The Skin Gods Read Online Free

nearly drowned in the icy Delaware River.
     
     
It had taken a second bullet to rid him of the malady. Although he wouldn’t recommend getting shot in the head as a therapy for migraine sufferers, he wasn’t about to second-guess the cure. Since the day he had been shot for the second— and hopefully final— time, he hadn’t suffered a single headache.
     
     
Take two hollow points and call me in the morning.
     
     
Still, he was tired. Two decades on the force of one of the toughest cities in the country had drained his will. He had put in his time. And although he had faced some of the most violent and depraved people east of Pittsburgh, his current antagonist was a petite physical therapist named Olivia Leftwich and her bottomless bag of tortures.
     
     
Byrne was standing along one wall of the physical therapy room, against a waist-high bar, his right leg propped parallel to the floor. He held the position, stoically, despite the murder in his heart. The slightest movement lit him up like a Roman candle.
     
     
“You’re making great improvements,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
     
     
Byrne glared daggers at her. Her horns receded and she smiled. No fangs visible.
     
     
All part of the illusion, he thought.
     
     
All part of the con.
     
     
    * * *
ALTHOUGH CITY HALL was the official epicenter of Center City, and the historical heart and soul of Philadelphia was Independence Hall, the city’s pride was still Rittenhouse Square, located on Walnut Street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets. Although not as well known as Times Square in New York City, or Picadilly Circus in London, Philadelphia was rightfully proud of Rittenhouse Square, which remained one of the city’s toniest addresses. In the shadow of posh hotels, historic churches, towering office buildings, and fashionable boutiques, on a summer day, at noontime, the crowds on the square were enormous.
     
     
Byrne sat on a bench near the Barye sculpture Lion Crushing a Serpent in the center of the square. He had been nearly six feet tall in eighth grade, and had grown to his height of six three by the time he was a junior in high school. In his time in school and in the service, and in all of his time on the force, he had used his size and weight to his advantage, many times shutting down potential trouble before it began by merely standing up.
     
     
But now, with his cane, his ashen complexion, and the sluggish limping gait caused by the pain pills he took, he felt small, unimportant, easily swallowed by the mass of humanity on the square.
     
     
As with every time he left a physical therapy session, he vowed never to go back. What kind of therapy actually makes the pain worse? Whose idea was this? Not his. See you around, Matilda the Hun.
     
     
He distributed his weight on the bench, finding a reasonably comfortable position. After a few moments he looked up and saw a teenaged girl crossing the square, weaving her way through the bike boys, the businessmen, the vendors, the tourists. Slender and athletic, feline in her movement, her fine, nearly white-blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a peach sundress and sandals. She had dazzlingly bright aquamarine eyes. Every young man under the age of twenty-one was thoroughly captivated with her, as were far too many men over twenty-one. She had about her a patrician poise that can only come from true inner grace, a cool and enchanting beauty that said to the world that this was someone special.
     
     
As she got closer, Byrne realized why he knew all this. It was Colleen. The young woman was his own daughter and, for a moment, he nearly hadn’t recognized her.
     
     
She stood in the center of the square, looking for him, hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun. Soon she found him in the crowd. She waved and smiled the slight, blushing smile that she had used to her advantage her whole life, the one that got her the Barbie Bike with the pink-and-white