Nevermore: A Cal Leandros Novel Read Online Free Page A

rifle, take your gun. . . .
    Knives hadn’t made that list. I didn’t know why. They were as good in the right situation. Good, well-made ones at least.
    Mine was very good.
    That’s what I thought as I changed mental paths with a quick and savage satisfaction. I grabbed a handful of greasy hair as I evaded the man’s lunge at me. It was as unexpectedly fast, if as unskilled as his knife-work. Desperate and fast go hand in hand sometimes. I yanked myattacker’s head back, and did what he’d tried to do to me, only more efficiently. I cut his throat with one slice, blood erupting to paint the dirty brick wall of the alley with vivid crimson. It was almost twilight here as it had been almost twilight there—eight years in the future.
    When you’re killing someone, whether it’s self-defense as they tried to kill you first or you’re a jackass who tries to kill for the hope of five bucks in your wallet, twilight is a good time for it. Alleys are a good place. Anyone would be less likely to be seen. It was probably why this one had chosen it.
    I’d slid behind him before using my knife as that was some small piece of history, for once, worth remembering. I’d learned it long ago and it remained useful. Stand in front of someone when you cut their throat and the force of the crimson carotid spray will cover you from face to chest. As much as you wipe, you never get it all off either, not until you hit the shower. It makes for a cannibal-fresh-from-an-all-you-can-eat-buffet look.
    And it makes catching a taxi impossible.
    The man—no, not the man, not some guy—the
shithead
was what he was. And he proved that further by collapsing onto the asphalt and continuing to breathe. Not too well as he was doing it through a few pints of blood. It was pointless, but it didn’t stop him from making the effort. Some people, the assholes like him, refused to make your life any easier by just dying already.
    I could’ve helped him along.
    But considering what I knew he’d done—bad.
    That I knew what he was—a human monster.
    Nah.
    Let him suffer. Slow and painful was what he deserved. At least he hadn’t turned while falling and hit me with that hosing down of blood I’d been so careful to avoid. It didn’t change my opinion on history, though, that one useful cut from behind, dodge the blood, if you plan on catching a cab later little fact picked up along the way.
    I’d always thought history was boring. I thought thatthe books were too thick, and whoever once gave a shit about memorizing all the tedious dates of this war or that ancient plague or some long dead philosopher who made logic so illogical you wished he’d died sooner? Dull as dirt, plain and simple.
    Or so I’d believed.
    But look at me now. According to one of those sayings about history, in this place, I was a historian. I could do what God couldn’t.
    I could change the future by
rewriting
the past.
    I hoped.
    Fuck, I hoped.
    Giving the twitching body lying facedown at my feet an encouraging nudge, some might say kick in the ribs with my combat boot, I snapped, “Move your ass, you son of a bitch. You’re already aimed in Hell’s direction. Slide your metro card and go already.”
    A thin wet whine managed to work its way from his throat as the body, ninety-nine percent dead makes you a body in my book, struggled toward me with one shaking hand clawing at the asphalt and the other hanging on to that knife as if he’d superglued it to his homicidal hand. He was still coming after me. If he were at a funeral home, they’ve have embalmed him already and, yet, here came the knife weakly slashing at my ankle. Was it six feet away from his maximum reach? Details. Nothing but details. Motherfucker. I wanted him to suffer for what he’d done, but I was suffering too. The stench was only getting worse and he was getting more homicidal the less blood he had in him. How was that possible?
    Sheer willpower to be the most annoying dick he could conceivably