Read The Taste of Night for Free Online Page B

succession, barely pausing to aim. Then the chamber was empty. “This thing have any more ammo?” she asked me. I shook my head. She glanced from me to my abandoned bag, smelling the lie but ignoring it anyway. “Oh well,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to use something else.”
    Whistling the theme song to Peter Gunn she strolled over to Liam, now writhing on the ground like a landed bass. My heartbeat slowed marginally, but quickened again as she turned back to me. Liam’s conduit was in her hand, but she didn’t point it at me. Instead she handed it to me.
    I glanced down, took it by the knobbed handle, and felt the heft of hinged titanium. It was a weapon meant for an agent larger than me, but the length of a forearm when folded, small enough to carry concealed in a large cargo pocket, which was where Liam had stashed it in his appropriated uniform. I grasped the knob, whipped it out in front of me, and it elongated with a biting snap. It was a bata, or shillelagh—an Irish fighting stick—and I glanced back at Liam with some surprise. I hadn’t pegged him as a Mick.
    “Why?” Liam and I asked at the same time. She answered me.
    “Because I can’t kill one of my own. Even if I use his own weapon against him, the kill spot will still identify me as the slayer.”
    I hadn’t known that. I’d only used a conduit against its owner once, but he had been an enemy. Unlike the woman next to me, I’d never even thought about killing one of my own. Well…except Warren. But it’d been a fleeting thought, and only that once.
    Okay, twice.
    “Because it’s unnatural,” Liam spat, his shock still evident in the scent of rancid lemon rising from his pores. But he was angry too, and who could blame him? He’d probably thought he was needed to protect her in this operation. By some arbitrary whim, however, he was the one who needed protection. He wasn’t going to get it from me, and his partner—former—looked away.
    I hefted his conduit, holding it about a third of the way from the butt, and his eyes widened when he saw I knew what I was doing. “You can’t do this, Regan! We were seen leaving together! The Tulpa will find out!”
    “Nobody saw, Liam. I made sure of it.” Her voice was flat, but a wisp of regret flickered over her face, slithering across her features like a ripple over a pond, disappearing as soon as she realized I was watching. “Just do it,” she said, and turned away.
    I stepped forward before that shadowy regret could turn into full-blown repentance.
    I didn’t make him suffer. It wasn’t my style, though I’d kind of overlooked that when I’d tortured and killed the Shadow who’d taken Olivia’s life. This wasn’t personal, though—if murder can be termed an impersonal thing—just as I knew his wish to kill me was nothing personal. He was doing his job, Shadow versus Light, and I would do my job now. Still, I liked to think there was some difference between us.
    “Your full name?” I asked, resting my thumb along the bata’s shaft.
    He squinted up at me through pain-hazed eyes. “Why?”
    “For the records,” I said in a voice that was merciless despite my words.
    He hesitated, knowing I wasn’t talking about the Shadow manuals. A kill spot was normally recorded in written form for both Shadow and Light, but by killing him with his own weapon, I’d erase his death and his life from the Shadows manuals forever. I gave him time, and at length he came to the same conclusion I would’ve. It was better to be remembered by your enemies than to leave no legacy at all. “Liam Burke, the Piscean Shadow.”
    I nodded to show I’d heard. Then, before any gratitude could enter his eyes, I lifted the bata over my head, and with one hand brought the knob crashing down between his eyes.
    The air exploded with the stench of the Shadow, the decay of his rotted core spilling from the deadly wound, before recoiling invisibly and imploding upon itself. I stood perfectly still as the