Briarpatch by Tim Pratt Read Free

coin of the moon shining above it all. Halfway across the street to the beer-and-breasts bar, Nicholas grabbed Darrin’s arm. A car swerved around them and honked, but Nicholas didn’t even flinch, just gripped Darrin’s arm and stared across the street. “Motherfucker,” he said at length.
    Darrin looked around, trying to shake the tendrils of drunkenness from his brain, but the movement only scrambled his visual field, headlights leaving traceries of light in the air, fissures of shadow spreading on the street, and for a moment he caught the briefest glimpse of a high bridge, moon-coloured, delicate and immense, arching over the city and across the sky. Nicholas pulled him toward the opposite curb, and the bridge—was it just a trick of the light? A reflection off the clouds?—disappeared. “There’s that motherfucker,” Nicholas said, satisfaction mingling with fury in his voice.
    Darrin’s hindbrain generated little pulses of fear and confusion. Nicholas stalked toward two people leaning against a wall near the topless club. The woman was young, hollow-eyed, blonde hair too stringy and dirty to trigger Darrin’s Bridget-recognition sensors. The man was short, thin, black-jacketed, scarf wound around his throat, long-faced and pale in a way that made Darrin think of portraits of dead kings, a face that might be called soulful or dolorous or melancholy, even at rest. “That’s the guy I saw Bridget with,” Nicholas said, and it was like a splash of chill water on Darrin’s brain. He straightened, stared, and stopped, standing by the curb. Nicholas apparently felt no hesitation, existential or practical, and he raised his voice to say, “Hey, I want to talk to you!”
    The dirty-blonde turned and walked away on her high heels. The pale man only looked at Nicholas, not even expectant, hands in his pockets.
    “You’ve been fucking around with my friend’s girl,” Nicholas said, and the man glanced at Darrin for the first time.
    “Oh?” His voice held neither challenge nor even, really, curiosity.
    “Do you know Bridget?” Darrin took a step forward, sober enough suddenly to ask the next, and only important, question: “Can you tell me where she is?”
    “It’s not my place to tell you, Darrin,” he said, but he was looking at Nicholas.
    “You’ll tell him all right,” Nicholas said, all bearish menace, and Darrin felt a surge of affection for him. He could be crass and unsubtle, but Nicholas was a good friend—he might not
die
for Darrin, but he’d certainly get into a fight for him. Nicholas moved forward, to grab or shove or throttle the man, Darrin never knew. The pale man flicked his wrist, and a long black baton appeared in his hand, matte and telescopic, hidden in a sleeve or pocket in its collapsed state but now opened into three feet of menace. “Stop,” he said, and Nicholas did, holding up his hands, saying “It’s cool, I just want to talk to you.”
    “Please.” Darrin was unable to keep a note of pleading from his voice. “Can you, would you, at least give her a message? Tell her to call? I need to talk to her. The way she left, without a word, I—”
    “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
    “Please, Mr., ah . . .”
    “Plenty,” he said, a word that made no sense, until he elaborated, pinned it down as a name: “I’m Ismael Plenty.”
    “Bridget never mentioned you.” Darrin swallowed. “Was she . . . seeing you?”
    “She didn’t leave you for me, Darrin. She left you for herself, and that’s why she’ll never come back.”
    “Please, where is she?” Darrin took another tentative step toward him.
    “You
are
tedious.” Ismael sounded like he was agreeing with someone. He shook his head, but in exasperation, probably, rather than in answer to Darrin’s question.
    “You’d better tell him,” Nicholas said, and the man merely sighed. Diplomatic channels exhausted, Nicholas lunged, grabbing for the baton. Ismael ducked, squatted, and brought the weapon