Dead Man's Hand Read Free Page B

place wasn’t high rent—fading paint on the walls and the same
sort of fraying carpet that met me each morning outside my own
door.
    “ Your crucifix wasn’t much
good then, I suppose.”
    “ Maybe to take out one of
their eyes,” she said. With a nod to the left, she led the way
toward her door, keeping quiet now as we went. I supposed the walls
might be thin and she didn’t want her neighbors hearing the rest of
the story.
    When we got to number twelve, she stopped,
took her keys out of the little wrist bag, and opened up. I let her
go in first and closed the door behind me. When she flipped on the
lights, my first thought was that Pixel’s line of work wasn’t any
more lucrative than mine. The carpeting and paint here, too, looked
like it hadn’t had a freshening up since several tenants ago. The
furniture fit the rest of the room—worn and mismatched, a saggy
looking sofa and two wooden chairs around a table made of milk
crates and unfinished pine boards. Across the room, two dirty
windows afforded Pixel an unbroken view of the building next
door.
    The only thing high-end in this room was a
computer desk with an impressive array of drives and monitors on
it. This was Pixel’s bread and butter, and she clearly pumped as
much money as she could into her hardware. Like me, she had found a
way to make a living that kept her from being beholden to Clancy
Grommet and his ilk, which was luxury enough, making up for the
rest of the room’s sparse décor.
    A curtained door to the left likely led to a
bedroom, and to the right the room opened onto a small kitchen. I
glimpsed a little fridge and a very old looking oven. I noticed
right away that the apartment had an odd smell, a strange mixture
of brown rice and bananas. I didn’t want to ask, but figured Pixel
had eccentric taste in food and left it at that.
    “ Please,” said Pixel,
waving an arm toward the sofa, indicating that I should
sit.
    Pixel planted herself at the far end, half
turned toward me. If I’d been thinking there was going to be some
intimacy here, the thought had left me when she’d mentioned satyrs
and I’d seen that look on her face. She was all business, and it
was likely to stay that way between us. Which was all right, and
only a little disappointing. I’d had enough complications
lately.
    “ It’s funny, you know?” she
began. And then went on before I’d had a chance to respond. “I
heard the click of their hooves before they came out of the dark,
and I just knew I was in trouble, knew there wasn’t a damn thing I
could do to make it not happen. They had me surrounded in a second,
just looking at me with those leers and those grunts. And that
smell.” She shuddered. “God. They stink, you know?”
    I nodded.
    She hesitated for a second, and her eyes
went glassy. When she spoke again, it was quieter, like she really
had to draw the words up and out of her throat and they were barely
making it. “I knew that once they charged, they’d have me down and
I’d be dragged into the bushes.” A little exhale and a resigned
shrug followed. “So…I got ready to do as much damage as I could.
But before they could make their move, I heard a car skid to a stop
and a door slam. It was Pete. He was driving past and saw what was
happening.”
    “ A lot of people would have
kept going.”
    “ I think a lot of people
actually did. I kind of remember taillights going away from me
before Pete got there. It’s shitty.”
    “ It is.”
    We let the thought hang there for a second,
and then I said, “So Pete saved you.”
    “ He did,” she said with a
contemplative nod. “He already had his knife out before he was up
the curb, and one of the satyrs lost an ear before they even knew
what was happening. They scattered.” She shrugged, a bit forced.
“And that was that.”
    I shook my head. “You were lucky. About as
lucky as I was tonight.”
    “ I know it.”
    I was intrigued by her story but still
wondered what any of it had to do