“Who doesn’t,” Amy muttered, using her grip to fling him toward the door. “Don’t just stand here talking, move!”
The sandwich shop was not the place Lee would have chosen, but Valerie seemed comfortable there, so he tried not to think about health code violations.
“Why don’t you want me?”
The upper curve of her breasts was creamy white.
“I do want you.”
She gave him a twisted smile and stood. “Then why don’t we . . . ”
Lee reached out and pulled her back down into her chair, trying not to think about the feel of her skin. “Look, I want to help you. You can get out of this life. I know people . . . a person . . . who has.”
It wasn’t until she glanced down at the bracelet his fingers made around her wrist that he realized he was still holding on. When he let go, she frowned.
“Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged and went with the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She licked her lips and he couldn’t look away from the glistening moisture her tongue left on the pink flesh. “We should deal with that.”
He gave her back a twisted smile. “I’m trying to.”
Her laugh stroked him. “Not what I meant.”
“I know. Why are you doing this?”
Suddenly, she was only Valerie again. “What?”
“You asked me, I’m asking you.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and, just as suddenly, she wasn’t Valerie, she wasn’t anything he knew. To begin with, she was one hell of a lot older than mid-twenties and when she spoke, her voice sounded as though it came from very far away as well as from inside his head. “I take them into me but it never lasts and I’m alone again.”
Over the last few years, Lee had seen a lot of things that terrified him. This wasn’t one of them. “ . . . maybe it’s just that she’s so vulnerable, in spite of . . . everything.” What he’d said to Tony still stood. A word like everything covered a lot of ground.
“You don’t have to be alone.” And he was back in the sandwich shop again, sitting across a grimy, laminate table from an attractive woman in a blue dress. “I think you could use a friend.”
“A friend?” This expression, the staring like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, he recognized although he was usually the one wearing it. “You don’t know . . . ”
“I have a pretty good idea.” He shrugged. “I’m the second lead in a vampire/detective show. I read some weird shit. Not to mention, my life has gotten interesting lately.”
“And you still think we could be friends?” She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. All things considered, Lee found that kind of funny. “I’m a . . . ”
“Hooker.” He grinned when the corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah. I know people who’ve got out of . . . that.”
“That?”
“Something very like that. My partner’s ex is kind of . . . ” It was as if thinking of Tony magically made him appear. There he was, suddenly standing on the other side of West Cordova and even through the sandwich shop’s filthy windows, he looked . . .
Terrified.
“There’s something wrong.” Lee shoved his chair back and tossed his card onto the table. “That’s got my cell number on it. You can call any time. We’ll work this out. But I’ve got to . . . ”
“Go.”
“Yeah.” He gripped her shoulder as he passed, and ran out the door. “Tony!”
Tony’d found the car but he couldn’t find Lee and his hand was shaking too much to use his phone and . . .
“Tony!”
He turned in time to see Lee start across the road toward him.
To see the SUV come out of nowhere.
To hear the impact.
To see Lee flung into the air. To see him land crumpled by the curb in a position the living could never hold.
Tony knew dead.
He froze. His heart shattered like Lee had been shattered. Then he took one step. And another.
She reached the body first. Stood there for a moment, searching Tony’s face. Then she dropped her knees, gathered Lee up onto her lap and pressed her mouth to his.
“Oh my God! I didn’t see him.”
Panicked hands grabbed Tony’s arms, fingers digging painfully deep in a grip he couldn’t break.
“He was just there.”
All Tony could see was a red face and wide eyes and a mouth that wouldn’t stop moving.
“I swear I didn’t see him. I wasn’t going that fast. He didn’t look. He was just there!”
Then other hands grabbed and other voices started to yell out words that stopped making sense and Tony finally managed to break free.
He found Lee sitting on the edge of road, his jeans were torn and there was blood on the denim, blood on his shirt, and a smear of scarlet lipstick on the corner of his mouth.
His heart starting to beat again, Tony bent and picked the blue dress up off the pavement.
Together, they watched a cloud of fine silver ash blow away on the breeze.
Tanya Huff lives in rural Ontario and loves country life. A prolific author, her work includes many short stories, five fantasy series, and a science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties. A follow-up to the Blood Books, the three Smoke Books, featured Tony Foster as the main character. Her degree in Radio and Television Arts proved handy since Tony works on a show about a vampire detective. Her most recent novel, The Silvered, was published in fall 2012. When not writing, she practices her guitar and spends too much time on line. Her blog is: andpuff.livejournal.com.
The Case: A murdered Chinaman is just the beginning of intrigue involving a unicorn’s questionable gift, a notorious madam, and a pushy little sorceress.
The Investigator: Natalie Beaumont, a hard-boiled used bookstore owner with a knack for finding things.
THE MALTESE UNICORN
Caitlín R. Kiernan
New York City (May 1935)
It wasn’t hard to find her. Sure, she had run. After Szabó let her walk like that, I knew Ellen would get wise that something was rotten, and she’d run like a scared rabbit with the dogs hot on its heels. She’d have it in her head to skip town, and she’d probably keep right on skipping until she was out of the country. Odds were pretty good she wouldn’t stop until she was altogether free and clear of this particular plane of existence. There are plenty enough fetid little hidey holes in the universe, if you don’t mind the heat and the smell and the company you keep. You only have to know how to find them, and the way I saw it, Ellen Andrews was good as Rand and McNally when it came to knowing her way around. But first, she’d go back to that apartment of hers, the whole eleventh floor of the Colosseum, with its bleak westward view of the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades. I figured there would be those two or three little things she couldn’t leave the city without, even if it meant risking her skin to collect them. Only she hadn’t expected me to get there before her. Word on the street was Harpootlian still had me locked up tight, so Ellen hadn’t expected me to get there at all.