actually just thinking that we could replace your old intercom system, since it’s pretty staticky.

Maybe, um, set you up with some security.

I know you’re probably not worried about burglars or anything, but no harm in getting a warning if someone is around who shouldn’t be, right? ”

He beamed at me. “Well that’s downright neighborly of you, kiddo. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a better system. Love new technology. Could you maybe send it to my phone, so I didn’t have to go to the door every time someone buzzes?”

“I’ll bet we could. Let me talk to him, and I’ll see what we can do.”

He grinned at me as he handed me the bag of food for both me and Twist. “Much obliged, Flynn. You drive careful on the way home now, you hear? Too many reckless folk out there who don’t care enough about living to see tomorrow.”

“I will sir,” I promised, nodding to him and accepting the bag. Too bad I hadn’t brought my handy backpack to carry extra stuff. I just hadn’t expected to end up heading home with a cat, fish, and vegetables. Usually I only went home with a little shame and annoyance after dinner with my mother.

Take care of Twist, he’d said, like she was staying with me forever.

But that was silly. I didn’t have a cat.

Right?