Don't Kill the Messenger Read Online Free PDF Page A

to take me in Chinese checkers. I’ll kick your ass from here to next Tuesday.
     
These guys, however, had me snowed. Well, not totally. I got in a few licks of my own. It just happened that they were getting in way more of their own licks and there were more of them. I have to admit. It scared me a little.
     
Their movements were familiar but not quite familiar enough. They were especially not familiar enough to let me anticipate what was coming next and therefore avoid it. Plus, did I mention the seven-against-one thing?
     
I went into the store and grabbed a Popsicle and a bag of frozen peas from the freezer section. I plopped them down on the counter in front of the clerk. He looked up from his sudoku and took in my face. “¿Qué pasa, mamacita ?”
     
“I’m not entirely sure,” I told him, slapping a ten down on the counter next to my selections.
     
“You okay? You want me to call the cops?” he asked, ringing me up. His tone was nonchalant. His appraising look was not.
     
“I’m peachy,” I said. “No cops.”
     
Seriously, no cops. I avoided cops at all costs. If vampires gave me the heebie-jeebies, cops gave me shpilkes , and there’s nothing worse than a bad case of shpilkes when you’re sitting in a cell. Cells happen to be exactly where you end up when you deal with cops. Believe it or not, I have it on good authority that if you tell a cop that you were trying to deliver an envelope to one of the lamest vampires on the planet when a bunch of ninjas dropped out of the freaking trees and kicked the crap out of you, they don’t buy it. They think you’re nuts and not in a good way.
     
What had Alex gotten me into? What had been in that envelope that was worth lying in wait and attacking me? Who had even known I had whatever the hell it was? Whatever it had been had a hell of a lot more mojo than I thought it had based on the low-level buzz it generated.
     
The dude behind the counter gave me an incredibly small amount of change considering what I was purchasing. I dropped it in my wallet and went to the Buick. At least I would be able to lick my wounds in comfort. I peeled the wrapper off the Popsicle and ran it across my split lip.
     
Who could possibly care if Aldo got whatever was in the envelope? He was not a power player. His place on the Council wasn’t an honorary one. He actually worked at it, but the Council reminds me a little of the school board. Anyone who actually wants to be on it probably shouldn’t be. Think about it. What self-respecting denizen of the night would live in a place that gets this much sunshine? There were no power vamps here. Everyone knows that the seriously cool California vampires live in San Francisco and the ones with any power at all live in L.A. Aldo was nothing but a meaningless title with a penchant for dressing like Elton John.
     
Why the hell didn’t I have any warning before those guys dropped out of the trees? I couldn’t think of a single thing other than humans, which didn’t set off a little warning buzz in my flesh. To be honest, there were a few humans who set me off, too. I’m not always sure why. Sometimes they turned out to have a little witch blood or a jigger or two of shaman in their personal genetic cocktail.
     
Sometimes they were just nasty-ass examples of the species and needed to be avoided.
     
The other question that nagged me was what were the repercussions of this little misadventure likely to be? I hadn’t left a job uncompleted since I was fourteen and decided that no one could really expect me to bike some stupid box all the way down to Twelfth and J when I had cramps.
     
I had shoved the box deep enough under my bed that I was sure Joy, my mother’s housekeeper, wouldn’t find it—nobody’s that good with a vacuum, not even Joy—and let it sit for a day or two. Fine. Three days.
     
When I developed a huge zit on the end of my nose, I figured it was nothing. Shit happens. Then the zipper on my jeans stopped