Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page B

been in love with him. And was I falling in love with Sabrina? I didn’t know what that was supposed to feel like for living people, much less corpses. A disarmingly witty corpse, but still no one that you could take home to mother.
    I spent the better part of an hour driving myself crazy thinking until my door opened. I had just enough time to see a curvy female form in the doorway before something black and soft landed on my face. It smelled faintly of lavender and my laundry detergent as I pulled it off my face. “Close your eyes and roll over, fangboy.”
    I did as she asked, and I felt the bed shift as Sabrina slid into bed behind me. She wrapped her arms around me and nuzzled up against my neck. I could feel every inch of her pressed against my back, from the smooth muscles of her thighs to the soft swells of her breasts. I froze for a minute, not really knowing how to react. This was something new for us, but I liked it a lot. She kissed me softly on the side of the neck and whispered, “It’s okay to breathe, I won’t run away.”
    “I don’t have to breathe,” I replied, and felt her stiffen behind me. Sometimes Sabrina forgets the finer points of dating a vampire. Like the whole part about me being dead. I rolled over and took her in my arms, pulling her face to my chest and kissing her forehead. “Thanks,” I whispered.
    “For what?”
    “Reminding me what it feels like to be alive.” I kissed her forehead again and held her as we drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 5
     
    I DON’T KNOW how long we were asleep, but I was snatched out of a pleasant dream involving a pier at Myrtle Beach that I vaguely remember from my teens by the sound of tires squealing into our driveway. I jumped out of bed, startling Sabrina awake, and I was already out the door before she could have realized I’d moved. I ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time and, at the door, almost bowled right into Greg, who had come up the stairs from the basement almost as fast.
    “What’s the deal?” I asked, jerking open the door to the coat closet and reaching inside for my twelve-gauge.
    Greg didn’t stop as he ran past me into the kitchen. He yanked the dishwasher open and ducked his head inside. I cocked my head to one side as he came back with a pair of 9mm Glock 17s.
    “What?” he asked. “We don’t eat off dishes. We drink blood out of bags and beer from the bottle. Might as well use the thing for a gun rack.”
    I had no time and no argument, so I just took up a position in the hallway facing the door. The sun was up, but I was far enough back that direct rays wouldn’t hit me. All I had to worry about was a little discomfort from the brightness. Greg stationed himself to one side of the door where he’d be out of my field of fire but have a clean line on anything that could survive the double-ought buckshot loaded in my Mossberg. The first round was a beanbag round, just in case. But everything after that was a custom mix of silver and iron shot, designed to cut bad guys, dead or alive, in half at close range. I heard a third pistol cock and looked up to see a long expanse of leg stretching down the stairs. I followed the leg up to where Sabrina had her service weapon, a forty-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, at the ready.
    Whoever was outside cleared the front porch steps in a single bound and threw open the door, bursting inside with inhuman speed. All we could see was a black-clad form, but it was an instantly recognizable form.
    “Abby!” I yelped. “What the hell are you doing? The sun’s up! Are you friggin’ nuts?” I pushed past our new arrival to slam the door closed and drew the heavy curtain back over the window as Abby Lahey jumped from one foot to the other in the small foyer.
    “OwowowowowowOOOOWWWWW!” Abby yelled, plucking at her clothes like she was burning, which she probably was. She was clad head-to-toe in a clingy black material, like spandex, complete with a tight black ski mask