Eight Million Gods-eARC by Wen Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

calm. She studied the alcohol selection. Between her lack of experience in drinking and the labels in Japanese, she had no clue if she would like the liquid inside.
    Miriam picked up on the first ring. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
    “What is decent to drink here?” She turned her cell phone’s camera on to the wine selection.
    “Oh, good, they let you go!” Miriam said. “You would like the stuff in the little dark green bottles. It’s a plum wine. It’s very sweet and mild.”
    “Yes, I’m free.” Nikki picked up the miniature bottle of wine. The label claimed that it held two hundred milliliters; she probably could down it in three swallows. Not really enough, it seemed, for self-medication. She added a second bottle to her basket and headed for to the check-out counter. She picked up a Snickers and Kit Kat bar as she passed through the candy aisle.
    “I’m so sorry,” Miriam said. “I called the consulate. I was really worried that you would end up in prison.”
    “It’s probably the only reason I’m free.” Nikki watched the clerk scan her purchases with shaking hands. What had the police said to the employees? Had they explained the blender? “They really didn’t want to let me go.”
    “I shouldn’t have teased that s alaryman . I had no idea that he would take us so seriously!” Miriam cried. “I’m really, really sorry.”
    “It’s not your fault.” Nikki tucked her phone under her chin, dug out her change purse, and counted out thirty thousand yen to cover the major splurge. “This is more than a run-of-the-mill murder. There’s a shitload more.” The clerk’s eyes had gone huge. Apparently he spoke English enough to understand the word “murder.” “Just hold on a minute.”
    Nikki collected her change. She unwrapped a rice ball, took a big bite. and headed out onto the street to get the automatic door between her and the listening clerks. “I’ve got a psycho fan that killed a man using a blender in the apartment building that my character lived in! Get this: a Gregory Winston instead of George Wilson.”
    “Shit!” Miriam said. “What about the others?”
    “Others?” Nikki asked.
    “Well, you’ve killed like three men and two women so far, right? Four men if you count the Brit.”
    Nikki jerked to a halt, and her stomach did a sickening flip. “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”
    “Nikki?”
    “Oh shit!”
    “You did talk to the police about the other characters. Didn’t you?”
    “No! Oh shit!” The police were bound to find out. They were crawling all over her website when she left. “Wait! I didn’t blog about them!”
    There was a clicking of keys from Miriam’s side. “Hmm, you’re right. It doesn’t seem as if you did. So you’re good—unless . . .”
    “Unless what?”
    “Well—unless your psycho fan did something like hack your computer.”

5
    Scary Cat Dude

    She couldn’t hold off the need to write any longer. She dumped her FamilyMart bags right inside the door of her apartment and sat on the floor to fumble through her backpack. She needed her new notebook. Writing on the computer never satisfied the need. Pen and paper was the only way.
    Luckily her hypergraphia liked the small Campus notebooks, approximately five inches by seven inches, which all the Japanese schoolchildren used in class, so they were easy to find. Despite being created for kanji , the lines were nearly the same as college-rule width. She was never without at least one tucked into her bag.
    She found the notebook. With hands shaking, she opened it. She numbered the inside cover and dated it. The smell of ink was pure nirvana to her stressed nerves. She was able to pause, pen hovering over paper, and consider what she should write.
    As Miriam pointed out, she needed a new romantic hero.
    Her problem with characters dying wasn’t new. That was the other damning part of the equation with her hypergraphia. If she wrote about kittens and rainbows, her mother probably