Mississippi Roll_A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin & Wild Cards Trust

Author:George R. R. Martin & Wild Cards Trust [Martin, George R. R. & Trust, Wild Cards]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765390523
Amazon: 0765390523
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2017-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

5.

Things were hopping in the Bayou Lounge, and the magic act was solid.

Wanda liked the talking bird, though Leo was a little suspicious of it. (As a general rule, he was suspicious of anything that could talk without moving its lips. Much less anything that could talk without any lips at all.) The magician had a set of horns that weren’t too different from his own—so he felt a tug of solidarity with the jokers onstage. That friendly tug was replaced with a pang of primal concern when the joker’s bird flapped over to his table, fixed him with a beady-eyed stare, and said—plain as day—“Who sees in the dark?”

Leo gave the Great Ravenstone a puzzled frown, and the magician gave it back. “Lenore?” he called the bird.

She replied, “In the dark!”

The magician flashed a look at his costumed assistant, but she wasn’t watching him. She was watching the bird. “Lenore, my dear…” He held out his arm.

The bird cocked its head back and forth, then hopped up and flew back to her handler’s extended wrist. People clapped a little uncertainly. The magician played it off with a flourish and returned to the setup for his next trick: the disappearing lady.

Leo already had one disappeared lady on his docket, and he wasn’t much interested in this next one.

Or technically, Misty Sighs hadn’t disappeared … she’d died … but the old detective was distracted and getting fussy. This whole ghost-hunting business was utter nonsense, and he was annoyed that Wanda had glommed on to the handsome hunters. They couldn’t possibly be any help, because there was no such thing as ghosts. There shouldn’t be any such thing as talking birds, either, and he didn’t fucking love magic shows like the bulky moron seated to his left.

“Excuse me a minute,” he finally said. He rose to his feet and pushed his chair under the table.

“Leo?”

“Give me a minute, honey.”

He pretended to walk toward the public restrooms, but passed them and headed back out to the boiler deck instead. He sighed in a deep breath of overly warm air that smelled like river water and seagull shit, and sighed out a gust that smelled like the two drinks he’d downed during the show.

He leaned forward against the rail.

The night sky was blue and very dark against the city lights of Vicksburg, sparkling along the shore and beyond it. The mighty Mississippi slapped softly against the boat’s hull. Laughter and cheers rose up from the Bayou Lounge, where his wife was probably enjoying some filthy thoughts about a man young enough to be her grandson.

Something about that damn bird stuck in his head.

Who sees in the dark? A nonsensical message from an avian brain the size of a caper, that’s all. Not a clue. Not a sign. Just a glitch in a magic show.

He thought about it anyway. He wondered what the answer was, if there even was one.

A rousing cheer and a cheerful thunder of applause rose up from the Bayou Lounge, so the magic show was probably over.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.