Free Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston

down.
    Phil's blood is keeping him in the game, the holes in his belly and back aren't leaking
     anymore, but he's a long way from out of the woods. And it's not like more blood is gonna
     take care of everything that ails him. I want to get him talking straight, I'll need him
     healed, fed and fixed. But the fix he needs, I don't got. The fix he needs, I don't got
     time to find. And I never will.
    And that leaves one option. Get him clean. And only one place to do that.
    --He was going cold turkey.
    Daniel casts his eyes on the Count's body cradled in my arms, half-wrapped in the sleeping
     bag I stuffed him in before dropping it in the trunk of the cab that brought me to the
     West Side.
    --Really?
    He bends and looks at the Count's crap-smeared face.
    He looks at me.
    --A friend of yours?
    --Hardly.
    He scuffs the floor with his foot.
    --Well. Bring him in.
    He brushes his fingers at the Enclave manning the door and it slides open, revealing the
     dark cavern of the warehouse.
    I stay on the loading dock.
    Daniel takes a step toward me.
    --Something giving you pause, Simon?
    I shift my feet, hating it when he uses my real name, but not wanting to get into it
     again.
    --Yeah, see, I need him alive.
    He raises the skin where his eyebrows used to be.
    --Alive. In truth, he's rather close to actual life in this state.
    --Daniel, I need him alive in the usual sense. I need him alive and awake and able to talk
     to me in all the usual senses of the words. I need to know if I bring him in there you're
     not going to decide he's a pariah or some shit and drain him and burn his body and make
     the ashes into tea or whatever you do.
    A smile jumps across his face.
    --
    
    
     A pariah?
    --Whatever, I don't know the lingo.
    A frown follows the smile.
    --You may as well bring him in, Simon. We won't sacrifice him to our dark gods or anything.
     And it's too late for you to do much else.
    I bring him in and pass him to the waiting arms of another Enclave and watch him carried
     away into the candlelit darkness. White shapes move deep inside the concrete-and-steel
     chamber. Bodies drawn thin by fasting, paled to ivory, shedding hair.
    I think of Evie.
    Daniel walks out and drops his mantis body on the edge of the loading dock, legs dangling,
     hands tucked beneath his thighs, a thin white poncho made from an old sheet draped over
     his shoulders hanging to his knees.
    --Nice night.
    I tug my jacket close.
    --It's fucking freezing.
    He looks up at me.
    --Still a nice night.
    He pats the concrete.
    --Have a seat.
    I stay on my feet, light a smoke.
    Daniel looks away from me and to the gray glow above the rooftops.
    --What's his name?
    --Calls himself the Count. Don't know what his real name is. I told you about him before.
    --Did you? Hm, I've forgotten.
    I blow smoke and steam into the cold air.
    --You don't forget shit, Daniel.
    He closes his eyes.
    --Don't I?
    He opens them.
    --It seems to me that's all I do these days. And what a relief it is. All the nonsense
     washing out on the tide. I'm a bit confused by the common perception that it leaves one
     cloudy, old age. I've found a great deal of clarity. The years refining my mind, focusing
     it on a single thought.
    I sidelong him.
    --A bit past old age, aren't you?
    He swings his legs, bounces his heels off the painted front of the loading dock.
    --Well, it's all relative. I'd be inclined to say that I'm pretty damn young as this all
     goes.
    He waves a hand at the universe.
    --But that's a sorry clichŽ. Overused. And maybe not even accurate.
    I tap some ash from the tip of my cigarette.
    --How old are you, Daniel?
    He ducks his head.
    --Old enough to know better. At least that old. And old enough to forget. So remind me. The
     Count?
    I spit a flake of tobacco from my tongue.
    --Spy. Coalition spy. Got sent down to the Society to cause trouble. Terry flipped him.
     He's got a load of money in some trusts. Terry flipped him to get at the money.
    --And the