WHAM! WHAM!
I look at him skeptically. “You could handle any threat on the other side of that door, and it would be better to know what’s happening than to ignore it and get surprised later,” I point out.
Darcy narrows his eyes at me. “You’re not wrong, but this is foolishness.”
“Being polite isn’t foolish,” I shrug, unlocking the door and swinging it open. I stare at the danger end of a hand gun pointed right in my face. “That’s weird.” I peek around the gun to my neighbor. “He’s always been so friendly. Something wrong, Blain?” I ask curiously.
“Move back,” he demands, so I take a couple of steps backward and he follows me inside, slamming my door behind him. “Who the fuck is this guy?” he demands, waving the gun at Darcy.
“My hookup slash coffee angel slash bounty hunter.” That’s a pretty good summary.
“You’re fucking him? How could you do that? He’s not good enough for you!” Blain points the gun at Darcy.
“You probably shouldn’t threaten himmm…” I trail off because…
Darcy growls like a primeval volcano monster (seriously, why does he remind me of volcanoes?), then he moves faster than Blain can do anything about and punches my neighbor in the face.
The back of Blain's head explodes outward and brain matter spatters the back of my front door.
“Gross.”
The body drops to the floor.
I guess Darcywillstraight up murder someone. That’s good information to have.
11
“I might not have a mop,” I confess, moving to the kitchen to see if maybe my housesitter bought one and left it for me. I have a broom, and I have rags under the sink. “There’s not really any reason for a college student to have a mop—it’s not like I have time to mop. Maybe I should get one of those floor cleaner things… Nah, MawMaw wouldn’t go for that. She thinks chores build character. I bet I could convince her to get one for herself though; she has enough character for all of us.”
I search beside the fridge where I keep the broom, but alas, no mop. I look back at the mess on the front door and the one leaking into the carpet. A mop probably isn’t the right tool for this job, anyway.
Darcy peers at me, and I swear he looks baffled. I don’t know why he’s lookingat me like that; I’m not the one who murdered someone today. That I know of, anyway. “You’re just like him,” he wonders, shaking his head.
“Who? That Romily guy?”
He confirms my guess with a nod. “Yeah. Completely unbothered. How do you do that?”
I glance at the body on the floor. “Well, I am going to school to become a forensic criminologist. The only difference betweenthis and my class on blood spatter is that this is in my apartment and not in pictures.”
Darcy’s eyes widen in surprise. “You said you were going to school to become a physical therapist.”
“Did I?” I pull the rags and bucket out from under my sink. “Don’t you have something to do?” I question as I start filling the bucket up with water.
“What would I be doing?” he demands in that full deep drawl. Not gonna lie, it’s hotter than I thought when I first heard it, and I might actually be developing another new kink for it.
I shudder, remembering how thick it gets when he’s fucking. I could listen to that all day, but now is not the time, and I really need to make sure I don’t end up in an interrogation room because there’s a body in my front room.
“Don’t you have other people to murder today? It’s going to take me all day to clean this mess up, and I still have to figure out how to get him to the harbor without anyone seeing he’s missing the back part of his head.” That’s going to be a challenge.
Darcy scoffs. “I’ll just call the gargoyles to come clean it up; that’s what they do.”
I wonder if he means the little gargoyles made of stone or the ones that he’s been chasing me around with. Speaking of, “Were you expecting to find my murdered body every time you showed up with those gargoyle people?”
Darcy’s eyebrows come together for a moment in confusion before he shakes it away in realization. “Not those gargoyles. The big ones are good at teleporting people in the same manner the flinks do it. The little ones are the clean up crew. They’re significantly smaller. You’ll see.”
Stone gargoyle clean up crew. Nice. “How much do you pay them for clean up like this?” It’d be good to have that in my back pocket in case I need it in the future. It’s surprising how often I have to clean up someone else’s murder.
Darcy stares at me for a moment, pressing his plush lips into a line. “The council arranges payment. I don’t think individuals can pay for their services. You know, this is strange. If I want someone killed, I have to pay for the contract. Why don’t I have to pay for the clean up?” Darcy struts over to the window, opens it, and chimes like a church bell. It’s sort of like how he can talk in chirps—impressive, really. I’ve never met anyone who can mimic a church bell (I’m sure there are some people—beatboxers exist).
