Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection by Faith Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

smelling of cleansers and oil, the blade freshly honed. There was no note. No explanation. I didn’t need one. The blade was explanation enough.

Snafu
    Author’s Note: Fans are always asking me about Jane’s early life and training, about how she went from the children’s home to rogue-vamp hunter. Well, here’s a small insight into how.
    I unstrapped my helmet and sat, straddling the beat-up Yamaha and taking in the storefront. It didn’t look like much. The dirty display windows were covered on the outside by steel bars, and on the inside by cheap, bent, bowed metal blinds. In the creases of the blinds I could make out wood studs and wallboard on the other side, as if the business wanted to make sure no one could see in. E NDERS S ECURITY AND P RIVATE I NVESTIGATION S, I NC. was stenciled on the door. My place of internship and on-the-job training for the next six months. I was eighteen and on my own, after spending the last six years in Bethel Nondenominational Children’s Home. I couldn’t decide if I was excited at the thought of finally being here, or dismayed at the dingy storefront.
    Using a steel chain and keyed lock, I attached the Yamaha to the pitted and scored aluminum bike post that was situated near the storm drain. It wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do until I could afford the one I really wanted. And there was no point in making it easy for my only transportation to be bike-jacked. This neighborhood looked anything but safe and secure. Lucky me. Not knowing anything about Asheville, I’d picked Enders out of a list of possible PI and security businesses to take my paid internship for my private investigator’s license. From the broken-down look of things, I’d picked wrong. Closed businesses, run-down buildings, little traffic, and what traffic there was consisted of pimp-mobiles and rusted, dented, kidnapper-style paneled vans.
    Eyes on the guys watching me from the street corner, I patted my saddlebags, checking the latches. The teal compartments were secure, held in place with leather straps and small locks. Everything I owned was in the compartments, my toothbrush, shampoo, and a few changes of clothes—jeans and T-shirts. Boots I hadn’t been able to pass up in the “gently used clothing” consignment store.
    The August heat had laid a slick of sweat down my back and I unzipped my vintage leather riding jacket, freeing my hip-length braid. I touched the gold necklace that I still wore like a talisman and headed for the door.
    The guys on the corner started toward me, both with street swaggers meant to intimidate. Hands lose at their sides. One had a bulge at his navel. Gun, I was guessing. The other slid a hand in his pocket and back out. A short length of rope. Metal on his other fingers. Brass knuckles.
Really?
I thought.
Really?
Two armed teenaged boys, younger than me, tattooed, Gun Boy with blondish dreadlocks and Brass Knucks Boy with an Afro, like from the seventies.
    I reached the door and twisted the knob. Locked. Some small part of me wasn’t surprised. A slightly bigger part was delighted.
Funnnnn,
it whispered. I ignored it, as always.
    Using the storefront windows, I checked behind me. No one watching. No one approaching from behind. Just me and two gangbangers on the street, in view of the security camera of my new place of business. Which was locked. Yeah, really. Was this a test of some kind? An unlucky accident of timing? I retucked my braid, shrugged my shoulders to relax, and came to a stop, my back to the door. The guys separated, coming between me and my bike, a pincer move that cut off my retreat.
    Fun,
the crazy part of me murmured again. The crazy part of me that I had just discovered turned into an animal. Like my own personal werelion, except not. The crazy part that had been penned in for years in the children’s home, and wanted out now, to play with the humans,
play
being in the eyes of the beholder, like a cat playing—with a couple of stupid rats.