Frightful Hospitality

Chapter Two

Donovan Lawrence's eyebrows dipped in confusion. He had not expected to be laughed at. He had not known that Kirkwood could laugh. Lawrence had easily evaded the many officers who wanted to end his black market trade, but Dion Kirkwood was the only worthy challenge he had faced in years. Lawrence could manipulate people and get in their heads, but Kirkwood was never fazed.

Kirkwood had a distinct lack of interest in solving the mysteries that drove the local and regional police mad, and only took interest when he was specifically called for help. He could find Lawrence's location in a quarter of the time it took others to locate him, which was both thrilling and annoying.

The last time they had an encounter, Lawrence had thought to remind him that he was more sophisticated than some criminal working out of a warehouse. He made his hideout in the center of werewolf territory, but Kirkwood walked straight in as though he was walking through a market, and was unsurprised that he arrived to an abandoned lair. Through a spying spell, Lawrence saw him walk in, take a look around, and leave, as though he was seeing that an item he was only moderately interested in was out of stock at said market.

Lawrence wanted to make it clear that he could not be stopped, but Kirkwood had not reacted at all when he sent a young officer's severed hand to his desk in a gift box, complete with the handcuffs that were used to shackle it to a briefcase containing vials of contraband unicorn's blood. Kirkwood just gave it to his underling with directions to have it cleaned and reattached by the medic, and went about his paperwork. Lawrence knew because one of his men had infiltrate Kirkwood's agency in disguise to scout.

It was then that it became Lawrence's personal mission to break him. He was so pleased to learn that he had young family members coming to visit, that he pushed back his scheduled plans for the next three days. With his newly acquired tome of dark magic, there were so many possibilities, and Kirkwood's nieces were sitting targets.

Lawrence thought he might break Kirkwood by letting him see how easy it was to get in killing range of his clueless loved ones, but Kirkwood laughed. His greatest adversary was truly an infuriating mystery.

Lawrence had the suspicion that Kirkwood had reacted that way to throw him off. He looked out the window, wondering if he might see him sneaking up. Maybe he would have brought reinforcements, and he would have the chance to test his new spell book on a greater scale.

It was tempting, but he had only had the book for a few hours, and it would be much more fulfilling to vanish suddenly and leave Kirkwood with the knowledge that he could reappear anytime, even near his family. There would be nothing he could do about it. Then he could truly see Dion Kirkwood break.

He was reminded to put on his most friendly expression, when he heard footsteps coming in his direction

"I hope you didn't get bored waiting here." The older of the sisters peeked her head into the room.

"Oh, no. I was just admiring the books," he said, patting the spine of one of the books on the shelf. He almost felt bad about tricking her. Almost. She was not a child. She should have known better than to let him in, just because he said he knew her uncle.

When he looked at her, he thought that he should have found her cute, but there was something disturbing about her. She looked like she was recovering from an illness, and had not quite put enough weight back on. He couldn't figure out why it bother him at first—people in worse shape came to him for their fix—but then he realized that her movements didn't match her appearance. She moved with the slow grace of a predator that wasn't quite hungry, but was keeping track of where he was. When she stood behind him, he did not feel quite like he should have his back to her, no matter how polite she was. Having her near made it hard to focus on his plan.