Blind Shrike | Page 5

after one in the afternoon. Spyder didn't want to go the studio,
but he needed to call his clients and reschedule. He dressed quickly into
battered black jeans, steel-toed Docs and the largest, loosest gray
Dickies shirt he could find in his closet. A pile of Jenny's abandoned
textbooks were stacked at the back, The Gnostic Gospels, Heaven and
Hell in the Western Tradition, An Encyclopedia of Fallen Angels.
Spyder slammed the closet door.
The warehouse Spyder rented was across town from the tattoo studio.
He usually rode the Dead Man's Ducati--the bike he'd bought cheap
from a meth dealer he knew down in Tijuana; the previous owner had
gone missing and did Spyder want first dibs?--but he felt too shaky for
two wheels today. He called a cab and waited by the curb in the warm
afternoon sun.
"Do you have the time?"
Spyder was so out of it, he hadn't seen the tall man in the gray business
suit approach him. The man was bald, but tanned and healthy-looking,
with deep wind and -sunburn creases on his cheeks. It took Spyder a
second to answer.
"Uh, no. Sorry."

"No worries," the man said with a slight Shrimp-on-the-Barbie accent.
"Lovely day."
"Yeah. Great," said Spyder
"You all right, mate?"
"Just a little hungover's all."
The business man laughed. "That's how you know you had a good
time," he said and clapped Spyder on his sore shoulder. "Cheers."
As the man walked away, Spyder saw something attached to his back.
It was sort of ape-like, but its head was soft, like a slug's. It had its teeth
sunk into the man's neck and was clinging onto his back by its twisted
child-like limbs. Spyder wanted to call out to the man, but his throat
was locked tight in fear and disgust. The parasite's head throbbed as it
slurped something from the business man's spine.
Spyder took a step back and his shoulder touched a rough wooden pole
planted in the ground through a section of shattered pavement. Pigeons
and gray doves were nailed up and down the pole. Animal heads were
staked around the top. An alligator. A rottweiler. A horse. Other more
freakish animals Spyder couldn't identify. Each head was decorated
with flower garlands and its eye sockets and mouth stuffed with
incense and gold coins, like offerings.
Across the street, a griffin, its leathery wings twitching, was lazily
chewing on the carcass of a fat, gray sewer rat. Emerald spiders the size
of a child's hand ran around the griffin's legs, grabbing stray scraps of
meat that fell from the beast's jaws. The spiders scrambled up and
down the griffin's hindquarters. Gray stingray-like things flapped
overhead, like a flock of knurled vultures. A coral snake lazily
wrapping itself around the sacrifice pole stopped its climb long enough
to call Spyder by name.
Spyder's head spun. He stepped into the street, flashing on the demon in
the alley the night before. The mugging had been real. Had the monster

part been real, too? He leaned his head back. Spinning in the sky
overhead were angels with the wings of eagles. Higher still crawled
vast airships. Their soft balloon bodies glowed in the bright sun,
presenting Spyder with profiles of fierce mythological birds of prey and
gigantic lotuses.
A cab turned the corner onto Harrison Street and -Spyder frantically
flagged it down. "Haight and Masonic," he said to the driver, trying not
to sound as deranged as he felt. Spyder slid into the backseat and as the
driver pulled away, he peered out the cab's rear window. The business
man was on the corner, talking to three pale men in matching black
suits. Their clothes and general formality reminded Spyder of bankers
in an old movie.
One of the bankers stepped forward, reached into the businessman's
chest and pulled out his heart. Turning stiffly, he dropped the organ
into an attachŽcase held up by another of the trio. That done, the third
banker used a knife to carefully peel the businessman's face off. The
cab turned the corner and Spyder lost sight of them.
Five
Communication Breakdown
"How you voting on Prop 18?"
Spyder looked up. The cabbie looked -exhausted, Spyder thought. One
of those guys in his forties with eyes that make him look ten years older.
His skin hung loosely on a gray, unshaven face.
"The companies make it sound like it'll put more cabs on the street, but
really it's just going to screw up the medallion system even worse and
give all the power to the big cab companies. We aren't employees, you
know. All us cabbies are freelance. I owe money the moment I take my
cab out. The moment I touch it. A cab driver has the job security of a
crack whore. Worse than slaves,