Master of Smoke

all, he never attacks anybody at work. He takes it out on you because he’s a bastard, and he can.”
    Shelly winced, but she didn’t deny it.
    David heard a heavy step in the hallway, and his jaw clenched in rage. Ronnie, coming back for another round. David rose to his feet and stalked into the hall.
    To find the man holding a .22 pistol pointed right at him.
    Ronnie gave him a sneering yellow smile. “You’re in my house—and this is South Carolina. Which makes you bought and paid for, motherfucker. I can blow your ass away.”
    David backed up a pace, watching Ronnie’s hands as the man stalked him, gun pointed right at the center of his chest. One more step, and Ronnie would be in range for a spinning kick ...
    Then there was a growl and a blur of motion. Eva’s hand clamped down over Ronnie’s gun and wrenched it upward. Before the man even knew what was happening, she’d jerked the weapon out of his hand as though he were an errant toddler. Even in human form, she must have enormous strength.
    Ronnie swung at her, but she evaded the clumsy blow with a twist of her torso that made the bastard’s fist shoot right past her head. Before Ronnie could try again, David grabbed him by one arm, half-lifted him off his feet, and hauled him toward the door.
    Reading his intention, Eva dodged around them and opened the door, then slammed it behind them as David shoved the man hard against the outer wall. The big man’s feet swung several inches from the floor as David pinned him with a hand wrapped around his sweating throat.
    “Let me go!” Ronnie howled, his eyes rimmed with white. The flood of astonished terror at David’s strength had evidently sobered him. “Get off me, you son of a bitch!”
    “No!” David snarled, shoving his face an inch from the drunk’s. “You will listen now. A man cares for his woman. A man cares for his child. He does not hurt them. One who does is no man at all.”
    “Fuck you!”
    “Shut. Your. Mouth!”
    “Your eyes!” Ronnie froze, staring at him in horror. “You ain’t human!”
    “No.” Opening his mouth, David felt his incisors lengthen into fangs. “Now you will listen.” He drew back and slammed Ronnie against the wall again to make sure he was paying attention. “Are you listening?”
    “Yeah! Fuck, yeah!” Beginning to purple, Ronnie clawed frantically at David’s arm.
    “Your woman is going to leave you.” Slowly, David began to squeeze until the drunk gagged. “Which is no more than you deserve. And you will do nothing. If I see one bruise, one scrape, hear one cry ...” The human was definitely purple now, and his eyes rolled in terror. “... You are dead. I will take my time killing you, and then I will see to it that you are never found. Do you understand?”
    He released his grip, letting the human fall. Ronnie staggered, gasping until he managed to wheeze, “Yeah! Yeah, I won’t touch her again. I swear!”
    Coward, David thought in satisfaction. There will be no more trouble from this one.
    In the distance, sirens wailed, drawing closer. “Now. You will confess to the police exactly what you did to your wife and child.” David displayed his fangs again. Ronnie stared at him with hypnotized terror. “Make sure they lock you away—away from me.”
    “Yeah.” Ronnie blinked at him and sidled away. “I’ll tell ’em everything.”
    THREE
    Satisfied that the human was suitably cowed, David caught his arm and hauled him back into the apartment. Eva looked up when he entered, as she knelt next to Shelly. Terry crouched beside his mother in a small, miserable knot.
    David dragged Ronnie over to them by one arm. “Apologize to your wife, and tell her that she will come to no more harm at your hands.”
    The man licked his lips. “I’m ... uh, sorry, Shelly. I shouldn’t have hit you.”
    “And?” David prompted, his tone cold and warning.
    Ronnie’s eyes rolled toward him, and he blanched. “And if—when!—when you go ... I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
    Shelly blinked at him in dizzy surprise. “Uh. Okay.”
    Grimly satisfied, David hustled Ronnie to the bedroom, shoved him inside, and slammed the door.
    As he returned to the kitchen, he heard Shelly tell Eva, “I guess you’re right. We’ll go to the shelter.” She sounded tired and depressed. “I can’t let him go on hurting Terry.”
    David smiled at her carefully, trying not to show his fangs. He did not want to frighten the human or her child. “That is