Ordinary Monsters Sneak Peek by J. M. Miro

Author:J. M. Miro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

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“Son of a bitch,” hissed Alice, as they descended the courthouse steps. She was pulling at her corset, reaching under her skirts in a most unladylike fashion to unhook a stay or two and in that way catch her breath. It was already dark, the day’s heat baking back up out of the streets, the cicadas loud in the warm night. “I put on a dress for that?”

“Aye, and look at you. Let’s hope we don’t run into that deputy, Alwyn. His tongue’d just about touch his toes, seeing you all dolled up.”

She bit back her retort. She was still too angry to be distracted. “Is what you said in there true? That poor boy only has a few years to live?”

Coulton sighed. “Charlie Ovid will outlast us all,” he said.

“They’re all so goddamn certain the kid is like Jesus. It just makes it worse for him. Why are they all so goddamn certain he can’t get hurt?”

“Oh, he can get hurt. He just heals, is all.”

There was something in the way Coulton said this that gave her pause. “You believe it?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t see a mark on him. Did you?”

“Maybe if you’d lifted up his shirt. Or maybe his legs were all a mess. How close did you look?”

He sighed. “Close enough to know the world isn’t the way I want it to be,” he said softly. “Listen. I need you to get yourself changed, then send your trunks down to the jetty. Settle our bill. I’ll meet you at the hotel in an hour. I think we’re done with the good town of Natchez.”

Alice stopped. She stood in the grass of the empty square under a statue of some fallen Confederate general and after a moment Coulton stopped too, and turned, and came walking slowly back.

“I’m not leaving without that kid,” she said.

A carriage passed in the street, its lanterns swaying. When it was gone, Coulton stepped closer.

“Nor am I,” he said fiercely.

It was nine o’clock when they left the hotel lobby and walked along the boardwalk of Silver Street to the river and then along the back alleys to the old warehouse. It loomed up dark and rusting in the southern moonlight. They stood a long time in the shadows and then crossed the road without speaking, Coulton’s greatcoat pocket heavy and jangling. Alice kept a wary eye out for anyone on the streets. But there was no one.

It took Coulton only a minute to kneel in front of the thick door and pick the locks. He stood and looked at Alice quietly and then pulled the door open and slipped into the darkness and Alice followed. They did not carry a light, but they walked sure-footed along the passage they had been in earlier that day, and at the boy Ovid’s cell Coulton again withdrew his ring of picks and deftly twisted the locks open.

It was utterly black inside. Alice could see nothing for a long moment and she wondered what Charles Ovid could see, staring out at them, as he must be.

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