Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body by Charlie Huston Read Free Book Online Page A

looked in his eyes.
    Enclave are mad. None madder. And they kicked him out for going apeshit and killing a bunch of his brothers and sisters. The maddest of the mad. What he says carries no weight. Mad and starving and alone in the dark, he’s making up stories to scare himself. The boogeyman, making up ghosts to haunt himself.
    Wraiths.
    If I saw something once that I can’t explain, that doesn’t make them real. And if a trick of the dark gave me a chill, that doesn’t make them real. And if a madman says what’s at the core of us all is a senseless, flapping quiver of black shade, that’s just one more reason not to believe.
    The only killer I’m carrying around is the one I was born with.
    I didn’t see anything when I looked in his eyes. I didn’t.
    But I see plenty as I run down the tracks.
    That memory, it doesn’t sit on top waiting to be picked up and put down. It’s at the bottom. Something digs it up from down there, everything else gets knocked over and spilled about.
    Think of the Wraith, think of Amanda Horde and her crazy parents.
    The original lost girl. Her mom hiring me to find her. Apeshit daddy Doctor Horde and his biotech millions and his plan to infect people with a fucking zombie bacteria that only he can cure. How I got trailed around on that gig. Something left no trace, left an absence behind itself. Enclave called it a Wraith, I called it bullshit. How I got kicked and stabbed and shot on the gig, starved when the thing with no trace stole my blood bank. Running dry in a basement, I died. Yeah, the real thing. And the Vyrus raised me up. Said, Not fucking yet! Threw all it had left into me, sent me buzz-sawing through dangerous men. But I took too much. The mad doctor had me. Dying the second time in minutes.
    And the Wraith.
    Black fell over that room and when it lifted, I’m there with a frozen corpse in my hands.
    Still pissing myself years later.
    Remember that, more comes tumbling.
    The Count. Loser rich boy Vampyre causing trouble. Dealing anathema; infected blood getting Vampyres high. Exposing the community. Me taking a job with Terry and the Society for the privilege of putting a proper beating on that punk.
    Evie getting sick. HIV sick. AIDS sick. Never knowing what I was. Me never copping to the fact. Never knowing if my blood would kill her or cure her.
    Little Amanda coming back around, launching her own crusade. Clan Cure, all comers welcome. Feed the hungry, while the little super genius tries to save them all.
    Mad as her father. Twice as smart. Drunk as her mother. Twice as beautiful.
    Things heating up with the Coalition.
    Me in the middle.
    Evie getting sicker, and me making the play.
    Taking her to Enclave just in time to see the old master die. Daniel. In the sun. Dying to believe.
    Ready to bleed into her myself, and having it taken away. The Count taking my place. Infecting her. Keeping her down there. Taking over Enclave.
    Badness.
    Running years. The Bronx.
    Coming back for a shot at something, and finding … What? A hole. A pit. The secret beneath it all.
    Using it, spilling the secret, launching a war. And running to Evie.
    Finding some things don’t get forgotten. Forgiven. A killer I may be, but I’m worse. I’m a liar. Lied to the only person I cared about. I can live with the blood, but talk about fucking up.
    Into the ground.
    Go low.
    Hide.
    Wait.
    Now.
    Run.
    Coming out the entrance of the tunnel at One Twenty-three, the city almost blinds me. Just like she always has.
    Far west side, traffic packed both ways on the Hud. Rush hour they call it, even when it’s never been anything but stuck hour. People coming into the city I understand, people leaving it I don’t get. Then again, I don’t know a thing about what’s out there. Could be paradise, but I doubt it. Other side of the Parkway there’s a little glitter coming off the water between the patches of scum floating down the Hudson River to the sea. Above on my right, the tree line topping