Chicks Kick Butt Read Online Free PDF Page B

But there was no one there.
    I glanced back to find him looking annoyed, like I wasn’t keeping to whatever script he’d worked out in his head. Annoyed, but not afraid, despite the fact that I had one hand below the countertop. That told me he wasn’t that bright. Well, that and the fact that he’d deliberately sought out one of the few things on earth capable of killing him.
    “You aren’t clinically depressed, are you?” I asked. “This will be no fun if it’s some sort of suicide-by-dhampir.”
    He looked confused for a moment; then his face rearranged itself into a sneer. “I saw one of your kind once. A master I know keeps him on a leash. Like a
dog
.”
    “I doubt that.”
    “He didn’t look like much.” He took in my less-than-impressive height, my slender build, and my dimples. His lip curled. “Neither do you.”
    “Looks can be deceiving.”
    “So can little girls who have been surviving on their reputations for too long!”
    Okay, maybe he could be that stupid. “I deserve my reputation,” I said mildly.
    “Sure you do.” His eyes went roaming again, sliding over the black leather of my jacket until they fixed on the vee of my red T-shirt. “Prove it.”
    So I did.
    “Damn it, Dory.” Fin scurried up as I walked around the bar and knelt by the still smoking corpse. The owner was a Skogstroll, a kind of Norwegian forest troll, although to my knowledge the closest he’d ever gotten to the land of his ancestors was a PBS documentary. But it meant he didn’t have to bend down to examine the damage the shotgun he kept behind the counter had done to the bar. “That’s going on your tab!”
    “No problem,” I said, showing him the contents of the guy’s wallet.
    “No way.” He started backing up, but tripped on his beard. “I’m not touching Tiger money! Not if the whole place burned down!”
    I frisked the guy, but of course, there was no ID. Assassins didn’t carry it, as a rule. I did find one thing of interest, though.
    “Raymond,” I said, with feeling.
    “Is that his name?” Fin asked, staring at the book of matches I’d found in the not-so-recently deceased’s coat pocket.
    “No. Tell me about—,” I began, when the body started twitching. So he wasn’t just a regular old vamp, who would have been killed by that shot as sure as a human. Dumb as a rock or not, he was a master. Cheung really wanted me to get the message.
    Whatever the hell it was.
    “Don’t do it, Dory,” Fin warned, his tiny blue eyes worried. “You kill one, and they’ll all be hunting you. That’s how these guys operate.”
    “I’m not planning to kill anyone,” I squawked, because the vamp had grabbed me around the throat. So I stuck a knife through his, pinning him securely to the wood.
    Fin’s glare intensified. “Dory!”
    “Relax, it won’t kill him. I’d have to take the whole head for that.” I sat back on my heels. “And when did you become so squeamish?”
    “I’m not! But you don’t want to mess with these guys.”
    “I haven’t been,” I said, exasperated. “I had a run-in with his boss recently, but we cleared that up.” Or so I’d thought.
    Fin didn’t look convinced. “He sent a master to screw with you for no reason?”
    “Let’s find out,” I said, wrenching the knife out.
    But even though I’d taken care to miss the vocal cords, it looked like the vamp had lost interest in conversation. An arm sent me skidding on my back into the forest of tables, reducing a few of the battered old pieces to kindling. I leapt back to my feet, but the vamp didn’t press his advantage. He was gone between one blink and the next, out the door and up the stairs, despite the fact that, in vamp terms, sunlight + major blood loss = bar-be-cue.
    If I was lucky, anyway.
    Fin hopped about, contorting his body to avoid the shaft of light spilling over the old boards. Older trolls could withstand direct sun, and even those Fin’s age didn’t actually turn to stone. But he said it