“I’m a stone-cold bastard hell-bent on revenge,” he adds helpfully.
Ninian looks impressed.
“No good will come of me, is what I’m saying.” He shakes his head. “Good thing there’s that three-day wait, right?” His feet are bare, and the white shirt tucked out from under his fleece is a cartoon sneer.
“There are ways around that,” she chuckles.
“Oh.”
She holds up the Deagle on one finger, letting it dangle, so big and fat and bright.
“You can sell me a gun, then?” His eyes are puppies.
Ninian nods gently, easy now.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” asks the Honcho.
“No sir,” says Leech, and checks the line: still strong and purple. The blood girl sits up on her stool and stares. Her lips are blue-gray, but she’s not empty yet.
“Hurts me.” He fingers his soaking bandages.
“Careful, sir.”
“Don’t suppose you’d know,” he murmurs. “Only the little ones make enough, so fast…” He’s asleep.
But Leech does know, does remember. She sat here once. She stared straight forward. She can still taste the hot sick broth, after, and the kale, and the hunger for her woman’s blood and freedom that never came.
The spin of the kleptoslug has slowed, but its forward velocity hasn’t slackened. The air thunders around them and Naomi gets a little leverage, swings up and kicks Hurley in the jaw. Not that he goes far. The klepto’s core magnet binds his bracelet as tightly as her own, and Naomi’s just glad her earrings have silver posts.
Hurley’s next punch flips her backward: they spin, and Naomi gets her first blurry look down. They’re flying parallel to the gridlocked freeway. Her nose is dripping blood, but the iron makes the drops fall sideways. Below, as they pass, the cars undomino.
MON
parmesan cheese (brick or wedge not Kraft stuff)
cat food for Alexa’s sci fr proj
peroxide
band-aids (batman or power rangers)
TUE
gelatin for Alexa
also universal AC adapter (???) get at W-Mart?
frozen pizzas
oj & milk
check: is flashlight still in hall closet? put by back door
WED
O’Doul’s for MJ @ bridge nite
bread
dishwasher packet thingies
Alexa: more peroxide, aluminum foil, sewing kit, vinegar
call landlord about raccoons or whatever
THU
raw meat, like ground chuck, 2 lbs
ok seriously have a talk with Alexa
call teacher re: sci fr reqs etc.
FRI
ammo
ammo ammo ammo
“But curling your fingers is actually the slowest part,” Chili John is explaining. “So you slap hard and get some friction, flick it out of the holster, then worry about getting to the trigger on the way up–”
The Teacher is shaking his head. “You still think it matters, how fast your draw?”
Chili John lets himself grin a little at that. “I’ve stood at twenty paces at high noon on the street before, and I reckon I might again, so yeah, I do.”
“Wrong,” says the Teacher harshly. “Only one speed matters, boy. You’re still as slow as your bullet.”
“I just remember he was medium tall,” says Doxie. “Brown hair, but not like brown brown, you know?”
“Don’t worry about descriptions,” says Bellagio. “I’m not that kind of sketch artist.” He ties the last thread of clarity, leaving a translucent web around her head. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“Okay. But he was white.” Doxie chews her nail; Bellagio picks up his pad.
“What’s your middle name, Doxie?” He gathers the end of the clarity and wraps his wrist.
“Dolores. Does that matter?”
“It certainly does,” he says, and the humming clarity twitches his pencil through the first broken line.
Enriquillo and Ayiti found each other waterfall-bathing accidentally, six years ago. He was barely a man and she only just a woman. They shrieked and accused and ran away, then carefully came back at exactly the same time–one week later, and every week since.
But they are not lovers, Ayiti reasons, and therefore what she feels is not jealousy. Once she had Enriquillo’s attention on her, like a warm scent, even alone; now it’s cooling. The new girl is a deprivation.
So she curses four times, licks a black stone, and writes Elua’s name on the wall of thieves.
“I can find out,” says Sambethe. “Two hundred and a vial of synaesthetic.”
Kosta unwraps the bills from the vial, drops them and holds the glass up to catch the light.
“Excellent,” breathes Sambethe, removing her shawl. Her head is bald, a map of tattoos and scabbing, but what’s worst is the corks: seven of them, filling the holes in her skull. She removes the one over her ear, scraping off granulation.
“Trepanning,” says Kosta, ill.
“That’s for letting demons out,” Sambethe says. “This…” She uncaps the vial and screws it carefully in the cork’s place. “Is for letting them in.”
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Jesper shakes his head. “It’s a cross-section of a sphere,” she says. “A circle. No ends.”
“Right now, yes,” says Tamarind, then raises the walkie-talkie. “Beedeep. We’re under it, are you getting the coordinates? Beedeep.”
“You don’t actually have to say ‘beedeep,'” says Jesper.
Tamarind pretends not to hear him, or maybe really doesn’t, as the helicopter swings into view. The giant mirror strapped to its belly flashes.
“Sometimes the little bastards give us luck,” Tamarind shouts. “Sometimes we take it.”
The chopper crosses the rainbow and reflects it down, into the ground at their feet: light, roaring, gold.