Skin Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

a part of that. I’m not going to help him.”
    “It is obvious to me that you did not listen to me very carefully,” Mab said.
    “It is obvious to me that you just don’t
get it
,” I replied. “There are things you just don’t do, Mab. Helping a monster like that get what he wants is one of them.”
    “Even if refusing costs you your life?” she asked.
    I sighed. “Have you even been paying attention, the past couple of years? Do
you
have any doubt that I would rather die than become part of something like that?”
    Her teeth made a white gleam in the dark. “And yet, here you are.”
    “Do you really want to push this?” I asked. “Do you want to lose your shiny new Knight already?”
    “Hardly a loss if he will not fulfill a simple command,” Mab said.
    “I’ll fulfill commands. I’ve done it before.”
    “In your own inept way, yes,” Mab said.
    “Just not this one.”
    “You will do precisely as instructed,” Mab said. She took a very small step closer to me. “Or there will be consequences.”
    I swallowed.
    The last Knight to anger Mab had wound up begging me to end his life. The poor bastard had been
grateful
.
    “What consequences?” I asked.
    “The parasite,” Mab said. “When it kills you and emerges, it will seekout everyone you know. Everyone you love. And it will utterly destroy them—starting with one child in particular.”
    Gooseflesh erupted along my arms. She was talking about Maggie. My daughter.
    “She’s out of this,” I said in a whisper. “She’s protected.”
    “Not from this,” Mab said, her tone remote. “Not from a being created of your own essence, just as she is. Your death will bring a deadly creature into the world, my Knight—one who knows all that you know of your allies. Lovers. Family.”
    “No, it won’t,” I said. “I’ll go back to the island. I’ll instruct Alfred to imprison it the moment it breaks free.”
    Mab’s smile turned genuine. It was considerably scarier than her glare. “Oh, sweet child.” She shook her head. “What makes you think I shall allow you to return?”
    I clenched my fists along with my teeth. “You . . . you
bitch
.”
    Mab slapped me.
    Okay, that doesn’t convey what happened very well. Her arm moved. Her palm hit my left cheekbone, and an instant later the right side of my skull smashed into the elevator door. My head bounced off it like a Ping-Pong ball, my legs went rubbery, and I got a really, really good look at the marble tile floor of the elevator. The metal rang like a gong, and was still reverberating a couple of minutes later, when I slowly sat up. Or maybe that was just me.
    “I welcome your suggestions, questions, thoughts, and arguments, my Knight,” Mab said in a calm voice. She moved one foot, gracefully, and rested the tip of her high heel against my throat. She put a very little bit of her weight behind it, and it hurt like hell. “But I am
Mab
, mortal. It is not your place to judge
me
. Do you understand?”
    I couldn’t talk, with her heel nudging my voice box. I jerked my head in a short nod.
    “Defy me if you will,” she said. “I cannot prevent you from doing so—if you are willing to pay the price for it.”
    And with that, she removed her foot from my throat.
    I sat up and rubbed at it. “This is not a smart way to maintain a good professional relationship with me,” I croaked.
    “Do I seem stupid to you, my Knight?” she asked. “Think.”
    I eyed her. Mab’s voice was perfectly calm. After what I’d said to her, the defiance I’d offered her, I hadn’t expected that. She had never been shy about showing her outrage when she felt it had been earned. This perfect poise was . . . not out of character, precisely, but I had expected a good deal more intensity than she was displaying. My defiance endangered her plans, and that never left her in a good mood.
    Unless . . .
    I closed my eyes and ran back through her words in my head.
    “Your precise instructions,”