Briarpatch by Tim Pratt

Briarpatch by Tim Pratt by Tim Pratt

Book: Briarpatch by Tim Pratt by Tim Pratt Read Free Book Online
Authors: Tim Pratt
Tags: Fantasy
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improbable it had already dissolved into a void of unlikelihood. That was really her only hope. Even if she survived her wounds, she’d been bitten by one of the bears in the briarpatch, which meant
she
might eventually transform as well, and go mad in the process. She needed a better body.
    Ismael scooped Bridget up tenderly in his arms. In this light, even her wounds were beautiful. She was breathing raggedly, but she was alive. “Come, little Bridget,” he murmured. “You’re stubborn and sometimes stupid and too contrary by half, but you deserve a better death than this.” He carried her away.

Darrin Catches a Lift
    1
    After seeing Bridget die that morning, Darrin stayed home for a couple of hours, but then he couldn’t stand his apartment anymore, cluttered as it was with so many reminders of his loss, so he gulped the last of his latest drink, grabbed his camera, and went out the back door and down the stairs, jumping over the loose third step from the bottom, almost tripping and stumbling when he hit the ground. He’d only had two screwdrivers, but they’d been more vodka than orange juice, and he hadn’t eaten lunch. It was a good thing his car had been repossessed all those months ago—he was in no shape to drive anyway, and self-preservation wasn’t high on his priority list at the moment.
    The backyard was shared by all the apartments, but was seldom used, though there was a nice brick patio, a barbecue, two posts with dangling chains for a hammock, and a picnic table with benches. Darrin walked around the big redwood growing by the detached garage and out the back gate. He set off down the steep hill toward Park Boulevard with no fixed destination in mind. He’d go down a couple of blocks, he figured, then curve back into the swirl of residential streets, walk by some of the million-dollar houses, and make his way down toward the apartment buildings and liquor stores closer to Lake Merritt. Maybe looking at the water would soothe him. Or maybe it would remind him of walks with Bridget, of their one ridiculously expensive gondola ride, the way she’d always insisted they rush out at the first hint of spring to see the newborn goslings while they were still fuzzy and adorable, before they turned into fat, foul-tempered geese.
    As he walked, the light seemed to shift around him, and he glanced skyward, expecting to see clouds moving across the sun, channelling the sunbeams in unexpected directions, but the sky was blue and clear. Still, the light seemed fragmented, as if shining through a lens of broken prisms. He must be drunker than he’d realized. Darrin ducked his head and kept his eyes on the sidewalk, walking over broken beer bottles, past Arturo’s paper-stuffed Chrysler Wendigo, past the corner apartment building with the fake castle crenellations on the roof. When he hit Park Boulevard he turned right, down a block of storefronts with signs he couldn’t read because they were written in Korean, until he hit the next side street, which sloped back uphill again at an angle. A palm tree flourished here, its giant fronds overhanging the sidewalk and turning it into a sort of tunnel. Darrin ducked in, feeling obscurely comforted by the screen of leaves. And there, just up from the corner, he saw a set of stone steps disappearing into a heavily wooded vacant lot. Darrin went toward the steps, curious, because he’d never noticed them before.
    He lifted the camera, thumbed it on, and looked down at the screen. The camera did its trick of making him pay attention and notice details. Weeds grew up through the cracks in the concrete, and weathered stone lions with chipped ears snarled from either side of the broad steps. They must have led up to a house, once upon a time, before the lot was bulldozed and overtaken by bushes and trees. He took shots of the lions (probably shitty shots, he figured, since his compositional sense was currently drowning in OJ and liquor,), and then followed the camera up

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