The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig

Author:Chuck Wendig
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Urban, Action & Adventure, Contemporary, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Occult & Supernatural
ISBN: 9780857663399
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2013-12-28T18:30:00+00:00

THIRTY

A LOW, LOW OFFER

Jay-Jay hangs up the phone and gives a shrug and a nod.

Tap-Tap makes a look like he’s disappointed, a kid whose parents won’t take him to the circus, and next thing Miriam knows he’s unbelting her hands and Goldie is letting go of her leg.

The big Haitian picks her up and sets her down on the floor.

Her leg almost kicks out from under her. The cut across the shin isn’t a life-ender, but it’s bleeding like a throat-slit pig. Pain radiates out from the wound: ripples of bone-scraped misery. The bass from the club below doesn’t help; she can feel every glitchy dubstep-wah-wah-wah-boom in the wound like a fisting heartbeat.

Tap-Tap tosses her a rag from a cobwebby pool table across the room.

“Clean yourself,” he says. “You bleed too much.”

She bites back any snark that threatens the sting of its lash, and takes the dusty rag and presses it against her leg.

Then Tap-Tap strides over. Bowling ball fists on his broad hips. “This is how it work now. You get to keep your leg. You get to keep your life. But that is not a gift. It is a deal I’m making. A… how you say? A bargain. You will bring me this man with the girl’s name – the one who stole them. If you do not bring him to me, I will come back to you and I will take more than your leg. I will cut your tits. I will stuff you full of snakes and worms. I will turn your head into a candle. Because I have been dishonored. Because the universe likes to be balanced.”

She swallows a hard knot. “Lemme guess. A voodoo thing?”

“Bah.” He waves her off. “Ingersoll believed in ghosts and pigeon guts. I don’t truck with that shit. But I believe in vengeance. I believe that if you take from me I will take ten times from you. Debts will be paid and this debt is now on you, Miss Black.”

He offers her a hand.

What else is she going to do?

She shakes it.

He grinds her knuckles together like he’s trying to make bone flour.

No death vision finds her. Not for him. Not for Daddy Long-Legs over there – Jay-Jay. She’s already seen how both were going to die, and she saved them from that fate.

Now she just has to save herself.

And that means finding Ashley Gaynes.

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