Dead Men's s Boots читать онлайн

I was hardly aware of the passage of time, and it was only when Pen stirred on the grass beside me that I came to myself again – bringing back with me a few more crumbs of possibility, a few more twisted ribbons of not-quite-music. John’s symphony, to a non-drummer, was like a five-thousand-piece jigsaw where you had to put all the pieces in at once by pure guesswork and then see if what you got made any sense.

‘What time is it?’ Pen asked muzzily

I looked at my watch. ‘After five,’ I said. ‘How are you feeling? A bit more human?’

‘Like a limp biscuit,’ she muttered.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘But go, if you need to.Ëif man I’ll manage.’

I wasn’t sure what cues I’d been giving off that told her how much of a hurry I was in to leave: we’ve known each other long enough that stuff like that reaches the level of telepathy.

‘Okay,’ I said, climbing to my feet. ‘Hold out for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be back in force.’

Pen stared up at me, shielding her eyes against the setting sun that hung over my shoulder.

‘If you’re back at all,’ she said.

‘I didn’t say that,’ I protested.

‘Yes, you did.’ She stood up too and took a step towards me almost against her will. I thought for a moment that she was going to embrace me, because she seemed to bring her arms up in synchrony but then stopped, retreated, and folded them instead.

‘I’ll never forgive you for what you did to Rafi,’ she said.

‘I’m not looking for forgiveness, Pen. But if I do, I’ll look elsewhere.

’

‘But I don’t want you to kill yourself working some stupid case. Werewolves can eat you. Demons can blind you and rape you and suck out your soul. Almost everything out there is faster than you, and all you’ve got is that stupid whistle. Whatever it is you’ve got it in your head to do, Fix, don’t do it. I can see from here that you don’t think it’s going to work.’

I mimed a dealer at a blackjack table. It’s a gesture I’ve used on Pen a lot of times, when she seemed to be trying to give me a tarot reading without her deck in her hands.

It always irritates her, and it always pushes her away – which was where I wanted her right then because she was way too close for comfort.

‘Fine, then,’ she snapped. ‘Go and kill yourself. Don’t worry about the shit you’re leaving Rafi in. Let someone else pick up the bill. That’s the default setting, isn’t it?’

‘Reckless hedonism,’ I agreed. ‘Devil take the hindmost.