The Sixteen Burdens by David Khalaf Read Free Book Online Page B

Gray wasn’t about to be a scapegoat, real or imagined.
    “From what I hear you lost a lot of business after some doctor put your face through a meat grinder.”
    “It’s not like that,” she said. “My beauty, it was special. I wasn’t just the most beautiful actress of my day—I was the most beautiful person on Earth.”
    Pickford was so earnest that Gray nearly laughed.
    This lady is nuttier than a Peanut Chew.
    “I’m part of a special group of people,” she said. “Call it a club—or better yet, a secret society, like in a mystery novel. This group, very few people know we exist. We don’t even know who all of the members are.”
    “I’m sure that makes your Christmas card list difficult.”
    Gray flinched as Pickford crossed suddenly in front of an oncoming truck.
    “It’s not something you can choose to join,” she said. “It’s something you’re born into. Like, say, a royal family. Listen to me!”
    “I’m listening!”
    “We all have talents, unique to the group. Talents better than anyone else in the world. These make us powerful, but also dangerous.”
    Pickford ran right through another intersection, nearly clipping a taxi. She kept driving.
    “All of those kidnapped women, it’s my fault. The man abducting them, he’s looking for me. He doesn’t know my identity, only that I am an actress in Hollywood. But when those dwarves fail to return in the next half hour or so, he’ll know for sure.”
    “What does he want from you?”
    “Something I have. Something I should have destroyed but didn’t. Something we can never let him get possession of.”
    Pickford made a sharp turn east and pulled into the newly finished Union Station. She screeched up along a curb reserved for fire trucks.
    “Aren’t we going to your house?” Gray asked, checking the cut on his brow to see if the bleeding had stopped. It hadn’t.
    “No. I have other plans.”
    She looked at the gash.
    “Do you have anything to hide that?”
    Gray picked up his fedora and, with some reservation, put it on. It was his first time wearing it.
    He was aware that Pickford hadn’t once flinched at the sight of his blood or asked him about it, though she did notice a couple of drops that had hit the ceiling of her car.
    “It’s diseased,” Gray said. “I’m not supposed to touch anyone.”
    “Diseased!” Pickford said. “Who told you that? You have the most special blood in the world.”
    “Farrell says I can’t touch people, for their safety.”
    Pickford huffed beneath her veil.
    “You should stay away from people,” Pickford said. “But not for their safety. For yours .”

 
     
     
     
    C HAPTER S EVEN
     
    “H URRY NOW ,” SHE said. “The next train leaves in ten minutes.”
    Gray had not yet been inside the new Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal. It was built in a Spanish style with a red-tiled roof and enormous arching windows. They walked inside through a grand archway into a bright, expansive waiting room that was mostly empty of people.
    Pickford kept a brisk pace, and Gray found himself following her.
    “I got more questions,” he said.
    If you’re really my mother, why did you leave me?
    “How did you meet my father?”
    “He came out to Los Angeles for a job of sorts.”
    “Were you two married?”
    “Yes. To different people.”
    Oh.
    They walked by walls decorated with colorful Spanish tiles, below a pitched wood-beam ceiling lined with chandeliers.
    “You said he was dead. How did he die?”
    “He was murdered. Punched in the stomach by the man now chasing us.”
    “Punched?”
    That sounded unlikely.
    “Yes, just punched once.”
    Gray stopped. Pickford walked another dozen steps before she realized it.
    “Where are we going?”
    “New York,” she said. “I have an acquaintance out there who can provide protection.”
    “Why do I need protection?”
    She grabbed his arm and guided him toward the ticket booth. After paying, they walked into a large, well-lit tunnel that