Dead Men's Boots Read Free

thinks you can catch it by talking about it, like my mum.”
    I didn’t answer. The mention of Gabe McClennan’s name had triggered a whole lot of very unpleasant memories, most of them
     dating from the night when I’d killed him. Okay, it was kind of by proxy: Actually, I just made it really easy for someone
     else to kill him. It wasn’t like he left me much choice, either, since he was out for my blood; and the wolf I threw him to
     was one he’d brought to the party himself, so you could say what goes around comes around. Lots of great arguments to mix
     and match. None of them made me feel any better about it, though, and there was no way I’d ever be able to explain it to the
     wife and kid he’d left behind.
    “So what’s she doing here?” I asked.
    “She came with Bourbon. I think he put the word out at the Oriflamme that John was going into the ground today—said he’d lay
     on cars for any exorcists who wanted to come along.”
    “She’s a ghostbreaker?”
    Louise shrugged. “That’s what she’s calling herself, yes. Following in her father’s footsteps. I don’t know if she’s any good
     or not.”
    I took it on the chin, but it wasn’t great news. If Gabe’s daughter was in the same line of business as me now, and if she
     was operating in London, then we were going to keep running across each other’s trail whether we liked it or not. Not a happy
     prospect. I watched Gabe’s daughter down to the gates—saw her stop, her two escorts walking on without her, and exchange words
     with the Breathers on picket duty. Someone ought to have a word with her about that: It wasn’t a great idea to encourage the
     lunatic fringe.
    “How’s the music going?” I asked in a ham-fisted effort to raise the mood. Louise played bass in a band that had had many
     more names than gigs. I had a vague feeling that their current nom de soundstage was something vaguely punk, like All-Star
     Wank, but it would be something different tomorrow.
    “It’s good,” Louise said. “It’s going good. We’ve got a new manager. He reckons he can get us in at the Spitz.”
    Larry Tallowhill came up alongside Louise at this point and slid an arm around her waist. “Felix Castor,” he said with mock
     sternness. “Leave my fucking woman alone.”
    “Can I help it if I’m irresistible?” I asked. “How are the new drugs working?”
    Larry shrugged expansively. “They’re great,” he said. “I’ll live until something else kills me. Can’t ask for more than that.”
    Larry was always amazingly upbeat about his condition, which was the result of the sort of arbitrary bad luck that would fill
     most people with rage or despair to the slopping-over-the-top, foaming-at-the-mouth point. He’d contracted HIV from a bite
     he got when he was trying to subdue a loup-garou—you might call it a werewolf, except that the animal component here was something
     leaner and longer-limbed and altogether stranger than that word suggests. It wasn’t even a paying job; he just saw this monster
     chasing a bunch of kids across a Sainsbury’s car park, and stepped in without even thinking about it. The thing was looking
     to feed, but it turned its attention to Larry as soon as it realized he was a threat, and like I said, it was sleek and fast
     and very, very mean. Larry took the damage, finished the job with one arm hanging off in strips, then walked a mile and a
     half to the hospital to get himself patched up. They did a great job: stabilized him, took the severed finger he’d brought
     with him and sewed it back on, stopped him from bleeding to death or getting tetanus, and eventually restored 95 percent of
     nervous function. About ten or eleven months later, he got the bad news.
    For an exorcist, it all falls under the heading of occupational hazard. There aren’t very many of us who get to die of old
     age.
    I changed the subject, which sooner or later was going to bring us around to the even more painful issue