The Forever Drug by Lisa Smedman Read Free Book Online

probably in her twenties, but with those eyes I couldn't think of her as anything other than a girl.
    She wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves ripped out to show off her tattooed arms, which had muscles like braided wire ropes as a result of climbing up and down to her squat in the trees above. Her trousers were navy blue with a gold stripe down the side; military-issue and probably boosted from some UCAS sailor who'd made the fatal mistake of straying into the Public Gardens after dark.
    I was standing near the tree that held the squat she probably dossed down in. Keeping my moves slow— and maintaining eye contact with the girl the whole time—I unzipped and splashed my mark across the tree trunk. It was a challenge that even a human could understand.
    The ganger let go of the rope, took a quick step toward me, and touched the barrel of her pistol to my chest.
    I smiled. "You can't kill me with that," I told her.
    It was only partially true. If she shot me in the head or spine I'd die, same as anyone else. But otherwise, I'd only have to shift to wolf form to regenerate the damaged tissue and bone. A bullet to the chest would hurt like drek, and would leave me gasping and bloody on the ground. But it wouldn't kill me.
    She could see I wasn't bluffing. She lowered the pistol and cocked her head to one side. Her overlarge eyes stared at me, disconcertingly childlike in her adult face.
    "Wha'cha want?"
    "I'm looking for a troll with a horn like a unicorn's," I said as I zipped up my pants. "He's a Weed, like you." I was guessing, of course. The troll had been wearing a long-sleeved jacket when I saw him in the parking garage.
    "Why?"
    "I want to catch the thing that iced his chummers," I answered.
    "Are you Star?" she asked in a voice that hissed with menace.
    As I considered my answer, I heard a rustle in the branches overhead and felt something threadlike brush against the tuft of hair on the tip of my left ear. I kept absolutely still, knowing that if I made a wrong move now the monofilament noose would drop around my neck in a flash. Decapitation is something I sure as drek can't regenerate from.
    "I'm a bounty hunter," I said. "Lone Star pays good nuyen for taking down dangerous paranormals like the one that killed the two Weeds up in the North End garage."
    "Wha'cha talkin' about?" she snorted. "Stud and the others were druggin'. That was what flatlined 'em."
    I shook my head. "It was a para. I saw it."
    "You was there?"
    "I happened by. I heard shooting and checked it out."
    "Most folks would'a run the other way," she said.
    "I'm not most folks." I gave her my most wolfish grin.
    She considered, then said, "Wait a minnit." She raised her gloved hand and flicked her fingers in silent gangspeak.
    We waited in the bedlam that was the Public Gardens, listening to the blaring boom boxes and shouts from overhead. A police chopper passed low over the park, its prop wash thrashing the tree branches while a searchlight stabbed down at the ramshackle shelters. I heard the splat of pistol fire, and a round or two zinged off the gold star that was painted on the chopper's armored belly. I suppressed a growl; the squatters in the park were firing at a Lone Star vehicle. But now wasn't the time to make an issue of it.
    The chopper moved away, its rotor noise fading into the night.
    A branch overhead creaked as a heavy weight bent it, and then a burly form slid down the rope the gang leader had used. It was the troll from the parking garage. He towered over me, more than two hundred kilos of pure menace. A stubby spiral horn jutted out of the center of his broad forehead, and his lower canines curved up and over his upper lip. One of his pointed ears was torn; the other was studded with earrings made from the pull tabs of soda pop cans. The troll looked as if he were in his early thirties, but was probably barely out of his teens. Trolls only live to about fifty, and mature early.
    "Hello, Stud," I greeted him, guessing that his was