Blind Shrike | Page 8

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 mostly in the brain and that in this Sphere of existence, they could make it so I'd see better without them." Lulu took a long drag off the American Spirit. Spyder wanted her to stop talking. "They were right, only they didn't tell me it wouldn't last. Every year or so, my sight would start to go and they'd show up, ready to deal. They'd already taken my eyes, so they took something else each time. Stomach. Liver. Skin. I don't know what all anymore. But not my heart. You'd be surprised what you can live without, but not your heart." Another long drag. A cloud of blue smoke. "Each time, they'd do their little voodoo so my body'd keep going, till the next visit. No one ever noticed the difference. When they took my eyes I saw a whole new world. The world, I guess, you're seeing now. Shit, Spyder, no one knows anything. All the teachers and cops and priests and shrinks they sent us to, they don't know what's really going on. When I saw the real world, knowing how long I'd been blind scared me a lot more than the monsters."
"You think this is some kind of goddam gift?" asked Spyder.
"For you it is. You got it for free. It cost me a little more."
"Fuck this world