“Why does everybody assume I’m a soccer mom? My son has very limited foot-eye coordination!” I exclaimed.
I head-butted him right in the hollow of his throat, making it hard for him to talk for the next few seconds. Then I clapped my hands over his ears, palms cupped. He dropped to his knees while I nursed my aching ribs.
“OK, now it’s a little more personal.” He groaned, his voice froggish and hoarse. “Look, if this is about my killing him, I did you a favor.”
Behind us, I heard the clomping of multiple boots on the ground. Jane and her miniature army had arrived, moving stealthily in formation. Jane did not look pleased with me.
“Apparently, we need to go over the importance of following instructions,” Jane said as the UERT guys surrounded Bob, stakes drawn. “Did you learn nothing from my tales of parking-lot fisticuffs gone wrong?”
“He was getting away,” I said, shrugging.
Jane glared at Finn. He threw up his hands. “I have a problem childe.”
Dick was standing behind Jane, smirking, but said nothing.
“Now,” Jane said, clearing her throat and nudging Bob with her boot. “I believe you were doing your bad-guy murder-confession thing? Please continue so we know exactly what to charge you with.”
“Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it was trying to kill you?” Bob seethed at me. “You always had someone around you. If it wasn’t one of the damn Council leaders, it was some other vampire or that shifter or your human friends. It was hard enough trying to get you alone. And then, when I finally do, you pull that rake-in-the-face bullshit on me. That’s just not sporting. Honestly, a little decorum.”
“Yes, how rude of me to defend myself from your attempted murder,” I deadpanned.
“I couldn’t figure out why you gave me so much trouble. Normally, I just go in for the kill, easy-peasy, in and out. I’m not used to having to fight so hard. I lull my victims into a false sense of security, make them feel like they’re sliding into a warm bath with Mum’s pot roast in their bellies. They’re so relaxed they barely even feel it when I kill them. But you, I couldn’t get a fix on you.”
“Yeah, well, my power trumps your power, so suck it.”
I did feel a little less proud of my above-average fighting skills now, though, knowing that I’d basically taken out Bob’s main method of offense.
Bob huffed. “Les Stratton wasn’t going to stop at me. When we met up the night of your school carnival, after our little tussle in the yard, he was supposed to make the final payment of what he owed me. He got pissed when I didn’t get you on the first try and said he was going to offer the contract to someone else. He would have kept hiring people until he got the result he wanted. Bastard said he wouldn’t pay, though our contract clearly stated that he owed me the money even without proof of death,” he said. “He said he was going to need the money to hire someone else, since I had trouble closing the deal. It was an insult to my integrity as a professional.”
“So instead of killing me, you killed the guy who hurt your feelings and had me framed for his murder,” I muttered. “Kind of a dick move.”
“And you dominated my NEV meetings with your childish weeping just so you could pump us for information about your target, also a dick move,” Jane said, shaking her head.
“Framing you was more of a convenient coincidence than anything else,” he said. “I didn’t have any interest in what happened to you after the contract was, er, terminated. And I was being genuine at the NEV meetings, by the way. I’m not newly emerged, but those emotions were real. I have a lot of repressed pain.”
“If you start to cry, I will smack you in the face with that Dumpster,” I told him.
“Oh, the paperwork on this is going to suck so very much.” Jane sighed. “OK, Crybaby Bob, by the authority vested in me by the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead, I hereby place you under arrest for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, assault, and generally behaving like a jerk. You don’t have the right to remain silent, because I’m going to need you to repeat this story to the human authorities so Libby here isn’t charged for your crime. Everything you’ve said has already been held against you, because you’ve already spilled your guts.”
The UERT guys clapped very sturdy-looking cuffs on him.
“Well, young Libby, I hope you feel better having watched justice being served,” Dick drawled.
“Not just yet,” I said. Before the UERT guy closest to me could react, I grabbed the extendable stake from his holster and stabbed the blunt end into Bob’s chest, right where he’d jabbed me with the rake handle. It wouldn’t enter his heart, but, as I knew all too well, it would hurt like a bitch.