Tony was my friend, Sylvia's friend--and we both trusted him.
With the intruders under control, I became aware that there were other people outside.
Not customers these.
They stood by a full-sized black van that managed to look wicked and elegant in a custom paint job.
There were three people--two (one man, one woman) dressed like the gunman, right down to the flowing locks, and a girl in a gray T-shirt and a headset.
The van had the same yellow lettering that was on the man's jacket.
KELLY HEART, it said, I realized once I had leisure to read it, BOUNTY HUNTER.
Underneath the yellow, in slightly smaller letters, it said: SATURDAYS AT 8PM CENTRAL TIME.
CATCHING THE BAD GUYS, ONE AT A TIME.
"Smile," I said grimly to the people who had my back: Zee, Sylvia and her girls, and Sam.
"We're on Candid Camera ." Zee and Sam needed to know there were unfriendly cameras pointed at them.
"Now, just you calm down," said one of the people in black, the woman with bright yellow hair and red lipstick.
As she started to talk, she began walking toward us briskly.
"You'll want to put down that gun.
It's just TV, lady, nothing to get excited about." I don't take orders.
Not from people invading my place.
I sent a second shot into the pavement in front of her.
"Tanya, stop ," shrieked the techie-girl.
"Don't make her shoot again.
Do you know what those silver bullets cost us?" "You'll want to stop right there," I told them.
Silver was for werewolves.
They'd come hunting werewolves.
"I was raised in the backwoods of Montana.
I can hit a duck on the wing." Maybe.
Probably.
I'd never shot a duck in my life; I prefer hunting on all fours.
"Where I come from, a gun is a weapon, not a TV prop, and if all the bad guys are dead, our side of the story is the only one that gets told.
Don't make me decide that would be easier." Tanya froze, and I pulled the barrel back to center on the man whose face was vaguely familiar once I knew he was a TV star.
I was fighting against the growing urge just to pull the trigger and be done with it.
Coyotes, like werewolves, are territorial--and this gun-toting jerk had barged into my place as if he had every right to be here.