Kitabı oku: «Beautiful Danger»

“You win tonight,” she said. There was always tomorrow night.

“So what’s my prize?” he asked.

His prize? If he expected what she had just denied the wolves, she would slay him right here and now, and be damned if she fell to her death.

“I can’t bite you,” he said, dashing his tongue along one fang, “because you’ve got that damned collar. Too sharp. Though pain—gives me a thrill. But I can do this.”

And he kissed her. Hard and urgent, forcing his sweet breath into her mouth. The vampire persisted, pressing his body against her knee, challenging her to hurt him, to deny him this stolen prize.

Training had not covered this sort of attack. She could feel his fangs pressing into her lip, but not cutting. Insanity! Never would she—

Suddenly the hard crush of their mouths softened. Lark dropped her knee. And like a moth with tattered wings surrendering to the flame, she granted the vampire his prize.

About the Author

MICHELE HAUF has been writing romance, action adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. Her first published novel was Dark Rapture. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries populate her stories. And if she followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries she has never visited and of creatures she has never seen.

Michele can be found on Facebook and Twitter and at michelehauf.com. You can also write to Michele at PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.

Beautiful Danger

Michele Hauf

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The music from the cello-rock band Apocalyptica

inspired this story so I want to thank them for

filling my brain with fantastical images of

beauty, danger and love.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Prologue

Smoke billowed and clouded the halls and rooms in the Levallois pack complex. Werewolves, in both animal form and human form, retreated from what had once been their sanctuary.

The alarm sounded a droning cry but didn’t coerce the pack leader to work more swiftly. Remy Caufield, pack principal, stuffed a valise with valuable financial records taken from the safe, along with other documents he was unwilling to leave behind. Sure, the safe was fireproof. But he could not guarantee he would be first on the scene following the fire’s devastation to claim what was inside the safe.

The door to his office slammed open, and thinking the flames had raged this far, he held up the leather valise in a protective manner to block his face.

What stood in the doorway was not flame or a fellow werewolf.

The haggard creature who bounded into the office, right leg dragging limply, and wild black hair tangled about his head so only his eyes showed, was the pack’s pet vampire.

Well, pet defined the man ironically. They’d had the longtooth for countless months, and had used him well. The thing just would not die. It had become a sort of experiment to see how long the creature would cling to life. He had defeated every opponent put to him in the circular steel cage kept in the compound basement. And remarkably, the UV sickness, while it maddened the creature, only seemed to make him stronger in the ring.

The werewolves had made a mistake last night. Remy hadn’t known the vampire they’d matched against this creature was a phoenix. The phoenix was a powerful vampire who decades ago had survived a witch’s blood attack, which had once been poisonous to vampires. Drinking his opponent to death must have infused their pet’s blood with the nearly indestructible phoenix’s blood.

Domingos was his name. Maybe. Remy didn’t care.

“You’ve gotten loose?” he asked stupidly.

The vampire slapped his filthy hands on the desk before him and growled, showing his bloody fangs—blood that could only have come from Remy’s men.

“You will pay for this!” the creature raged. “I will return!”

Remy scoffed, but his heart cringed. The vampire’s eyes were black as hell and yet bright, so frighteningly bright. He looked into a strangely lucid madness.

“Serve me your worst,” Remy said bravely. “You won’t make it beyond the flames.”

The vampire grinned maniacally. For a second Remy thought he would leap the desk and attack. But instead the longtooth grabbed the office chair and tossed it toward the window. Glass shattered.

Leaping to the windowsill—they were three stories up from the concrete courtyard—Domingos turned and saluted. “I will kill every wolf in the Levallois pack.”

And then he jumped.

Remy slapped the valise to his chest, knowing he would see the vampire again.

Chapter 1

One month later

The pack complex had not been rebuilt after the fire. The pack principal, Remy Caufield, had created a sort of family home in an eighteenth-century town house at the edge of the sixteenth arrondissement, close to the forested Bois de Boulogne.

Or so Lark had been briefed an hour earlier by her supervisor.

The Order of the Stake tendered a fragile relationship with werewolves. Knights in the Order exclusively slayed vampires, but there was nothing to keep them from tracking and killing a werewolf should it prove a threat to mortals. The Order, populated exclusively by mortals, allied with none from the paranormal nations.

“Ah?” The principal of the Levallois pack looked up from his desk as she approached to stand quietly before him. His dark eyebrows furrowed curiously. “I hadn’t expected a woman. I thought the Order was strictly men.”

“You thought wrong,” she answered curtly. “You have a job for me?”

“No introductions? I’m Principal Caufield.” He offered his hand to shake across the desk.

Lark did not accept the offer but instead returned an acknowledging nod. Best to keep him appeased. She didn’t like paranormals of any kind, but her training had taught her diplomacy.

“You can call me Lark.”

“Lark. Pretty, in a…” His pale eyes took in the sleek black cleric’s coat she wore, tight black leather leggings reinforced with Kevlar on the thighs and high leather jackboots. At the collar of her coat gleamed the bladed edging designed to keep away vamps looking for a thick, juicy vein. “Well, you seem to fit the bill, Miss, er…Lark. You’ve been knighted?”

“As are all who serve the Order. If you need reassurance that I can do the job, Principal Caufield, you’ve only to check with Rook, as I’m sure you have. But I am here now, and I assume you wish little time wasted. A third of your pack has been slain?”

He nodded and exhaled as he settled back in the office chair. “Yes, a third. Utter insanity. Eight of my pack slain in a month’s time. The culprit is the vampire Domingos LaRoque. He is mad.”

“Truly?” Lark hated to think of madness overtaking any man, yet while her tone professed lacking belief, her heart believed. Too deeply. “Or is he merely angry over crimes the Levallois pack perpetrated against him?”

The principal leaned forward, eyeing her with some concern. “You show pity toward a vampire?”

“Not at all. I simply want to deal with the facts. Lies complicate things. So tell me the truth.”

“Very well. To cut through the bullshit, it is no secret the pack engages in the blood sport.”

Illegal fights that pitted captured vampires against one another to the death, but those fights only occurred after months of starvation and forcibly induced UV sickness. Such callous disregard for the sanity and welfare of those not their breed was a good reason for Lark to not let down her guard around werewolves.

“Domingos was an odd one,” the principal continued, thumbing his chin in thought. “Normally the vampires we engage in the sport last a round or two before expiring. But LaRoque lasted six months. That vampire possessed a twisted will to live. Even the UV sickness could not defeat him. Although I believe it made him mad—literally. He’s a dangerous opponent. Can you take him out before he murders the remainder of my family?”

“Of course.” Lark nodded once and then, before turning to leave, said, “The first time I lay eyes on Domingos LaRoque will be the last time he takes a breath.”

The pack had spread out as he’d thinned the herd. Heh. He’d stood good to his word upon breaking out of that hellacious complex. But no time to celebrate. He had a werewolf to track—if he could just keep the music in his head from distracting him. It wasn’t even a song. More like a gathering of distorted violin chords, like a cat in heat yowling for attention. That, and the slithery whispers that never left him alone. He never understood any of the words, if they were words; it was just an eerie constant murmuring. It was enough to drive a man mad.

“Been there, done that. Still doing it,” Domingos muttered.

He banged the side of his head against the brick wall where he hid in a dark alley. That helped. Joggled his brain. Focused him. Until the cacophony resumed.

Clenching his teeth, he smacked a fist to the side of his skull. Ah, silence.

“Finally,” he muttered, and snuck forward through the night.

Cool shadows calmed him and relaxed his muscles. Always tense lately. Ever on guard. A man couldn’t find peace with so much to tend, both mentally and externally.

Didn’t matter. So he was mad. He dealt with it as best he could. Besides, the madness proved an advantage when he leaped for his prey and ripped out its heart. Yet that wasn’t Domingos LaRoque who stood holding the pulsing heart. That was the phoenix inside him.

That other vampire. The one you drank dry in order to survive.

Heh.

A clatter focused him on a mangy scent on the dark Paris streets. The werewolf was not using stealth. The dogs were not known for grace or silence.

Feeling his veins tighten in anticipation of the deed, Domingos crept forward. He would have his revenge. Again.

The wolf spoke with someone. Female, and…mortal. He scented her blood, sweet and tainted with floral perfume. Good thing he’d fed an hour earlier. But damn, the last thing he needed was a mortal witness.

Domingos turned and looked down the alleyway he’d come from. He clasped his fingers over the brass-framed goggles that hung from around his neck. He wore them always; be it day or night, he never ventured outside without them. If he so much as looked toward UV light, his vision went completely white.

What was that? A shadow moved not half a block away. Had he passed someone without realizing? Did another wolf follow him?

Never let down your guard. Stay alert. They are everywhere. Snap out from nowhere to grab you and take you back. Don’t go back!

Disregarding the werewolf putting the moves on the mortal, for he hadn’t yet verified if it was from pack Levallois, Domingos slunk back the way he had come. Inner whispers forced him to snap his head back and forth, as if he were a headbanger with Tourette’s. The move was not successful. Yet in between the clamor of distorted musical notes and hideous whispers taunting his brain, he managed to pick up a heartbeat. Calm, yet aware.

Casting his gaze across the rooftops—two stories up—he ran a short distance and made a leap, landing on the slate tiles with ease, for his bare feet gripped the smooth tiles and held him there. Squatting, he clasped an arm about his tattered leather pants and leaned over, much like a gargoyle, seeking the mysterious shadows below. Yet unlike the gargoyle, he was not positioned—and had no intention—to protect.

Down the alley, the werewolf laughed counter tempo to the click of the mortal woman’s heels. His prey had hooked up. Lucky bastard.

You don’t need a woman. You seek only the blood from those who tortured you.

He wasn’t sure the wolf had been Levallois, and he wasn’t about to take out the wrong wolf.

The violin scratched at the inside of his skull. Domingos made to slap his head but paused. A curious shadow moved below. And he wanted a closer look.

He could do this to a sound track—even one that screamed like a burning cat.

Leaping, Domingos descended with a grace that loosened up a chuckle. He sometimes forgot that his inner madness manifested in voice. The shadow, alerted by his laughter, dashed between buildings as he landed on the cobbled street crouched, fists to the ground.

Another chuckle echoed into the night. Domingos laughed at himself from the grandstand. His other self—that sane self—could never quite manage belief in the antics perpetrated by the phoenix, the true darkness within him.

But he’d given himself away.

Quickly, he slipped into the shadows, becoming but a heartbeat. He listened, straining to hear the mysterious other over the insistent skull clatter. Cars rolled by, exhaust fumes billowing into the night. The werewolf’s scent lingered, yet he knew that ship had sailed. Pity the mortal woman should she not expect an animal in her bed tonight. The moon was half crescent, so the wolf needn’t shift, unless that was his thing.

Forget the wolf, Domingos thought. I want to play with the mystery shadow. He scented her now. Yes, female. And close by. As if it was her intent to remain. Could she have been tracking him?

Interesting.

He hadn’t gone to Club Noir tonight. The erratic thrash-metal bands they featured provided an escape from the noise in his brain. When he was there, females hung on him, attempting to get his attention, to entice him into learning their salacious secrets. He hadn’t the interest.

They all need to die.

So what was he doing now?

Playing with the shadows.

Right.

Slipping past the open doorway of an abandoned building, Domingos moved swiftly. He made out the shape of her now. Her back to an old iron street pole, she stood tall and slender. Alert.

He moved like the wind, and just at the moment he sensed she knew he was behind her, he grasped her around the neck and pulled her spine against the pole. One hand pressed across her throat, choking her, while the other moved to the hand she slashed back toward him.

His fingers grazed cold metal. He clamped his hand about hers, sliding his fingers up along the metal cylinder. He recognized the shape of the weapon only from a close encounter years earlier. Fuck. She held a—She couldn’t be!

Her free hand gripped the pole and while her body moved slightly forward as she kicked back with one foot. Something sharp on the back of her heel tore through his pants and thigh. Domingos cried out at the pain of it, but he didn’t release her.

No, he wanted to play with this prize.

Blood scent blossomed as he squeezed his fingers about her trachea. Blades? He wasn’t about to let go, despite the icy sharpness cutting into his palm.

He felt her grip on the cylinder loosen and snatched it from her. Slamming the blunt end of it against the back of her shoulder, he growled, “You want to die, hunter?”

“You first!”

This time he avoided her kick but released her as he backed away. Chuckling, and wielding what he knew was a deadly titanium stake, he lunged and wrapped himself about her back. The force of their collision knocked her to the ground, facedown with her palms to the tarmac.

Straddling her, Domingos shoved the stake against the base of her skull, execution style. He’d never slain a mortal, but he’d make an exception this night.

“Why are you following me?” Stupid question. If she was a hunter, the answer was obvious. “Where’d you get this fancy stake, eh? The Order doesn’t hand these out as Halloween treats.”

“It’s mine!” Her hand slashed backward, cutting across his forearm.

The blade she held cut deep, and Domingos jerked his fist away from her skull. Forcing up a hip, she managed to twist onto her back beneath him, and slashed the blade again. He slapped a hand about her wrist to contain the flailing weapon. It looked like brass knuckles, with a blade cupped in the palm.

Strong and determined, this one. Dark bangs hung to eyes of a color he could not discern in the darkness. Dirt blushed her cheeks. She smelled like brightness and courage. At her neck the blades on her collar glinted with moonlight.

In Domingos’s brain, the phoenix performed a maniacal jig to celebrate his stolen survival instincts.

“You’re Order of the Stake,” he said. “Good for you, little girl. I didn’t know they were knighting chicks these days. Too bad you die tonight.”

“If I die, I’m taking you with me.”

The violin ceased tormenting his brain. The sound of her heartbeat thundered into focus. And suddenly—Domingos heard his own heartbeat, which he hadn’t noticed for weeks. Why was that? The woman’s fierce gaze didn’t mesmerize, but instead pierced his heart without aid of a weapon. That pain he felt more deeply than he had the knife.

He crushed her wrist and gave her hand a shake, and the blade looped about her fingers dropped to the cobbles with a clatter. Still she resisted, willing to fight to the end. He liked that. Most women would scream and beg for mercy. And he wanted to hear her beg.

“Mercy,” he hissed. “Ask for it.”

“Fuck you, longtooth!”

“You’re one tough mortal. Why are you after me? I thought the Order didn’t stake vamps unless provoked? I have done nothing to bring harm to mortals.”

“This conversation is over.”

He took a blade in his back. She’d kicked him with those nasty boots. And now she wrestled to get the stake from him. Domingos released his prize and propelled himself over her head, landing deftly on the tarmac, and ran out into the main street.

She twisted up to a running pursuit, slashing the deadly stake toward him. Moonlight gleamed on her long black hair queued in a ponytail and at the bladed collar. Focused grit tightened her face, yet her lips were so red. Sensual.

Domingos stood but a kiss away from death.

He didn’t have time for death.

“Adieu, my pretty little hunter.” He bowed, danced a few steps to the side and just as the stake whisked the air near his cheek, he leaped to a rooftop.

Standing at the tiled edge, he looked down over the frustrated hunter. She flipped him off. He made a motion to capture the gesture and smashed it against his heart.

“Until we meet again!” he called, and hurried across the tiles until her heartbeat faded from his senses and only the violin caterwauled in his brain.

Chapter 2

Lark marched purposefully north. The vampire had gotten the better of her. And how had that happened? She’d had him. And then she had not.

This was her first failure since she’d been knighted into the Order six months earlier. The night wasn’t over yet, so she wasn’t about to call this one in the vampire’s favor.

He might be tracking across the rooftops now, but he had to come down sometime. And he’d taken off in this direction. She couldn’t see or hear him, but so far, the line of same-level houses with mansard roofs continued.

Stake held firmly at her side, she kept her head up, and ears honed for noises above and behind her. The titanium cylinder housed a spring-loaded stake. She had only to slam the cylinder against the vampire’s chest, right over his heart, click the release paddles and wham. Dead vampire.

This kill would be number seventy-two. She was less than a third of the way to her goal.

“Three hundred sixty-six,” she muttered sharply.

He’d had opportunity to use the stake on her when she’d felt the cold metal pressed against the back of her neck. Stupid creature. He would regret not using that one and only chance.

The block ended, and she looked around, scanning the rooftops populated with bird droppings, sooted gargoyles and ancient slate tiles. Paris at night was crisp, dry and noisy with traffic. There were stars above, somewhere, but the City of Light dulled their twinkle. He couldn’t have gotten down, crossed the street and disappeared.

Well, he could have, but she would have noticed. He had been chuckling to himself, for heaven’s sake. The vamp was not in any way stealth. And he’d been barefoot. What was that about? Truly, he must be mad, as Principal Caufield believed him to be.

Didn’t matter. One vampire, be he tattered and barefoot or cloaked in finery and charm, was the same as the next to her.

Crossing at a light, Lark holstered the stake at her hip and insinuated herself into a crowd of hipsters that lingered outside a nightclub blasting out technopunk loud enough to frizz her eyelashes. If the vampire wanted to lose her, he’d go where the crowds were.

Lark didn’t like rubbing elbows with all these free and happy drunk people, so she slipped into an alley. Near the end, puffs of smoke signaled someone standing alone sucking on a grit.

She walked swiftly, head up, and fierce mien carrying her slender frame as if she were a quarterback headed for the end zone. No one would mess with her. Until a man flicked the half-smoked cigarette and it careened through the air and landed on the cobblestones before her steel-toed boots.

Lark stopped before the smoldering ember and slammed her hands to her hips. Her forefinger touched the stake. In her left hand she’d concealed brass knuckles that were bladed on the palm side.

“Hey, demoiselle, you are lonely.” It wasn’t a question.

Lark rolled her eyes. Smoke and whiskey shrouded the man. The scent was obnoxious. But beyond the normal smells she’d expect from a patron lingering near a nightclub, something deeper clung to him. Wild and feral.

And then she sensed others. Two to her right and one to her left.

Shit.

“What do you say, boys?” the whiskey-scented man asked. “We need a little fun before we go for a run, eh? Too bad the full moon ain’t out.”

Lark bit her bottom lip. Werewolves? They gave off a distinctive aura that she sensed, more alpha than most mortal men were capable of. They had better not be from the Levallois pack, or she would insist on double her pay for enduring these half-wits when finally she had slain the longtooth.

“I’m not into dogs,” she said, and turned quickly, backing up to hold a firm stance with the open alley behind her.

A pack of four stood before her. Double shit. All of them looked like bodybuilders, arms flexed out at their sides, and wearing muscle shirts and blue jeans that enhanced their meaty, rugged builds. Wolves were rowdy but usually never gave her problems. They couldn’t know what she was—that she was trying to help them.

She didn’t need them to know.

Holding out her hand, she revealed the blade tucked against her palm, and bent it in a come-get-me gesture. She didn’t go so far as to say “bring it,” but she was thinking it.

“Oh, she’s spunky! Henri, you hold her down.”

“With pleasure.” A brutish blond wolf lunged for her.

Lark slashed her blade across his cheek and stepped aside to avoid the blood spatter. The wolves saw the gaping wound on their buddy’s cheek and charged all at once.

Not too proud to save her ass the smart way, Lark turned and ran down the alleyway but paused when she felt the breath of one at her back. Times like this she questioned her sanity.

She spun on one foot, swinging her leg up into a high roundhouse, and clocked him against the skull with the hard rubber sole of her boot. It was never easy to bring down a behemoth. The wolf grabbed her leg and toppled her off balance. She hit the cobbles, back and shoulders first, an unladylike grunt forced from her lungs.

She should have kept running. Panic had distorted the calm she had been trained to maintain.

Kicking at the next wolf who lunged for her, she slashed his jaw with the blade that sprang from the toe of her boot. Using her hands as springs, she jumped to her feet.

“She’s armed to the teeth!” one growled. “What are you, lady?”

“She’s a walking death wish,” one said.

“I like ’em feisty,” another said, revealing with a smirk his thick canines made for tearing meat.

Lark felt a beefy arm wrap about her waist. The shing of talons grazed her Kevlar vest. Another of the wolves shifted out his claws. Not good. She didn’t want to deal with four fully shifted werewolves. Did they dare shift in the city? So close to mortals?

“You don’t want me enough to risk exposure,” she said, and drew her blade across the wolf’s wrist, which granted her a howling release.

Lark stumbled against a brick wall, and realized the alley was fenced off with wrought iron topped by pointed spindles, a dead end. Four wolves stalked toward her, bleeding and flexing their muscles, each with a hunger for something she wasn’t willing to give them.

“I say we rip her limb from limb,” the one commented as he sucked at his bleeding wrist. “She’s too nasty to screw.”

“Me first!”

The big blond one named Henri charged her, and when Lark wasn’t sure what her next move would be, she slashed blindly through the air—yet impact of wolf to her slender frame did not happen. The wolf howled and landed up against the brick wall to her left.

And before her stood Domingos LaRoque, his back to her, standing tall, with arms out as if to shield her.

“Come on, puppies,” he said. He whistled, short and quick, as one would to call in a dog from the yard. Twisting his head to the side, he flipped back his wild tangle of hair. “Pick on someone your own size.”

“A bloody longtooth,” one growled.

“Get him!”

And the battle began.

Wrestling only momentarily with the weirdness of the vampire protecting her, Lark found her bearings and pulled out a stake. She preferred not to kill werewolves unless it was life or death, but she would do what was necessary to save her own life.

The vampire tossed one wolf down the alleyway as if it were a rag doll, and followed by crushing another’s face into the brick wall. His moves were erratic yet swift. Though tall, he was much leaner than the wolves, and anyone watching would have laughed to see the werewolves get their asses kicked by the slender vampire.

Henri grabbed Domingos from behind. Lark swung around her arm and stabbed the werewolf in the back with the stake. The wolf yowled but didn’t ash. She hadn’t expected him to. Only vampires were reduced to ash with a death punch to their heart. But the wolf did bleed and whimper at the well-placed strike that had, no doubt, pierced a lung.

Disengaging the stake, she swung toward the next attacker.

The vampire ducked and yelped, “Watch that thing! I’m trying to help you here!”

“Sorry.” But she didn’t mean it. If she could take out the vampire amid the ruckus, then bonus points for her. The stake landed in the skull of another wolf, and she had to tug hard to reclaim it. “Thickheaded beast.”

She kicked the slumped wolf aside, and turned to catch the vampire against her chest. The last two standing wolves had tossed him at her.

Hanging over her shoulder, his face close to hers and his breaths panting, he suddenly licked her cheek. “Mmm, tasty. But I knew you would be.”

Before she could shake off the disturbingly sensual shiver that tightened her nipples and react by plunging the stake into his heart, he pushed away from her and charged both wolves.

The vampire was truly insane, because the wolves were twice the size of him and surely twice as strong. The only advantages a vampire had against a werewolf were speed and stealth. Which he was utilizing to his maximum capability. But was it enough?

Domingos tossed one wolf over his shoulder, and Lark lunged to draw her blade across the wolf’s throat. Hot blood sprayed her legs and dripped down the shiny woven Kevlar that reinforced the thighs of her pants. Protected the femoral artery. A fashion must when slaying vampires.

A wolf yipped, and, being the last one, he smartened up and took off down the alley. Three wolves lay groaning on the ground, not dead, but one or two could be close.

Domingos scooped her into his arms and ran toward the wrought-iron fence blocking off the alley.

“What are you—?” She kicked the air but couldn’t manage to get free.

“You don’t want to stick around for those dogs to get their second wind, do you?”

He leaped to the top of the fence, and then the roof, as if he had wings and carrying her was no burden.

Lark pressed the stake against his shoulder, though it would do little more than damage muscle and bone. A direct hit to the heart was required for death. “Put me down!”

“More distance,” he hissed, racing across the rooftop. “Quiet the music!”

“The what?”

She struggled and managed to jump from his hold, but he tugged at her and tried to pick her up again. Lark’s boots slid on the tile rooftop. Trying to place the stake on his heart and maintain purchase on the slate tiles was impossible. She lost her balance.

The vampire grabbed her wrist and shoved her around against a chimney. “Ungrateful wench.”

“Bloody insane vampire. I don’t need your help.”

“Yeah?” He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his leather pants, which were torn in spots along the outer leg seams, the hem shaggy. Blood glittered from where she had stabbed him in the thigh earlier. “You like being puppy chow?”

“I could have handled them.”

His laughter echoed across the rooftops. And he said nothing more, only squatted and eyed her through the tangle of his dark hair. Disturbing, to say the least. His silence prodded at her confidence. Lark scanned her periphery. Nowhere to run without experiencing a punishing fall.

“I’ll give you a head start,” she said. Where had that come from? Clinging to the chimney, she marveled at his ease of keeping traction on the slick tiles. Of course, the man was barefoot. “Five seconds. Then I come after you.”