Cherry Bomb: A Siobhan Quinn Novel

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  I lit a cigarette and waited. Five minutes went by and I could hear Selwyn bumbling around in the dark. She had a Maglite, because even stupid people know better than to break into a crime scene and turn on the lights. I decided I’d give her a little extra time. So far, so good, after all. I told myself I’d been worrying over nothing. I smoked and listened to the night outside and the night inside and every other sound in the building.

  And then the phone rang. Selwyn had this old avocado-green telephone that must have been new about 1970, and there in the dark, the ringer sounded at least as loud as a fire bell.

  “Shit,” I heard her whisper. By the second ring, she’d emerged from the bedroom carrying a soccer-ball-sized bundle, but I couldn’t make out what it was. She shined the Maglite in the direction of the phone, perched on a stack of books, but nailed me square in the eyes instead.

  “Jesus shitting Christ,” I hissed. “Get that thing out of my face.” She did, but the flashlight’s beam left a swarm of giant fireflies in my head.

  “Should I answer it?” she asked.

  “Why? Are you expecting a fucking phone call?”

  Third ring.

  “No,” she whispered. “Of course not. No one knows we’re here, and I don’t use the landline for business.”

  Fourth ring.

  “Don’t answer,” she said. “It’s no one.”

  Which is probably why I answered it.

  It’s precisely the sort of thing stupid people do.

  I stood there, the handset against my ear, looking in Selwyn’s direction, but still seeing nothing except all those orange-white fireflies. I didn’t say a word. Well, not at first. Probably a whole minute went by, and I was just about to hang up, when the caller said, “Hello, Miss Quinn. I was so hoping it would be you who picked up.”

  It was a smooth and utterly sexless voice. I mean utterly. A voice entirely devoid of gender. Could have been a man or a woman or anything in between. Also, and I say this as a nasty, it was a damn creepy voice. The sort of voice puts a fucking chill in you, right? And it was a jovial voice. If a voice could grin, that voice was grinning ear to ear.

  “Miss Quinn? Hello?”

  The only question in my mind was whether the caller was Isaac Snow or Isobel Snow. Brother or sister?

  “Is this a bad time?” it asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “It’s a bad motherfucking time. What the fuck do you want, asshole?”

  “Only what Miss Throckmorton is holding,” the smiling voice said. “I can assure you she’s been paid well, and I merely desire to conclude my business transaction with her. I dislike loose ends.”

  Usually, in situations like these, I have a snarky comeback at the ready, drawn from my all-you-can-eat buffet of gutter wit. This time, all I had was a sudden case of dry mouth. I swallowed and licked my lips.

  “A pity,” said the creepy voice, “the same cannot be said for you, Miss Quinn. It almost seems as if you take a perverse pride in leaving messes that others have to clean up. Your former employer in Providence would, I’m sure, testify to that.”

  “We’re sort of in a hurry,” I said. “I’m gonna hang up now. Fuck off.” But I didn’t hang up.

  “Are we not, all of us, in a hurry, Miss Quinn? Isn’t that a shame, that we rush about like ants, rarely pausing to enjoy the time given to us? Of course, some of us get more time than do others, some lucky, lucky people like yourself. Hardly seems fair, does it?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “But I’ve learned not to waste a lot of time worrying over what is and isn’t fair.”

  Not witty, but oh so true.

  “Touché. You know, I wasn’t certain, at first, that it actually was you, the celebrated Twice-Dead, Twice-Damned, there in Manhattan, watching over poor lost Miss Throckmorton. But that escapade of yours Friday night, my sister heard the news, yes, and that removed any doubt we might have harbored.”

  So Isaac.

  Chilling or not, the guy was starting to sound like a villain in an old Charlie Chan or Sherlock Holmes movie. Or one of the cheesier James Bond films. If his voice hadn’t been so creepsome, he probably would have had me in stitches. But, you know, lots of the bad folk have that effect on me. The line between scary and hilarious is often no wider than a bug’s dick.

  “I was hoping we would have a chance to meet face-to-face,” he said, “but, alas, that’s not the way events are unfolding. My loss, I’m certain.”

  Actually, he was beginning to remind me a little of B.

  “I’ll give you a dollar to get to the point,” I said.

  Ah, there I was, back to my usual mouthy self.

  “Miss Throckmorton knows why I’m calling. Will you please pick up, Selwyn?”

  He knew her name. Her real name.

  I wasn’teven aware there was another phone in the kitchen. But in a second or two Selwyn was, in fact, on the line. I rubbed at my eyes, chasing off a few of the Maglite fireflies, just enough I could see her. She’d set the Maglite on the counter, but still held the bundle.

  “There we are,” he said. “Little Lamb, smile.”

  “I have it,” she stammered. If he’d unnerved me, he was clearly scaring the bejesus out of her. “I have it. I was going to get in touch tomorrow.”

  “You possess fine attributes, Little Lamb, yes, but you cannot number among them being a good liar. We know that you were going to do no such thing.”

  “No, I’m . . . I mean, just had to be sure it is still here. The police . . .” She trailed off and glanced towards me. I squinted. She looked as if she was about to puke.

  “Would never have seen it,” he said. “You and I both know that. My sister and I, we thought you were dependable. You came so very highly recommended. We made this deal in good faith.”

  “Listen,” Selwyn said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Just tell me where to meet you, where to make the drop, and we can make this right.”

  “How can we do that, Little Lamb, now that you’ve sold off the skull and La Saignement de gorge. We are, yes, rather amazed you still have the Madonna. No, as much as we would have liked to uphold our end of the bargain, you made that impossible.”

  “No, if you’ll just—”

  “We can no longer trust you. We’ve had to enlist the services of a third party.”

  I shut my eyes, trying to clear my head.

  “Miss Throckmorton’s going to hang up now,” I said. My words came out like blocks of wood. “Isn’t that right, Selwyn?” She didn’t answer me.

  Isaac Snow said, “We do hope, yes, that you’ll understand with the position you’ve put us in, Little Lamb, that you left us with no other recourse. We hope you will understand it’s nothing personal, dear. Isobel sends her love. Qqi e’ia, Selwyn Throckmorton. Walk in the light.”

  Fuck, I hate the sound of Ghul. If a turd could talk, it would speak ghoulish.

  “Isaac, wait, please—”

  But he’d already hung up.

  I put down the receiver, and I opened my eyes again.

  “Selwyn,” I said, “if you’ve got whatever the fuck you came for, I have a feeling we need to get out of here.” She didn’t reply. I said her name again, and she didn’t reply again. I could see myself having to carry her back down the fire escape.

  The cigarette I’d lit before the phone rang had burned down to the filter, scorching my fingers. I cursed and stubbed it out on the side of the avocado phone.

  “Selwyn,” I said, “did you fucking hear me?”

  She nodded her head, and she said, “I think it’s too late.” She was staring towards the window.

  The first bullet didn’t exactly miss me. It carved a deep furrow in the left side of my face. Selwyn screamed, and I dropped to the floor and rolled. Instinct kicking in and all, because it might have been stupid coming back to the apartment, but at least
my sense of self-preservation was still intact. The red beam of a laser sight played across the wall near Selwyn, and the second shot almost hit her. From the way my face ached, I knew the slugs were silver. I also knew the gun was fitted with a silencer, a damned good one, too, probably metering at only 117 decibels or so.

  “Get the fuck down!” I shouted at her. She didn’t get down. Instead, she picked up the object she’d been carrying. I’d guessed what it was. I have my moments. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut, every now and then.

  I glanced back towards the window. There was a figure crouched on the fire escape. The adrenaline seemed to have brushed aside the last straggling afterimages from the flashlight, and I could see that the shooter was a woman dressed in a black leather blazer and black jeans, plus safety goggles. Way more stylish than our outfits. The gun was a standard-model SIG Mosquito, double action, chambered for 22LR cartridges. I had to admit she had good taste in pocket rockets.

  “If you don’t get behind that counter right this goddamn minute,” I whispered, but didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. A third shot plowed into my left shoulder, shattering my collarbone. The bullet disintegrated, and the shrapnel chewed up muscle and opened veins. It hurt as much as you’d imagine it would. I howled and grabbed a dusty book from one of the teetering dusty stacks and hurled it across the room at the assassin. I missed the mark by several inches.

  “Be still,” Selwyn said, raising the bundle up to her chest.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered about as urgently and angrily and totally stupefied as I have ever whispered anything.

  “You’ll see,” she whispered back, and she didn’t sound at all scared now, not like she had on the phone with Isaac Snow.

  On the fire escape, the woman in black cursed. She didn’t fire again, but she also didn’t lower her pistol. The laser painted a bright red dot in the center of Selwyn’s forehead like a bindi.

  “You won’t dare,” Selwyn said. “You know it, and I know it.” The tremble had vanished from her voice. The silly bitch was cool as a moose in snow.

  “Selwyn, I swear to God, if she shoots you, I’m gonna fucking clap.”

  “She won’t shoot me,” Selwyn replied confidently.

  “And you know that how?”

  Selwyn nodded at the bundle. “I might drop the Madonna. It might break. Worse, she might miss me and hit it.”

  I looked at Selwyn, and then I looked at the woman on the fire escape. She still hadn’t lowered the gun, but she also hadn’t squeezed off another round.

  “Sweet,” I said and stood up, shooting the assassin twice in the chest. My gun didn’t have a suppressor, and the Glock roared like thunder. The woman stumbled backwards, the SIG falling from her hands to the rusty metal at her feet. But she didn’t go down.

  “She’s a vampire,” Selwyn said. I could only just make out the words over the ringing in my ears.

  “Fuck her,” I whispered to myself. The next bullet was meant for her skull, but she dodged it and disappeared over the railing. I waited a full two minutes, counting off the seconds in my mind, before I lowered my gun. I waited another minute before I took my eyes off the window. My left arm hung limp at my side, and blood slicked my sweater and pooled on the floor at my feet. The silver shrapnel burned like white-hot embers buried in my flesh. I still have no idea how I’d managed to hurl that book.

  “Selwyn, did informing me this son of a bitch uses fucking vamps for hired killers never cross your fucking mind?”

  “I didn’t want to make you any jumpier than you already were,” she said, lowering the bundle.

  “Oh, you did not just say that.”

  She shrugged and set the bundle on the counter. Her hands were shaking.

  “Quinn, if I’d told you, you might not have come. You might have stopped me from coming. Am I right?”

  “You bet your skinny white tailless ass you’re right.”

  “Well, then, there you go,” she said.

  I was speechless. I do not deal well with being manipulated, though I’ve spent a great deal of my existence postmortem being manipulated. The undead make wicked good weapons, as Isaac Snow obviously understood. They also make good bodyguards, as Selwyn obviously understood. Being junkies, we’re easy marks. More often than not, we’ll do a lot of fucked-up humiliating shit and let people get away with using us to their ends if it means we don’t have to worry where the next fix is coming from.

  I stared at Selwyn and very, very seriously considered smashing whatever was wrapped up inside that bundle of hers myself and all parties involved be damned. It’s a testament to my not inconsiderable shortcomings that I didn’t destroy it. If I’d known what was coming, I like to think I wouldn’t have pussied out, that I’d have acted on that impulse. Instead, I tucked the Glock back into the waistband of my pants, did my best to ignore the pain and blood, and went to the closet in the hallway. Selwyn had hung my duster there the afternoon before she’d poisoned me with wolfsbane. I was frankly a bit surprised it was still there. I yanked it off the hanger and draped it over my good arm.

  “You don’t know what’s at stake,” she said.

  “Then how about you enlightening me?”

  Not that, right then, I especially gave two shits.

  “It’s complicated,” she replied.

  “Seems pretty simple to me. You have something there this cocksucker wants. Something he paid you to find. But after you found it, along with that other junk, you decided to double-cross him. I won’t speculate why you did it. I’m sure you had your reasons. Now, tell me, am I wrong?”

  She didn’t answer, one way or another.

  “Darling,” I said, “you do know what tends to become of stupid little girls who fuck over monsters?”

  “I will not be condescended to,” she said angrily, as if she had some say in the matter.

  “I don’t recall asking for permission,” I replied.

  I went to the window and peered down at the alley, then up towards the roof. There was no sign of the vamp anywhere. I hadn’t expected there to be. By now she was holed up somewhere safe, licking her wounds and busy trying to decide exactly how she was going to explain having bungled the job.

  I climbed out onto the fire escape. I could hear sirens. Maybe they had our names on them; maybe they didn’t.

  “Wait!” Selwyn shouted, the anger gone, replaced by . . . well, not quite panic. Let’s say an attack of desperation. She quickly picked her way through the clutter to the window.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  And I said, “I’ve taken two bullets now because of your dumb ass, Annie Smithfield. I’m not sticking around for the third.”

  The sirens were getting louder, so I assumed they were headed our way.

  “Come on, Quinn. Please. I’ll explain everything.”

  And then I said, “I might have told you this already, but whatever’s happening here is your mess. You got yourself into it, and you can sort it out on your own. Or not.”

  She reached through the open window and grabbed my left elbow, the side with the shattered collarbone. I almost gave into reflex and punched her in the face. It probably would have broken her neck.

  She’d tucked the bundle under one arm. I could see now that whatever she was carrying had been wrapped in a black Morrissey T-shirt.

  Sirens.

  “You hear that? The cops are on their way,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “Quinn, please.”

  I stared down at the alley, at the spot on the pavement where, regrettably, there wasn’t a dead vampire. Then I looked back at Selwyn. She was leaning out towards me, all twinkly, big, star-sapphire eyes. Sad puppy-dog eyes. I felt a flutter in my belly. And another flutter between my legs. Go me, sentimental monster, thinking with her cunt.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Come the fuck on,
then.”

  Because that’s what stupid, horny people would say.

  We found Jodie and the rental car waiting exactly where she’d promised to wait for us. Only someone—presumably the assassin—had ripped out her throat, slashed the tires, and punched a hole in the radiator. Scratch one getaway vehicle. Scratch one helpful witch. We’d have to beat our hasty retreat on foot, which wouldn’t have been such a problem if I hadn’t had Selwyn. On my own, I could have moved a whole hell of a lot faster. But I did have Selwyn. We headed towards the subway station at Fiftieth and Eighth. It didn’t even occur to me until we were waiting on the platform just how fucking suspicious we’d look in our matching black outfits.

  “Quinn, where are we going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “We can’t go back to Jodie’s.”

  Near as I could figure, she wasn’t upset by Jodie Babineaux’s death. Well, not unless it had made her more worried about her own skin. I could tell Selwyn wouldn’t be mourning the woman anytime soon. Or ever.

  The train pulled into the station, the doors slid open, mind the fucking gap, and we got on. Luckily, the car was empty. I sat down. Selwyn didn’t. She held on to one of the shiny poles with her free hand and stared at the floor while we swayed and bumped along beneath the grimy streets of Manhattan. I watched her, waiting for an explanation. No dice. She clearly wasn’t about to volunteer the lowdown she’d promised. Now that I’d decided not to leave here high and dry, probably she was hoping I’d just forget all about it, distracted by our daring escape, apparently dire predicament, and possible pursuers.

  “So,” I said, “what the fuck’s going on?”

  Warning. Next infodump ahead. If that sort of thing annoys you, might want to skip a few pages ahead. Of course, then you’ll have no idea what’s going on later. I know. Decisions, decisions. Whee.

  Selwyn glanced at the bundle.

  “You promised,” I said.

  “Have you ever heard of the Byzantine Ghul?”