Bleak History by John Shirley Read Free Book Online

inexorably worked its way over to them and lapped on the pylons.
    “What I want to know,” she said, “were they just after you, or they after all of us? What do you figure?”
    “Right now, I'm trying to figure out how those high-top sneakers go with all that silk. Does, though. The feds are after all of us, Shoella. You were right about that.”
    “Then it's time to call a meeting.” She made an odd twitchy gesture at the air, and in response a strange cry, and a flapping sound, came from above.
    Bleak glanced up, saw a darkness shaped like a large bird—a very large bird—descending toward them. Something dark, big as a large seagull, settled on her shoulder. The Bird That No One Knew, some in the ShadowComm called it. Shoella called it Yorena. Referred to the familiar as a she though it was doubtful the creature had real gender.
    The bird was dark crimson. Very dark. She was flecked with jet and a lugubrious yellow, sprayed across her belly; her beak was like a falcon's. An ornithologist had seen Shoella with the familiar and had begged to examine the creature, but when he'd stepped closer, Yorena viciously attacked him, bloodied his cheeks, and drove him away.
    She wasn't exactly a real bird; she didn't eat or leave droppings. Sometimes she shed small feathers, but if you put one in your pocket, the molt was gone, soon after, like a piece of ice.
    “Time to call a meeting,” Shoella repeated, to herself now.
    She whispered something to Yorena and the familiar took to the air, in a dark flurry of purpose. Shoella muttering, “And laissezles bons temps rouler.”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Thatnight. The Hudson River.
    The place smelled like beer—and like the river.
    River Rat's Bar and Grill was built on a dock, on the Jersey side, a little more than a quarter mile upriver from the marina where Bleak had docked his boat. The place was lit by lamps hanging from the ceiling over the bar, and not much else. It was still a bar, but had given up the grill. River Rat's was just a large shack, to Bleak's mind: warped-wooden, saw-dusted floor, wooden walls decorated with paper money brought from foreign places, lots of Italian lire; poker chips from foreign casinos, nailed up; a few cobwebby fishing nets, with dusty glass floats, hung from the ceiling. A gaunt, white-haired old man in a stained white shirt, sleeves rolled up, worked behind the dented oak bar. He had an expression on his face that wasn't far from looks Bleak had seen on refugees, walking mile after mile, in Afghanistan: a lonely look of determined endurance.
    A few sailors, from the big freighter tied up down the shore, drank at one end of the bar; two other men, their backs to Bleak, sat talking at a shadowy table in the far corner.
    “How'd you come to choose this place?” Bleak asked. He had never been entirely certain of Shoella's motives—in anything.
    “It wasn't that far from where your boat was tied up and...I thought it'd be interesting.”
    Uh-oh, Bleak thought.
    They ordered a couple of beers—the old man served up the drafts with surprising dexterity and speed—and they took them to a circular wooden table under an overhead lamp; a fishnet draped from the ceiling was spread close under the lamp, making a mesh of shadows over the table.
    Bleak sat where he could keep an eye on the door and the rest of the bar. Thinking, Is this a date? Almost feels like one.
    “You said it wasn't just you they were after.” Shoella was speaking low, so he had to lean closer to hear her. “What makes you think so?”
    “The agent had some kind of detector that kept her right up on me...but I managed to get outside its range.”
    “Or you're not outside its range. And they're about to bust in on us here.”
    “Maybe. Thing is—you think they developed that device just for me? Uh-uh. Had to be for all of us. And you know they want to find all of us.” He shrugged. “Maybe I overreacted. She talked like it  was just recruitment.”
    Shoella sniffed.