“Okay,” Kylie said, resting her hands on her hips and surveying the area around her desk just to make sure no one had gotten overexcited and touched her equipment. “Why don’t you tell me where you’re at and we can go from there?”
When the tech didn’t answer immediately, Kylie looked up to find him standing not by the bundle of cable where she’d last seen him, but less than two feet away from her. He still had the cable in his hands, but now he held a length of it in between his beefy fingers like a garrote, and when her eyes met his, she could see the crazy in them. They looked black and cloudy and entirely glazed over.
He lunged at the same instant that she screamed and threw herself backward to escape imminent strangulation. She heard a loud crash from the hall, a curse from her attacker, and a fierce yowl from King David, but she had no idea which came first. Everything seemed to unravel into chaos and her only thoughts weren’t even real thoughts; she operated purely on instinct, throwing herself on top of the balance ball that had been pushed aside near her desk, rolling off the top, and using her legs to propel it into the crazy technician’s path.
The tech kicked the ball away, the force of impact sending the inflatable sphere of rubber bouncing off half the vertical surfaces in the room. Every time it pinged and ricocheted, Kylie felt the hysterical urge to giggle. It almost made her feel as if she were featured in one of her Coyote namesake’s cartoons. Any time now, someone was going to come out with a “Meep! Meep!” and she was going to lose it.
With the giant ball out of his way, the tech moved faster, cornering her in the space below the other, unopened window and laying his length of cable against her throat. Before he could exert any pressure, though, a golden blur flew into the picture and plastered itself against the man’s head. He screamed and jerked back, and Kylie could see an enraged King David hanging onto the technician’s face with tooth and claw.
The cat had puffed himself up to nearly twice his normal size, and his tail whipped back and forth like a cobra on meth while he proceeded to try and dig his way inside her attacker’s skull. Judging by the blood and screaming, he might even be making some decent progress.
And her lawyer had told her to get a dog. Pfft.
Kylie scrambled to her feet, preparing to dart past the fracas into the hall and immediately to Dag’s side, when the mountain figuratively came to Mohammed. Dag appeared in the doorway, skin gray, fangs bared, and humanity nowhere to be seen. Since no other tech accompanied him, either he had already killed them, or seeing him in his natural form had scared the unsuspecting workers to death. In the moment, she didn’t really care which.
She immediately threw herself in his direction, wasting no time in protesting when he all but shoved her behind him. That was exactly where she wanted to be, so he wouldn’t be getting any arguments. Not about this. She even had the foresight to cover her ears when he let out another of his roars, although she did glance up at the ceiling to make sure she had time to dodge any falling plaster. Luckily, this time the ceiling held.
The tech finally managed to pry King David from his face and threw the feline across the room. The cat sailed into the open closet door and thumped hard against something inside. Kylie heard another yowl and cried out in response. Oy, but she hoped he wasn’t seriously hurt. As soon as Dag finished kicking this roseh’s ass, she was taking a shot of her own and then rushing the King to the vet.
Just hold on a few more minutes, bubeleh, and I’ll get you all taken care of. I promise. She just wished the cat could read her mind.
Dag, it appeared, didn’t need to. On this, at least, they seemed to be of one mind: stomp this kuppe drek into next week, then have cookies and milk.
It didn’t quite happen that way, though, because the minute Dag laid a hand on the tech, the guy gave a high-pitched shriek, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he wilted like a debutante in a whorehouse. He collapsed into a heap, held off the floor only by Dag’s claws fisted in the front of his jumpsuit.
Then, of course, Dag let go, and the tech and the floor got much better acquainted.
Kylie stared for a moment, half expecting the guy to jump back to his feet, grin and quip, “Just kidding!” and get right back to the fight. Didn’t happen, though. He stayed unconscious, and Dag continued to look as if he’d just bitten into a knish filled with rancid earthworms.
Cautiously, she eased a few steps forward and peered around the Guardian to the limp figure at his feet. “Uh, not to be a kibitzer, but any idea what just happened here?”
Dag sneered down at the tech and clicked his talons together in a gesture of frustrated violence. “This one is no nocturnis. Just a filthy pawn in their games.”