Beautiful Blood Read Free

a chair, and watched with muddled despair as the man rifled his wallet. Beside him, Ludie made an affrighted noise.
    “This can’t be all!” The big man thrust the few bills he had extracted from the wallet at Rosacher. “It won’t do! Not by half!”
    Myrie appeared at his shoulder. “I told you he’d no money, Arthur. It’s his possessions what are valuable.”
    “His possessions? This sorry lot?” The big man pushed him away in disgust and, as Myrie fought to maintain his balance, Rosacher thought how strangely genteel a fate it was to be robbed and beaten by two men named Timothy and Arthur.
    Myrie, who had fetched up against the workbench, hefted the microscope. “This here’s bound to bring a price!”
    Arthur stared at it. “What’s it for?”
    “He uses it to look at blood.”
    “Blood, you say?”
    “It lets him look at it close-like.”
    “Oh, well. Now that is a treasure!”
    Myrie beamed.
    “Yes, indeed,” Arthur went on. “Why we’ll just carry this little item over to Ted Crandall’s shop. Ted, I’ll say, I know you’ve dozens…No, hundreds of people begging for a device that’ll let them look at blood. Close-like!” He gave a forlorn shake of his head. “God help me, Tim. You’re a fucking champion!”
    Myrie’s smile drooped; then he brightened and went to the ice chest. “There’s this!” he said, producing the syringe. “He sets great store by it.”
    Arthur examined the syringe under the lamp. “This is the blood?”
    “I reckon someone might pay dear for it,” Myrie said, and gestured toward Rosacher.
    Arthur gazed in disgust at Myrie; without a word, he thumbed the plunger and squirted golden blood onto the little man’s coat. Myrie yelped and flung himself away.
    “You brainless ass!” Arthur said, squirting him again. “Dragging me from the tavern for this! I’m marking tonight down. You owe me plenty for this exercise.” He appeared to be on the verge of leaving, but then caught Rosacher’s eye. “What are you looking at?”
    Rosacher, not yet up to speaking clearly, managed a perhaps intelligible denial of looking.
    “I understand.” Arthur flourished the syringe, which still contained a small amount of the golden fluid. “You’re concerned about the blood.”
    “I…” Rosacher hawked up mucus from his throat. “I wish you’d put it back.”
    Arthur cupped his ear. “You wish what? I didn’t catch the last bit.”
    “The blood will degrade if it’s left out in the air.”
    “Too right! We wouldn’t want it to degrade. I’ll put it somewhere safe, shall I?”
    Arthur dropped to one knee and gripped him by the throat. An instant later the syringe bit into Rosacher’s left thigh. He cried out and tried to shake free, but Myrie kneeled and pinned his legs as Arthur pushed in the plunger.
    The only immediate effect of the injection that Rosacher could discern was a sensation of cold that spread through the muscles of his thigh. Grinning broadly, Arthur dropped the half-empty syringe on his chest and stood.
    “Well, now,” he said. “I believe my work here is done.”
    He strode to the door and Myrie, after seizing the opportunity to spit in Rosacher’s face, hurried after him.
    Ludie came to her knees and began working at his bonds, saying, “They forced me, Richard! I’m sorry!”
    She continued to talk, prying at the knots, freeing his arms, his legs, asking if he was all right, her speech muffled as though she were speaking from inside a closet. The numbing cold that had followed the bite of the syringe dissipated and warmth flooded Rosacher’s body, attended by a feeling of glorious well-being. He thought he should sit up, but the impulse did not rise to the level of will. Everything in sight had acquired a luster. Spiderwebs glistened like strands of polished platinum; the boards gleamed with the grainy perfection of gray marble; his broken glassware glittered with prismatic glory, a scatter of rare gems; his possessions scattered