Briarpatch by Tim Pratt Read Free Page A

around in a hard flat arc, slamming it against the back of Nicholas’s leg, right in the meaty part of the calf. Nicholas fell backwards with a look of drunken outrage, and Ismael straightened up. He stepped lightly toward Darrin, baton cocked back, and said “Next.”
    “You
bastard
.” Darrin launched himself at Ismael without even thinking. He wasn’t a confrontational person by nature, but he wasn’t going to back off after his best friend was attacked. Fortunately, his rush took Ismael by surprise, and when they collided, Ismael fell hard—he couldn’t have weighed more than 120 pounds, barely more than Bridget—his baton clattering on the sidewalk. Darrin reared back to kick him, and Ismael scuttled away.
    “Enough,” Ismael said, and ran for the safety of a narrow alleyway. Darrin started to pursue, venturing in a few steps after him, but came to his senses—this could only get uglier if he escalated things, but oh, how he wanted to escalate. He returned to Nicholas, who was rising and wincing. “Fucker,” he said. “Did you see which way he went?”
    “Yeah, he ran into—” Darrin started to gesture toward the alley, but let his hand fall. There was no alley, just a wall, and Darrin wondered just how drunk he was to hallucinate an escape route where there wasn’t one. Where had Ismael really gone? “He . . . just ran off,” Darrin finished.
    “Hell.” Nicholas tugged up his pant-leg, looking at his calf. “It’s bruising already. Fucker had an ASP baton, I’ve seen those at gun shows, the guy who sells blackjacks and brass knuckles has them. He could’ve broken my goddamn leg.”
    “You okay?” Darrin helped Nicholas up, letting him lean against him.
    “Wish I could’ve whipped that guy’s ass for you.” Nicholas’s voice was all regret and chagrin, his anger gone along with Ismael.
    Darrin nodded. Now that his adrenaline was starting to fade, he didn’t feel fear or anger or outrage but simple grey exhaustion. “This didn’t turn out to be as much fun as I’d hoped,” Darrin said. “I appreciate it, but maybe we should just give tonight up as a loss.”
    Nicholas stood straighter. “Fuck no. I’m all right, that prick just knocked the wind out of me. I ever see him again I’m gonna shove that baton up his ass and open it
sideways
. Come on, I need some painkiller. Beer will have to do.”
    “Nicholas, I don’t know . . .”
    His friend gave him a wounded look. “Don’t let this night end with me getting beat up on the street, huh? I’d be a lot happier if the last thing I saw tonight was a great set of tits instead of that fucker Ismael’s pasty face.” Nicholas grinned, and Darrin let himself laugh.
    “All right, you win, one more dance.”
    “One more
lap
dance, maybe, I haven’t even bought you some time in the champagne room yet.” Nicholas limped toward the bar, and Darrin paused by the wall where—he could have sworn—the alley had been. Was there a crack, a shadow, a suggestion of a narrow escape? No, nothing at all, and Darrin turned away.

Orville Jumps, Too
    1
    On the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning in October, Orville Troll stood with his hands on the rail looking down at the waters of the bay, and worried about messing things up again. This would be his last endeavour, and he wanted to do it right, if only to prove he was capable of completing one momentous act in his life without failing. He imagined climbing over the guardrail, tangling his legs in the railing or snagging his coat, slipping and cracking his head against metal, knocking himself unconscious and tumbling in a rag-doll pinwheel down to the bay below. Sure, he’d still die, the result would be the same, but he wanted to go wide-eyed and conscious to death, wanted to look up at the sky and watch the world that had so reliably mistreated him for the past thirty years disappear. So he ran through the physical moves in his head, visualization intended to overcome his innate clumsiness, a