Bloodshot by Cherie Priest Read Free Book Online

came
this close
to snacking on a trust-fund gothling, just because I loved what she was wearing. That’s wrong of me, isn’t it?” And then my vampire friend could say, “Oh
no
, sweetheart, I’ve been there!”
    Granted, Ian couldn’t have said any such thing. And this thought led directly into another, more personal one: How on earth did he feed? Did he operate by smell, or by hearing, or did the lovely and talented Cal bring him bags of O-negative on a platter? Come to think of it, Cal himself might make a friendly meat-sack. Did they even have that kind of relationship?
    I know, I know. None of my business. But you can’t blame a girl for wondering.
    At the bottom of my bag, my cell phone buzzed and tootled. I paused in front of a darkened shop window and retrieved it, saw the number, and answered it fast.
    Without any fanfare I demanded, “What?”
    A thin, whispery voice on the other end said, “I think someone’s trying to get inside.” The voice sounded scared and girlish, because let’s be fair—it came from a frightened little girl.
    “Son of a bitch,” I swore. “Listen, I’m out and about, and I don’t have my car with me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
    “What do I
do
?”
    “Where’s your brother?”
    “I don’t know,” she breathed. “He went out. What do I do?”
    “Hide,” I told her. “Stay put. I’m on my way.”
    I flipped the phone shut, threw it back into my bag, and started to run.
    I suppose I should make a few things clear before I tell too much of this part. First of all, I wasn’t running out to save some scared little girl. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t
like
the little girl in question; she’s a perfectly nice little girl, so far as small people go. Her big brother is a bit of a dick, but he’s fourteen, so that’s to be expected.
    I admit, to the casual observer it might appear that I’m a touch fond of them. But what I said earlier, about no pet people? That goes for kids, too. No pet kids. They’re not my ghouls. They’re my security system.
    See, I own this old building down on the fringes of Pioneer Square. I think it used to be a factory that manufactured rubber products a century or two ago, but I’m not sure and I don’t really care. At present, this building’s job is to store my stuff.
    Okay, so
most
of it’s my stuff.
    Or at least
some
of it’s my stuff, and the things that aren’t my personal stuff are things that I personally have stolen, and that counts, right? Sometimes it takes a while for payment and paperwork to go through over some items. And every now and again a client will die or go to jail—leaving me holding the bag, or the diamonds, or the family heirloom, or the absurdly valuable painting, or whatever.
    Anyway, this old factory serves as my personal, private storage unit for all the in-transit or in-process items that I would prefer not to keep around the house. Sure, it’s a bit of overkill. The place has four floors and eighteen-foot ceilings, and it occupies about a third of a city block in an old industrial neighborhood.
    But nobody wants the old place, and as long as I don’t try to fix it up too nice, no one will even wonder about it. It looks abandoned, and I like it that way.
    Hell, it
is
abandoned. Mostly.
    Except for the kids.
    And now one of them had called the number that she damn well knew was
only
for emergencies, and someone was trying to get inside.
    If it’d been the police, Pepper would’ve said so. She fears and loathes the police like only a child who’s been minced through bad social service programs can. I’ve tried to explain to her that, at least hypothetically, the police are there to help—unless they’re looking too closely at my building. She’s tried to explain to
me
how she only ever sees cops when things are really terrible, and they only make things louder and scarier or worse. I maintain that we both have a point, but there’s only so much arguing you can do with a