Blind Shrike | Page 8

laid her hand on his cheek. The
hand was cold and the skin was stiff, like dried-out leather.
"What happened to you?" Spyder repeated more insistently.
Lulu kept smiling. She had to. She had no lips. All the flesh from the
lower part of her face had been cut neatly away, leaving her with a
permanent leer. She wore a low-cut shirt and her dry white skin was
criss-crossed with old scars and stained stitching. Spyder thought of the
cheap boots and vests he'd bought on teenage roadtrips to Tijuana. Bad
leather sewn together crudely and carelessly. Most disturbing of all
were Lulu's eyes. They were gone. Over her empty sockets torn scraps
of paper were taped, each with a smeared, childlike drawing of an eye.
"What the fuck happened to you?"
The exposed muscles around Lulu's mouth twitched a little. She
reflexively pulled away from Spyder and covered her face with her
hands, then quickly lowered them. "Oh my god, " she said. "You really
had your brains rearranged last night."
"Tell me I'm fucked up," Spyder said. "I've been seeing the most
horrible shit all day. Monsters. Buildings that aren't there. Dead
people."
"Not dead, most likely," Lulu said. "There's a whole lot more range
between dead and alive than they taught us when we were kids,
Spyder."
"What are you talking about?"
"There's a lot no one taught us. Deep, dark secrets. Other worlds. Other
kinds of people. Hidden, but right in front of us."
"This is a mistake."
"I wish. There's monsters in the world. Some of 'em were born and
some were made. I was made."

"This isn't happening. I'm still in the alley. I'm knocked out and I'm
dreaming."
"I'm so sorry, darlin'. You're not ready for this. You were never
supposed to see or know about it."
"Know about what?" Spyder shouted. "What are you?"
"I'm Lulu, baby. Just Lulu." She sat down next to him again, a horrible,
broken toy. "You're just seeing another part of me. And I'm so sorry for
that." Tears fell from her empty eye sockets, staining the paper
drawings taped there.
Spyder walked across the room and sat on the floor with his back
against the counter. "I refuse to accept any of this," he said.
Lulu got up and locked the door to the studio, then sat back in the chair
in front of Spyder. "Darlin', we've known each other since we were six
years old. You're the first person I came out to," she said. "I guess I'm
coming out again."
"As what?"
Lulu leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee. "Please don't touch
me," Spyder said. She withdrew the hand.
"I'm not really a monster," said Lulu. "I'm a damned fool, but I'm not a
monster. I just got into something a little over my head."
"That part's obvious."
"I just had my eyes opened, so to speak," she said, -pulling her exposed
muscles into a smile. "Just like you." She slid down next to him on the
floor, careful not to let her body touch his. Spyder shifted away from
her a few inches.
"Remember four, five years back when I was all strung out on oxy? I
couldn't work. Couldn't do much of anything but steal and score."

"You still owe me a CD player," Spyder said.
Lulu let out an airy laugh, like wind through a keyhole. "Rehab didn't
work. Then, I met some people through this dealer. They said they
could get me clean. Make my hands steady, so I could work again. Did
I want to try it? Of course, I said Yes."
"When was this? I remember you getting better in rehab," said Spyder.
"Jesus, Spyder. I didn't last a week there," Lulu said. "I wouldn't let you
visit, remember? I always called you? I checked out and was on the
street scoring until I met these people."
"Who were they?"
"Real monsters. Born monsters," she said. "But I didn't know that back
then. They offered me the deal of a lifetime. I'd get clean, get healthy
and get my talent back. They promised they could make me better than
ever. Can you imagine what that meant to me back then?"
"How'd you end up like this?"
"You know how dealers are. The first one's always free. Then the price
just keeps going up. You got a cigarette?"
Spyder pulled a pack of American Spirits from his jacket pocket, took
one, gave one to Lulu and lit them both. They smoked in silence for a
few moments.
Lulu blew a series of small smoke rings through the center of bigger
rings, something Spyder had been watching her do since junior high.
"The price for giving me back my life was my eyes," she said, "They
said that sight's