Smacks Harry

Mab slapped me.
Okay, that doesn’t convey what happened very well. Her arm moved. Her palm hit my left cheekbone, and an instant later the right side of my skull smashed into the elevator door. My head bounced off it like a Ping-Pong ball, my legs went rubbery, and I got a really, really good look at the marble tile floor of the elevator. The metal rang like a gong, and was still reverberating a couple of minutes later, when I slowly sat up. Or maybe that was just me.
“I welcome your suggestions, questions, thoughts, and arguments, my Knight,” Mab said in a calm voice. She moved one foot, gracefully, and rested the tip of her high heel against my throat. She put a very little bit of her weight behind it, and it hurt like hell. “But I am Mab, mortal. It is not your place to judge me. Do you understand?”
I couldn’t talk, with her heel nudging my voice box. I jerked my head in a short nod.
“Defy me if you will,” she said. “I cannot prevent you from doing so—if you are willing to pay the price for it.”
And with that, she removed her foot from my throat.
I sat up and rubbed at it. “This is not a smart way to maintain a good professional relationship with me,” I croaked.
“Do I seem stupid to you, my Knight?” she asked. “Think.”
I eyed her. Mab’s voice was perfectly calm. After what I’d said to her, the defiance I’d offered her, I hadn’t expected that. She had never been shy about showing her outrage when she felt it had been earned. This perfect poise was . . . not out of character, precisely, but I had expected a good deal more intensity than she was displaying. My defiance endangered her plans, and that never left her in a good mood.
Unless . . .
I closed my eyes and ran back through her words in my head.
“Your precise instructions,” I said slowly, “were to go with Nicodemus and help him until such time as he completed his objective.”
“Indeed,” Mab said. “Which he stated was to remove the contents of a vault.” She leaned down, took a fistful of my shirt in her hand, and hauled me back to my feet as easily as she might heft a Chihuahua. “I never said what you would do after.”
I blinked at that. Several times. “You . . .” I dropped my voice. “You want me to double-cross him?”
“I expect you to repay my debt by fulfilling my instructions,” Mab replied. “After that . . .” Her smile returned, smug in the shadows. “I expect you to be yourself.”
“Whatever Nicodemus has going this time . . . you want to stop him, too,” I breathed.
She tilted her head, very slightly.
“You know he’s not going to honor the truce,” I said quietly. “He’s going to try to take me out somewhere along the line. He’s going to betray me.”
“Of course,” she said. “I expect superior, more creative treachery on your part.”
“While still keeping your word and helping him?” I demanded.
Her smile sharpened. “Is it not quite the game?” she asked. “In my younger days, I would have relished such a novel challenge.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Gee. Thanks.”
“Petulance does not become the Winter Knight,” Mab said. She turned to the elevator doors, which had an enormous dent in them the same shape as a wizard’s noggin. They swept open with a groan of protesting metal. “Do this for me, and I shall ensure the safe removal of the parasite when the task is completed.”


Skin Game Chapter 4, Page 23-25