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doubtedly would have killed us. What you did was self-defense. But exactly what did happen?" |
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She said it so easily, Cyrus thought: self-defense. As if he had performed some unsavory yet necessary public servicegarbage collection, for example. Or perhaps pest control. Yet in his whole life he had never killed so much as a rabbit before. Somehow it bothered him that Kyna was taking it the way she was. |
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Yet if he were truly honest with himself, he'd have to admit that in spite of all this mental masturbation about Kyna's reaction, he personally felt nothing for the three dead thugs. Not remorse. Not guilt. Not even nausea. He had been trying to convince himself it was just shock, but he was beginning to fear that the physiological changes wrought by the wolf's bite had also permanently thrown the scales of his psyche out of whack. |
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"Why do you ask?" he asked. |
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Kyna put the paper on the table and turned it around so he could read the small box in the lower right-hand corner of the front page. |
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LOCAL BUSINESSMAN FOUND MURDERED
ENTREPRENEUR ROMAN DESSOTTI TORN APART IN PENTHOUSE |
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"The article says his head was almost torn from his body. And . . . and that he was all chewed up." Kyna looked a trifle green. |
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Cyrus pretended to read the report to give himself time to come up with a plausible explanation. He finally looked up. "He must have had a dog or something." |
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It sounded lame even to him. |
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"A dog?" Kyna snorted. "What? Like Benji? Like Lassie?" |
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"No. Like a German shepherd or one of those pit bulls that are always chewing people up. It's in the papers all the time." |
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Kyna cocked her head to one side and looked at him pretty |
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