Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,41
the position you’ve put us in, Little Lamb, that you left us with no other recourse. We hope you will understand it’s nothing personal, dear. Isobel sends her love. Qqi e’ia, Selwyn Throckmorton. Walk in the light.”
Fuck, I hate the sound of Ghul. If a turd could talk, it would speak ghoulish.
“Isaac, wait, please—”
But he’d already hung up.
I put down the receiver, and I opened my eyes again.
“Selwyn,” I said, “if you’ve got whatever the fuck you came for, I have a feeling we need to get out of here.” She didn’t reply. I said her name again, and she didn’t reply again. I could see myself having to carry her back down the fire escape.
The cigarette I’d lit before the phone rang had burned down to the filter, scorching my fingers. I cursed and stubbed it out on the side of the avocado phone.
“Selwyn,” I said, “did you fucking hear me?”
She nodded her head, and she said, “I think it’s too late.” She was staring towards the window.
The first bullet didn’t exactly miss me. It carved a deep furrow in the left side of my face. Selwyn screamed, and I dropped to the floor and rolled. Instinct kicking in and all, because it might have been stupid coming back to the apartment, but at least my sense of self-preservation was still intact. The red beam of a laser sight played across the wall near Selwyn, and the second shot almost hit her. From the way my face ached, I knew the slugs were silver. I also knew the gun was fitted with a silencer, a damned good one, too, probably metering at only 117 decibels or so.
“Get the fuck down!” I shouted at her. She didn’t get down. Instead, she picked up the object she’d been carrying. I’d guessed what it was. I have my moments. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut, every now and then.
I glanced back towards the window. There was a figure crouched on the fire escape. The adrenaline seemed to have brushed aside the last straggling afterimages from the flashlight, and I could see that the shooter was a woman dressed in a black leather blazer and black jeans, plus safety goggles. Way more stylish than our outfits. The gun was a standard-model SIG Mosquito, double action, chambered for 22LR cartridges. I had to admit she had good taste in pocket rockets.
“If you don’t get behind that counter right this goddamn minute,” I whispered, but didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. A third shot plowed into my left shoulder, shattering my collarbone. The bullet disintegrated, and the shrapnel chewed up muscle and opened veins. It hurt as much as you’d imagine it would. I howled and grabbed a dusty book from one of the teetering dusty stacks and hurled it across the room at the assassin. I missed the mark by several inches.
“Be still,” Selwyn said, raising the bundle up to her chest.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered about as urgently and angrily and totally stupefied as I have ever whispered anything.
“You’ll see,” she whispered back, and she didn’t sound at all scared now, not like she had on the phone with Isaac Snow.
On the fire escape, the woman in black cursed. She didn’t fire again, but she also didn’t lower her pistol. The laser painted a bright red dot in the center of Selwyn’s forehead like a bindi.
“You won’t dare,” Selwyn said. “You know it, and I know it.” The tremble had vanished from her voice. The silly bitch was cool as a moose in snow.
“Selwyn, I swear to God, if she shoots you, I’m gonna fucking clap.”
“She won’t shoot me,” Selwyn replied confidently.
“And you know that how?”
Selwyn nodded at the bundle. “I might drop the Madonna. It might break. Worse, she might miss me and hit it.”
I looked at Selwyn, and then I looked at the woman on the fire escape. She still hadn’t lowered the gun, but she also hadn’t squeezed off another round.
“Sweet,” I said and stood up, shooting the assassin twice in the chest. My gun didn’t have a suppressor, and the Glock roared like thunder. The woman stumbled backwards, the SIG falling from her hands to the rusty metal at her feet. But she didn’t go down.
“She’s a vampire,” Selwyn said. I could only just make out the words over the ringing in my ears.
“Fuck her,” I whispered to myself. The next bullet was meant for her skull, but she dodged it and disappeared