Was that first time you saw death, Little Doll?
“It was.” I blotted it out of my memory, the thought of that day. Two men had died, two young ones, in their twenties or so, just for trying to keep me from being killed. “It feels like I should remember them, remember their faces, but I can’t. They died for me, the first of so many, and I can’t even remember them.”
It gets easier, the voice of Wolfe, dripping with sweet malice, came to me. So much easier with time … and practice.
“You would know.” I sucked in another breath, and the red door opened as though on cue. A bulky figure staggered out onto the broken pavement in front of the bar, a shoulder slumping as though he were ready to fall. He caught himself in time, steadying, before executing a sloppy turn to his left and taking a few staggering steps down the sidewalk. I felt myself smile, then let it disappear when I realized there was no joy behind it at all. “Showtime.”
I crossed the street without fear; a car hadn’t come by in the last hour I had been here, at least. Every step was heavy for me, and time was dragging slowly past. I kept focused on him, Clyde Clary, his bulk stumbling down the street with every sauntering step. He looked like an ape, shambling along, the missing link in the evolutionary chain. He had steadied himself a bit and was almost walking upright now—quite an accomplishment for him, I figured. I took in cold breaths of air, thankful once more that the temperature hovered above freezing. I stepped over a patch of brown grass as I mounted the curb and stepped onto the sidewalk behind him.
His steps were slow, shuffling, but when I was two feet behind him, he spun, faster than I would have thought possible in his present condition. “You picked the wrong guy to mug and on the wrong night,” he said, throwing a hand out at me.
I backflipped into the air and landed ten feet from where I started. He stood there, staring, open-jawed, a blank look on his face as I landed delicately and stood straight up again. “What the?” His tone was dull, almost disbelief.
“Hello, Clyde,” I said, still wearing my sunglasses. I was wearing a shorter coat now, a leather one that reached only to my waist. Between it and the seething rage I was carrying, I felt like a little bit of a badass. “It’s so good to see you.”
He blinked at me, standing slack where he’d been when I approached him. His hands were at his side, and he was flat-footed. “What are you doing here?” He slurred his words and there was a tinge of innocence to his question, as if he was genuinely curious.
“Why, Clyde,” I said, noting he didn’t seem upset by my using his first name, “are you surprised to see me?”
“Well, yeah.” The look on his face was so dull, I realized he hadn’t come close to working out why I was here. Not yet, anyway.
“You shouldn’t be.” I cracked my knuckles and his eyes darted down to where my hands rested in front of me. I saw the slight widening of his eyes and I smiled in acknowledgment. “That’s right,” I said as I raised my bare hands up in front of my face. “The gloves are off, Clary.”
He let out an almost weary sigh. “Girl, you know you can’t hurt me with those.” His head turned back toward me and in an eyeblink his skin had turned metal, as if liquid steel had been poured over him and conformed to every bump and scar on his bulky frame. “Just go on, now. Go on back home.” He waved a hand at me like he was shooing off a wayward dog.
“I don’t have a home anymore,” I said, glaring him down behind my sunglasses. The lenses were tinted enough so that he couldn’t see my eyes, but they were shaded in a way that I had no problem seeing everything around me. “Don’t you remember? You took it from me.” I slowly took my first step toward him.
He shook his head at me. “Girl—”
“My name isn’t ‘Girl’.” My voice crackled with quiet fury down the abandoned street and Clary took a step back. “You’ll remember that before we’re finished.”
“I know you who you are—”
“You have no idea who I am,” I said, every word dripping with loathing, with frigid anger. “You don’t know me.”
“Just go on home and we’ll forget this happened,” he said with an air of growing desperation. “I don’t want to have to kill you. Old Man Winter doesn’t want you dead.”