Chapter 5

Damon listened to her slow, rhythmic breathing and thought she was asleep. “Hey,” Damon whispered in a low tone, then again just a bit louder. Assensing her confirmed Mara was sleeping.

Damon called to one of his spirits. When a large part of one’s life revolves around dusk and dawn, one gets attuned to it and dawn was nearing. Damon thought about the request he was going to make.

He reconsidered the phrasing, thinking about a few of the ways it could be interpreted and cause a bunch of trouble, like resulting in the bed being destroyed. “Without causing any damage, can you free me from these restraints? The key should be in the pants over there,” Damon nodded his head to the pants on the floor,

The spirit retrieved the key and freed Damon. Damon thanked the spirit as he rubbed his chafed wrists. He got the bottom half of his form fitting armor off and his briefs up then eased himself off the bed, careful not to awaken the sleeping Lone Star detective. He took some tissues from their box on the bedside table and wiped the finger she’d inserted in him wondering

Then he took a clean tissue and twined it around the finger. Pulling up the bed sheet and covering Mara, Damon stepped to the chest of drawers, got a pair of sweatpants and put them on.

Leaving the bedroom and following the hall, Damon hung his duster in the closet, went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Then grabbed a duffel bag and his pistols from the bedroom and went out to his car where he transferred the looted weapons to the bag and took them to his den. Damon hadn’t slept a wink. It wasn’t the sex. It was the same way every time he nearly got killed, or at least shot at. Inspecting the weapons, Damon set aside those needing to be cleaned as he unloaded the firearms. As he cleaned the weapons, Damon considered what to do with them. He ran a wire brush through the barrels of his own weapons, hoping to alter their striations so they couldn’t be matched to any recovered bullets he had fired. He would check in the next few days to see if any were recovered as well as checking the serial numbers of the commandeered weapons to see what trouble may be attached to them. Any that showed a connection to a crime would be dumped as soon as possible. The rest would probably be safest to discreetly sell and go buy new replacements with a fake or commandeered ID for any Damon really wanted. Which reminded Damon he needed to transfer any funds from those credcards as soon as possible along with getting any use from their associated IDs.

Finishing the chore by stowing away the newly acquired weapons Damon replaced his cleaned, oiled and reloaded pistols in the holster rig and headed to the kitchen. He scavenged the refrigerator and the cupboards for breakfast. The kitchen was stocked with some real food, not the usual soy and krill filled stuff. Damon fixed a few eggs and some soycaf, even real coffee was too expensive for most but the ultra-rich. Damon microwaved some instant oatmeal and put the quick breakfast on a tray with some silverware and went back to the bedroom.

Mara was barely awake, but the scent of the food stirred her. “That smells good. So how did your thing with Harry go?”

“Not that well. The customer tried a double cross and things got a bit out of hand. Mara, are you done playing your fantasy? You put those cuffs on a bit tight and my wrist chafed. But if you want to go back to it, I’ll put them back on.”

“Oh, you poor little, big bad shadowrunner,” she said. “I am pretty sure the mood is broken. I never did get around to probing you. Well, not much.” She giggled and started eating the offered eggs and oatmeal, then changed subjects. “I was expecting you back last night.”

“I stopped off at a Grab-N-Go™ on the way back to get some beer. A gang decided it was a good time for a robbery, so it wound up not being the best time to shop.”