"No, you haven't, lover. You've had shades of brown, dark cocoa and coffee maybe, but I promise you, you've never had black. Because once you do, you never ever come back."
He watched as she moved toward him - flowed toward him - and long silver claws sprouted from her fingertips, playing in the dim glow from the safety lights, dripping something that steamed when it hit the floor. There were scurrying sounds on either side of him, things moving in the darkness, low and quick.
"Okay, good point," Minty said.
Chapter 20
20
ATTACK OF THE CROCODILE GUY
It was a brutally hot night in the City, and everyone had their windows open. From the roof across the alley, the spy could see the little girl happily splashing away in a tub full of suds, the two giant hounds sitting just outside the tub licking shampoo from her hand and belching bubbles as she screeched with glee.
"Sophie, don't feed the puppies soap, okay?" The shopkeeper's voice from another room.
"Okay, Dad. I won't. I'm not a kid, you know," she said, pouring more strawberry-kiwi shampoo into her palm and holding it out for one of the dogs to lick. A cloud of fragrant bubbles burped out of the beast, through the bars of the window, and out into the still air over the alley.
The hounds were the problem, but if the spy had his timing right, he'd be able to take care of them and get to the child without interference.
In the past he'd been an assassin, a bodyguard, a kickboxer, and most recently a certified fiberglass-insulation installer - skills that could serve him well in his current mission. He had the face of a crocodile - sixty-eight spiked teeth and eyes that gleamed like black glass beads. His hands were the claws of a raptor, the wicked black nails encrusted with dried blood. He wore a black silk tuxedo, but no shoes - his feet were webbed like those of a waterbird, with claws for digging prey from the mud.
He rolled the large Persian rug to the edge of the roof and waited; then, just as he had planned, he heard, "Sweetie, I'm going to take the trash out, I'll be right back."
"Okay, Dad."
Funny how the illusion of security can make us careless, the spy thought. No one would leave a young child alone in the bath unattended, but the company of two canine bodyguards wouldn't make her unattended, would it?
He waited, and the shopkeeper emerged from the steel door downstairs carrying two trash bags. He seemed momentarily thrown off by the fact that the Dumpster, which was normally right outside the door, had been moved down the alley twenty feet or so, but shrugged, kicked the door wide, and while it hissed slowly shut on its pneumatic cylinder, he dashed for the Dumpster. That's when the spy sent the rug off the roof. The rug unrolled as it fell the four stories. Unfurled, it hit the shopkeeper with a substantial thud and drove him to the ground.
In the bathroom, the huge dogs perked up. One let out a woof of caution.
The spy already had the first bolt in his crossbow. Now he let it fly - nylon line hissed out and the bolt hit the rug with a thump, penetrating the rug and probably the shopkeeper's calf, effectively pinning him under the rug, perhaps even to the ground. The shopkeeper screamed. The great hounds dashed out of the bathroom.
The spy loaded another bolt, attached it to the free end of the nylon line attached to the first bolt, then fired it through another section of the rug below. The shopkeeper continued to shout, but with the heavy rug pinned over him, he couldn't move. As the spy loaded his third bolt the hounds burst through the doorway into the alley.
The third bolt wasn't attached to a line, but had a wicked titanium-spiked tip. The spy aimed at the pneumatic cylinder on the door, hit it, and the door slammed shut, locking the hounds in the alley. He'd practiced this a dozen times in his mind, and it was all going exactly as planned. The front doors to the shop and the apartment building had been Super Glued shut before he'd come up on the roof - no easy job getting that done without being seen.
His fourth shot put a bolt in the window frame over the hall window. The bars on the bathroom were