“Give me the heart. I can see its glow on you. Humans should not pollute a vimana.”
So he knows I have the vimana key, huh?
“I don’t have time for this shit.” Shay pointed her gun at his head.
“Give me the heart, or I will make your death agonizingly slow as I consume you.”
“See, this is where I’m nicer, because… What the fuck did you just say? Consume me?”
The man took a step forward and blinked. When his lids lifted, the brown human eyes were gone, replaced by slitted pupils surrounded by emerald green.
Not human? That makes this easy .
Shay put three rounds into the naga’s head. He stumbled back, and she waited for him to fall.
He never did.
His human body contorted, twisted, and grew, his skin hardening and scales appearing.
Shay stumbled backward, holstering her pistol and pulling out one of Tubal-Cain’s temporary knives.
The entire transformation from man to human-sized cobra took only seconds. The naga hissed, its head bobbing from side to side.
Shay waited, her grip around the knife tight. A viscous liquid dripped from the fangs of the creature, and she didn’t want to test if it was venomous.
Her enemy surged forward and snapped at her. Shay spun, leaving only air for the naga’s fangs. She slashed with the blade. Yellow blood spurted from the wound.
A knife shouldn’t have worked when a gun didn’t, but she wasn’t about to question a decent hit. Maybe the gnome’s craftmanship was even better than she expected.
Shay leapt back in time to avoid her enemy’s counterattack. He snapped again at her, but she backed up to avoid the blow.
Damn it. Need something to block this asshole with.
Their entire battle had only been under a minute, but the naga’s wound had already started to close. She needed to slow the damned snake down somehow.
The naga whipped its tail. It connected with Shay, sending her slamming into a wall with a hiss of pain. His follow-up attack with his fangs missed her by inches. Not that the fact made her ribs feel any better.
This is what I get for not bringing some grenades.
Shay yanked out another knife and took a few swings. The naga jerked underneath her weapon.
“So you are afraid, huh? Yeah, these are just loaners. Wait until I get the real deal. I’ll be skinning all sorts of snakes to make boots out of.”
Human and snake both got in a few good hits. The naga was bleeding all over now, and even though he’d not managed to hit Shay with his fangs, his powerful tail ensured she’d have more than a few bruises on her way home, if not broken bones judging by the ache.
I need to end this shit.
The naga slid forward and struck at Shay, as if he could sense her concern. His fangs ripped a tear in the arm of her wetsuit but didn’t meet flesh. Ignoring her pounding heart, Shay jammed the knife in her offhand into the head of her enemy.
He thrashed and hissed. Shay followed with a series of quick stabs with both weapons. The naga’s head fell to the ground, and she dropped, letting the force of gravity aid her in piercing through the creature’s head with her first knife. Her blade stuck in the ground, pinning the giant snake.
The naga continued to twitch, and Shay slammed the other knife through its head. She readied her third knife and hacked and slashed away at its neck until she separated it from the body.
Shay sat there, covered in yellow blood, her breathing ragged.
This is the difference between a killer and an assassin. A real killer is already ready to finish up close.
She removed the knives and sheathed them before kicking the head away from the body, unsure if the creature could still regenerate after being decapitated.
“Told you to get the fuck out of my way, snakeboy.”
Shay sprinted into the darkness.
These are some nice fucking knives. Better get that adamantine sooner than later.
Chapter Nineteen
Shay stretched and stifled a yawn as she scrolled through some spreadsheets on her desk computer.
Even on the fastest commercial supersonic flight available, it’d taken a decent trip to get back to Los Angeles. Still, the key was out of her hands and with the Professor, no nagas had shown up to kill her, and Peyton managed not to get assassinated while she was in India.
She was also now millions of dollars richer. Sure, the naga had banged her up a bit, but a quick trip to Doctor Chao confirmed nothing was broken.
Shay’s phone rang. She glanced down at the caller ID.
Brownstone managed not to die while I was gone. How many massacres did he rack up? And I thought I didn’t take shit from anyone.
Shay snickered and answered the phone. “Brownstone, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need your help with something if you have some time.”
Probably not time to steam up the sheets, though, huh?
Shay blew out a breath. “Does this involve killing houses full of gangsters again?”
“Not today, I don’t think.”
“I love the implied promise.” Shay chuckled. “What’s up?”
“This is related to the Harriken, just not killing them. Yet.”
Shay wasn’t sure if she should be getting in so deep with the man, but she’d already been prepared to help the first time, so it didn’t seem a stretch to consider helping him a second time. Killing the man’s dog was an asshole move, and so the gangsters would get what was coming to them.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I originally got the attention of the Harriken because I rescued a teenage girl from two guys trying to snatch her. She was looking for her mom.”
Really, Brownstone? I thought you were Mr. Total Bounty Hunter, but you’re running around saving teens from traffickers? You’re more of a softy than I thought.
For some reason, the thought comforted Shay, but she didn’t want to show the man any emotional weakness.
“Yeah, and?” she said. “That sounds like every Tuesday in L.A.”
“Well, I’ve got that girl with me now. Turns out
