The Pulptress Read Online Free PDF Page A

known in circles
both high and low and in all corners of the world by a single name
chuckled, again little tiny claps of thunder rising from his
throat. “No, my turn as your tutor and nursemaid ended years ago.
Happenstance is all, pure happenstance.” He slid his right hand
into his coat pocket and pulled out something, now resting in his
palm, that resembled a tangle of golden thread. “Had to…liberate
this little jewel here, known as Alexander’s Knot, from some not so
good people.”
    The Pulptress arched an
eyebrow. She’d heard a few things about the rare artifact that
Dillon so coolly slid back into his pocket. “Well, it’s a positive
then,” she said with all honesty, “that you have it now. Not so
good people could cause a bit of havoc with things like
that.”
    “ They’ve been known to do
just that,” Dillon concurred. Glancing over his former protégé’s
shoulder, he said, “Tweedle and Twaddle there will probably raise
and rouse in a bit.” He slid one of his tree trunk-like arms around
her waist, saying, “Care to walk with me and tell me just what you
were up to in the Big Apple tonight?”
    “ Not at all,” she replied,
reaching up and tugging gently at her domino mask. The adhesive
holding it to her skin gave with a pop. With one hand she slid the
mask into its pocket in her skirt while she pulled her fedora off
with the other. “I’d gotten word that more than one party was
interested in Thomas Kane, parties that I didn’t want to have
him.”
    Dillon took the hat from
her hand and held it in his free one. As he ushered her down the
alley, he asked, “For his money or his undeserved
genius?”
    She noted the sardonic tone
in his comment. She also noticed, as they walked, two black clad
masked figures stacked up against the Morriston Plaza alley wall
like firewood. “Both, really, but his mind is what I wanted to
protect. He’s not that bad of a guy, Dillon. After his parents were
murdered when he was a kid, he ended up with that crazy aunt of his
who spoiled him like fermented apples. But she couldn’t stop the
intellect he had and neither could he. He…”she hesitated, searching
for the right word, “He just needs time to think. He just needs
direction.”
    “ Direction,” Dillon teased,
“that you plan to give him?”
    “ Hey,” she poked him in the
ribs with an elbow as they rounded the corner out of the alley to
the back entrance of Morriston Plaza. “He could do worse than me as
a guide. I had some pretty good ones.” She looked up at him with an
impish grin. “Well, most of them anyway.” Not letting him get in a
response, she said, “But no, I put him in better hands.”
    It was Dillon’s turn to
show some surprise. “What’d you do? Kidnap him before Lannigan’s
lavender gang could?”
    This time she couldn’t
repress the girlish giggle. “Not so much. Once he and Tori
staggered to his room, I told him who I was and exactly who besides
Lannigan would likely make a play for him in the next couple of
days. I also had to tell him to explain the two people waiting on
us in his room.”
    “ Li Suan and
Dunklin?”
    “ Yup,” she chirped, “Two
best snatch and grabbers in the world. Kane sort of agreed, with
persuasion like only Li can provide and then they spirited him away
while I played patty cake with Lannigan’s back up roster. They’ll
take him home and give him a few days to…consider his options while
the heat dies down.”
    Dillon whistled a quick
note. “Not many options when you’re one of the only experts in
cosmological weaponry in the world.” Pausing on the street at the
base of the steps leading into the Plaza, Dillon turned so he stood
just inches from his friend. He knew what the doorman looking on
lecherously was thinking as well as what any passersby would
imagine, but that was all right. No better cover for people in
their line of work than mistakes and assumptions. “Speaking of,” he
said, looking down at her, one hand still