Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,50

I once had a bowl of strawberry ice cream with the Old Gent of Providence. He was never good about keeping secrets.”

Smelling his cigarette, I started jonesing for one of my own. I needed the nicotine, and maybe it would help get the barf taste out of my mouth. However, I was not about to bum a smoke off the half ghoul.

“Fine, Richard Upton Pickman. Am I also supposed to ask what you’re doing here?”

“It does seem a more or less logical next step in the natural course of events.”

“Ain’t nothing natural about the course of these events,” I said, setting the late lamented duster aside and reaching for my pants, only to discover they were as much a mess as my coat. But I pulled them on, anyway. What else was I supposed to do? I was tired of giving Pickman a free coochie show. Though, from what I’d heard, the guy (and his astounding wonder cock) didn’t swing that way.

“I’ll not argue with that,” he said and laughed again. “But to answer your question, I’m here because I needed you not to die back there. Or, I should say, we needed you not to die.”

I zipped my pants and stared at him.

He asked, “We who, you’d like to know, yes?”

“If you say so. Frankly, I’d rather know where the rest of my clothes are. And my gun. My gun’s been coming in especially handy lately.”

Pickman produced a pistol, seemingly out of thin air, and tossed it to me. I caught the gun. It was a Browning Hi Power 9mm. Not my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers. I checked to see if the clip was full; it was.

“It isn’t yours,” he said, “but perhaps this will do for the time being.”

“Thanks,” I said, popping the clip back in. “Fine, so what are you doing here?”

“We have a common enemy, Miss Quinn. You do prefer to be called Quinn, or have I been misinformed?”

“By ‘a common enemy,’ you mean Isaac Snow and his sister?”

“I do.”

“Then you’re gravely mistaken, my ugly friend. I said I don’t want anything else to do with Selwyn, and by extension, that includes the Snows. That most especially includes the Snows.”

Pickman narrowed his eyes skeptically. He dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it out under the thick sole of a deformed left foot.

“Miss Quinn, not to be presumptuous—”

“He said immediately before being just that.”

“—but Isaac Snow has tried to kill you twice now. Even if you truly are washing your hands of Miss Throckmorton, you have a reputation for not letting people get away with such grave insults to your person.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I told him. “People exaggerate.” And I aimed the Browning at one of the stained-glass skylights, sighting down the barrel. The heft of the pistol felt good in my hand. “Or maybe you caught me in a forgiving kinda mood. Shit, maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.”

Pickman frowned and scratched his chin whiskers.

“Make no mistake, Miss Quinn. He may not kill her straightaway, because he needs her as a bargaining chip. But he will do her great mischief, he and Isobel. And if you do not bring him the Madonna, if that strategy proves futile, he will simply murder her. Well, not simply, as torture will surely be involved. Afterwards, he’ll come for you again. And he’ll continue hunting you until you’re dead and he has what he wants.”

I lowered the Browning.

“What do you mean, Until I bring him the Madonna? I don’t have the thing.”

Pickman cocked a mangy eyebrow.

“Oh, but you’re very much in the wrong on that account, Miss Quinn.” And then he nodded to a bundle at his feet. Selwyn’s bundle, the black Morrissey T-shirt wrapped about the basalt atrocity. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, I swear it hadn’t been there a second before. My stomach rolled, and I gagged.

But let’s say I didn’t.

This is my story, right? And if I don’t want to throw up again, I don’t have to.

Let’s say this happened, instead:

I aimed the 9mm at the bundle.

“Awesome,” I said. “Then I can do what someone should have done a long damn time ago. And when I’m finished, I’ll mail the gruesome twosome all the itty-bitty broken pieces. You might wanna step aside. And cover your ears.”

“You go ahead and do that, Miss Quinn, and—assuming the Madonna can be undone with mere bullets, which I doubt—they’ll send her back to you in itty-bitty broken pieces. Then everyone can play Humpty Dumpty