The Vampire's Revenge Read Online Free PDF

too,” Rennie said.
    “Do you feel up to doing a little job for me?” I asked. Rennie nodded. “Okay. Here’s what I want you to do . . .” I gave him explicit instructions for a project I hoped would help me get Reedrek back under control. Now that William was gone, I was going to have to start thinking ahead, anticipating all kinds of situations, and figuring out solutions to problems that might or might not happen. The way William used to.
    When I was finished giving him directions, Rennie nodded. “No problem,” he said. “Consider it done.”
    “Thanks, man. I knew I could count on you.” I clapped him on the back and waved my coffee cup in the direction of the card table. “I notice Rufus still isn’t making eye contact with Otis.” In fact, he was holding his cards in front of his face like a geisha holding up her fan, giving him a coquettish look that was a mite incongruous on a redneck.
    “Yeah. His nose is still out of joint because he had to hear about Otis’s other persona secondhand. He’s mightily pissed.” Rennie rejoined the card game as Jerry was dealing and I walked over to the others.
    “Hey, Jerry, Seth’s back in town,” I said, taking a sip of the stiff coffee.
    “I’m glad to hear that,” Jerry the werewolf said. “The pack’s driving me crazy, whining about having to get real jobs and stay out of trouble.”
    Jerry was the beta, second in command of the local pack behind the alpha, Seth. Together they were trying to get the pack to give up drug dealing and bootlegging for more legal pursuits. It was an uphill battle.
    “Hmmph,” Rufus observed.
    “What was that, Rufus?” Rennie asked. Although Rennie was the only human in the group, he wasn’t afraid of any of us. He probably should have been, but he wasn’t.
    “Real jobs, he said. Not like spyin’, I guess.”
    Rennie winked at me from behind those glasses that made his eyes look perpetually bleary. “Here we go,” he muttered.
    Otis, his face indignant under the bill of his Caterpillar hat, threw his cards on the table. “Why don’t you come on out and say what’s on your mind, Rufus? I’m sick of you sitting there sniping at me night after night.”
    Rufus slapped his own cards down as well. “I just can’t believe you’ve been hanging out here for years and spying on us the whole time.”
    “I thought I explained all that, you hardheaded coot. Even Jack isn’t holding a grudge, so what’s it to you?”
    “It ain’t that,” Rufus said peevishly. “It’s just—well, dang it all, I thought we were friends. And you didn’t even tell me who you really are.”
    I drew a chair up to the card table and straddled it. This was shaping up to be a good old-fashioned slap-down. Gods knew I could use some entertainment.
    “Oh yeah?” Otis demanded. “And what about you? Everybody here knows you’re some kind of shifter, but nobody knows what kind. We used to play all coy with one another—don’t ask, don’t tell, just like Jack always said. But now we’ve all had to come out for one reason or another—everybody but you. You’re the only one left holding back and you got the nerve to complain about me keeping secrets? So I’m a freakin’ faerie. Now it’s your turn. Do it, if you’re man enough! What are you?”
    The silence was deafening. Rufus peered at us like a rat in a trap. Even Huey had appeared in the doorway and was waiting expectantly.
    Finally Rufus squared his shoulders, thrust out his chin, and said, “I’m a werecat.”
    “I knew it was something like that,” Jerry said smugly.
    “Yeah, I figured that, too,” I said.
    “Cool,” Huey added.
    “What kind of werecat are you?” Otis asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
    “What do you mean, What kind of werecat?” Rufus asked.
    “I mean, are you a wereleopard?”
    “No.”
    “A weretiger?” Jerry wanted to know.
    “No.”
    “A werelion?” I asked, genuinely puzzled now. How many kinds of ferocious werefelines could