Page 2 of Tell Me Why (Tell, The Detective #5)

If her misbehavior could be distracting, she’d buy Tell what opportunity that would give him.

Were they running?

She had an instinct that this was the trap closing, but in the opposite direction of what the shaved man thought.

One of the major players thought that Tell was giving Daryll a game-changing advantage, and was about to step out from the shadows.

This was the point .

Once more, Tina was the weak point of leverage that they intended to use against Tell, but maybe letting them think that they had the upper hand was what made it possible.

Tina only resented that it was so simple for them to deduce that all they had to do was threaten Tina and Tell would fall into line.

She wanted to be ferocious.

She really did.

She didn’t mind effective.

But ferocious .

Oh, well.

It was good enough, for now. She’d keep working on the lethal-threat bit another time.

The way he’d put his arm out.

He hadn’t been that defensive with her, mostly.

She thought that the Kaija were likely still a bigger threat than this man , because they were just unthinking predators, but she had to respect that this was something she hadn’t dealt with before.

That Tell had apparently built his life to avoid entanglements like this, among other reasons.

She watched the way the shaved man walked, the sense of bulk he had to him.

He was impressive. He was one of those strong men who wore a lot of weight alongside his strength, the kind of weight that made him harder to stop, if reflexively slower, but there was nothing slack about it.

He was angry, just as a personality trait, and suspicious.

She didn’t want to get into a fist fight with him, much less one involving weapons, and she had no doubt that he would be willing to cheat if that would give him an advantage - that was what was going on with the knife-threat, wasn’t it?

more red-dawn type shenanigans - but she didn’t see anything about him that suggested that he was more of a mortal threat than just about any of the other really big-bads they’d been up against.

Werewolves were designed to go against vampires, weren’t they?

And she’d fought those .

Not as new-vampire Tina, but as old-vampire Tina.

Not for the first time, she wished she’d gotten to be old-vampire Tina instead of what she was. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop from thinking it, every once in a while.

“Black SUV,” the bearded man said, and Tell nodded.

“You aren’t going to try to hide where we’re going, are you?” he asked, half-wheedling, half-mocking. Patronizing. “If this really isn’t anything about you , your boss has a sense of the dramatic that really isn’t conducive for good business.”

“Get in,” the bearded man said, and Tell shrugged, opening the door for Tina and letting her past, then getting in after her and closing the door without consideration for the fact that the bearded man had intended to get in after them.

The passenger door opened and closed, but there was a thick mesh in between the front and back, and Tina could only just feel the air move as it happened, then smell the scent of the bearded man as the closed-in space sent it back to her.

No heartbeat.

She was reasonably sure he was a vampire, but she’d made that guess incorrectly, before, and she kept ‘other’ on the list of options. Lots of things running around without heartbeats that she didn’t know about.

He didn’t smell like a werewolf, at least.

They really did smell like dogs.

Tell settled comfortably, putting on his seatbelt and looking at the blacked-out window without a trace of irony while Tina looked around the space of the SUV, just evaluating what would make a useful weapon and where her good cover was.

She was lithe, now, in a way she’d never been as a human, and she was still working through the best ways to use it; she often forgot and overlooked things that Tell casually utilized on the way past, putting her to shame.

If she could figure it out in advance, she might be able to use it when she needed it, so she took her moment.

Perhaps thirty minutes later - she had an instinct that Tell was measuring time, distance, and turns the whole way - the car engine turned off and the bearded man got out of the passenger seat once more and opened the door that Tell had been staring at.

Tina got out to find them at an abandoned strip mall.

“Well,” she said.

“Not what you were expecting?” Tell asked with humor, and she shook her head.

“With how the lot of you normally operate, I was expecting the Taj Mahal.”

Anything to try to top Daryll and make it look like Tell was coming over to the winning, more prosperous side.

Tell smiled, then turned to follow beard-man into one of the shops. The glass was missing out of two of the expansive windows and the glassless metal frame of the door was propped open with a folding chair.

“Sit,” beard-man said, and Tina looked around for a surface that didn’t look like it had survived a recent flood.

Tell heaved a put-upon sigh and folded to the floor.

Tina remained standing.

She wasn’t in a nice dress, but Isabella had good taste, and Tina liked this one.

The man went to stand at a doorway to a back room, and Tina anticipated someone emerging from it, but nothing happened.

“Have we been kidnapped so they can bore us to death?” Tina asked, and Tell laughed, looking at the floor.

“I was getting bored, the other way,” he answered. “I’m still up for the change.”

She sighed and shrugged, going to lean against him for something to do. The walls were too dirty.

It didn’t smell like people had been living in here, which was the obvious first concern, but it did smell like small animals had had entire generations go through, and there was a humid, earthy smell to it that might have been pleasant, on a hike in the woods, but in with the tile and the collapsing ceiling foam, it was best described as rot .

Five minutes.

Ten.

“You guys didn’t plan this very well, did you?” Tell asked. “I’m growing skeptical of the organizational capabilities of the whole thing.”

“Tell,” a voice answered. “They told me that your name was Oscar.”

Tell cursed quietly, unfolding from the floor and turning to face the doorway that the bearded man was still leaning against.

“Perceval,” he said.

A man entered, looking over his shoulder as two big-bodied, suited vampires came through the doorway after him and stopped like a de facto door.

“Sorry we’re late,” he said expansively. “Good help is hard to come by in America.”

Perceval didn’t have auburn hair, or even ginger hair. He had red hair. Ginger had red hair, but Perceval managed to take it so red that it was almost… magenta? Like a clown’s wig. Or a hairdresser’s attempt at an authentic human color who had only ever seen black hair.

Tina couldn’t stop staring at it.

“Should have known, though,” Perceval went on, taking off his white sports coat and tossing it onto a decrepit counter. “If anyone was going to show up and try to dump the boat, it would be you.”

“I’ve been minding my own business for a long time,” Tell said. “Sometimes it’s time for a change.”

“So you show up to deal with Daryll ?” Perceval asked. “How did you end up down here, anyway? I thought you were dead.”

“Not dead,” Tell said. “Just bored of all of the drama the rest of you dig up to keep yourselves from dying of boredom and insignificance.”

Perceval winced his eyes at Tell in a fake approximation of a smile, then turned his attention to Tina.

Stop staring at his hair.

Stop staring at his hair.

Stop staring at his hair.

“And who is this delicious bit of peach fuzz you’re carrying around with you these days?” Perceval asked. “They told me that she’s stuck to you like she’s on a leash, and I can see why. Not like you to take your babies out in public.”

“Why is your hair that color?” Tina asked. Tell turned all the way around, covering his mouth with his fist.

“Oh, darling,” Perceval said. “It’s because I’m better than you.”

Tina blinked.

Hadn’t seen that one coming, either.

“You still running around with Bonnet?” Perceval asked, turning his attention back to Tell.

“Broke with her a century ago,” Tell said.

“How about Lenny?” Perceval asked.

“Don’t think he’s been on this continent before,” Tell said.

“So you’re all on your lonesome, with this… insubordinate raven. How adorable.”

“If I put you in a police lineup, every single person everywhere would point at you and say ‘that’s the vampire’,” Tina said. “How are you alive?”

“Because I’m better than you,” Perceval said. “And in civilized countries, that matters.”

Civilized . Tina mouthed it. Tell pursed his lips, taking a half step away from Tina to draw Perceval’s attention back to himself.

“You’re the one who asked for this meeting,” Tell said. “I’m here and I’m listening, but you seem not to have anything you want to say to me.”

“Oh, darling,” Perceval said. “This isn’t an invitation. This is me looking you in the eye and telling you that things aren’t going to go the way you’ve planned them.”

“Mmm,” Tell said.

“Daryll is an idiot,” Perceval said, beginning to pace an arc in front of them.

“But he’s a useful idiot. He holds a space that…

I don’t particularly want to move into, just yet, or perhaps ever.

The smell here…” He shook his head. Tina wanted to point out that he was the one who had chosen the location.

“Better to have a man whose aspirations you can see clearly and who can hold a place without making any real forward progress than one who is actually clever . But you? You’re actually clever, Tell.

Oscar . I should have known, the way they talked about you.

You aren’t some grasping aspirant. What are you doing here, Tell? ”

“Screwing with you, apparently,” Tell said. “Amazing how good I am at this.”

Perceval pursed his lips, then lifted his head to emphasize how tall he was - he had Tell by two or three inches, and he cared about it.